After another delay, and a second vain message to the Gerad Adan, about noon appeared that dignitary's sixth wife, sister to the valiant Beuh. Her arrival disconcerted my companions, who were too proud to be protected by a woman. "Dahabo," however, relieved their anxiety by informing us that the Gerad had sent his eldest son Sherwa, as escort. This princess was a gipsy-looking dame, coarsely dressed, about thirty years old, with a gay leer, a jaunty demeanour, and the reputation of being "fast;" she showed little shame-facedness when I saluted her, and received with noisy joy the appropriate present of a new and handsome Tobe. About 4 P.M. returned our second messenger, bearing with him a reproving message from the Gerad, for not visiting him without delay; in token of sincerity, he forwarded his baton, a knobstick about two feet long, painted in rings of Cutch colours, red, black, and yellow alternately, and garnished on the summit with a ball of similar material.
At dawn on the 26th December, mounted upon a little pony, came Sherwa, heir presumptive to the Gerad Adan's knobstick. His father had sent him to us three days before, but he feared the Gudabirsi as much as the Gudabirsi feared him, and he probably hung about our camp till certain that it was safe to enter. We received him politely, and he in acknowledgment positively declared that Beuh should not return before eating honey in his cottage. Our Abban's heroism now became infectious. Even the End of Time, whose hot valour had long since fallen below zero, was inspired by the occasion, and recited, as usual with him in places and at times of extreme safety, the Arabs' warrior lines—
"I have crossed the steed since my eyes saw light,
I have fronted death till he feared my sight,
And the cleaving of helm, and the riving of mail
Were the dreams of my youth,—are my manhood's delight."
As we had finished loading, a mule's bridle was missed. Sherwa ordered instant restitution to his father's stranger, on the ground that all the property now belonged to the Gerad; and we, by no means idle, fiercely threatened to bewitch the kraal. The article was presently found hard by, on a hedge. This was the first and last case of theft which occurred to us in the Somali country;—I have travelled through most civilised lands, and have lost more.
At 8 A.M. we marched towards the north-west, along the southern base of the Gurays hills, and soon arrived at the skirt of the prairie, where a well-trodden path warned us that we were about to quit the desert. After advancing six miles in line we turned to the right, and recited a Fatihah over the heap of rough stones, where, shadowed by venerable trees, lie the remains of the great Shaykh Abd el Malik. A little beyond this spot, rises suddenly from the plain a mass of castellated rock, the subject of many a wild superstition. Caravans always encamp beneath it, as whoso sleeps upon the summit loses his senses to evil spirits. At some future day Harar will be destroyed, and "Jannah Siri" will become a flourishing town. We ascended it, and found no life but hawks, coneys, an owl [5], and a graceful species of black eagle [6]; there were many traces of buildings, walls, ruined houses, and wells, whilst the sides and summit were tufted with venerable sycamores. This act was an imprudence; the Bedouins at once declared that we were "prospecting" for a fort, and the evil report preceded us to Harar.
After a mile's march from Jannah Siri, we crossed a ridge of rising ground, and suddenly, as though by magic, the scene shifted.
Before us lay a little Alp; the second step of the Ethiopian Highland. Around were high and jagged hills, their sides black with the Saj [7] and Somali pine [8], and their upper brows veiled with a thin growth of cactus. Beneath was a deep valley, in the midst of which ran a serpentine of shining waters, the gladdest spectacle we had yet witnessed: further in front, masses of hill rose abruptly from shady valleys, encircled on the far horizon by a straight blue line of ground, resembling a distant sea. Behind us glared the desert: we had now reached the outskirts of civilization, where man, abandoning his flocks and herds, settles, cultivates, and attends to the comforts of life.
The fields are either terraces upon the hill slopes or the sides of valleys, divided by flowery hedges with lanes between, not unlike those of rustic England; and on a nearer approach the daisy, the thistle, and the sweet briar pleasantly affected my European eyes. The villages are no longer moveable: the Kraal and wigwam are replaced by the Gambisa or bell- shaped hut of Middle Africa [9], circular cottages of holcus wattle, Covered with coarse dab and surmounted by a stiff, conical, thatch roof, above which appears the central supporting post, crowned with a gourd or ostrich egg. [10] Strong abbatis of thorns protects these settlements, which stud the hills in all directions: near most of them are clumps of tall trees, to the southern sides of which are hung, like birdcages, long cylinders of matting, the hives of these regions. Yellow crops of holcus rewarded the peasant's toil: in some places the long stems tied in bunches below the ears as piled muskets, stood ready for the reaper; in others, the barer ground showed that the task was done. The boys sat perched upon reed platforms [11] in the trees, and with loud shouts drove away thieving birds, whilst their fathers cut the crop with diminutive sickles, or thrashed heaps of straw with rude flails [12], or winnowed grain by tossing it with a flat wooden shovel against the wind. The women husked the pineapple-formed heads in mortars composed of a hollowed trunk [13], smeared the threshing floor with cow-dung and water to defend it from insects, piled the holcus heads into neat yellow heaps, spanned and crossed by streaks of various colours, brick-red and brownish-purple [14], and stacked the Karbi or straw, which was surrounded like the grain with thorn, as a defence against the wild hog. All seemed to consider it a labour of love: the harvest-home song sounded pleasantly to our ears, and, contrasting with the silent desert, the hum of man's habitation was a music.
Descending the steep slope, we reposed, after a seven miles' march, on the banks of a bright rivulet, which bisects the Kobbo or valley: it runs, according to my guides, from the north towards Ogadayn, and the direction is significant,—about Harar I found neither hill nor stream trending from east to west. The people of the Kutti [15] flocked out to gaze upon us: they were unarmed, and did not, like the Bedouins, receive us with cries of "Bori." During the halt, we bathed in the waters, upon whose banks were a multitude of huge Mantidae, pink and tender green. Returning to the camels, I shot a kind of crow, afterwards frequently seen. [16] It is about three times the size of our English bird, of a bluish-black with a snow-white poll, and a beak of unnatural proportions: the quantity of lead which it carried off surprised me. A number of Widads assembled to greet us, and some Habr Awal, who were returning with a caravan, gave us the salam, and called my people cousins. "Verily," remarked the Hammal, "amongst friends we cut one another's throats; amongst enemies we become sons of uncles!"
At 3 P.M. we pursued our way over rising ground, dotted with granite blocks fantastically piled, and everywhere in sight of fields and villages and flowing water. A furious wind was blowing, and the End of Time quoted the Somali proverb, "heat hurts, but cold kills:" the camels were so fatigued, and the air became so raw [17], that after an hour and a half's march we planted our wigwams near a village distant about seven miles from the Gurays Hills. Till late at night we were kept awake by the crazy Widads: Ao Samattar had proposed the casuistical question, "Is it lawful to pray upon a mountain when a plain is at hand?" Some took the pro, others the contra, and the wordy battle raged with uncommon fury.