a convenience, for they are great talkers, as well as very eager for news, so much so that the Somali plants his spear at the entrance to his village to indicate that the road is barred to strangers until they have informed him of all the tidings from the distant parts whence they have arrived. Somali Land has for a yes been wasted by incessant tribal warfare.

“ The only field bere cultivated,” says M. Révoil, in the figurative language of the East, “is the field of death.” Being divided into a great number of petty states, the people are almost constantly at feud with each other. Each suspects his neighbour and the warrior never goes abroad unarmed. The rich man has his gun, purchased in one of the seaport towns; the poor have their spear and their dart, occasionally supplemented by a murderous double-edged blade and a knobkerry for braining the enemy that falls in the combat. Like the Masai, the Somali warrior usually “stands at ease” by leaning on his spear and bending the right leg, somewhat after the fashion of persons walking on stilts. He is proud of having killed his man, and to commemorate the event either adds an ostrich plume to his headdress or wers an ivory bracelet on his wrist.

In some districts the friends of the departed hero pile round his grave as many blocks as the victims that have fallen to his prowess. But it is fair to state that if the Somali takes the life of his adversary without a pang, he is himself equally indifferent to the same fate. When wounded he suffers without a murmur, and holds out his arm unflinchingly to the native surgeon, who cauterises it in his primitive way with fire or a red-hot iron. Thanks also to the climate, the Somali frequently recovers from wounds that would inevitably prove fatal to a European.

If it is honourable to kill, it is no less glorious to plunder, provided always that it be done in open warfare. No one steals in time of peace, “because all the Somali are brothers,” and no one takes the superfluous trouble to close his house. But all are free to attack the stranger, who dare not even venture to penetrate into their territory until he has first procured by purchase an abm, that is, & protector or patron in the tribe. When a vessel is wrecked on their in hospitable shores all claim the established rights of flotsam and jetsam, and the wreckers hasten to the spot from distances of sixty or seventy miles round about. Not a single household in the whole of the Guardafui peninsula but has some objects to show which belonged to Europeans wrecked on the surrounding seaboard. Graves mentions a famous sheikh, a very pious devotee, who lived near the cape, and who, during the bad season, was handsomely feed to invoke Allah night and day in order to bring about the wreck of passing Christian vessels. But it should be remembered that not so very long ago the villages along the west coast of France and south coast of England not only prayed for such contingencies, but set up false beac ns to allure their victims to destruction.

The Somali of the coastlands, and notably the Mijertin people, would consider themselves degraded by cultivating the land. They are shepherds, fishermen, sailors, or traders, but not husbandmen. Some are even daring mariners, who in their light dhows of forty or fifty tons burden venture on long voyages to Bombay and Zanzibar. A great many live a half-nomad existence, following their flocks

from pasturage to pasturage in the grassy regions of the interior. The industries, by far the most important of which is the manufacture of matting, are almost entirely in the hands of the women, who are all very laborious.

Few of the tribes make any use of the horse, and it seems probable that this animal was not introduced into the country till comparatively recent times. It even still bears its Arab name of faras. According to Sottiro, every village in the Ogaden territory keeps a park of a few dozen ostriches, which feed apart under the charge of children, and which pass the night in the huts; during the migrations they also join the caravan in company with the camels. But they are not allowed to breed in captivity, and the domestic stock is consequently kept up altogether by capturing the wild birds in the chase, or perhaps taking them when young

Slavery is unknown amongst the northern Somali tribes, who kill but neither buy nor sell their fellow-men. But the case is different in the central and southern regions, where a section of the population is reduced to servitude, and where the slaves themselves are treated with horrible cruelty. Nearly all these unhappy wretches have their feet shackled with two rings connected by an iron bar; they eat nothing but refuse, yet they are compelled daily to drag themselves to the fields and till the land under the broiling sun. Every fault is punished with tortures, and under these circumstances it is not surprising that the slaves frequently seek in a voluntary death relief from their miserable existence.

In many districts the Somali warriors are addicted to slave hunting, and the captures made by them serve as the current standard of exchange, the trade value of ibis “commodity” being estimated at from a hundred and twenty to a hundred and fifty dollars. It also frequently happens that the Somali treat the members of their own family as slaves. “If you despise not wife, child, and servant, you shall yourself be despised,” says a local proverb. According to Burton, the young married man welcomes his bride whip in hand, and begins by giving her a sound thrashing, in order to establish his authority over her from the outset. Nevertheless, the women move about freely enough in the rural districts. As in other Mohammedan countries, the husband repudiates his wife whenever the whim takes him, and at his death she becomes the inheritance of his surviving brother. Most of the divorced or otherwise disgraced women enter into the service of the caravans as water-carriers.

TRIBAL GROUPS, THE RAHANUIN.

Being destitute of all national cohesion, the Somali are divided and subdivided into a multiplicity of rers or fakidas, that is, tribes and septs, which band together or break into fresh fragments according to the vicissitudes of wars and alliances. Nevertheless, in the midst of all these minute divisions the existence may be recognised of three main ethnical families or tribal groups : the Rahanuin in the sontb, the Hawiyn in the centre, and the lashiya in the north.

The Rahanuin or Rabhanwin, who are constantly at war with the Gallas and

Bantus, whom they have gradually driven southwards to and beyond the. Tana river, are the least known of all the Somali peoples, the very names of most of the clans belonging to this warlike nation being still unrecorded in ethnological works. Along the banks of the Webi, of which they hold the south side, they are collectively called Gobron; farther south, that is, in the narrow peninsula comprised between the Webi and the Benadir territory on the seaboard, dwell the Tuni, most peaceful of all the Somali tribes, who, instead of the spear, go about armed only with a stick. The Rahanuin division also includes, according to Paulitschke, the Abgal people, who occupy the north side of the Webi. The Abgals, who are noted for their exceptional ferocity, still live at enmity with all the surrounding tribes, and are here and there even still opposed to the doctrines of Islam. All these fakidas are in a state of constant warfare with those of the Hawiya division.

THE IIAWIYAS Avd MIDGANS.

The Hawiyas, who aro dominant in Ogaden, that is, the great central territory of Somali Land, are certainly the most powerful of all the Somali people. M. Révoil describes them as less bellicose than the other branches of the race, but at the same time more fanatical and more dangerous to foreigners. They belong to a distinct Mohammedan sect, which, to judge from their practices, seems in some way akin or analogous to that of the Wahabites in Central Arabia. According to the accounts received by Sottiro, the Hawiyas have a large infusion of Galla blood, to which may perhaps be attributed the fact that their complexion is of a lighter shade than that of the seaboard tribes. In the inland regions most of them appear to be settled agriculturists, which is doubtless due to the greater elevation of this region, which is also better watered and more fertile than the low-lying coastlands. In Ogaden, a land of pasturage and of cattle, they are on the contrary all nomads.

In several parts of their domain the IIawiyas are numerically in a minority. In fact in these districts they constitute a higher caste or political rulers, who regard with contempt the bulk of the inhabitants as belonging to alien tribes, or even to conquered races. Thus the Adoné people, who occupy the southern parts of Ogaden, differ altogether from the Somali proper, and according to their language and social habits should rather be grouped with the Bantu populations.

The Adoné idiom is closely related to the Ki-Swaheli of the Zanzibar coastlands.

The two castes of the Yebirs and Tomals, who, like the European gipsies, are the fortune-tellers, blacksmiths, and tinkers of these regions, are also regarded as tribes of different origin from the true Hawiyas. The Yebirs are somewhat addicted to magic practices, such as manufacturing amulets, conjuring snakes, healing the sick, casting lots, and interpreting omens. They also take a leading part in all feasts and public ceremonies. The Tomals, called also Handads, forge the spear-heads; but although indispensable to the community they are kept beyond the precincts of the villages, and obliged to marry amongst themselves, being despised and feared as baneful magicians.

In still greater contempt are held the Midgans, called also Rami, that is to say “ Archers,” who are universally regarded as the lowest of the low. They worship trees and snakes, and eat all the prohibited food, such as fish, fowl, eggs, hares, and gazelles. They are also daring hunters, fearlessly attacking the lion and the elephant, whom they pierce with their poisoned arrows. Like the Yebirs, the Midgans also practise medicine, and have the reput::tion of being extremely clever charlatans. According to the Somali legends, the lower castes are the issue of crossings between Abyssinian women and maleficent genii, while the Midgans are of still more degraded origin, their ancestors having been the slaves of these Abyssinian women.

The Hashiyas, or Northern Somali, more commonly known by the name of Aji, have evidently been most affected by contact and family alliances with the Arabs. So far as they are concerned, the national traditions are to some extent justified and the Hashiyas may to a certain degree trace their genealogies back to the Koreish family of the Hashims, one of whose warriors, named Arab, is supposed to have emigrated to Africa towards the end of the twelfth century, or less than six hundred years after the Hegira. Ilis residence, which became the capital of a powerful empire, is said to have been discovered at Zeila, or in the vicinity of that place.

The Hashiyas are subdivided into two main groups, respectively named Tarud (Darode), that is, the “Banished," and Ishak, from two descendants of Arab. From Tarud are descended the Mijertins, most famous of all the Hashiya nations, comprising some thirty tribal groups under the common suzerainty of a boghor, or sultan. To the Ishak branch belong the Issa, or better Eissa, and the Gadabursi, who occupy the shores of Tajurrah Bay and the districts about Zeila and Berbera, and are consequently of all the Somali people the best known to Europeans. With the same branch are grouped the Habr Tol, Habr Ghar Haji, Habr Awal, and the other tribes whose name is preceded by the word habr. In the Somali language this word habr bas the meaning of “grandmother," "venerable matron," and seems to indicate a faint reminiscence of a previous social system in which descent was reckoned only through the female line, as is still the case amongst most African populations. If this conjecture be correct, traces of the matriarchal state would thus still survive amongst these fierce Somali populations who at present treat their women with so much contempt. It is noteworthy that amongst the three above-mentioned Habr tribes are found the very finest specimens of the

Somali type.

The south-western Hashiyas—Ghirri, Bersub, and Bertiri—appear to be allied to the Gallas, and jointly with the Jerso, one of the tribes of this nation, they even constitute a worra, or political confederacy, worra being a Galla word meaning “clan,” or “ family.” In this region commercial relations and the development of social intercourse between the conterminous tribes have arrested the devastating wars which almost everywhere else are incessantly carried on between the Somali and Galla populations.

THE EASTERN GALLAS.

The Gallas, who give themselves the general designations of Orômo, that is “Men,” or “ Brave," and Ilm-Orma, that is, “Sons of Men,” are more commonly known to their Somali enemies by the appellation of Durr, that is, “ vile,” or " abject.” But although thus despised by the neighbouring Somali people, the Gallas greatly surpass them in intelligence, love of industry, peaceful habits, and trustworthiness. They are also far more numerous, thanks to the fertility of their plains, whose light reddish soil they diligently cultivate.

According to the Egyptian officers, who till recently held command in the city of Harrar, there was a population of several millions in the province of the Upper Webi annexed to the Khedival possessions. Paulitschke, however, wbile confirming the reports regarding the extremely dense population of this region, reduces to about 1,300,000 the probable number of north-eastern Gallas concentrated in the Upper Webi basin. The southern districts, that is, the valleys watered by the streams flowing to the Juba and the Tana, are also very thickly peopled. The Gallas who dwell beyond the limits of Ethiopia, properly so called, that is, on the slopes draiving to the Indian Ocean, cannot in any case be estimated at less than three millions. On the other hand, the whole of the Somali territory contains a population of scarcely one million, of whom about 100,000 belong to the great vijertin nation. The Somali occupying the coastlands along the Gulf of Aden between the Jebel Karoma and the Gan Libash, are estimated by M. Révoil at scarcely more than 30,000 altogether.

Nevertheless in these incessant border feuds, the aggressors are invariably the numerically inferior Somali tribes. These fierce nomads, who go

about constantly armed and ready for the fight, and who are always lying in ambush to fall unawares on the foe, have naturally a great advantage over the sedentury Gallas, occupied chiefly with the cultivation of their durrah fields. But verge

of the desert stretching north of the Harrar Mountains some of these Galla tribes have, as nomad pastors, adopted the babits and customs of their hereditary enemies. In order to resist the aggressors, who are attracted chiefly by the love of pillage and the hope of plunder, the Orômo have in many places been obliged to abandon their fertile plains and settled habitations, or else sink to the position of serfs, mere “ hewers of wood and drawers of water” to the rapacious Somali marauders. In the extreme southern regions they have already ceased to defend the territory comprised between the rivers Juba and Tana. But in the northern districts they still show a bold front to the enemy, and here the river Errer, a main branch of the Webi or Harrar, has not yet been crossed by their adversaries. Strict watch is constantly kept against the raiders by the Enniya tribe all along the frontiers of the conterminous domains.

In any case the Gallas certainly vindicate their claim to the national desig

on the