I sometimes called upon the learned and religious, but not willingly—these shaykhash, or reverend men, had proposed detaining me until duly converted and favoured with a “call.” Harar, like most African cities, was a prison on a large scale. “You enter it by your own will; you leave it by another’s,” is the pithy saw.
At length, when really anxious to depart, and when my two Somali had consulted their rosaries
for the thousandth time, I called upon the Gerad Mohammed, who had always been civil to us. He was suffering from a chronic bronchitis. Here, then, lay my chance of escaping from my rat-trap. The smoke of some brown paper matches steeped in saltpetre relieved him. We at once made a bargain. The minister was to take me before the Amir and secure for me a ceremonious dismission. On the other part, I bound myself to send up from the coast a lifelong supply of the precious medicine. We both kept faith. Moreover, after returning to Aden I persuaded the authorities to reward with handsome presents the men who held my life in their hands and yet did not take it.
After a pleasing interview with the Amir, who did his best to smile, we left Harar on January 13th, 1855. At Sagharah, where the villagers had prayed the death-prayer as we set out for the city, we were received with effusion. They now scattered over us handfuls of toasted grain, and they danced with delight, absorbing copious draughts of liquor. The “End of Time” wept crocodile’s tears, and the women were grateful that their charms had not been exposed to the terrible smallpox.
After a week’s rest we prepared to make the coast. I was desirous of striking Berbera, a port south of Zayla, where my friends awaited me. The escort consented to accompany me by the short direct road, on condition of travelling night and day. They warned me that they had a blood feud with all the
tribes on the path, that we should find very little water and no provisions, and that the heat would be frightful. Truly, a pleasant prospect for a weary man!
But if they could stand it, so could I. The weaker attendants, the women, and the camels were sent back by the old path, and I found myself en route on January 26th, accompanied by my two Somali and by a wild guide known as Dubayr—the “Donkey.” My provaunt for five days consisted of five biscuits, a few limes, and sundry lumps of sugar.
I will not deny that the ride was trying work. The sun was fearful, the nights were raw and damp. For twenty-four hours we did not taste water; our brains felt baked, our throats burned, the mirage mocked us at every turn, and the effect was a kind of monomania. At length a small bird showed us a well and prevented, I believe, our going mad. The scenery was uniform and uninteresting—horrid hills upon which withered aloes raised their spears; plains apparently rained upon by showers of fire and stones, and rolling ground rich only in “wait a bit” thorns, made to rend man’s skin and garment. We scrupulously avoided the kraals, and when on one occasion the wild people barred the way we were so intolerably fierce with hunger and thirst that they fled from us as though we were fiends. The immortal Ten Thousand certainly did not sight the cold waters of the Euxine with more delight than we felt when hailing the warm bay of Berbera. I ended that
toilsome ride to and from Harar of two hundred and forty miles at 2 a.m. on January 30th, 1855, after a last spell of forty miles. A glad welcome from my brother expeditionists soon made amends for past privations and fatigues.
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