CHAPTER VIII 
A BATTLE ROYAL 
Take that to end thy agony 
Henry V 
Our happiness is at the height 
Richard III 
The Somalis, as I have explained before, are almost 
entirely a nation of nomads, and the only settled 
villages or townships are those run by Sheiks or 
Mullahs, or whatever name they elect to be known by. 
These men are Mahomedans with an eye to business, 
religious, influential, knowing the value of education, 
and are often quite learned. We marched into the 
vicinity of some hundreds of huts, and sent Clarence 
on ahead to present our compliments to the Mullah 
and express our desire to call on him. We also sent 
along a consignment of gifts likely to appeal to a 
learned man — a Koran, a tusba, and a couple of 
tobes, for even a Mullah has to have clothes, anyway, 
in Somaliland. I don’t know whether our sending 
presents first was correct, or whether we should have 
waited for the Mullah to weigh in. We debated the 
point, and decided any one with an extra sensible mind 
would think a bird in the hand worth two in the bush 
any day of J:hejweek. This village, if our men’s talk 
