368 FINE FOR SHEDDING BLOOD. 



they sat alone, during the deliberations which 

 ensued upon this deed of blood. Five bullocks 

 was the fine imposed, which was paid by his 

 friends collectively, who applied to me, to authorize 

 Ohmed Mahomed to advance the money for that 

 purpose. At first I insisted upon the Has ul 

 Kafilah discharging this man, but Ohmed Medina 

 corroborating the statement that this was impos- 

 sible in our situation, I had no other course 

 but to resolve not to have any communication 

 with the murderer. Even this I was only able 

 to do for a few days, as the fellow would 

 still come and sit down at the entrance of my 

 hut, and converse with as much ease, as if 

 conscious only of having done a most meritorious 

 act. My last resort, therefore, to express my own 

 abhorrence of his dastardly conduct, was to address 

 him always as Cain, and by that name he very 

 soon became known to the whole Kafilah, but of 

 course, no one had any idea of the allusion contained 

 in the appellation. 



Our stay in Hiero Murroo being so long, and 

 the place abounding with shrubby clumps of the 

 moomen or tooth-brush-tree, nearly all the Kafilah 

 people formed for themselves, with their knives, 

 rude bowers, by cutting out some of the underwood, 

 and scattering it over the top to increase the shade. 

 In this manner sometimes three or four tenants 

 would occupy one bush. The moomen, or woomen, 

 as I have heard it also called, grew at the convenient 



