CHAPTER VIII 



A BATTLE ROYAL 



Take that to end thy agony 



Henry V 



Our happiness is at the height 



Richard III 



The Somalis, as I have explained before, are almost 

 entirely a nation of nomads, and the only settled 

 villages or townships are those run by Sheiks or 

 Mullahs, or whatever name they elect to be known by. 

 These men are Mahomedans with an eye to business, 

 religious, influential, knowing the value of education, 

 and are often quite learned. We marched into the 

 vicinity of some hundreds of huts, and sent Clarence 

 on ahead to present our compliments to the Mullah 

 and express our desire to call on him. We also sent 

 along a consignment of gifts likely to appeal to a 

 learned man — a Koran, a tusba, and a couple of 

 tobes, for even a Mullah has to have clothes, anyway, 

 in Somaliland. I don't know whether our sending 

 presents first was correct, or whether we should have 

 waited for the Mullah to weigh in. We debated the 

 point, and decided any one with an extra sensible mind 

 would think a bird in the hand worth two in the bush 

 any day of the week. This village, if our men's talk 



