282 PEACE ESTABLISHED. 



but as theWahamas desired nothing so much as to 

 see the Tajourah people foiled in any attempt to 

 take up an English Kafilah to Shoa, and which they 

 asserted could be only done by their own country- 

 man Mahomed Allee, I dare say they would have 

 attempted to assassinate me, to contribute so much 

 to the discomfiture of their hated rivals. Even 

 the half-bloods, who formed part of our own 

 Kafilah, always disliked to converse, on the subject 

 of the transmission of stores, through the country 

 of Adal. Some preference and especial marks of 

 favour bestowed upon Mahomed Allee by the 

 Embassy and Salie Selasse, King of Shoa, seemed, 

 in their minds, to have constituted a right of 

 monopoly, as regarded this business, in his favour 

 and that of his tribe. 



Nature's last daily care, the star-spangled curtain of 

 night, was drawn around her tumultuous children, 

 and we all retired from the scene of strife; my injured 

 hand paining me much less than I could have antici- 

 pated. Ohmed Medina, Ebin Izaak, and fifteen or 

 sixteen others, were now engaged in chanting a noisy 

 zeker, whilst Ohmed Mahomed, supported by Moosa, 

 sat in a large calahm of the Kafilah men and Hy 

 Soumaulee until long after midnight, arranging the 

 offerings or presents intended to be given as com- 

 pensation to the injured in the late conflict. The 

 two dying Wahamas were lively enough upon this 

 subject, and although they could not join in the 

 discussion, insisted on being placed on two mats in 



