The highlands of Æthiopia, Volume 1

Identifier

335

Title

Author

By Sir William Cornwallis Harris See all items with this value

Date

1844 See all items with this value

Type

Books See all items with this value

Description

CHAP. XLIII. (P.390)
THE PRINCIPALITY OF HURRUR.
“NOT many weeks had elapsed since certain substantial merchants of Hurrur, after visiting the shrine at Medina, and making a long and profitable sojourn in Alio Amba, had returned to their native land to enjoy the honours attaching to their religious pilgrimage. Slaves, ivory, and precious gums had been disposed of to great advantage in Arabia, and the proceeds invested in beads, berill^s, and broad cloth, with which the enterprising traders landed at the maritime town of Taj lira. Proceeding thence to Efat, they embarked their gains in slaves, mules, and cotton cloths; and designing to pass the residue of their days in ease and affluence, set out by way of Hurrur for the great annual fair at Berbera.
In advance of the time, however, these luckless individuals had ventured to speculate to their envious countrymen upon the advantage to be derived from foreign traffic and the presence of the white man. The incautious word had caught the ear of Abdel Yonag, the wily chief of the Hurrurhi, and letters were secretly despatched to his master the Ameer, representing the wealthy hajjis to COLONY OF ABABS. 391
be men of turbulent and ambitious views, who had devised dangerous innovations, and were plotting, with the Adaiel, the monopoly of the commerce in slaves. With hearts bounding at the sight of their native minarets, and utterly unconscious of the slander that had preceded them, the pilgrims entered the Isma-deen gate of the city; but ere return had been welcomed by wife or child, they were hurried by the soldiery to the presence of the despot, and, without even the mockery of a trial, were beaten to death with huge maces of iron.”

Author Ethnicity

Non-Harari

Everything Harar

Contribute

Comments