vessels; and that prior to this rupture they had enjoyed paramount
superiority over all the tribes of the Somali; but now that they were
forbidden to transport soldiers or make reprisals on the sea, every
tribe was on an equality with them.

They further spoke of the decline of their tribe's morals since the
time when the English took possession of Aden and brought in
civilisation with them. This they in most part attributed to our weak
manner in prosecuting crime, by requiring too accurate evidence before
inflicting punishment; saying that many a dishonest person escaped the
vengeance of law from the simple fact of there being no eyewitnesses
to his crime, although there existed such strong presumptive evidence
as to render the accusation proved. When speaking against our laws,
and about their insufficiency to carry out all governmental points
with a strong and spirited hand, they never forget to laud their own
sultan's despotic powers and equity in justice.

Of course no mortal man was like their Gerad Mahamed Ali. In leading
them to war he was like the English French,[12] and in settling
disputes he required no writing office, but, sitting on the woolsack,
he listened to the narration of prosecution and defence with his head
buried in his hands, and never uttering a word until the trial was
over, when he gave his final decision in one word only, ay or nay,
without comment of any sort. In confirmation of their statements, they
gave the description of a recent trial, when a boy was accused of
having attempted to steal some rice from a granary; the lad had put
his hand through a chink in the door of it, and had succeeded in
getting one finger, up to the second joint, in the grain; this, during
the trial, he frankly acknowledged having done, and the sultan
appointed that much of his finger exactly to be cut off, and no