118 PERSONAL NARRATIVE. 



murdered or slain accidentally, it matters not how, his 

 family may agree to receive blood-money from the 

 slayer, the price being fixed usually at a certain number 

 of cows, difieriag according to his status as chief or serf ; 

 but should the relations refuse to accept compensation, 

 or, as is commonly the case, should the murderer and his 

 family be unwilling or unable to pay, a blood-feud arises, 

 and the relations of the dead man, up to the seventh 

 degree, are bound to kill either the murderer or one of 

 his near male relations, also to the seventh degree. As 

 may be easily supposed, the feud either between families 

 or tribes is seldom at an end with the loss of one or two 

 lives : usually it continues until one or the other, by re- 

 peated losses, has become so weakened that it sues for 

 peace, when an agreement is made, and sealed by inter- 

 marriage ; a girl from each family or tribe being given in 

 marriage to a man of the other.^ 



In many respects the people of the Anseba are a most 

 interesting race, or group of races. Unlike the Habab 

 and Samhar tribes inhabiting the country to the east and 

 north-east, they are stiU for the most part nominally 

 Christians. Forty years ago, all the Bedouins of Habab 

 and Samhar were the same ; but the Mahommedan 

 religion in these lands has progressed, and is still pro- 

 gressing rapidly, and Mr. Munzinger pointed out to us 



' It was far from generally known in the army tliat poor Dufton's murder 

 was in satisfaction of a blood-feud, and in revenge for the accidental death of 

 a Shoho near Senaf^. It is very much to be regretted that the murderers 

 have hitherto been allowed to remain unpunished, if only because such 

 impunity induces savages like the Shohos to believe that Englishmen care 

 nothing for their own countrymen. 



