The temporary mat huts of all these nomade visitors who boasted of habitations were erected at a distance on the table-land to the south-westward of this important wady, which occupies a rugged rocky chasm opening upon the Kelláli plain, and, receiving the drainage of all the southern portion of the Oobnoo range, disembogues during the rainy season into the lake at Aussa. Even during this, the hottest portion of the year, when the entire country elsewhere is dry, its rocky pools embedded in soft limestone, tainted with sulphuretted hydrogen, and abounding in rushes and crocodiles, afford an inexhaustible supply, without which the flocks and herds of the entire arid districts by which it is surrounded, could not exist.
To it the horses and mules of the Embassy were indebted for a new lease of life, short though it proved to many. Two of the former and eleven of the latter had already been left to the hyaenas, in addition to the animal feloniously abstracted by the Hy Somauli, of the recovery of which Mohammad Ali affected to be sanguine. But although the pleasure of another meeting with the robber chief, whereupon he rested his delusive hopes, was shortly realised, and brought with it a train of concomitant inconvenience, no mule was ever restored. Not one of these petty Adaïel tribes are subject to that abject despotism which controls the turbulent spirits of the more powerful African nations, and, bad as absolute power must ever be acknowledged, often tends to their ultimate improvement. The influence of a chieftain is here little more than nominal. All affairs are decided in council by a majority of voices; and, were it not for the fact, that, save during the existence of a common danger, no component member of his clan works for other than individual advantage, the wild and lawless community over whom he affects to preside, might in all respects be appropriately designated a republic.
Note 1. The reader who may not feel thoroughly satiated with miles and furlongs, as embodied in this narrative, is referred to the Appendix, where they will be found detailed in a tabular form.
Volume One—Chapter Twenty Six.
Ominous Debates and Intolerable Delays at the Half-Way Stage.
The second knot in the string of the tedious journey had been unloosed by arrival at Killulloo, which is considered exactly half-way from the sea-coast to the frontier of Abyssinia. But although the worst portion of the road was now behind, the Embassy was destined to waste many days of existence in this vile spot, amidst annoying debates and discussions, most trying to the patience, which threatened to terminate so unpleasantly as well nigh to result in the abandonment of the baggage, as affording the only prospect left of ever reaching the destination.
From the very first moment of arrival, Izhák, whose sole object ever appeared to be to render himself disagreeable, devoted his talents and energies to the establishment of a misunderstanding, upon the frivolous grounds of Mohammad Ali having been suffered to distribute a small quantity of tobacco, in order to get rid of some passing unpleasant visitors. “Who gave that man tobacco?” he captiously vociferated, bouncing into the tent as soon as it had been pitched; “this is a piece of interference with my prerogatives as Ras el Káfilah, which cannot be borne.” And the explanation afforded not proving at all to his satisfaction, he roundly declared his determination of resenting the insult by throwing up the charge, and returning with all his paid retainers to Tajúra.