Page:First Footsteps in East Africa, 1894 - Volume 2.djvu/137

 an opportunity of being initiated into the mysteries of Somali medicine and money hiding. The people have but two cures for disease, one the actual cautery, the other a purgative, by means of melted sheep's-tail, followed by such a draught of camel's milk that the stomach, having escaped the danger of bursting, is suddenly and completely relieved. It is here the custom of the wealthy to bury their hoards, and to reveal the secret only when at the point of death. Lieutenant Speke went to a place where it is said a rich man had deposited a considerable sum, and described his "cache" as being "on a path in a direct line between two trees as far as the arms can reach with a stick." The hoarder died between forty and fifty years ago, and his children have been prevented by the rocky nature of the ground, and their forgetting to ask which was the right side of the tree, from succeeding in anything beyond turning up the stones. Las Kuray is an open roadstead for native craft. The town is considered one of the principal strongholds of the coast. There are three large and six small "forts," similar in construction to those of Hais; all are occupied by merchants, and are said to belong to the Sultan. The mass of huts may be between twenty and thirty in number. They are matted buildings, long and flat-roofed; half a dozen families inhabit the same house, which is portioned off for such accommodation. Public buildings there are none, and no wall protects the place. It is in the territory of the Warsingali, and owns the rule of the Gerad or Prince, who sometimes lives here, and at other times inhabits the Jungle. Las Kuray exports gums, Dumbah sheep, and guano, the latter considered valuable, and sent to Makalla in Arabia, to manure the date plantations. Four miles westward of Las Kuray is Kurayat, also called Little Kuray. It resembles the other settlement,