Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 4.djvu/484

 806 SOUTH AND EAST AFRICA. a convenience, for tbey are great talkers, as well as very eager for news, so mucli so that the Somali plants his spear at the entrance to his village to indicate that the road is barrerl to strangers until they have informed him of all the tidings from the di.stunt parts whence they have arrived. Somuli Lund has for ages bi>on wasted by incessmt tribal warfare. " The only field here cultivated," says M. Revoil, in the figurative language of the East, "is the field of death." Being dividid into a great number of petty states, the people are almost constantly at feud with each other. Each suspects his neighbour and the warrit)r never goes al)r<)ad iinarnietl. The rich man has his gun, purchased in one of the seaport towns ; the poor have their spear and their dart, occasionally sup- plemented by a murderous double-edged bbide and a knobkerry for braining the enemy that falls in the combat. Like the Masai, the Somali warrior usually '* stands at ease" by lean-ngon his spear and bending the right log, somewhat after the fashion of persons walking on stilts. lie is proud of having killed his man, and to commemorate the event either adds an ostrich plume to his headdress or we irs an ivory bracelet on his wrist. In some districts the friends of the departed hero pile round his grave as many blocks as the victims that have fallen to his prowess. But it is fair to state that if the Sonudi takes the life of his adversary without a pang, he is himself equally indilferent to the same fate. When wounded he suffers without a murmur, and holds out his arm unflinchingly to the native surgeon, who cauterises it in his primitive way with fire or a red-hot iron. Thanks also to the climate, the Som^i frequentlv recovers from wounds that would inevitably prove fatal to a European. If it is honourable to kill, it is no less glorious to plunder, provided always that it be done in open warfare. No one steals in time of peace, " because all the Somali are brothers," and no one takes the superfluous trouble to elose his house. But all are free to attack the stranger, who dare not even venture to penetrate into their territory until he has first jjrocured by purchase an ahun, that is, a protector or ])atron in the tribe. When a vessel is wrecked on their inhospitable shores all claim tiio established rights of flotsam and jetsam, and the wreckers hasten to the spot from distances of sixty or seventy miles round about. Not a single household in the whole of the Guardafui peninsula but has some objects to show which belonged to Europeans wrecked on the surrounding seaboard. Graves mentions a famous sheikh, u very pious devote?, who lived near the cape, and who, during the bad season, was handsomelv feed to invoke Allah nijjht and dav in order to brins: about the wreck of passing Christian vessels. But it should be remembered that not so very long ago the villages along the west coast of France and south coast of Englund not only prayed for such contingencies, but set up false beac ns to allure their victims to destruction. The Somali of the coastlands, and notably the Mijertin people, would consider themselves degraded by cultivating the land. They are shepherds, fishermen, sauors, or traders, but not husbandmen. Some are «ven daring mariners, who in their light dhows of forty or fifty tons burden venture on long voj'ages to Bombay and Zanzibar, A great many live a half-nomad existence, following their* flocks