Volume One—Chapter Seventeen.

The Stricken Follower Dies—Cairns of the Murdered—Allooli and Bedi Kurroof.

It had been intended to march at break of day to Allooli, the source of Wady Goongoonteh; but the absence of several of the camels, which had gone astray during the nocturnal confusion, caused delay in this den of iniquity until ten o’clock. The altered deportment of the chiefs meanwhile tended materially to banish from the mind suspicion of treachery. Heretofore, with the single exception of Mohammad Ali, all had been cold, unfriendly, or insulting; but from the moment of the late catastrophe their manner was visibly changed, and the anxiety evinced for the safety of the survivors under their charge was unremitting. They formed a circle round the party whensoever seated, and not a single white face was for a moment suffered to wander beyond their sight unattended by a clump of spears.

The wound of the unfortunate Portuguese had been pronounced mortal, and his dissolution was hourly expected; but life still glimmering in the socket, he lingered on with fearful groans, although speechless, and too nearly insensible to be aware of what had passed. Placed upon a litter, arranged as comfortably as circumstances would permit, the attempt was made to convey him to the next ground, but the rough motion of the camel doubtless hastened the termination of his sufferings; and the wretched man breathing his last ere he had journeyed many miles from the scene of his misfortunes, was interred under a date tree by the road-side, in a grave ready prepared for his reception.

The last rains having washed away an artificial bank of stones which had formerly facilitated the ascent of the difficult and dangerous passage leading from Goongoonteh into the Wady Kélloo—as the upper course is denominated—a delay of two hours was at first starting experienced in the bed of the torrent, during which all were on the alert. Two huge pointed rocks abutting on opposite angles of the acute zig-zag, reduced it to a traversed waist, so narrow, that room for the load to pass was only afforded when the long-legged dromedary swung its unwieldy carcass alternately from side to side—the steepness of the acclivity rendering it very frequently necessary to perform this inconvenient evolution upon the knees. Many became jammed, and were unladen before they could regain an erect position; whilst others were, with infinite difficulty, by the united efforts of a dozen drivers, who manned the legs and tail, saved from being launched with their burthens over the steep side of the descent, which consisted of a treacherous pile of loose rubbish.

To the surprise of every spectator the train passed through the defile without any material accident, and thence proceeded to pick their steps among the rocks, pools, and fissures, which abound in every mountain torrent whose course is short and precipitous. Flanked by perpendicular sheets of basalt and porphyry, of unwholesome sulphury appearance, beneath which many deep pools of cool water had collected, the tortuous road was at intervals enlivened by clumps of the doom palm, environed by patches of refreshing green turf—sights from which the eye had long been estranged. Nine miles of gradual ascent brought the caravan safely to the encamping ground at the head of the stream—a swamp surrounded by waving palms and verdant rushes, occupying high table-land, and affording abundance of green forage to the famished cattle. Most fortunately the sky had proved cloudy, or the march, performed during the hottest hours of the day, would indeed have been terrific.

Hence to Sagállo, the dismal country is in the exclusive occupation of a wandering race of the Danákil, who, notwithstanding that the Sultán of Tajúra claims the sovereignty of the entire waste, only acknowledge his impotent authority during their occasional temporary sojourn among the huts of that sea-port. The guides asserted, with many imprecations, that from time immemorial few káfilahs had ever halted at Allooli without losing one or more of its members by the Adrúsi creeses, or by those of the Eesah; and on the bank opposite to the shady clump of doom palms, under whose canopy the residue of the day was passed, numerous cairns, consisting of circular piles of stone, similar to those left at Goongoonteh to commemorate the outrage of the preceding night, stood memorials of the dark deeds that had been perpetrated.

During about three years the road from Abyssinia to the sea-coast was completely closed by hordes of these ruffian outcasts, who continued their murderous depredations on every passer-by, until Lohe?ta, the present Akil of the Débeni, a young, daring, and warlike chieftain, succeeding to the rule on the demise of his father, routed the banditti after a severe struggle, and re-opened the route. The Wady Kélloo is, however, still permanently infested by parties of wild Bedouins, who skulk about the rocky passes: lie in wait for stragglers from the caravan: assassinate all who fall into their ruthless clutches: and, when time permits, further gratify their savage propensities, by mangling and mutilating the corpse.

“See how the cowardly scoundrels marked me,” exclaimed the fiery old warrior Ibrahim Shehém Abli, drawing aside his checked kilt, and displaying sundry frightful seams, which had doubtless been the work of a sharp knife. “Behold these tokens of Eesah steel upon my thigh; I received them in this wild wady; but, by Allah, I had a life for every one of them. We have a blood feud now, and it behoves all who are not weary of the world, to look well to their own throats.”

Lurking bandits excepted, who prowl about like the midnight wolf, the Ada?el tribes, although sufficiently barbarous and quarrelsome by nature, are fortunately in a great measure restrained from deeds of ferocity by the certain consequences of spilling blood. None are anxious to involve their family or tribe in a mortal feud, nor would any warrior, incurring the almost inevitable consequences of a two-fold retribution, find support from his clansmen, unless sufficient cause could be shown; and thus, even in the most lawless states of society, are checks imposed by absolute necessity, which prove almost as powerful as the more civilised legal restraint upon the human passions.

Although Allooli was represented to be even more perilous than Goongoonteh, it possessed, in point of locality, immense superiority; and every advantage that could be devised, was taken of its capabilities for defence. The baggage, formed in a compact circle on an open naked plain, was surrounded by a line of camels, and the mules and horses were placed in the centre next to the beds of the party. Guards and sentinels patrolled under an officer of the watch; and at the solicitation of the Ras el Káfilah, who was exceedingly anxious to avoid the inconvenient consequences of a blood feud, a musket was discharged every hour at the relief of sentries, in order to intimate to the evil-minded that all within the breastwork were not asleep.

Notwithstanding the presence, in the immediate neighbourhood, for several days previously, of a large band of Eesah, the hot night passed without any alarm. The non-arrival, until long after daybreak, of the camels lost at Goongoonteh, added to the length of the next march, obliging the abandonment of the intention entertained, to speed beyond the pale of this site of assassination, the party halted on the 10th. Allooli stands two hundred and twenty-eight feet above the sea, and although intensely hot, and its waters saline, it proved a paradise when compared with every preceding station. Here animal life was once more abundant. A horde of pastoral savages, who from time to time appeared on the adjacent heights, were made acquainted with the effect of rifle bullets, by the slaughter from the tent door of sundry gazelles that visited the swamp; and the venison afforded a most seasonable accession to the empty larder, which was further replenished from the trees overhead, whose fan-like leaves gave shelter to a beautiful variety of the wood pigeon.

Shortly after midnight the march was resumed by the moon’s light over a succession of small barren terraces, confined by conical and rounded hills. In the lone valley of Henráddee Dowár, which opens into the wide level plain of Gurgúddee, there stood by the wayside a vast pile of loose stones, half concealed among the tall jaundice-looking flowers of the senna plant. Towards this spot ensued a general race on the part of escort and camel-drivers, who each added a pebble whilst repeating the Arabic auguration, “Nauzu billahi mina Shaytani r rajím.”—“Let us flee for refuge to God from Satan the stoned.” A tragic legend was attached to the cairn, which, from the dimensions attained, must have dated from a remote epoch. A hoary old man, accused in days long gone of incestuous intercourse with his own daughter, was arraigned before a tribunal of his assembled tribe, and, being fully convicted, was on this spot stoned to death, together with his fair partner in guilt. Throughout Syria and Palestine it is to this day the practice of all who pass the mounds raised over those who die in crime, and whose memory it is intended to dishonour, thus to contribute a stone, as well with a view to perpetuate the monument, as to shield themselves from evil by manifesting the detestation entertained of the infamy commemorated.

Gurgúddee, eight miles in length, and stretching on either hand to the far horizon, is bounded by steep mountain ranges, whence an alluvial deposit washed down by the rains, presented over the whole of the level plain a surface of cracked and hardened mud, like that of a recently-dried morass. From the southern side, where the clayey tract is thickly clothed with stunted tamarisk and spartium, a road strikes up the valley in a north-westerly direction to the Muda?to town of Aussa, distant some three days’ journey for a caravan. As the day dawned, the steeple necks of a troop of ostriches were perceived nodding in the landscape, as the gigantic birds kicked the dust behind their heavy heels; and a herd of graceful gazelles were seen scouring towards a belt of stony hillocks which skirted the dry pebbly bed of a river, that expends its waters on the sun-dried plain. Ascending this stream, in which were a few stagnant pools of bitter unpalatable water, a human figure was detected skulking behind some thick green tamarisks by which they were overshadowed. But on being perseveringly hunted down by Mohammad Ali and his wild myrmidons, the prisoner proved to be a Débeni in quest of truant camels—his attempt at concealment having, according to his own account, arisen from the appearance of so many mounted cavaliers, whom he had mistaken for a foraging party of the Eesah, and was naturally desirous of eluding.

The caravan halted early at Bedi Kurroof, after a march of sixteen miles, and the camp was formed on a stony eminence of basalt and lava, affording neither tree nor shade. A day of fierce heat succeeded. There was no forage for the cattle; the water was of the most brackish description; and the spot being of old infested by Bedouins, the party passed a restless and watchful night.

A legend of blood too was attached to this wild bivouac, as to most others on the road, and thus it was related. One of the young men of a Danákil caravan returning from Abyssinia, fatigued by the hot journey, lay down to rest his weary limbs beneath the shadow of a rock, near which the tent of the Embassy now stood. It was yet broad daylight, but a band of lurking Eesah presently pounced upon the wayfarer, like the eagle on its prey, and, ere he could resume his weapons, had stabbed him to the heart. The dying groans of the murdered man being heard by his comrades, a number of warriors started in hot pursuit of the flying assassins, and after a severe chase, succeeded in capturing the whole gang. Two were immediately speared to death upon the principle of two drops of blood for one; and the remaining miscreants, four in number, having been stripped of their clothes and arms, were kicked forth out of the place.

“The Eesah of these lulls,” continued the narrator of this tale, as, by the light of the blazing watch-fire, he fashioned a rude wooden bolster for the preservation of his greasy peruke during approaching slumbers, “are perfect Shaytans. Outcasts from their tribe, bands of ten or more here wander up and down like wild beasts, cutting the throats of all they meet, whether infidels or true believers—not for the sake of gain or plunder, but purely to gratify an innate propensity to murder. The monsters train for these blood forays upon raw flesh and marrow, and, well anointed with sheep’s-tail fat, can travel day and night, during the hottest season, without suffering from fatigue. Allahu akbar! but they are devils incarnate!”

“Who has seen the Eesah, who has heard the Eesah?” wildly challenged Mohammad ibn Izhák, starting upon his feet, and clashing his now finished bolster against his buckler, as he concluded this harangue. “Who has seen the Eesah, who has heard the Eesah?” shouted a dozen voices in various quarters of the extended camp. “Uncover your shields, uncover your shields! Count well their spears, that not a man of them escape!”

“We have not seen them, we have not heard them,” responded the patroles on duty. “No Eesah are here. Sleep on in peace!”