Note 11 — Chapter XXVI

One evening, on my return from Abyssinia, in company with the British Political Mission, a Galayla Muditu appeared in the camp. Around his head was placed the brindled shaggy tail of a hyena, which added not a little to the savage appearance of the man. He squatted on his heels in the customary manner, and most of the Europeans surrounded him, to look at the extreme of barbarism his figure and appearance presented. Several of our Kafilah men joined us, volunteering information; among other things, it was observed by a slave-dealer, that the man before us “was a bad man” (pointing at the same time to the Hyena’s tail), “that eats man,” meaning of course, that the man being a Mahomedan, was very wicked for wearing any part of such a corpse-eating beast about his person. I met this very slave-merchant, who had thus expressed himself, some weeks afterwards, in the Red Sea, and as we were together on board the same vessel for several days, our conversation was frequently upon Abyssinian matters. I once recalled the scene of the so-called man-eater, and he was astonished, certainly, when I told him it was reported that the Dankalli were cannibals, and that the picture of this very Galayla Muditu was taken with that idea, as a portrait of a man-eater. Dankalli Mahomed, as he was then called, never came afterwards to sit with me and my friend, Padre Antonio Foggart, but he went through the process of sawing his throat, as if cutting it with a knife, to intimate how any cannibal would be punished if he appeared in their country.