For all reply he repeated the words, with which the Bedouins--who, like the Arabs, have a holy horror of towns--had been dinning daily into my ears, "They will spoil that white skin of thine at Harar!" At 3 P.M., on the 21st December, we started in a westerly direction through a gap in the hills, and presently turned to the south-west, over rapidly rising ground, thickly inhabited, and covered with flocks and herds. About 5 P.M., after marching two miles, we raised our wigwam outside a populous kraal, a sheep was provided by the hospitality of Ao Samattar, and we sat deep into the night enjoying a genial blaze. Early the next morning we had hoped to advance: water, however, was wanting, and a small caravan was slowly gathering;--these details delayed us till 4 P.M. Our line lay westward, over rising ground, towards a conspicuous conical hill called Konti. Nothing could be worse for camels than the rough ridges at the foot of the mountain, full of thickets, cut by deep Fiumaras, and abounding in dangerous watercourses: the burdens slipped now backwards then forwards, sometimes the load was almost dragged off by thorns, and at last we were obliged to leave one animal to follow slowly in the rear. After creeping on two miles, we bivouacked in a deserted cow-kraal,--_sub dio_, as it was warm under the hills. That evening our party was increased by a Gudabirsi maiden in search of a husband: she was surlily received by Shehrazade and Deenarzade, but we insisted upon her being fed, and superintended the operation. Her style of eating was peculiar; she licked up the rice from the hollow of her hand. Next morning she was carried away in our absence, greatly against her will, by some kinsmen who had followed her. And now, bidding adieu to the Gudabirsi, I will briefly sketch the tribe. The Gudabirsi, or Gudabursi, derive themselves from Dir and Aydur, thus claiming affinity with the Eesa: others declare their tribe to be an offshoot from the Bahgoba clan of the Habr Awal, originally settled near Jebel Almis, and Bulhar, on the sea-shore. The Somal unhesitatingly stigmatize them as a bastard and ignoble race: a noted genealogist once informed me, that they were little better than Midgans or serviles. Their ancestors' mother, it is said, could not name the father of her child: some proposed to slay it, others advocated its preservation, saying, "Perhaps we shall increase by it!" Hence the name of the tribe. [40] The Gudabirsi are such inveterate liars that I could fix for them no number between 3000 and 10,000. They own the rough and rolling ground diversified with thorny hill and grassy vale, above the first or seaward range of mountains; and they have extended their lands by conquest towards Harar, being now bounded in that direction by the Marar Prairie. As usual, they are subdivided into a multitude of clans. [41]