First Footsteps in East Africa/Chapter 8
CHAPTER VIII.
TEN DAYS AT HARAR.
After waiting half an hour at the gate, we were told by the returned warder to pass the threshold, and remounting guided our mules along the main street, a narrow up-hill lane, with rocks cropping out from a surface more irregular than a Perote pavement. Long Gulad had given his animal into the hands of our two Badawin they did not appear till after our audience, when they informed us that the people at the entrance had advised them to escape with the beasts, an evil fate having been prepared for the proprietors.
Arrived within a hundred yards of the gate of holcusstalks, which opens into the courtyard of this African St. James's, our guide, a blear-eyed, surly-faced, angry-voiced fellow, made signs—none of us understanding his Harari—to dismount. We did so. He then began to trot, and roared out apparently that we must do the same.[1] We looked at one another, the Hammal swore that he would perish foully rather than obey, and—conceive, dear L., the idea of a petticoated pilgrim venerable as to beard and turband breaking into a long "double!"—I expressed much the same sentiment. Leading our mules leisurely, in spite of the guide's wrath, we entered the gate, strode down the yard, and were placed under a tree in its left corner, close to a low building of rough stone, which the clanking of frequent fetters argued to be a state prison.
This part of the court was crowded with Gallas, some lounging about, others squatting in the shade under the palace walls. The chiefs were known by their zinc armlets, composed of thin spiral circlets, closely joined, and extending in mass from the wrist almost to the elbow: all appeared to enjoy peculiar privileges—they carried their long spears, wore their sandals, and walked leisurely about the royal precincts. A delay of half an hour, during which state affairs were being transacted within, gave me time to inspect a place of which so many and such different accounts are current. The palace itself is, as Clapperton describes the Fellatah Sultan's state hall, a mere shed, a long, single storied, windowless barn of rough stone and reddish clay, with no other insignia but a thin coat of whitewash over the door. This is the royal and wazirial distinction at Harar, where no lesser man may stucco the walls of his house. The courtyard was about eighty yards long by thirty in breath, irregularly shaped, and surrounded by low buildings: in the centre, opposite the outer entrance, was a circle of masonry against which were propped divers doors.[2]
Presently the blear-eyed guide with the angry voice returned from within, released us from the importunities of certain forward and inquisitive youths, and motioned us to doff our slippers at a stone step, or rather line, about twelve feet distant from the palace wall. We grumbled that we were not entering a mosque, but in vain. Then ensued a long dispute, in tongues mutually unintelligible, about giving up our weapons: by dint of obstinacy we retained our daggers and my revolver. The guide raised a door curtain, suggested a bow, and I stood in the presence of the dreaded chief.
The Amir, or, as he styles himself, the Sultan Ahmad bin Sultan Abu Bakr, sat in a dark room with whitewashed walls, to which hung—significant decorations—rusty matchlocks and polished fetters. His appearance was that of a little Indian Rajah, an etiolated youth twenty-four or twenty-five years old, plain and thin-bearded, with a yellow complexion, wrinkled brows and protruding eyes. His dress was a flowing robe of crimson cloth, edged 'with snowy fur, and a narrow white turband tightly twisted round a tall conical cap of red velvet, like the old Turkish headgear of our painters. His throne was a common Indian Kursi, or raised cot, about five feet long, with back and sides supported by a dwarf railing: being an invalid he rested his elbow upon a pillow, under which appeared the hilt of a Cutch sabre. Ranged in double line, perpendicular to the Amir, stood the "court," his cousins and nearest relations with right arms bared after fashion of Abyssinia.
I entered the room with a loud "Peace be upon ye!" to which H. H. replying graciously, and extending a hand, bony and yellow as a kite's claw, snapped his thumb and middle finger. Two chamberlains stepping forward, held my forearms, and assisted me to bend low over the fingers, which however I did not kiss, being naturally averse to performing that operation upon any but a woman's hand. My two servants then took their turn in this case, after the back was saluted, the palm was presented for a repetition.[3] These preliminaries concluded, we were led to and seated upon a mat in front of the Amir, who directed towards us a frowning brow and inquisitive eye.
Some inquiries were made about the chief's health: he shook his head captiously, and inquired our errand. I drew from my pocket my own letter: it was carried by a chamberlain, with hands veiled in his Tobe, to the Amir, who after a brief glance laid it upon the couch, and demanded further explanation. I then represented in Arabic that we had come from Aden, bearing the compliments of our Daulah or governor, and that we had entered Harar to see the light of H. H.'s countenance: this information concluded with a little speech, describing the changes of Political Agents in Arabia, and alluding to the friendship formerly existing between the English. and the deceased chief Abu Bakr.
The Amir smiled graciously.
This smile I must own, dear L., was a relief. We had been prepared for the worst, and the aspect of affairs in the palace was by no means reassuring.
Whispering to his Treasurer, a little ugly man with a badly shaven head, coarse features, pug nose, angry eyes, and stubby beard, the Amir made a sign for us to retire. The baise main was repeated, and we backed out of the audience-shed in high favour. According to grandiloquent Bruce, "the Court of London and that of Abyssinia are, in their principles, one": the loiterers in the Harar palace yards who had before regarded us with cut-throat looks, now smiled as though they loved us. Marshalled by the guard, we issued from the precincts, and after walking a hundred yards entered the Amir's second palace, which we were told to consider our home. There we found the Badawin, who, scarcely believing that we had escaped alive, grinned in the joy of their hearts, and we were at once provided from the chief's kitchen with a dish of Shabta, holcus cakes soaked in sour milk, and thickly powdered with red pepper, the salt of this inland region.
When we had eaten, the treasurer reappeared, bearing the Amir's command, that we should call upon his Wazir, the Jirad Mohammed. Resuming our peregrinations, we entered an abode distinguished by its external streak of chunam, and in a small room on the ground floor, cleanly white-washed and adorned, like an old English kitchen, with varnished wooden porringers of various sizes, we found a venerable old man whose benevolent countenance belied the reports current about him in Somali-land.[4] Half rising, although his wrinkled brow showed suffering, he seated me by his side upon the carpeted masonry-bench, where lay the implements of his craft, reeds, inkstands and whitewashed boards for paper, politely welcomed me, and gravely stroking his cotton-coloured beard, in good Arabic desired my object.
I replied almost in the words used to the Amir, adding however some details how in the old day one Madar Farih had been charged by the late Sultan Abu Bakr with a present to the governor of Aden, and that it was the wish of our people to re-establish friendly relations and commercial intercourse with Harar.
"Khayr Inshallah!—it is well if Allah please!" ejaculated the Jirad: I then bent over his hand, and took leave.
Returning, we inquired anxiously of the treasurer about my servants' arms which had not been returned, and were assured that they had been placed in the safest of store-houses, the palace. I then sent a common six-barrelled revolver as a present to the Amir, explaining its use to the bearer, and we prepared to make ourselves as comfortable as possible. The interior of our new house was a clean room, with plain walls, and a floor of tamped earth; opposite the entrance were two broad steps of masonry, raised about two feet, and a yard above the ground, and covered with hard matting. I contrived to make upon the higher ledge a bed with the cushions which my companions used as shabracques, and, after seeing the mules fed and tethered, lay down to rest worn out by fatigue and profoundly impressed with the poésie of our position. I was under the roof of a bigoted prince whose least word was death; amongst a people who detest foreigners; the only European that had ever passed over their inhospitable threshold, and the fated instrument of their future downfall.
I now proceed to a description of unknown Harar.
The ancient capital of Hadiyah, called by the citizens "Harar Gay,[5]" by the Somal "Adari," by the Gallas "Adaray," and by the Arabs and ourselves "Harar,[6]" lies, according to my dead reckoning, 220° S.W. of, and 175 statute miles from, Zayla—257° W. of, and 219 miles distant from, Berberah. This would place it in 9° 20' N. lat., and 42° 7' E. long. The thermometer showed an altitude of about 5,500 feet above the level of the sea.[7] Its site is the slope of a Page:First Footsteps in East Africa, 1894 - Volume 2.djvu/22 Page:First Footsteps in East Africa, 1894 - Volume 2.djvu/23 Page:First Footsteps in East Africa, 1894 - Volume 2.djvu/24 Page:First Footsteps in East Africa, 1894 - Volume 2.djvu/25 Page:First Footsteps in East Africa, 1894 - Volume 2.djvu/26 Page:First Footsteps in East Africa, 1894 - Volume 2.djvu/27 Page:First Footsteps in East Africa, 1894 - Volume 2.djvu/28 Page:First Footsteps in East Africa, 1894 - Volume 2.djvu/29 Page:First Footsteps in East Africa, 1894 - Volume 2.djvu/30 Page:First Footsteps in East Africa, 1894 - Volume 2.djvu/31 Page:First Footsteps in East Africa, 1894 - Volume 2.djvu/32 Page:First Footsteps in East Africa, 1894 - Volume 2.djvu/33 Page:First Footsteps in East Africa, 1894 - Volume 2.djvu/34 Page:First Footsteps in East Africa, 1894 - Volume 2.djvu/35 Page:First Footsteps in East Africa, 1894 - Volume 2.djvu/36 
HOWARD DOUGLAS, DELT.
COSTUMES OF HARAR
ضريبة الهرر
(Zaribet al-Harar, the coinage of Harar).
I fear that the Shaykh's counsel was on this occasion likely to be disregarded. We had been absent from our goods and chattels a whole fortnight: the people of Harar are famously fickle; we knew not what the morrow might bring forth from the Amir's mind—in fact, all these African cities are prisons on a large scale, into which you enter by your own will, and, as the significant proverb says, you leave by another's. However, when the mosque prayers ended, a heavy shower and the stormy aspect of the sky preached patience more effectually than did the divine: we carefully tethered our mules, and unwillingly deferred our departure till next morning.
- ↑ The Ashantis at Customs' time (rites done on the death of men of rank) run across the royal threshold to escape being seized and sacrificed to wet the grave with slaves' blood (2000 prisoners are killed when the King "makes a custom" at ancestral tombs); possibly the trace of a pagan rite is still preserved by Moslem Harar, where it is now held a mark of respect and always exacted from the citizens.
- ↑ I afterwards learned that when a man neglects a summons his door is removed to the royal court-yard on the first day; on the second, it is confiscated. The door is a valuable and venerable article in this part of Africa. According to Bruce, Ptolemy Euergetes engraved it upon the Axum Obelisk for the benefit of his newly conquered Æthiopian subjects, to whom it had been unknown.
- ↑ In Abyssinia, according to the Lord of Geesh, this is a mark of royal familiarity and confidence.
- ↑ About seven years ago the Hajj Sharmarkay of Zayla chose as his agent at Harar, one of the Amir's officers, a certain Hajj Janitay. When this man died Sharmarkay demanded an account from his sons; at Berberah they promised to give it, but returning to Harar they were persuaded, it is believed, by the Jirad Mohammed, to forget their word. Upon this Sharmarkay's friends and relations, incited by one Husayn, a Somali who had lived many years at Harar in the Amir's favour, wrote an insulting letter to the Jirad, beginning with, "No peace be upon thee, and no blessings of Allah, thou butcher son of a butcher, &c., &c.!" and concluding with a threat to pinion him in the market-place as a warning to men. Husayn carried the letter, which at first excited general terror; when, however, the attack did not take place, the Amir Abu Bakr imprisoned the imprudent Somali till he died. Sharmarkay by way of reprisals, persuaded Alu, son of Sahlah Salaseh, king of Shoa, to seize about three hundred Harari citizens living in his dominions and to keep them two years in durance. The Amir Abu Bakr is said on his deathbed to have warned his son against the Jirad. When Ahmad reported his father's decease to Zayla, the Hajj Sharmarkay ordered a grand Maulid or Mass in honour of the departed. Since that time, however, there has been little intercourse and no cordiality between them.
- ↑ Thus M. Isenberg (Preface to Ambaric Grammar, p. iv.) calls the city Harrar or Arargê.
- ↑ "Harar," is not an uncommon name in this part of Eastern Africa according to some, the city is so called from a kind of tree, according to others, from the valley below it.
- ↑ I say about: we were compelled to boil our thermometers at Wilensi, not venturing upon such operation within the city.
- ↑ The name and coin are Abyssinian. According to Bruce,
20 Mahallaks are worth 1 Grush. 12 Grushlaks are„ worth„ 1 Miskal. 4 Miskallaks are„ worth„ 1 Wakiyah (ounce). At Harar twenty-two plantains (the only small change) = one Mahallak, twenty-two Mahallaks = one Ashrafi (now a nominal coin,) and three Ashrafi = one dollar.
Lieut. Cruttenden remarks, "The Ashrafi stamped at the Harar mint is a coin peculiar to the place. It is of silver and the twenty-second part of a dollar. The only specimen I have been able to procure bore the date of 910 of the Hagira, with the name of the Amir on one side, and, on its reverse, 'La Ilaha ill 'Allah.'" This traveller adds in a note, "the value of the Ashrafi changes with each successive ruler. In the reign of Emir Abd el Shukoor, some 200 years ago, it was of gold." At present the Ashrafi, as I have said above, is a fictitious medium used in accounts.