[17] It is called by the Arabs Kubabah, by the Somal Goasa. Johnston
(Travels in Southern Abyssinia, chap. 8.) has described the game; he errs,
however, in supposing it peculiar to the Dankali tribes.

[18] This is in fact the pilgrim dress of El Islam; its wide diffusion to
the eastward, as well as west of the Red Sea, proves its antiquity as a
popular dress.

[19] I often regretted having neglected the precaution of a bottle of
walnut juice,--a white colour is decidedly too conspicuous in this part of
the East.

[20] The strict rule of the Moslem faith is this: if a man neglect to
pray, he is solemnly warned to repent. Should he simply refuse, without,
however, disbelieving in prayer, he is to be put to death, and receive
Moslem burial; in the other contingency, he is not bathed, prayed for, or
interred in holy ground. This severe order, however, lies in general
abeyance.

[21] "Tuarick grandiloquence," says Richardson (vol. i. p. 207.), "savours
of blasphemy, e.g. the lands, rocks, and mountains of Ghat do not belong
to God but to the Azghar." Equally irreverent are the Kafirs of the Cape.
They have proved themselves good men in wit as well as war; yet, like the
old Greenlanders and some of the Burmese tribes, they are apparently
unable to believe in the existence of the Supreme. A favourite question to
the missionaries was this, "Is your God white or black?" If the European,
startled by the question, hesitated for a moment, they would leave him
with open signs of disgust at having been made the victims of a hoax.