The thermometer showed an altitude of 3,350 feet: under the tree's cool shade, the climate reminded me of Southern Italy. I pinched a buttercup from the soil and rolled it between thumb and forefinger viewing the horizon through its petals. My head was suffering from the rancid breeze that blew in from the gulf of Aden and then there was the matter of the water; brackish with clods of grime - it required delicate sieving in the palms of the hand before drinking. I swilled it about in my mouth brushing its wetness along the top of my palette but still it remained tainted with the odour of the cowhide jugs in which it was stored. The sun sank towards the west carving long beams upon the hills. It'd been a long day. We'd done 12 miles in a straight line from Zaylah. Presently the rice was boiled for us on the fire by the indefatigable women. A baby goat was slaughtered for our dinner and its meat was most tender and delicious: the melt-in-your-mouth morsels nourishing those tired legs and aching muscles. After dinner we sat around the fire and lit the tobacco pipes and watched the silky moon rise to the apex of the firmament. We lay sprawled beneath it with arms under our heads; its soft glow imparting the world in a dreamlike countenance. I watched a streak of nimbus cloud scud across it; its silhouette seemingly catching on something and the whole mass melting away with me into sleep. After a sound night under the moon we arose at 5am and loaded the camels. It was a raw morning and a stiff breeze blew in from the coast and settled between the folds of our clothes. As the sun rose in the sky it lit the surrounding hills like folds of skin, and behind us the line of the blue sea was raised above the ground like a ledge by the phenomenon of optical refraction. The Muslims of the Somal region have over the years erected various mosques for purposes of prayer. These dot the landscape like welcome gas stations along a motorway. At midday, to escape from the oppressive sun reigning heavy blows upon our heads, we sheltered in the lee of one of these 'Palaces of Allah'. Their white-washed stucco walls shimmering like marble in the sun. Their circular niches all face Mecca and on the path ahead we spied many oblong white slabs planted deep in the soil, directing the wary traveller to Mecca.
The peoples who inhabit this land are the 'Essa'. An oxymoronic tribe: childish and docile, cunning yet deficient in judgement, kind and fickle, good humoured yet bad-tempered, generous and vindictive, cruel and treacherous. Robbery constitutes an honourable endeavour for them, and murder? Ha! Murder maketh the hero amongst them. But they have their good points. They will always honour a bargain and will rarely lie: a broken promise being considered a matter of pride. And they are importunate beggars. Many times they would sit outside my tent, watching my every move. One must be careful to take out one's belongings only when not being watched. The Essa are distinguished from the wider population by their blackness and a premature baldness, amongst the men, about the temples. Their hair is dry and frizzled and as greasy as a frying pan. The learned man can be distinguished amongst them by the presence of a topee on the head and beads of Rosary constantly threaded between their fingers. The Hajjis (those who have made the 'Hajj' pilgrimage to Mecca) are most esteemed and officiate in disputes. These men engender respect amongst the tribe on account of their being able to recite 'by rote' verses from the Quran. They seem to have verses tailored for all occasions. I was much impressed by their learning but they are most ignorant in the sciences. The people of this part of Ethiopia, though predominantly Muslim, still retain echoes of a shamanistic idolatrous past. The history of Islam here is one of building on top of older African traditions. As a result the Essa will not drink from a certain stream or eat a certain animal - due to the presence of bad spirits. Thus superstitious talk abounds: for example the sound of a certain bird if heard thrice between the rising and setting of the sun is a bad omen. Travelling by night under a full moon brings bad luck and any old women; who has managed to live beyond the age of sixty (a feat rare in this part of the world) is considered to harbour powers of witchcraft.
Sitting amongst these benighted primitives, ignorant yet kind, benign and yet trecherous, one obtains a flavour of how man has thought and fought for most of his history. Spirits and sprites and goblins are as much a part of their world as the stuff of flesh like goats and camels. Theirs is a simplicity of life and a childish world view - and yet from these roots sprout shoots of unimaginable cruelty and suffering. The desert is forbidding. It is not a kind place. It is a harsh world, and it seeps into the bones and skin of these desert dwellers. You are naked. Naked before the indifference of a cruel Nature. Yet people still live here - have lived here for thousands upon thousands of generations. Generations heaped upon one another like stones in a wall of time whose foundations go back to lost times. Choice doesn't come into it. Each of us is a stone in that wall. We inherit the world we find ourselves in from our forebears. Some people are fortunate enough to be born into less harsher climes where life is not such a struggle every day. Others, like these Somal are not so fortunate. We must make-do or die. Fortunately most people make do.
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