ABDI AND ABDULLAH 
349 
self in a white sheet, and cry out his prayers to 
Mecca. It was his voice that woke the camp, and 
the immediate answer to his prayers was sometimes 
quite irreverent, especially from the Wakamba por¬ 
ters, who were accustomed to sit up nearly all night 
gambling. 
Hassan was a Somali, strictly honest and faith¬ 
ful. He had the Somali’s love of a rupee, and there 
was no danger or hardship that he would not under¬ 
go in the hope of backsheesh. It is the African cus¬ 
tom to backsheesh everybody when a lion is killed, 
so consequently the Somalis were always looking 
for lions. Perhaps he also prayed for them each 
morning. 
When we started we had four Somali gunbear- 
ers, each of whom rose at dawn to pray. As we 
got up in the high altitudes, where the mornings 
were bitter cold, the number of suppliants dwindled 
down to one, and Hassan was the sole survivor. No 
cold or rain or early rising could cool the fierce re¬ 
ligious ardor that burned within him. 
Long before daybreak we would hear his voice 
raised in a singsong prayer full of strange runs 
and weird minors. The lions that roared and 
grunted near the camp would pause in wonder and 
then steal away as the sound of Hassan’s devotions 
rang out through the chilly, dew-laden dawn. And 
as if fifteen minutes of morning prayer was not 
enough to keep him even with his religious obliga¬ 
tions, he went through two more long recitals in the 
afternoon and at night. 
