SOMALILAND.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXXXV, Issue 16, 20 January 1903, Page 4

SOMALILAND.

The evil reputation which Somaliland has enjoyed for centuries is as much due to the dangerous features of certain points of the coast as to the untamable fierceness of the people, who, of Ethiopic or Hamitic origin, like their neighbours, the Abyssinians. show to a greater extent than the latter the admixture of Arab and of negro blood. I do not think (writes an ex-Attache in the New York Tribune) that there is any part of the entire coast of the Dark Continent where so many vessels have come to grief in ancient and modern times as in the neighbourhood of Cape Guardafui, which is the extreme •astern point of the continent. It is! there that the ship 3 which carried the gold from the mines of Ophir, south of the Zambesi River, for the building of the temple of King Solomon at Jerusa-| lem, came to grief, and many is the merchantman. and even passengef steamer, which in modem times has been driven by a combination of unknown currents and sadden storms to its doom on that dreaded portion of the coast .The religion professed by the Somalia, that is to say, the most fanatic type of Islam, has the effect of keeping them engaged in constant warfare with their neighbours, the abysriuiaus, who profess what is probably the lowest class of Christianity. Indeed, one of the most cherished objects of the Somali, and, in fact, of all the warlike Mahometan tribes of that portion of Africa, has been to prevent Abyssinia from securing or retaining possession of a seaport on the north-east coast of the Dark Continent. This is due to an ancient Mahometan prophecy, according to which Mecca, the most holy place of Islam, will one day be razed to the ground by the Abyssinians, an event which will be attended by the most disastrous consequences for the whole of the Moslem world. It is owing to the existence of this belief that England refrained from seeking the co operation of the Abyssinians in their war with the Mahdi, since it would have placed them in a bad light, not only with regard to the Egyptian army, which played so large a shire in the reconquesfc of the Hcudau, but also in the eyes of the eighty million Mahometans iu India It is this same consideration which restrains t from accepting the assistance of the Abyssinians in "imashing" the "Mullah" in Somaliland. This, of course, is a disadvantage, gince it will make necessary the employment of a far larger body of British troops than would otherwise have been required.