THE MAD MULLAH.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIV, Issue 2, 2 January 1903, Page 8

THE MAD MULLAH.

HIS COUNTRY AND SUItROUNDINGS, AND SOME INTERESTING ANECDOTES OF HIS PEOPLE.

The Mad Mullah is without doubt the most interesting personage in Africa to-day. Cruel, cunning-, and full of fanaticism, he constitutes the greatest menace to trade and civilisation throughout the north-east of the Dark Continent. Many men familiar with the North African problem regard the Mad Mullah as equal in importance to the Khalifa, Who taxed Great Britain's energies in the Soudan for so many years. The Mad Mullah has gained steadily in power during recent years. As recently as 1889 the Mad Mullah was merely Muhammed bin Abdullah, a peaceable citizen of Berbera, in Somaliland. He owned several houses and camels, and the Somalis looked up to him as a man of sing-ular piety who had performed the pilgrimage to Mecca several times. Until three years ago he was even in favour with the British authorities, having often exercised his influence to settle small disputes and pacify small discontents. Early in 1899, however, his influence had grown, dangerous, and it was-found necessary to check his ~pra<!#«e""o2 interfering with matter's* outside hietribe.

The Muhammed grew restive, and incited the Somalis to resist the zareba tax, a toll which the head of a tribe had, been allowed to collect since the establishment of the Protectorate. Being given to understand that this would not be tolerated, he started a rebellion, appealing to the natives chiefly on religious grounds.

His fanaticism grew with giant strides, and he gathered around him large mobs of turbulent people. It was even rumoured that he intended to attack Berbera. But he disappeared further and further away into the interior, until everyone imagined he must be lost.

Instead, however, he retreated to the Ogaden country, where the rule of the Emperor Menelik of Abyssinia has never been more than nominal. Not long ago the Negus sent an army against the discontented ones there, but 30,000 savages, armed only with spears; succeeded in annihilating it. Meanwhile the Mullah proceeded to organise these savages and inflate their fanaticism. It has been feared that he might enlist the Gallas, a tribe whom the Abyssinians hare only kept in subjection so long by withholding firearms. Together, Gallas and Ogadenese, "if provided with rifles," said a military expert, "could sweep Abyssinia from south to north."

Somaliland. where the Mad Mullah and the British forces are at present engaged in battle, is an interesting but mysterious and little -.known coojßtry. Th* Js.oin.alis have not the gross, bestial appearance of the ordinary nejprro, with his thick lips and woolly nair. Save for the deep darkliepl <Jf their skins and the scantinfess "of , their raiment they might pass for Europeans of some refinement. The Somalis occupy the north-east corner of Africa, say, from Bab-el-Mandeb, the gate of the Eed Sea. to the vague regions below Cape Guardafui. No one knows where they came from, the best guess giving- them ah Arab stock, though the Somali language differs essentially from the Arabic.

Somalie ffo to Aden, but only to acquire wealth and wives and experience. Directly they have found at 1 they want they return to their own grey land. The Somalis have been described by Mr Tler'bert Vivian, who made a tour throug-h Sommliland several years ago, as "The Irish of Africa."

"They are always on the grin," writes Mr Vivian in his book on Abyssinia: "they possess an enormous sense of humour and a very lively imagination; they are extraordinarily considerate and obliging; in fact, they will never stick at any lie provided it will please you for the moment.

"Ask them a distance when you are tired, and they will halve it; find them out and grow cross presently, and they are sure to be ready with a merry quip or soothing sympathyNo one* can help liking- the Somalis, ye+ no one can close both eyes to their shortcomings.

"They are garrulous humbugs and windbags. They have no manners, they nKike rude noises with their mouths, they laugh in a way that make* jotj long to kick them, jet yon

can neyer be angry ■with, them long. Gratitude is unknown to them;- the word thanks does not exist in their language. They are insa-fciably greedy of money, yet at t>he same time reckless spenders

"They possess the unusual combination of vanity and pride- A coloured blazer -with brass buttons makes a peacook of the bfst, yet he never loses his dignity. Nowhere hate I met any human beings so sensitive to blame or sneer. Theirs is a very high-strung , nature.

"They are hopeless cowards about facing - a remote danger. Yet on sudden emergency they will display plenty of spirit. .Like the Irish, they are always spoiling for a fight; in lieu of shillelaghs they always calry their spears. "The worst point a/bout them is their, tendency to regard murder as a sport. During my passage through the desert I noticed numerous cairns from time to time. They consisted of a kind of stone altar surrounded at a-respectful distance by a stone wall, either circular or square.

"Outside this were a numberoorf r upright slabs, like milestones, some of which were surmounted by lumps of quartz. At first. I thought all this must have some religious observance; but eventually I learned that here were the tonrbs of Somali braves, en eh slaib recording a murder, and the quartz intimating that c, man had been killed with his steed." Mr Vivian does not believe that they con id t'.ver found a. Somali .State. They are too volatile and. irresponsible. He declares they are amenable to discipline, however, and a Parnell or a Mahdi could do what he pleased with them. They hiave made excellent soldiers wherever the experiment was tried. s

Mr Vivian relates a conversation he had with Colonel Sadler, the British Consular-General at Zaila, Somalilandj, regarding- tne murderous propensities of the Somalis.

"They will rarely attack a caravan," said Colonel Sadler, "but it is considered an exploit among them to kill a man. It does not matter much what sort of man he may be, though, of coiuse, the killing , of a white man would be regarded as a greater exploit than that of a black." Somaliland is not a pleasant country. There are miles and miles of arid land, unbroken by a single village or human habitation of any kind. I "Perhaps the chief drawback of the journey through Somaliland is that you may not inune yourself gradually," writes Mr. Vivian. "You must plunge at once into the hardest and dreariest tract of country, into blinding glare, choking dust, and stifling heat. In Somaliland the pebbles predominate, and grow up into boulders, which are the rockery of a strange, withered garden. There are parched aloes and shrivelled mimosas, all sorts of graceful shrubs, which on acquaintance prove so much crumbling matchwood. The arrangement is exquisite, surpassing even the horticulture of Hampton Court of Monte Carlo; but you are in a pleasure garden ofHhe dead, which bears no close inspection. It is an ugly, glutinous vegetation,, all stunted, all parading its inhospitality by exaggerated armaments of huge thorns and ,_. ~ 'l'The ; wjiite berxies are like, parched peas, ana a rare tulip tree of sorts jbears big grey oranges, which contain —nothing but woolly fibres, cobwebby gristles—a veritable Dead Sea fruit. The only redeeming feature is the intoxicating scent, recalling , a quintessence of clover and heather, with which it loads the air. \

"The greyness of the desert! You are in a sea of grey. The fierce sun beats down upon you from a blue-grey sky; as you pass grey shrubs nod at you in apoplectic grimness, and livid grey lizards shiver away over the grey sand; grey jackals eye you suspiciously from behind huge grey anthills;' grey bones and skulls strew the beaten track in every stage, of decomposition." Somaliland, and, indeed, all Northern Africa, is full of strange fanatical persons, who occasionally develop into very dangerous and trying individuals. Mr. Vivian describes his experience with one of them at Gildessa, a miserable little mud village, in Somaliland, as he journeyed through to Abyssinia.

"I exercised my lungs," he says, "and kept a watchful eye upon the numerous loafers who congregated to gape at me. Most, officious among them was a very old madman, who strutted about brandishing a huge scimitar.

"I had hardly crossed the torrent bed, and was still iri the midst of an altercation about the camping-place, when he advanced towards me, saluted me pompously, and held out his hand. Imagining he was some official I shook hands and inquired what he wanted. My interpreter replied that tjie feJlQw w&S a,mad beggar,, bul; Jfeftt travellers generally gave him something, as ' madmen axe considered more or less saintly by Mohammedansa;.- β-j v ...... ,, if... ■:..:.;. ■ . - . •*This is tie kind ;of stuff which produces the various Mahdis, Mullahs, and other fanatics who stir up sedition/in Africa. I remember a similar individual in the public square at Tangier, who spat at every European or Jew who passed."