Adalo bin Hámed, who leads a section of the Gibdósa encamped at Haódé and Dunné, occasionally unites with the Débenik-Wóema in the time of their need, but he is held virtually independent. The fourth and last section of the Débeni, under the authority of Mahmóodi, has its tents at the isolated volcanic mountain of Fantáli, southward of Dinómali, where reside also the united Adaïel clans Uluaïto, Muffa, and Eyrolásso, under the great “brave” Lamúllifan.
These tribes occupy the whole extent of country between Abyssinia and Mirsa Raheïta, near the entrance to the Red Sea, the head-quarters of Roofa Boorhán, sheïkh of a subdivision of the Duttagóora. Thence they stretch along the coast to the south-eastward, and from Góobut el Kharáb, between the parallels, bounded on the south by the Eesah and other Somauli tribes, and flanked on the north by the Mudaïto.
The Adaïel or Danákil population, which, including the Mudaïto, extends as far as Arkeeko, entitles itself Afer, and claims to be descended from Arab invaders, who, in the seventh century of the Christian era, overran and colonised the low tract which forms a zone between the Abyssinian Alps and the coast of the Red Sea. To a certain extent the northern tribes are subject to the Nayib of Arkeeko, whose authority is recognised in much the same proportion as that of the feeble Sultán of Tajúra by the southern clans; but although speaking the same language, they can hardly be said to constitute a nation, being so widely dispersed, that for many days together not a trace of man is to be discovered over the joyless deserts which form the lot of his inheritance, scorched by an ardent sun, and alive only with “moving pillars of sand.”
From time immemorial every individual has been his own king. Each marauding community is marked by a wild independence; and the free spirit of the whole is to be traced in the rapine, discord, and bloodshed which universally prevails. Theirs is “an iron sky, and a soil of brass,” where the clouds drop little rain, and the earth yields no vegetation. It is no “land of rivers of water,” nor have the “lines fallen in pleasant places.” The desert stretches far on every side, strewed with black boulders of heated lava, and enveloped by a glowing atmosphere. In this country of perfidy and vindictive ferocity, the proprietors of the barren land murder every stranger who shall intrude; and the common benefits of water are an object of perpetual contest. Reprisal and revenge form the guiding maxim of all. Monsters, not men, their savage propensities are portrayed in a dark and baleful eye, and the avenger of blood is closely dogging the footsteps of one half the population.
As laziness is the chief source of African misery at large, so is it with the Danákil in particular. They possess that “conceit in their misery” which induces them to despise the labours of the cultivator; and such is the characteristic want of water, that, excepting at Aussa, agriculture is unknown, even in its rudest form. A pastoral, itinerant, and belligerent people, divided into endless clans and ramifications, under divers independent chieftains, their mode of living entitles them to rank only one step in civilisation above the positive savage who depends for daily subsistence upon the chase and upon the spontaneous productions of nature.
Born to the spear, and bred in eternal strife with his predatory neighbours, each lawless member of the straggling community inherits the untameable spirit of the descendants of Ishmaël; and it is made subservient to all the worst vices and passions inherent in the semi-barbarian. In his very attitude and bearing there is that which proclaims him in his own opinion Lord of the Universe, entitled to enjoy, with a thankless heart, all that he is capable of enjoying. No favour claims his gratitude—nothing demands a thought beyond the present moment. Unlike the Arab Bedouin, he is too indolent and improvident during seasons of plenty, to convert the produce of his flocks and herds into a store against the coming day of drought and famine. Gorged to repletion, the residue is suffered to go to waste; and so long as his belly is full, his licentiousness gratified, and he has leisure to lounge about in listless idleness, the measure of his happiness is complete, and the sun may rise and set without his troubling his head as to the mode in which the day has been passed, or how the next meal is to be provided.
Many of the Adaïel are extensive owners of camels, and deal largely in slaves—a trade which yields three hundred per cent, with the least possible risk or trouble to the merchant; but when not upon the journey periodically undertaken to acquire the materials for this traffic, all lead a life of indolence and gross sensuality—eating, sleeping, and indulging in the baser passions, according to the bent of their vicious inclinations. Their delight is to be dirty and to be idle. They wear the same cloth without ablution until it fairly drops from the back; and abhorring honest labour, whether agricultural or handicraft, pass the day in drowsiness, or in the enjoyment of a quiet seat before the hamlet, where the scandal of the community is retailed. Basking in the sun, and arranging their curly locks with the point of the skewer, they here indulge in unlimited quantities of snuff, and mumble large rolls of tobacco and ashes, which are so thrust betwixt the under lip and the white teeth, as to impart the unseemly appearance of a growing wen, and if temporarily removed are invariably deposited behind the left ear. No race of men in the world stink more offensively; but whilst polluting the atmosphere with rancid tallow and putrid animal intestines, they never condescend to approach a Christian without holding their own noses!
Amongst the Danákil are to be found some of the most scowling, ill-favoured, and hideous-looking savages in the universe, but the features of the majority have an Arab cast which supports the legend of their origin; and notwithstanding the influence exerted upon the lineaments by passions uncontrolled, the expression of many is pleasing, and even occasionally intellectual. All are muscular and active, but singularly scraggy and loosely knit, and to an easy shuffling gait is added a national addiction to standing cross-legged. Young as well as old take infinite pains to disfigure the person, and thus to render it ferocious in appearance. Scars obtained in brawls and conflicts from stones and cold steel are esteemed the highest ornaments, and the breast and stomach are usually seamed with a mystic maze of rhombs and reticulated triangles, produced by scarification with a sharp fragment of obsidian, so as to resemble the plan of a fortified town of days gone by.
The upper lip is denuded with the creese, and the scanty beard suffered to flourish in curls along the cheeks and over the chin; whilst the hair, coarse and long, saturated with grease and mutton fat from infancy, and exposed during life to the fiercest sun, becomes crisped into a thick curly mop, like a counsellor’s wig, which is shaved behind on a line between the ears, and constitutes the first great pride of the proprietor. The picking it out into a due spherical form affords employment during his ample leisure, and the contemplation of its wild perfection is the predominant object when the mirror is placed within his grasp. Baldness commences at an early age, and many of the ancient dandies seek protection from the solar influence under sheep-skin perukes of preposterous size, their artificial curls, in common with those that are natural, displaying an ornamented wooden spike or bodkin, which serves as a comb, and is often fancifully carved and provided with two or even three prongs.
The operation of greasing this wig without the aid of the barber is original. A lump of raw fat, cut from the overgrown tail of the Berbera sheep, having been some time masticated and mumbled, is expelled into the hands, betwixt the palms of which it is reduced by rubbing to a suitable consistency, and then transferred en masse to the crown. Exposure to the fierce rays of a tropical sun soon conveys the desired nourishment to the roots of the hair. A number of jets and brilliants, which first adorn the periwig, are presently fried into oily shreds, and the liquid tallow, adulterated with dirt, trickling in streams adown the swarthy visage and over the neck, exhales the most sickening of odours. All, however, cannot afford this luxury of the toilet, nor is it every one who can resist the temptation of swallowing the dainty morsel when once consigned to the mouth; and hence is seen many a poll of sun-burnt hair, in colour and consistency resembling the housemaid’s cobweb broom which is quaintly denominated “the Pope’s head.”