16 
THROUGH SOMALILAND AND ABYSSINIA chap. 
visitors from passing ships “ damned fool passengers ” ! The 
real jungle Somali from the African side of the Gulf never 
quite gets used to Aden life. After having made his money 
there, he returns to his own country to invest his savings in 
cows, camels, and sheep, and a wife or two to tend them. He 
lives the old pastoral life, and soon shakes off every trace of 
his sojourn among the white men. Give him a house in Aden, 
and he will build a round gurgi of mats and skins inside it. 
In the far interior I have more than once met a horseman, 
looking quite like a jungle Som&li, tricked out in all the finery 
of a mounted warrior, yet whose salutation has been “ Good 
morning, sir,” in excellent English, and I have found that he 
has been to Marseilles and London, having done his spell as a 
fireman on a steamer ; and has come back at last to his country, 
disgusted with civilisation, and worse in many ways than when 
he started on his travels. With such a man the jungle Som&li 
will often refuse to eat, saying he is no longer a clean Mussul- 
man, that he is a Frinji , and must eat alone. 
Whatever faults a Somali may have, lack of intelligence, and 
what, for want of an English word, may be called savoir-faire , 
are not among them. His bringing-up, in a country where 
every man has his spears ready to answer an insult on the 
moment, tends to make him keep his temper and maintain a 
diplomatic calm. Once that calm is broken through, he becomes 
a veritable madman. From laughter to rage is the transition of 
a second. Luckily he keeps his infrequent tantrums for black 
men. The rich white man is a privileged person, being allowed 
the eccentricity which may be excused in the great. If a white 
man, in pyjamas and slippers, unfortunately loses his temper, 
and kicks a lazy SomMi all round his zerfba for breach of con- 
tract, the latter sulks for a time, but soon gives way before the 
ridiculous ; yet he will permit no SomMi to insult him. 
There is no written Somali language, so only a few mullahs 
who are learned in Arabic can read the Koran. The bulk of the 
people who cannot read are more prejudiced than the mullahs, 
wishing to be on the safe side, and having all sorts of complicated 
rules which mullahs know to be unnecessary. For a long time 
we could not get our men to eat game which had had the throat 
cut low down, although the customary bismiliah had been said 
as the knife was drawn. On going to Hargeisa I appealed 
to Sheikh Mattar and his mullahs, who explained to them that 
they might eat the flesh of game bled in this way, and after 
