346 ANOTHER CALAHM. 



this tribe, a foul ringworm on the fair face of 

 nature, that were still debating some momentous 

 subject or other, exactly in the same place, and in the 

 same manner as if they had been sitting up, talking 

 all night. They, however, offered no interruption 

 to the saddling and loading the camels, which was 

 done more expeditiously than I had ever witnessed 

 before. Every now and then Ohmed Mahomed, 

 who was working away amongst them like one of 

 his own slaves, would straiten his bent back and 

 with an anxious look towards us, call out that we 

 must not stir from where we were, until the whole 

 of the Kafilah had moved off the ground. At last 

 the Wahama calahm terminated, and the circle 

 broke up ; first singly, then in twos and threes, 

 they separated and went their several ways, each 

 person bearing in a little cleft stick his share of 

 the spoil, being generally one half dollar's worth 

 of blue sood, folded up into the usual three- 

 cornered currency of the country. 



It appeared that all their talk this morning had 

 been to arrange some differences that had arisen 

 between themselves, about the division of the cloth 

 we had given to them, and bore no reference to us 

 at all. In fact I was much struck with the conscien- 

 tious manner in which these savages seemed to fulfil 

 their engagement of the last night, all but a very 

 few, who now announced their intention of accom- 

 panying us to Shoa, moving off the ground without 

 a single look at the Kafilah, or seeming to be 



