X 
JOURNEY TO WEBBE S HA BE LEH RIVER 
241 
known far and wide as a holy man, even my Dolbahanta headman, 
Adan Yusuf, having heard of him. Adan was glad to meet 
such a holy man, who was said to be invulnerable. He added 
that the Abyssinians lately tied the Seyyid up and fired at him 
point blank with Remingtons, but the bullets melted ; they then 
bound him to a gudd thorn -tree, and collecting all the dry 
branches about, lit a roaring fire at his feet, but he obstinately 
refused to burn ; so then they gave up interfering with him ! 
If he were a fighting man the Seyyid would probably have 
developed into a first-class Mahdi, and long ere this he could 
have made a combined movement against Abyssinia ; but his 
influence, like that of other Somali sheikhs and mullahs, is 
almost entirely social and religious. He lives a quiet life, 
cultivating joivdri , reading the Koran, and educating youths. 
Among the nomad tribes the fighting elders abound, but they 
have not the wide influence of these cosmopolitan Mahomedan 
priests, and there is no element of cohesion among them, each 
working for the good of his own clan and ignoring the general 
interests of the community. The Seyyid was cordial, and I 
gave him medicine at the door of his hut in the presence of his 
wives and children, who squatted on their heels in a semicircle 
round, whilst the townspeople collected in a mass to gaze at us 
through the palisades of the courtyard which separated the hut 
from the main street of the village. He had only seen one 
English party, that of Colonel Paget and Lord Wolverton, two 
months before, and they had left a good impression ; not so the 
caravan under Prince Ruspoli, for he, less fortunate, experienced 
a good deal of trouble with the natives in GMlaland, on the 
Webbe, and even in Somaliland. 
Before we left the hut of the sick man he had written for 
me an Arabic letter to Hussein-bin-Khalaf and Nur Rbbleh, the 
two Mahomedan chiefs of Karanleh. While we were halted at 
the Eafan, crowds of sick people and cripples from the village 
constantly loitered in and about camp, begging for medical 
treatment from ninki frinji wein (the great foreigner). Every 
European being believed to be a doctor, they rushed to me for 
treatment, presenting the most complicated diseases, such as 
cataract in the eye and cancer. My inedicine-bag containing 
only chlorodyne, pills, vaseline, quinine, and the simplest medicines, 
I treated what cases I could, and sent the worst away with a 
small present of meat or calico and a few comforting words, 
which were listened to in dead silence by the crowd of relations. 
R 
