On the evening of November 27th, 1864, the caravan was ready. It consisted of five camels laden with provisions, cooking-pots, ammunition, and our money—that is to say, beads, coarse tobacco, American sheeting, Indian cotton, and indigo-dyed stuffs. The escort was formed by the two policemen, the “End of Time,” and Yusuf, a one-eyed lad from Zayla, with the guide and his tail of three followers. My men were the pink of Somali fashion. They had stained their hair of a light straw colour by plastering it with ashes; they had teased it till it stood up a full foot, and they had mutually spirted upon their wigs melted tallow, making their heads look like giant cauliflowers that contrasted curiously with the bistre-coloured skins. Their tobes (togas) were dazzlingly white, with borders dazzlingly red. Outside the dress was strapped a horn-hilted two-edged dagger, long and heavy; their shields of rhinoceros hide were brand new, and their two spears poised upon the right
shoulder were freshly scraped and oiled, and blackened and polished. They had added my spare rifle and guns to the camel loads—the things were well enough in Aden, but in Somali we would deride such strange, unmanly weapons. They balanced themselves upon dwarf Abyssinian saddles, extending the leg and raising the heel like the haute école of Louis XIV. The stirrup was an iron ring admitting only the big toe, and worse than that of the Sertanejo.
As usual in this country, where the gender masculine will not work, we had two cooks—tall, buxom, muscular dames, chocolate skinned and round faced. They had curiously soft and fluted voices, hardly to be expected from their square and huge-hipped figures, and contrasting agreeably with the harsh organs of the men. Their feet were bare, their veil was confined by a narrow fillet, and the body-cloth was an indigo-dyed cotton, girt at the waist and graceful as a winding sheet. I never saw them eat; probably, as the people say of cooks, they lived by sucking their fingers.
And here a few words about the Somali, amongst whom we were to travel. These nomads were not pure negroes; like the old Egyptians, they were a mixed breed of African and Arab. The face from the brow to the nostrils is Asiatic, from the nostrils to the chin showed traces of negro blood. The hair was African; they decorated it by a sheep-skin wig cut to the head and died fiery orange with henna. The figure was peculiar, the shoulders were high
and narrow, the trunk was small, the limbs were spider-like, and the forearm was often of simian proportions.
The Somali were a free people, lawless as free. The British Government would not sanction their being sold as slaves. Of course they enslaved others, and they had a servile caste called Midyan, who were the only archers. They had little reverence for their own chiefs except in council, and they discussed every question in public, none hesitating to offer the wildest conjectures. At different times they suggested that I was a Turk, an Egyptian, a Marah man, a Banyan, Ahmad the Indian, the Governor of Aden, a merchant, a pilgrim, the chief of Zayla or his son, a boy, a warrior in silver armour, an old woman, a man painted white, and lastly, a calamity sent down from heaven to tire out the lives of the Somali.
The Somali were bad Moslems, but they believed in a deity and they knew the name of their Prophet. Wives being purchased for their value in cows or camels, the wealthy old were polygamous and the young poor were perforce bachelors. They worked milk-pots of tree-fibre like the beer-baskets of Kaffir-land. They were not bad smiths, but they confined their work to knives, spear-heads, and neat bits for their unshod horses. Like the Kaffirs, they called bright iron “rotten,” and they never tempered it. Like all Africans, they were very cruel riders.
These nomads had a passion for independence, and yet when placed under a strong arm they were easily
disciplined. In British Aden a merry, laughing, dancing, and fighting race, at home they were a moping, melancholy people; for this their lives of perpetual danger might account. This insecurity made them truly hard-hearted. I have seen them when shifting camp barbarously leave behind for the hyenas their sick and decrepit parents. When the fatal smallpox breaks out, the first cases are often speared and the huts burned over the still warm corpse.
The Somali deemed nothing so noble as murder. The more cowardly the deed is, the better, as showing the more “nous.” Even the midnight butchery of a sleeping guest is highly honourable. The hero plants a rish, or white ostrich feather, in his tufty pole and walks about the admired of all admirers, whilst the wives of those who have not received this order of merit taunt their husbands as noirs fainéants. Curious to say, the Greek and Roman officers used to present these plumes to the bravest of their officers for wearing on their helmet.