H. G. C. Swayne

Division of classes in SomÁliland—The trading caravans from OgÁdÉn and Harar—Habits of the nomad tribes—The SomÁli brokers—The outcaste races and their characteristics—The settlements of the mullahs—The SomÁli, his character—Religion—Costume and weapons—Condition of women—Marriage laws—Industries of women—Blood money—Feuds-Native councils—Respect for the English—SomÁli vanity—The dibÁltig ceremony—Influence of religion—Influence of civilisation—Religious observances—Superstitions—Carelessness—The origin of the SomÁli race—Tracing descent for twenty-two generations—Arab descent—Tribal customs—Plurality of wives—Adoption of prefix Ba to names of children—SomÁli nomenclature—Nicknames—Tribal divisions—“Brothers of the shield”—Ruins, cairns, and graves—Frontier raids between the GÁllas and the SomÁlis—Boldness of southern tribes—The GolbÁnti GÁllas-The Wa-pokÓmo negroes of the Tana—Origin of the GÁllas—The Esa tribe—The Gadabursi tribe—Evidences of former highly-organised races in SomÁliland—Interesting remains—Old GÁlla ruins—Curious legend to account for cairns—The robbers’ cover—Baneful influence of feuds.

“He who dines alone, dines with the devil.”—SomÁli proverb.

The inhabitants of SomÁliland may be divided into four separate classes:—The nomad SomÁlis, who keep sheep, goats, cattle, and camels, and who breed ponies; who live almost entirely upon milk and meat, and follow the rains in search of grass for their animals. The settled SomÁlis, who form a comparatively small community, living in or near the coast towns, and who are principally occupied as abbÁns or brokers. Certain outcaste races, living in a precarious way, scattered about among the different SomÁli tribes, engaged principally gathering gum and hunting. The traders, who bring large caravans from the interior to the coast at certain seasons.

The most important trading caravans are those which come to Berbera from OgÁdÉn and Harar. They bring hides, ivory, ostrich feathers, rhinoceros and antelope horns, prayer-skins, honey, coffee, ghee (clarified butter), and gum; exchanging these products and loading up for the return journey with the beads, dates, rice, cotton goods, and other articles which form the cargoes of dhows visiting the ports. The traders have portable huts (gurgi) which are packed on the camels, and can be pitched or struck in about an hour. These they erect on long halts, and when staying at the coast towns in the trading season. The rer or kraal (karia in Arabic) is formed by unpacking the gurgi and pitching them in a semicircle, surrounding the whole by a thorn fence or zerÍba. The huts are carried on camels in sections, and consist of a framework of bent gipsy poles, over which mats and skins are sewn when a halt is made. While on the march the mats do duty as packsaddles for the camels, the skins being tied over the loads to protect them from sun and rain. While the caravans are at the coast, generally during the greater part of the cold weather, the camels are placed under the care of the nomad SomÁlis, to be fed and tended until the return journey to the interior in the spring.

The nomadic tribes also form zerÍbas during their constant wanderings, staying in camp for a month or two at a time. Each nomad clan wanders in an orbit of its own, and reoccupies its former zerÍbas at the different pastures year after year. Their zerÍbas differ from those of trading caravans by being made in a double ring, the outer circle of which is often twelve feet high, to keep out lions. Inside the double brushwood fence the space is divided into pens for cattle, camels, sheep, and goats, the ponies being hobbled and allowed to graze abroad by day, while at night they are tied to the outside of the huts or to thorn trees, and for their further protection fires are lit round the inside of the zerÍba and in the huts. At the coast towns the arrangements are not so formidable, a low single fence to keep in the animals being deemed sufficient. The huts are put up by women, while the men form the zerÍba and cut logs for the watch-fires, using an axe (fÁs) consisting of a block of soft iron, worked into a ring with a forked stick inserted—much like the axe of jungle tribes in India. The men are extremely lazy, and consider that their dignity is lowered by tending anything but camels, cattle, and ponies. Thousands of sheep and goats are looked after by a few women and small children; while the donkeys and water-vessels which they carry are the particular care of the oldest and most decrepit women.

The neighbourhood of nomad encampments and watering places is always noisy and dusty, the ground being worked into powder by the feet of thousands of animals. Most of the bushes are denuded of their branches for firewood, and the grass is eaten and worn away. At the important wells watering is done by sub-tribes, to each of which is allotted a certain well at a certain hour. When watering is going on, the groups of naked men singing in chorus as they pass the water up to the troughs, the lowing of the cattle, the countless flocks and herds moving to and fro half veiled by clouds of dust, go to form a very remarkable scene. The nomads who live about the GÓlis Range draw near to the coast during the cool trading season, and return to the high Ogo country to remain there during the summer months. They form no large caravans, but are engaged in a good deal of petty barter with the coast and in the export of sheep.

With reference to the class engaged in brokerage, they are people settled permanently at the ports of the North SomÁli coast. Until a short time ago the office of abbÁn or broker was considered to be important. When a trader arrived off the coast in a dhow, or with a caravan from the interior, he was obliged to engage an abbÁn to transact his business, to protect his interests, to act as general agent, paying in return for such services a small commission on all purchases and sales.

Of the outcaste races the most important are the Tomal, Yebir, and MidgÁn. They are not organised in tribes, but live in scattered families all over SomÁliland. The Tomal are the blacksmiths, who fashion all kinds of arms, axes, and general ironwork. The Yebir are workers in leather, such as saddlery, scabbards, and so forth. The MidgÁns are probably the most numerous of the outcaste people. They are armed with the mindi (a small dagger), bow, and poisoned arrows, carrying the latter in a large quiver. They keep wild and savage pariah dogs, which they train to hunting, their chief quarry being the oryx (Oryx beisa), the large bovine antelope with the rapier-like horns.

I have often been out oryx-hunting on foot in the BulhÁr Plain with MidgÁns and dogs. When a bull oryx is killed a disc from fifteen to eighteen inches in diameter is cut from the thick skin of his withers and sometimes from the rump: these are worth from one to four rupees at the coast, and are used by the MidgÁns for making shields. The MidgÁns are a hardy race, used to living away from karias, stealthy and perfect trackers, and they are sometimes, in intertribal warfare, engaged to act as messengers, scouts, and light skirmishers. There appears to be no physical difference between them and other SomÁlis, except that the average stature of the MidgÁns may be slightly shorter. I have on more than one occasion come upon a party of MidgÁns pegging out the fresh skin of a lion which they had just killed; many of these animals are brought to bag every year with no other weapons than their tiny arrows. The lions are found asleep under the khansa bushes at midday, or are shot from an ambush at night over a living bait, or when returning to a “kill.”

In the interior of Northern SomÁliland there are no permanent settlements except those founded and occupied by religious Mahomedans, called sheikhs, mullahs, or widads. These settlements occur, on an average, about seventy miles apart. The two largest which I have seen are Seyyid Mahomed’s Town in OgÁdÉn, and Hargeisa in the Habr Awal country. There are about a dozen others of minor importance, all inhabited by mullahs, scattered over several degrees of latitude and longitude, and Hargeisa may be taken as the type of them all.

SomÁli Camp Followers and a Horseman from the Bush.

From a Photograph by Prince Boris Czetwertynski.

Mullahs are enabled to settle down and form permanent villages, and cultivate, on account of the respect in which they are held by all tribes. A looting party must be driven to the last extremity of hunger before it will attack them, and generally in such a case only as many animals would be looted as are needed to provide food. The mullahs are drawn from various tribes, and being cosmopolitan, have very extended influence. They are a quiet, respectable class, generally on the side of order, and are civil to travellers.

Hargeisa, a compact village of a few hundred agal or permanent huts, is surrounded by a high mat fence, and a square mile or two of jowÁri (Holcus sorghum) cultivation belonging to different mullahs. Sheikh Mattar, the chief of Hargeisa, is a pleasant mannered man affecting Arab dress; he reads and writes Arabic, and is a steady supporter of British interests. Like many of the more important mullahs in SomÁliland he has a very dark complexion, almost black, in fact, with well-formed, intelligent features. With the exception of these mullah settlements, a few graves dotted about the country, and some cairns and ancient remains of former races, there is nothing permanent to show the presence of human beings. The caravan tracks are mere paths made by the feet of camels and passing flocks, crossed by game tracks in every direction. For countless years long lines of baggage camels have gone aside from the straight course in order to wind round some stone or bush that a child could remove. The work is left to the next caravan, or to Allah, who is made responsible for everything, good or bad, in SomÁliland. There is no social system, but patriarchal government by tribes, clans, and families; no cohesion, and no paramount authority; and the whole country has been from time immemorial in a chronic state of petty warfare and blood feuds.

The SomÁli has a many-sided character. He is generally a good camelman, a cheerful camp-follower, a trustworthy, loyal, and attentive soldier; proud of the confidence reposed in him, quick to learn new things, and wonderfully bright and intelligent. He is untiring on the march, and he is often a reckless hunter, and will stand by his master splendidly. I know of one SomÁli who, to save his English master, hit a lion over the head with the butt of his rifle; and quite lately, under similar circumstances, another SomÁli caught hold of a lion by the jaws. Occasionally, however, he relapses into a state of original sin; he becomes criminally careless with the camels, breaking everything in the process of loading, from leather to cast steel; he can be disrespectful, mutinous, and sulky. He is inordinately vain, and will walk off into the jungle and make his way home to the coast, leaving two months’ back pay and rations behind him, if he considers his lordly dignity insulted. If he sees a chance of gain he is a toady and flatterer. His worst fault is avarice.

The SomÁli, although by no means a coward, is much more afraid of his fellow-man than of wild animals,—a fact which is possibly due to the general insecurity of life and property. Above all things he dreads crossing the frontiers of his country, holding his hereditary enemies the GÁllas in great abhorrence. He has a great deal of romance in his composition, and in his natural nomad state, on the long, lazy days, when there is no looting to be done, while his women and children are away minding his flocks, he takes his praying-mat and water-bottle, and sits a hundred yards from his karia under a flat, shady gudÁ tree, lazily droning out melancholy-sounding chants on the themes of his dusky loves, looted or otherwise; on the often miserable screw which he calls faras, the horse; and on the supreme pleasure of eating stolen camels.

The summer and winter rains are his great periods of activity. There is then plenty of grass, and pools of water are abundant throughout the country; and he bestrides his “favourite mare,” and in company with many dear brothers of his clan, leaving his flocks and herds in the charge of his women and young children, he rides quietly off a hundred miles into the heart of the jungle to loot the camels of the next SomÁli tribe, the owners of which are perhaps away doing exactly the same thing elsewhere. There is tremendous excitement, and the camels are driven across miles of uninhabited wilderness, trailing clouds of dust behind them; and so back to the home karia, where he finds his own herds have perhaps been looted in his absence. He at once goes off on a fresh horse, smarting under his wrongs and intent on vengeance; and if in the spear and shield skirmish that ensues a man has been killed, he and his companions ride back covered with sweat and glory, the tired nags showing gaping spear wounds and mouths dripping with blood from the cruel bit. This is life! In the intervals between expeditions the SomÁlis, when not sleeping, sit in circles on the outskirts of their karias, talking, drinking camel’s milk, and eating mutton, and doing nothing else for days together. Every adult male has his say in the affairs of the tribe, and is to a certain extent a born orator.

SomÁlis are Mussulmans of the Shafai sect, and use the SomÁli salutation “Nabad” or the Arab “Salaam aleikum,” which is answered by “Aleikum salaam” and touching of hands. The men are nearly all dressed alike, in long “tobes” of white sheeting of different degrees of dirtiness, from brown to dazzling white; and not a few of the tobes have been dipped in red clay and are of a bright burnt-sienna colour, making the wearers look like Burmese priests. A long dagger (bilÁwa) is strapped round the waist, while a shield and two spears are carried in the hands. A grass water-bottle and OgÁdÉn prayer-carpet are slung over the shoulders of some, and on the feet are thick sandals, turned up in front, and changed every hour or so to ease the feet. Many of the men wear a leather charm containing a verse of the Koran, a lump of yellow amber, or a long prayer chaplet (tusba) of black sweet-smelling wood around the neck. The camels are often adorned with cowrie necklaces.

The tobe is a simple cotton sheet of two breadths sewn together, about fifteen feet long, and is worn in a variety of ways. Generally it is thrown over one or both shoulders, a turn given round the waist, and allowed to fall to the ankles. In cold weather the head is muffled up in it after the fashion of an Algerian “burnouse.” When sleeping round a camp fire the body is enveloped in it from head to foot, as in a winding-sheet; for a fight the chest and arms are left bare, the part which was thrown over the shoulders being wound many times round the waist to protect the stomach. In the jungle the tobes are worn till they are brown and threadbare; but at the coast towns they are generally of dazzling whiteness. Elders, horsemen, and those who wish to assume a little extra dignity, discard the common tobe and affect the khaili, a gorgeous tartan arrangement in red, white, and blue, each colour being in two shades, with a narrow fringe of light yellow. On horseback it is a very becoming dress, and it is often affected by a favourite wife. All khaili tobes are about the same in appearance, so that practically the white tobe or khaili, shield, and spears, is a uniform that seldom varies much in the whole country. There is very little distinction in the dress of different tribes. The Esa seldom wear the tobe, having only a small cloth hung round the loins. The Dolbahanta, OgÁdÉn, Esa, and the IshÁk[1] tribes differ from one another in the shape of their spear-blades; and the MidgÁns carry bow and quiver instead of spear and shield. The bilÁwa or sword is a long two-edged, sharp-pointed knife with soft wrought iron blade, about two feet long and an inch broad at the broadest part; the weight is well forward for hacking. The hilt, too small for an European hand, is made of horn, ornamented with zinc or pewter, and the scabbard is of white leather, sewn crossways to a long white thong which goes round the waist. The gÁshÁn or shield is a round disc of white leather, of rhinoceros, bullock, or preferably oryx hide, from fifteen to eighteen inches in diameter, with a boss in the centre and a handle behind. It is easily pierced by a pistol bullet. Two kinds of spears are used throughout the country, each man among the IshÁk tribes, near Berbera, carrying one of each kind. The small spear, plain or barbed like a fish-hook, is for throwing at a distance of from twenty-five to thirty yards, but the aim is not accurate much over thirty yards, though I have seen it thrown as far as seventy-five yards on foot in competitions at BulhÁr. The SomÁli grasps his spear firmly in the fingers, and gives it one or two quick jerks against the palm of the hand before casting, the vibration being supposed to keep the point straight when in flight. The best spear-shafts come from Eilo, a mountain in the Gadabursi country near Zeila, and round the butt is twisted a bit of soft iron to balance the spear-head. The ponderous laurel-leaf shaped spear, bound with brass wire, is used for close quarters, being especially useful against horses. The men of the Esa tribe generally carry one of these and no throwing spear. They fight on foot and charge home, stabbing at close quarters, while most SomÁlis prefer light skirmishing. Some spears are scraped bright, others are blackened and polished. The SomÁli is often a great dandy in these matters, and keeps his shield in a white calico cover.

The water-bottle (karÚra) is a wonderfully neat affair, plaited by the women from the fibres of a root, or from grass, and made watertight by applying fat or other substances to the inside, and is corked with a wooden plug. The prayer-carpet generally comes from OgÁdÉn, and is a small piece of very thick tanned leather. On this the SomÁli makes his regular prostrations at dawn and sunset, and during the day, as becomes a devout Mussulman, and when not put to this use, it is hung over the shoulder to afford protection from the chafing of the spears. The sandals are very heavy; they are of several thicknesses of white leather, sewn together, rising in a knob in front. They make a great noise, so when stalking game the wearer carries them and goes barefoot. The club or kerrie is a foot and a half long, made of the hard wogga wood, and is thrown with dexterity.

SomÁlis have generally good Arab features, with particularly smooth skins, varying from the colour of an Arab to black. Among certain tribes those who have killed a man wear an ostrich feather in the hair. Originally it was only worn for enemies killed in a fight, but now this is not always necessary. Little boys carry miniature spears and shields as soon as they can learn to use them, and many an Esa youth of sixteen can show an ostrich feather which has been earned in the orthodox manner.

The hair is worn in various ways according to sex and age. Old men shave the head, and sometimes grow a slight beard. Men in the prime of life wear their hair about an inch and a half long, and periodically smear it with a gray mixture, apparently composed of ashes and clay, leaving it for a day or two to dry. It is then dusted out and the hair becomes beautifully clean and highly curled. My followers have always gone through this performance a day or two before reaching Berbera at the conclusion of a trip. Young men and boys grow their hair in a heavy mop, often of a yellow colour, like the mane of a lion. Married women wear it in a chignon, enclosed in a dark blue bag. Young women and girls wear a mop like the young men, but carefully plaited into pigtails. Small children have their heads shaven, three cockscombs of short hair being left, giving the skull the appearance of a crested helmet.

Women are of very little account among the SomÁlis, every small boy appearing to lord it over the female members of his family, of whatever generation. The father of many daughters is rich in that while they are young they herd his sheep and goats, and when they marry he receives from the husband of each her yerad or price, in return for which he has to provide a new hut and furniture for the pair. When a man marries he pays the father of the woman, say, two or three horses and about two hundred sheep. Often this is given back to the woman by her father, and sometimes a dowry is given by him. In the Rer Ali tribe we once passed a drove of about fifty camels being driven by a pretty young woman, who stopped to proudly tell us that they were her dowry, which her father was sending along with her to her husband. One favourite way of obtaining a wife is to loot her in a foray, along with a lot of sheep. Often when I have asked a man where he got his pretty wife, he has answered, “Oh, I looted her from the Samanter Abdallah,” or the Rer Ali, naming a neighbouring tribe. A nod and a laugh from the wife has corroborated the story, and she does not appear to be at all unhappy about it. Marriage with aliens is, I think, looked upon with favour by SomÁlis, because it brings new blood into the tribe; and it has the additional advantage of extending diplomatic relations, a man who has married into a tribe being tolerably safe when in its territory, even in disturbed times.

Some rich women, who have brought a large dowry to their husbands, only perform light work in the huts, and make mats. Others tend sheep and cattle, draw water, hew wood, and work all day long, with no reward but blows. I go by what SomÁlis themselves say, for I have never seen any cruelty to support the statement. Women work very hard. From every watering-place old women are seen struggling to the karias with heavy hÁns full of water, often containing three or four gallons. They carry the hÁns and bundles of firewood in exactly the same manner as they do their babies, slung on their backs. The water hÁns are composed of plaited bark. They are easily broken, and on every march one or two may become useless, owing either to contact with thorn branches or to the tired camels sitting on them. A little water must always be lost by slight leakage. My own experience of hÁns has been somewhat unfortunate, chiefly because my caravans being composed almost entirely of men, their management has not been properly understood.

Another industry practised by the women is the plaiting of camel-mats; these are made by chewing the stripped bark of the Galol tree, weaving it into a mat, which it takes them a week to make. They also extract the fibres from the Hig or pointed aloe plants, by beating them between stones, the fibre then being twisted into ropes. The SomÁli women lead the camels on the longest marches, and exhibit wonderful powers of endurance, marching sometimes the four hundred miles from the Webbe to Berbera in about sixteen days. From constantly loading camels they become nearly as strong in the arms as the men.

A Camp Servant with Lesser Koodoo Skull and Horns.

From a Photograph by Mr. Seton Karr.

The mag, dia,[2] or blood money for a man killed is one hundred milch-camels. Among the Habr Yunis, Habr Gerhajis, if one man of the tribe kills another the blood money is one hundred she-camels and four horses, half this number being considered enough for a woman. For the loss of an eye or permanent disablement of a limb fifty camels have to be paid, and for the loss of both eyes or disablement of both limbs the full blood money, as for murder, is demanded. If blood is drawn from the head about thirty camels are demanded, and even for a bruise the demand is for three or four camels. Such minor cases, however, are, as a rule, specially referred to the mullahs for decision. As a matter of fact, in most cases the blood money actually paid is far below the nominal amount. If a man captures his wife during a raid on another tribe, he generally sends a present afterwards to her parents to secure peace; should, however, a married woman be carried off, or one to whose parents cows have already been paid by another man, the offence is a grave one, and the tribe of the woman must fight. One of the most unpardonable offences is the striking of any one with a shoe or whip, or the open hand, and theoretically this act can only be wiped out by blood.

There are always innumerable blood feuds going on in SomÁliland, but as a rule the tribal fights are not very serious, a dozen men killed in every thousand engaged being a fair proportion. The men slain in these combats are buried on the spot, and then begins a long series of negotiations for the settlement of the amount of blood money, which generally lasts months, or even years, before any result is arrived at. Often at a council all the old men on both sides will get up in a fury and leave hurriedly for their kraals with angry shouting, showing that diplomacy has failed.

This sitting in council discussing tribal politics appears to be the principal occupation of SomÁlis, and at Berbera, in the native town, they may generally be seen sitting in circles holding protracted discussions. They appeal to our courts to decide the greatest and most trivial cases, delighting in arbitration; and tribes from very great distances inland, even from OgÁdÉn or the MarehÁn country, come to the Berbera Court with cases, a great number of which have to do with raids of some sort, which have been committed either upon grazing flocks and herds or upon caravans.

Although a good deal of intermittent fighting is prevalent all over the interior, the SomÁlis have no quarrel whatever with the English. They hold respect for the English as being their natural protectors and arbitrators. The chronic fighting which goes on throughout the country is only looked upon by the elders as healthy blood-letting, giving the young men something to do. It is only considered serious when it occurs on the main caravan routes, thereby damaging trade. In Guban quarrels and raids have practically ceased within the last five years, a fact which is entirely due to British influence.

The SomÁlis love display, and do honour to their own sultans[3] by the performance of a ceremony called the dibÁltig. When this function is to be gone through a body of horsemen is collected, and line having been formed, the tribal minstrel or gÉrÁra sings, while sitting in the saddle, long extempore songs in praise of the sultan and the tribe, the most atrocious flattery being the leading feature of the song. At every great hit scored by the minstrel the song rises to a shriek, and all the horsemen turn and gallop away, returning and reining up in a dense mass, crying “MÓt!” (Hail to thee). The men are generally dressed in the red khaili tobes, and the saddlery is covered with red tassels. Among the Esa tribe the dibÁltig is represented by a dance on foot, with shield and spear. In this dance the warriors go through the performance of pretending to kill a man, crowding in a semicircle round him, and stabbing him again and again, all the while yelling “Kek-kek-kek! Kek-kek-kek!” as they gasp for breath. I have the authority of Captain Abud, the assistant Resident at Berbera, for stating that the dibÁltig is never performed except on the election of a sultan or in honour of an English traveller, whom the people recognise as a representative of the paramount authority in the country. It may be performed in honour of Europeans other than English who visit the country, but only when they do so under the Ægis of the British Government. Among SomÁlis themselves it is the open recognition of the authority of a sultan, and notifies the acceptance of his rule by the sub-tribes or jilibs performing it. It may therefore be looked upon as a species of coronation ceremony. The word mÓt is the royal salute. The assistant Resident at Berbera had a case brought before him in which a part of the Eidegalla tribe had thrown off allegiance to SultÁn Deria, and when Captain Abud’s intervention was successful, one of the terms proposed by the delinquents themselves was that they would dibÁltig before him as a recognition of their return to his control.

The influence of the Mussulman teaching is apparent in many of the predominating customs throughout the country. The SomÁlis are as a rule clean and decent in their dress, and of course such a thing as a drunken SomÁli in SomÁliland is practically unknown. I have seen a man dangerously ill with snake-bite, and believed to be dying, refuse brandy when offered to him as a medicine, saying that he would rather die than take it.

In speaking of SomÁlis I do not, of course, attempt to describe the Aden hack-carriage driver or boatman. These products of civilisation are not found in the interior of SomÁliland; they are, to my mind, the only true SomÁli savages. The Aden SomÁli as a boy diving for silver coins in the harbour is a delightful little fellow, but when he grows up he becomes odious. As a cabman or boatman he sees too much of the weaknesses of Europeans, and as a result of the familiarity he loses his respect for them. To cite an instance of the familiarity which breeds contempt, Aden SomÁlis have been known to call visitors from passing ships “damned fool passengers”! The real jungle SomÁli from the African side of the Gulf never quite gets used to Aden life. After having made his money there, he returns to his own country to invest his savings in cows, camels, and sheep, and a wife or two to tend them. He lives the old pastoral life, and soon shakes off every trace of his sojourn among the white men. Give him a fine house in Aden, and he will build a round gurgi of mats and skins inside it.

In the far interior I have more than once met a horseman, looking quite like a jungle SomÁli, tricked out in all the finery of a mounted warrior, yet whose salutation has been “Good morning, sir,” in excellent English, and I have found that he has been to Marseilles and London, having done his spell as a fireman on a steamer; and he has come back at last to his country, disgusted with civilisation, and worse in many ways than when he started on his travels. With such a man the jungle SomÁli will often refuse to eat, saying he is no longer a clean Mussulman, that he is a Frinji, and must eat alone.

Whatever faults a SomÁli may have, lack of intelligence, and what, for want of an English word, may be called savoir faire, are not among them. His bringing up, in a country where every man has his spears ready to hand to answer an insult on the moment, tends to make him keep his temper and maintain a diplomatic calm. Once that calm is broken through, however, he becomes a veritable madman. From laughter to rage is the transition of a second. Luckily he keeps his infrequent tantrums for black men. The rich white man is a privileged person, being allowed the eccentricity which may be excused in the great. If a white man, in pyjamas and slippers, unfortunately loses his temper, and kicks a lazy SomÁli all round his zerÍba for breach of contract, the latter sulks for a time, but soon gives way before the ridiculous; yet he will permit no SomÁli to insult him.

There is no written SomÁli language, so only a few mullahs who are learned in Arabic can read the Koran. The bulk of the people who cannot read are more prejudiced than the mullahs, wishing to be on the safe side, and having all sorts of complicated rules which mullahs know to be unnecessary. For a long time we could not get our men to eat game which had had the throat cut low down, although the customary bismillah had been said as the knife was drawn. On going to Hargeisa I appealed to Sheikh Mattar and his mullahs, who explained to them that they might eat the flesh of game bled in this way, and after the sheikh’s decision we never had any trouble on this point. It is an important one, for a gash in the skin from ear to ear is very unsightly in a valuable trophy when set up in England.

The fastidiousness of SomÁlis varies according to circumstances. They say all game is dry, and will not generally eat birds or fish, and they will despise all other food if there is a fat sheep to be procured. Not eating birds, their ignorance about them is extraordinary, and I believe very few varieties have distinctive names.

The life of a SomÁli includes many interesting observances, which unfold themselves day by day in the course of a journey. Some are very regular in their prayers and prostrations at the orthodox hours, praying for all they are worth, in season or out of it; others seldom or never pray. When on the GÁlla frontier, however, I noticed that every one of my followers, in view of approaching death, became very devout, and mustered in great force in line for the daily church parade at sunset, no one being absent; and all day on the frontier the SomÁli looks for a prowling enemy under every bush, fingering his tusba or chaplet to keep away evil.[4]

When the new moon appears he plucks a tussock of grass and holds it in flattering compliment between the slender crescent and his eyes, to keep them from being dazzled by the light. If he sees a tortoise he stands upon it, first casting off his sandals, believing, I think, that the soles of his feet will thereby be hardened; but whatever the motive may be, the act is very commonly practised.

One of the chief faults of the SomÁli is carelessness. When a caravan moves off in the early morning there is generally a forgotten camel or straying sheep to be hunted for, which has perhaps wandered miles away into the bush. The men who have not to lead camels linger round the camp-fires warming their spears, thereby storing up heat for ten minutes longer to comfort their hands on their cold morning march. There is a great deal of shouting to the stragglers to bring along things which have been left behind. On our Abyssinian frontier reconnaissance our men temporarily lost, at different times, our goats, three Arab riding camels, the horse, a flock of sheep, and one or two baggage camels, besides two boxes of Martini-Henry ammunition. The man who loses or forgets a thing generally remembers the omission after travelling about fifteen miles, and he then cheerfully trots back to get it, returning perhaps at noon next day. He is philosophical as to results, for if he loses your property, is it not his fate? and no man can fight with fate or with the will of Allah! He has lost your property, and there is an end of it.[5]

Although I have made many jungle trips in India and elsewhere, yet in no country have I had such obedient and cheerful followers and such pleasant native companions, despite their faults, as in SomÁliland. In my earlier and later trips I have often been from one to four months in the interior with no other companion than the SomÁlis; and I cannot say there has been a dull moment.

Captain H. M. Abud, who has for some years lived in, and had the immediate administration of Berbera and BulhÁr, and the greater part of the SomÁli coast protectorate, and who is doubtless the best authority on the intricate intertribal relations of the SomÁlis, has very kindly furnished me with a few notes on what he knows about their early history. He says: “The real origin of the SomÁlis is wrapped in mystery. They themselves say that they are descended from ‘noble Arabs,’ who, having had occasion to fly from their own country, landed on the SomÁli coast and intermarried with the aboriginal inhabitants, many of whose descendants still exist, though they now mingle with the SomÁlis.

“The SomÁlis, although none of them, except a few mullahs, can write, know their genealogical descent by heart, and, although the custom is beginning to die out, nearly every youngster is made to learn the names of his forefathers in their order. Out of at least a thousand elders examined by me while working at the genealogy of the tribes, none could trace their descent further than twenty or twenty-two generations; and if this number is correct the dawn of the SomÁli nation would be placed about twelve or thirteen hundred years ago, nearly coinciding with the rise of Mahomed, on whose account the Arabs were obliged to fly from Mecca. This coincidence in time is so much in favour of the SomÁli claim; but, on the other hand, it is difficult to believe that ‘noble Arabs’ would knowingly give their children the barbarous names some of them have. In any case we must seek away from the true African races for the origin of the SomÁli, for he bears no trace of the negroid type. It is supposed by some, from a resemblance, fancied or real, in the languages, that the SomÁlis may be allied to the races of Hindustan. So far, however, the subject has not been thoroughly worked out, and for all practical purposes the descent from ‘noble Arabs’ may be assumed as a convenient starting-point.

“The two great tribal groups of the SomÁli nation are named IshÁk and DÁrud from their supposed progenitors, Sheikh IshÁk bin Ahmed and Sheikh Jaberti bin Ismail, whose son DÁrud is said to have been. The Habr Awal, Habr Gerhajis, and Habr Toljaala tribes, with whom we have most dealings in Berbera, belong to the IshÁk group; and the OgÁdÉn, Bertiri, AbbasgÚl, GÉri, Dolbahanta, Warsingali, Midjerten, Usbeyan, and MarehÁn belong to the DÁrud group. The descent of the Esa and Gadabursi tribes is unknown, but it is more than probable that they are offshoots of a great tribe called Rer Afi.

“The tribal collective prefixes Rer, Habr, Ba, and Ba Habr are often met with. The SomÁlis are a nomad race, and the tribes wander about, each in an orbit of its own, in search of pasture for its flocks and herds. A wealthy SomÁli surrounds his huts, cattle, sheep, and camels by a zerÍba of brushwood, and one of these, with the contents, is called a rer, being the kraal or temporary village. It will easily be understood, therefore, that all the descendants of a man called, say, Ibrahim, may be called the ‘Rer’ Ibrahim after him.[6]

“Every SomÁli, being a Shafai Mussulman, can have four wives at a time, and it is each man’s object to have as many children as possible, to increase his own power and that of his tribe. Plurality of wives being allowed, the children of one wife must be distinguished from those of another. This is done by the prefix Ba. For an example of this, we have the case of the Rer Dahir Farah sub-tribe of the Habr Toljaala. The children by an Ibran woman were called the Ba Ibran; those by a Habr Awal woman were called the Ba Awal, and those by a woman named Gailoh, the Ba Gailoh.

“There are comparatively few names used among the SomÁlis, the changes being rung on different combinations of Mahomed, Ali, Hassan, Esa, Samanter, Ismail, GadÍd, and others, many of which are names used in every Mussulman country. Owing to this scarcity of names, and to the vast number of people consequently named alike, the use of nicknames is very prevalent. A SomÁli will, as often as not, when asked his name, tell you his nickname, and I have known many a man at a loss when asked his real name. For instance, the descendants of Daud Gerhajis are called the Eidegalla, meaning ‘he who rolls in the mud,’ while those of Said Harti are known by his nickname, and are called the Dolbahanta tribe.

“SomÁli children are, as often as not, named after the circumstances of their birth, unless they receive ordinary Mussulman names: for instance, Wa-berri means that the man bearing this name was born in the morning, from berri, morning. Similarly, the bearers of the name GÉdi, ‘a march,’ were born while the rer or kraal was shifting to another pasture. GadÍd denotes a man born at noon, and RÓbleh, from rÓb, rain, a man born in wet weather. Descriptive nicknames are suggested by some personal peculiarities, as Afhakam, Afweina, ‘big mouth,’ Daga-yÉra, ‘small ears.’ Even Europeans do not escape, and such names as Gadweina, ‘big beard,’ Gudani, ‘small stomach,’ Madah weina, ‘big head,’ have been bestowed on English officers without any disrespect being intended; and the bearers of these nicknames are known by them, especially when SomÁlis are speaking among themselves.

“The usual divisions among SomÁlis are the tribe, the sub-tribe, the clan, and the jilib or family. Thus the chief of the Eidegalla, SultÁn Deria, would describe himself as Habr Gerhajis (tribe), Eidegalla (sub-tribe), Rer Mattan (clan), Rer GulÉd (family). If further asked he would describe himself as one of the Ba Ambaro, or sons of Ambaro. In the event of a man having a large number of sons, he is entitled to call himself a separate family; for instance, ShirmÁki Adan, a man still living and still procreating, has already twenty-three sons and twenty-nine daughters, and these are now called the Rer ShirmÁki Adan. A weak clan is likely to be looted and absorbed by a stronger, and thus the weaker clans join together for protection. When whole families so unite the members combine under the name ‘GÁshÁnbÚr,’ or ‘brothers of the shield.’ SomÁlis have no surnames in the English sense, and when a distinction is to be made, the name of the man’s father is added to his own. Thus the son of ShirÉ ShirmÁki is Deria ShirÉ, and he again might have a son called Hussein Deria.”

Without myself having gone so deeply as Captain Abud into evidence on historical questions, I have been led, in a long intercourse with the natives at the camp-fire and on the march, to draw my own conclusions on certain points.[7] From ruins, cairns, and graves which have been pointed out to me to be of GÁlla origin, I have been led to believe that before the Arab immigrations what is now called SomÁliland, even to the northern coast, was owned by the GÁllas. The immigrant Arabs and their followers with “friendlies” on the spot, becoming strong, began to seize the coast, driving the original GÁllas inland towards the parts of their country which lie round Harar and beyond the Webbe. On the frontier between the SomÁlis and GÁllas there are periodical raids still in active progress from one side or the other. These raids were occurring at Karanleh on the Webbe when I went there in 1893, and put me to much inconvenience; and in 1889, when I visited a mission station called GolbÁnti on the Tana River, not far from Lamu on the east coast, I found a SomÁli encroachment taking place.

The GÁllas at this place a few years before my visit numbered between one and two thousand souls, rich in cattle, but latterly they had been annually raided by the Masai from the south and the SomÁlis from the north, till the village of GolbÁnti had dwindled down to about one hundred and fifty inhabitants, and it had been only kept going by the exertions of, and protection afforded by the representative of the United Methodist Mission who was stationed there. Three years before my visit the former missionary and his wife, an English lady, had been murdered there by the Masai, and less than two years later the German station of Ngai, a few miles up-stream, had been burnt by a party of over a thousand SomÁlis, who came to within a short distance of GolbÁnti, but were unprepared to attack the fine stockade and house which had been built by the missionaries, the upper verandah having been thoughtfully lined with a few rifles.[8] The German missionaries from Ngai had taken refuge in the GolbÁnti house, and saw the flare of their own mission burning a few miles away. The GÁllas at GolbÁnti said they feared the SomÁlis even more than the Masai, as the former being good swimmers, the Tana River was no obstacle to them.

The southern SomÁli tribes are very bold, and are said to raid cattle from the GÁllas and take them to the mixed GÁlla and Arab town of LÁmu, on the east coast, to sell them again. As they have horsemen, they are said to be able to cope with the Masai, whom they sometimes meet when both are raiding the GÁllas near the Tana. I saw a few of the southern SomÁlis walking about LÁmu. They appear to be rougher, more savage, and finer men than the northern SomÁlis.

The GÁllas of GolbÁnti were well-featured men, very quiet in manners, brown in colour, with thin lips, and slightly built.[9] The SomÁlis are very like them, but rather bigger and better built, and the only difference that I could observe was that there appeared to be some Arab blood in the SomÁlis. The little I saw of the nomad GÁllas at ImÉ and Karanleh on the Webbe tended to strengthen me in the belief that the SomÁlis are GÁllas with a very slight strain of Arab in their blood. The SomÁlis themselves, of course, deny this, and claim their descent to be from the higher race. The GÁllas and SomÁlis, though such bitter enemies, are much alike, and both are utterly different from the negritic and mongrel Swahili races to the south.

On the Tana I found a river population called the WapokÓmo, negroes of fine physique, lorded over and held in bondage by the warlike GÁllas; and on the Webbe ShabÉleh a river race called the Adone, who were also negroes, were working in the fields and punting rafts on the river for their masters, the SomÁlis.

My theory is that the GÁllas seem to be wedged in between the continually advancing SomÁlis from the north and the Masai from the south, the apex of the wedge being somewhere near the Tana mouth, and the base at the sources of the Juba. The effect of this pressure is perhaps driving the Tana GÁllas up the river, to the country where they are more numerous and can hold their own.

Monseigneur Taurin Cahaigne of Harar, who probably knows as much as any man living about the GÁllas, hinted, so far as I can remember, that the origin of the GÁlla nation was probably near the mouth of the Tana, and that they spread northward and westward from there.

The tribe occupying the coast round Zeila is the Esa, and those about BulhÁr and Berbera are the Habr Awal, and farther east Habr Toljaala. The nearest inland tribe to Zeila is the Gadabursi, and those on the Berbera side are the Habr Gerhajis and Dolbahanta. The six above named are the tribes with which the British authorities have most directly to deal. Of these the most capable in war is probably the Esa. The Gadabursi and Habr Awal fear them, and it is only because the former tribes are mounted and the latter have no horses that the balance of power is maintained. The Esa are chaffed by the IshÁk tribes for being uncouth and barbarous. The men go about dressed in a simple short cloth round the loins, while eastern SomÁlis generally wrap themselves in a full tobe. The Esa women do not necessarily cover up the breast, while among the IshÁk tribes all but the oldest and most destitute are well dressed from head to foot. In no tribe that I have seen do the SomÁli women cover the face.

The Gadabursi tribe is rich in ponies of a poor stamp. The Jibril Abokr sub-tribe of the Habr Awal is, I think, the best mounted among the tribes named, and the Dolbahanta also have enormous numbers of good ponies, and are wild and addicted to raiding on a very large scale.

It is certain that SomÁliland has at different times been occupied by highly-organised races, whose habits of life have been quite different from those of the present nomadic tribes. Widely distributed over the country are traces of permanent settlements, many of them probably of great antiquity. Some appear so ancient that they might belong to any time, of which all record has been lost. Many of these ruins are traced to Mussulman occupations by the Arabs from Yemen, some hundreds of years back, but other older remains are assigned by tradition to a people who were “before the GÁllas.” There are no writings, and many of the remains are scarcely recognisable as being of human origin. Sometimes blocks of dressed stone are found lying in a rectangular pattern on the ground, overgrown and half buried by grass and jungle; a series of parallel revetment walls on a hill overlooking a pass is occasionally to be met with, and frequently one may observe the scanty evidences of an ancient tank to catch rain-water. It is possible to travel for weeks in SomÁliland without coming on these remains; they are met with by chance, and it seldom occurs to the natives to think of pointing them out to travellers.

Near the mullah village of Guldu Hamed, at Upper Sheikh, are the remains of a very large ruined town, and close by there is a graveyard containing some five thousand graves. I believe these remains are not very ancient, but are traced to early Mussulman settlements from Yemen. West of Hargeisa is an old fort of considerable size, crowning the detached hill called Yoghol. In the Gadabursi country there is the ancient ruined town of AubÓba, and at the head of the GÁwa Pass, on a hill to the west, and about four hundred feet above it, are some massive ancient ruins, which must have once been a fort, commanding the pass. They are called SamawÉ, from the name of a sheikh whose tomb crowns the ruins. The hill-top is surrounded by parallel retaining walls built of dressed stone, rising in steps from the bottom. In some places the walls were six or eight feet high, and there were remains of extensive ancient buildings filling the enclosure. Surmounting the whole in the centre was the ruin of a building of cut stone, which appeared to be the sheikh’s tomb.

The position of the SamawÉ ruins would favour a supposition that some power holding Harar, and having its northern boundary along the hills which wall in the southern side of the Harrawa valley, had built the fort to command the GÁwa Pass, which is one of the great routes from the Gadabursi country up on to the Marar Prairie. On the other hand, the fort may have been built by a power holding the coast, to close the pass on the Harar side.

Within half a mile of the SamawÉ tomb, on the sloping ground to the south, we found a curious stone enclosure, half buried in jungle. It was in the form of a rectangle measuring fifty-seven yards by fifty-eight yards, marked by long rows of dressed stones, each about nine inches by a foot, lying loosely on the ground. Some of these were blocks of limestone, and some apparently basalt.

Near Hug, in the mountainous Jibril Abokr country, my brother found many signs of old “GÁlla” habitations and graves, and some well-made pathways down the hillsides. His followers told him that the hills having in the olden time been used as places of refuge by the GÁllas, these roads were made to enable the cattle to be quickly driven up in case of alarm—the custom being for a part of the clan to camp on the top of a hill, in order to hold it, while the rest looked after the flocks and herds grazing below. He was told that the GÁllas on the Abyssinian border, and the Abyssinians themselves, still do this.

All over the territory of the IshÁk tribes, and in the Dolbahanta country, we found many old GÁlla graves and cairns. At Kirrit there is a well in which a very ancient cross has been carved in the face of the rock. Crowning nearly every prominent hill in the countries named is a cairn or pile of stones, each stone being, roughly speaking, about the size of a man’s head. They are made up of many hundreds of such stones, and are generally about twelve or fifteen feet high and eight yards in diameter. Each one is circular, having in the centre a depression, suggesting that there may have been a tomb beneath, which has fallen in. I never cared to dig one up, not wishing to offend the susceptibilities of the natives. Some of them are of immense size, and are called Taalla GÁlla or GÁlla cairns.

There is a curious legend accounting for the origin of these cairns, which was told me by one of the Esa Musa tribe, while I was camped on the Golis Range, and by others of the Habr Awal at different times.

The drift of his story was that when the GÁllas were in the country there once lived a great and powerful queen, called Arroweilo. She was very wicked, and was the origin of all evil in women at the present day. For some reason she conceived a ferocious prejudice against all male children, and a mother, to escape from her tyrannies, fled into a far country with her baby boy. As years went on this son grew, and when he had become a man he returned into Arroweilo’s country armed with a sword. He attacked Arroweilo in a lonely pass, and hacking her to pieces, tied her remains on a camel, and sent it off with a parting cut. The camel trotted in mad career all over the country, and wherever a piece of Arroweilo fell, the pious native, as he passed, said a prayer and threw a stone “to keep her down.” The chief use of these cairns now is to form cover for robbers when watching for caravans; and my brother and I found they made very recognisable points when seen through the telescope of a theodolite.

At Badwein (i.e. “Big Tank”) in the Dolbahanta country, one hundred and fifty miles, as the crow flies, from Berbera, we found a tank forty feet deep and a hundred and twenty yards in diameter, evidently excavated by human labour. Near it was a temple or large house with walls still standing at a height of ten feet, and the space enclosed was so large that a party of horsemen could ride into it.

The Dolbahanta told us that before the GÁllas a race of men occupied the country who could read and write. Unfortunately none of their literary work was visible, as we examined many remains for inscriptions, but found none. One man, for a small fee, took us four miles out of our way to read an inscription, but the result was not promising, for we only found on a tombstone some scratches, perhaps twenty years old, evidently made by an idle sheep boy. All these discoveries of ancient remains go to prove that the elevated parts of SomÁliland (not semi-desert Guban) have once been capable of permanent settlement under a more secure form of society than at present exists.

The deserted village of DagahbÚr in OgÁdÉn is an example which shows how settlement and cultivation have been successfully begun, and abandoned because of the insecurity resulting from intertribal feuds. At DagahbÚr there were formerly many square miles of jowÁri cultivation, which have been abandoned within the last few years, and now there is only left an immense area of stubble and the ruins of the village. DagahbÚr used to be a thriving settlement of one thousand five hundred inhabitants, with trade caravans plying regularly across the Haud to Hargeisa and Berbera; and now not a hut is left.

The fact is, that although the natural conditions are suitable to the settlement of large tracts of country, and though many of the people are willing enough to engage in cultivation, yet the tribes and sub-tribes are so incessantly at feud, that the religious mullahs or widads, who enjoy a certain immunity from raids, alone dare settle down and cultivate; and now that many of the old wells and tanks have fallen into disuse and ruin, the water-supply could only be restored by a great expenditure of capital, for which there would perhaps be no adequate return for some generations.