Page:First Footsteps in East Africa, 1894 - Volume 1.djvu/58

12 apartment by no means splendid, preferring an Arish or kind of cow-house—as the Anglo-Indian Nabobs do the bungalow

—to all his substantial double-storied houses. The ground was wet and comfortless; a part of the reed walls was lined with cots bearing mattresses and silk-covered pillows, a cross between a diwan and a couch: the only ornaments were a few weapons, and a necklace of gaudy beads suspended near the door. I was placed upon the principal seat: on the right were the governor and the Hammal; whilst the lowest portion of the room was occupied by Mohammed Sharmarkay, the son and heir. The rest of the company squatted upon chairs, or rather stools, of peculiar construction. Nothing could be duller than this assemblée: pipes and coffee are here unknown; and there is nothing in the East to act substitute for them.

The governor of Zayla, Al-Hajj Sharmarkay bin Ali Salih, is rather a remarkable man. He is sixteenth, according to his own account, in descent from Ishak al-Hazrami, the saintly founder of the great Girhajis and