[13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21] They are mainly found in cities and towns such as Borama, Baki, Lughaya, Zeila, Dilla, Jarahorato, Amud, Abasa, Fiqi Aadan, Quljeed, Boon and Harirad.
This chronicle opens with an account of the wars of Imam 'Ali Si'id (d. 1392), from whom the Gadabursi today trace their descent and who is described as the only Muslim leader fighting on the Western flank in the armies of Sa'd ad-Din (d. 1415), ruler of Zeila.
It is primarily inhabited by the three sub-clans of the Gadabursi clan, whose traditional institutions survived the colonial period, Somali statehood and the war in good shape, remaining functionally intact and highly relevant to public security.
'This Chronicle opens', Lewis tells us, 'with an account of the wars of Imam 'Ali Si'id (d. 1392) from whom the Gadabuursi today trace their descent, and who is described as the only Muslim leader fighting on the western flank in the armies of Se'ad ad-Din, ruler of Zeila.
This chronicle opens with an account of the wars of Imam 'Ali Si'id (d. 1392), from whom the Gadabursi today trace their descent and who is described as the only Muslim leader fighting on the Western flank in the armies of Sa'd ad-Din (d. 1415), ruler of Zeila."[52]I.
It has two ports, one frequented by boats but impracticable for ships, whilst the other, not far south of the town, although very narrow, is from 26 to 33 feet deep, and affords safe shelter to large craft.
"[113]Philipp Paulitschke (1888) describes how the Wadi Aschat, a valley on the outskirts of Zeila, served as the headquarters of the Gadabuursi raiders: "Starting immediately on the right bank of Wâdi Ashât, accompanying the narrow path through the Salsola bush 20-30 metre high hills at a distance of 5-6 km.
"[114]He also described the Wadi Aschat as having a legendary and nefarious reputation: "We crossed, in the slowly rising terrain, the Wâdi Aschât, approximately 20m wide, a fairly deep cut trickle, which approached us in terrible sunshine from a southwesterly direction through the Salsola bushes adorned with a small hilly landscape.
During one decisive passage in the play, the heroine, Shallaayo, laments that she has been tricked into a false marriage by the Leopard in the title: "Women have no share in the encampments of this world And it is men who made these laws, to their own advantage.
[143][144][145][146] The image above translates as:[147]"From the seaside of Bulahar, to the corner of the Almis mountain, and Harawe of the pools, Hargeisa of the Gob trees, My horse reaches all that in one afternoon, Is it not like a scuddling cloud?
No part of Somaliland that I have visited is more beautiful than this tract of country, watered by an almost perennial stream, now lined with great trees festooned with the armo creeper, now with the high green elephant grass or luxuriant jungles, and guarded by woody and rocky mountains on the left hand and on the right.
But the new and varied vegetation of Africa was not the only object delightful to the eye: countless varieties of birds, hawks, buzzards, Batteleur and larger eagles, vultures, dobie birds, golden orioles, parrots, paroquets, the exquisite Somali starlings, doves of all sorts and sizes, small and great honey-birds, hoopoes, jays, green pigeons, great flocks of Guinea fowl, partridges, sand grouse, were ever to be seen on every hand, and, while the bush teemed with Waller's gazelle and dik-diks, the plains with Scemmerring's antelope, with a sprinkling of oryx, our road up the Tug was constantly crossed by the tracks of lions, elephants, leopards, the ubiquitous hyaena, and other wild beasts.
The banks were fringed with milk-bush and Asclepias, the Armo-creeper, a variety of thorns, and especially the yellow-berried Jujube: here numberless birds followed bright-winged butterflies, and the "Shaykhs of the Blind," as the people call the black fly, settled in swarms upon our hands and faces as we rode by.
Its quadrangular fleshy branches of emerald green, sometimes forty feet high, support upon their summits large round bunches of a bright crimson berry: when the plantation is close, domes of extreme beauty appear scattered over the surface of the country... At Zayla I had been informed that elephants are "thick as sand" in Harawwah: even the Gudabirsi, when at a distance, declared that they fed there like sheep, and, after our failure, swore that they killed thirty but last year.
"[149]Richard Francis Burton (1856) describes what he feels is the end of his journey when he witnesses the blue hills of Harar, which is the iconic backdrop of the Harrawa Valley in his book First Footsteps in East Africa: "Beyond it stretched the Wady Harawwah, a long gloomy hollow in the general level.
The background was a bold sweep of blue hill, the second gradient of the Harar line, and on its summit closing the western horizon lay a golden streak—the Marar Prairie.
The presence of mankind, however, was denoted by the cut branches of thorn encumbering the bed: we remarked too, the tracks of lions pursued by hunters, and the frequent streaks of serpents, sometimes five inches in diameter.
"[151]In 1885, Frank Linsly James describes Captain Stewart King's visit to the famous Eilo Mountain in the Gadabuursi country in the Lughaya District where the Gadabuursi natives informed him of the remains of ancient cities: "The natives had told him that in the hill called Ailo about three days' march south-east from Zeila, there were remains of ancient cities, and substantially built houses...
In order to guide him out the people lighted fires outside, and he came out and told most extraordinary tales, stating that he found a race of men there who never left the cave, but had flocks and herds.
"[152]In 1886 the British General and Assistant Political Resident at Zeila, J. S. King, travelling by the coastal strip near Khor Kulangarit, near Laan Cawaale in the Lughaya District, passed by the famous tomb of 'Sharmarke of the White Shield', a famous Gadabuursi leader, poet, elder and grandfather of the current Sultan of the Bahabar Musa, Abshir Du'ale who was inaugurated in 2011 in the town of Lughaya: "Shortly after passing the bed of the large river, called Barregid we halted for half an hour at a place where there were several large hollows like dried-up lakes, but I was informed that the rain-water does not remain in them any time.
Ughaz Ali Makail Dera (Cali Makayl-Dheere) who was born in 1575 in Dobo, an area north of the present town of Borama in north-western Somaliland, is recorded as having inflicted a heavy defeat on Galla forces at Nabadid.
In the picture already shared titled 'An old map featuring the Harrawa Valley in the Gadabuursi country, north of Harar' one can read Gabri Nono, which is the anglicized version of the Somali Qabri Nuuno.
[159] In the year 1876, Egypt using Islam as a bargaining chip signed a treaty with Ughaz Nur II and came to occupy the Northern Somali coast which included Zeila.
The treaty titled in French, Traitè de Protectorat sur les Territoires du pays des Gada-Boursis, was signed by both J. Henry, the Consular Agent of France and Dependencies at Harar-Zeila, and Nur Robleh, Ughaz of the Gadabuursi, at Zeila on 9 Djemmad 1302 (March 25, 1885).
Tolkayow xalay taah ma ladin toosna maan qabine Nimankaas Taagani waxay igu talaaleene Togii Herer Axmaaraa dul tagay oo dilay dadkeeniye Islaamkiina wuu wada tirtiray baa inoo timid eh Taawooday oo xalay hurdadii tow ka soo idhiye My people, last night my moans did not leave me yet no ailment plagued me.
Yet for this very reason, after the 1897 Anglo-Egyptian Treaty, Ughaz Nur II, a far-sighted man, did everything in his power to prevent his people cultivating, for he realised that it would bring them under the control of the Amharic authority established at Harar.
"[173]Major R. G. Edwards Leckie writes about his meeting with Ughaz Nur II in his A Visit to the Gadabuursi: "We were warned that he did not love the Feringi (white man), and therefore thought it better to send a messenger ahead to His Majesty and return with a confidential report on the situation.
[177][178][158] The Arab Bureau, which was a collection of British intelligence officers headquartered in Cairo and charged with the task of coordinating imperial intelligence activities, recorded this event in the Arab Bureau Summaries Volumes 1–114 (1986), where it also mentioned that the British deposed Ughaz Roble II from power due to his alliance with the Ethiopian establishment: "Lij Yasu has, however, given a female relative of his in marriage to the late Agaz of the Gadabursi, who was recently deposed by us for his intrigues and misgovernment.
"[178]After the deposition of his ally Lij Iyasu by Empress Zewditu, Ughaz Roble II witnessed the October 1916 massacre of the inhabitants of Harar by Abyssinian soldiers and was given immunity along with some of the other prominent leaders in the region.
He states: "Here, probably to commemorate the westward progress of the tribe, the Gudabirsi Ugaz or chief has the white canvass turban bound about his brows, and hence rides forth to witness the equestrian games in the Harawwah Valley.