Page:First Footsteps in East Africa, 1894 - Volume 1.djvu/82

36 asked reply in the phrase which an Englishman hates, "Inshallah Bukra"—"if Allah please, to-morrow!"—and they have the decency not to appear in public at the hours of devotion. The Somal, like most Africans, are of a somewhat irreverent turn of mind. When reproached with gambling, and asked why they persist in the forbidden pleasure, they simply answer, "Because we like." One night, encamped among the Ísa, I was disturbed by a female voice indulging in the loudest lamentations: an elderly lady, it appears, was suffering from tooth-ache, and the refrain of her groans was, "O Allah, may thy teeth ache like mine! O Allah, may thy gums be sore as mine are!" A well-known and characteristic tale is told of the Jirad Hirsi, now chief of the Berteri tribe. Once meeting a party of unarmed