fes_ of Aden, where his countrymen
are numerous and where wages are so high that six grown Somalis can
batten in well-fed ease on the earnings of a seventh, who keeps on till
he wants a holiday and then "goes sick" and sends another of the
syndicate to replace him. Qualifications do not matter, as they all have
sufficient to fumble through their jobs and no more. If he lacks the
capital to start cab-driving and finds boat-rowing or punkah-pulling too
strenuous for him, he sets himself to learn a little English and gets a
job as servant with some new-fledged British subaltern at a minimum rate
of L2 a month, which is fixed by his union, for that is one civilised
device he really _can_ handle. He is the slackest oarsman, the laziest
punkawala and the worst whip east of Suez. His idea of driving is to sit
with knees drawn up toward his chin while he lugs at the reins as if
they were a punkah-cord, urging his staunch little screw along with
ineffectual flaps of his whip and noises like the paroxysms of sea
sickness.

He will ruin any saddle-camel for fast work if allowed to ride one
regularly, such animals not being raised in his country, but he breeds a
small, hardy type of pony which he loves to gallop in wild dashes, with
flapping legs and sawing hands, reining the poor little beast up short
on a bit like a rat-trap to witch beholders with his horsemanship.

As a combatant you never know how to take him. He may put up a hefty
fight or he may outrun the antelope in his precipitate retreat. I was
much impressed by the defences in barbed wire and thorn trees considered
necessary to ward off the onslaught of dervishes by men who knew them
better than I did.

He is a cheery, irresponsible soul and has been called the Irishman of
the East. Missionaries rather like him, because he is very teachable up
to a certain point, fond of learning new tricks if not too difficult,
and without that habit of logical and consecutive thought which makes
the real Arab so difficult to tackle in argument.

No remarks on Somaliland would be complete without some mention of the
Mullah. That astute personage has often been alluded to as "Mad," but
has proved himself far saner than the Government he was up against. In
the early 'nineties he kept the Arabi Pasha coffee-house opposite the
cab-stand in the native town at Aden, where he dispensed tea and
husk-coffee in little bowls of green-glazed earthenware, also
raspberryade and other bright-colo