Page:First Footsteps in East Africa, 1894 - Volume 1.djvu/211

 the land the evil reputation of killing everything, from an elephant to a bird in the air. One of the younger brethren, indeed, declared that we were forerunners of good, and that if the Gerad harmed a hair of our heads, he would slaughter every Girhi under the sun. We had, however, learned properly to appreciate such vaunts, and the End of Time drily answered that their sayings were honey but their doings myrrh. Being a low-caste and a shameless tribe, they did not reply to our reproaches. At last, a manoeuvre was successful: Beuh and his brethren, who squatted like sulky children in different places, were dismissed with thanks,--we proposed placing ourselves under the safeguard of Gerad Hirsi, the Berteri chief. This would have thrown the protection-price, originally intended for their brother-in-law, into the hands of a rival, and had the effect of altering their resolve. Presently we were visited by two Widad or hedge- priests, Ao Samattar and Ao Nur [38], both half-witted fellows, but active and kindhearted. The former wore a dirty turban, the latter a Zebid cap, a wicker-work calotte, composed of the palm leaf's mid-rib: they carried dressed goatskins, as prayer carpets, over their right shoulders dangled huge wooden ink bottles with Lauh or wooden tablets for writing talismans [39], and from the left hung a greasy bag, containing a tattered copy of the Koran and a small MS. of prayers. They read tolerably, but did not understand Arabic, and I presented them with cheap Bombay lithographs of the Holy Book. The number of these idlers increased as we approached Harar, the Alma Mater of Somali land:--