On the 2nd of May we broke up our camp at Enleh early in the morning and marched to Galadúr, where we camped again. Old Jáma Deria and his son escorted me, and he was delighted to have been before the Sheikh in welcoming me to the country. He is a rival of the Sheikh, and has sometimes been his open enemy, having killed several of Abdul Káder’s relations; he keeps all the neighbouring tribes in a constant state of alarm, being a regular firebrand and loving a quarrel for its own sake.
As we advanced in the fresh morning air, the old man, in high spirits, would dash past me at full gallop, to display to the Englishman the quality of his pony and the red tassels on his saddle and bridle, returning after each circle to cry “_Mót!_” I could not help thinking of old Tarquin, in the _Lays of Ancient Rome_, whose spear, according to Macaulay, “shook more with hate than age.” A Somáli, poising his spear before throwing it, does it by a sudden jerk against the palm of his hand, causing the shaft to quiver; and he claims that this keeps it straight in the air, the effect being somewhat like that of the feathers on an arrow, or the twist caused by the rifling on a bullet.
As we got into a bit of open grass I shot a Sœmmering’s gazelle. The buck dropped in his tracks, and old Jáma, hastily dismounting and handing his mare to his son, paused an instant to whirl the free end of his tobe from his shoulder and to coil it round his waist, leaving the chest bare; and then, running like a two-year-old, he raced to the gazelle to perform the _halal_—that is, to sever the jugular with his short sword, without which operation all meat is _harám_, or unlawful, to a Mussulmán.
The youth who brought up the horses could not induce them to come near to the dead gazelle; so Jáma, mounting his beautiful young mare, which he said was “blood-shy” and required teaching, by voice and heel coaxed her up to the meat till she brought her dilated nostrils close to it. He made her jump over the buck several times before he was satisfied. The Amáden, who had perhaps never seen game shot before, examined the hole in the buck with great interest, Jáma remarking that the Abyssinians couldn’t do that near so well, and that the English were good people. He said that I was to be _his_ Englishman, and while in the country shoot him lots of zebra, as all the Amáden liked the meat very much.