6 REWARD OF BRAVERY. 



so to reward brave servants. He assured me that 

 the chief of the town of Dophan had already given 

 them a goat, and that the Wallasmah would also 

 do the same. Seeing that it was the general cus- 

 tom, and as they had only been doing their duty, not 

 as aggressors, but as men defending their wives and 

 property, I promised them a bullock. On my doing 

 this they would insist upon decorating my head with 

 a symbil, or wreath of twisted goatskin, like them- 

 selves, but I managed to induce them at last to place 

 it on my hat instead. Before we left the ground, 

 I asked Ohmed Medina, if the dead Gallas w r ould 

 be buried. He looked at me, rather astonished at 

 the question, but thinking, I suppose, that I knew 

 no better, he said, very shortly, "Koran yahklur" 

 (the ravens will eat them). 



Our curiosity being satisfied, we now followed 

 the camels, already some distance on their way to 

 Dinnomalee, conversing as we rode along upon the 

 events of the morning. The Hy Soumaulee men 

 were too excited to think of the captive girls taken 

 from amongst them never to return, but several 

 of the women of the Kafilah I noticed with tear- 

 shot eye mourning the loss of some friend or rela- 

 tion. No usual occupation, such as plaiting the 

 palm leaf into a broad ribbon, to be sewed after- 

 wards into mats, filled their hands, no familiar 

 salutations as I passed by enlivened the way with 

 smiles, but each with a long rope fastened around 

 the under jaw of a camel led strings of five or six 



