friend, and so wantonly endeavoured, to despatch, me.
Further, that a sum of money equivalent to all our
aggregate losses should be paid in full ere the blockade
would be raised. This was considered the wisest
method by which, in future times, any recurrence of
such disasters might probably be avoided. I t is
needless to observe, considering the importance of
Berbera to the welfare of the Habr Owel, their subsistence
and their existence as a nation depending on
it, that anything might have been exacted from them
that we wished to extort, or they could afford to give.
The Government, unfortunately for our pockets, were
of a different opinion; they would have nothing to do
with money exactions when human blood had to be
avenged. Moreover, they had been wishing to suppress
the slave-trade, and found in this occurrence a
favourable opportunity to indulge their hobby. They
therefore established a blockade of all the coast-line
between Siyareh and Jibal Ehnas, demanding, as the
only alternative by which it would be raised, the surrender
of the principal instigators of the outrage on us
for trial in Aden, of whom the first m consequence was
Ou Ali, the murderer of Stroyan. When the season for
the fair arrived, the only vessel present in the Berbera
harbour was a British man-of-war, and the Habr Owel
then believed we were in earnest. Until then, it
appeared, they would not believe it, thinking our trade
in Aden would suffer by this proceeding as much as
their own. They were, however, mistaken \ trade
found an outlet at other places ; and they, by its suppression
on their grounds, were fast sinking mto insignificance.
Seeing this, they showed by urgent prayers
a disposition to treat on any conditions we might like
to impose on them, and even sent'in for trial to Aden
a man who showed the scar of a gun-shot wound on
his back, and at the same time declared their intention
of forwarding all others to us as soon as they could
catch them.
To make the matter short, I shall give intact the
articles of a treaty which was signed at Berbera on
the 7th November 1856, between the Honourable
East India Company on the one hand, and the Habr
Owel tribe of Somali on the other, as it appears in an
appendix (D), in a ‘History of Arabia Felix or Yemen,’
by Captain B. L. Playfair, Assistant Political Resident,
Aden.*
* Articles of peace and friendship concluded Between the Habr Owel
tribe of Somali on the one part, and Brigadier William Marcus
Coghlan, Political Resident at Aden, on behalf of the Honourable
East India Company, on the other.
tiL J^^ereaS’ 011 APril 1855 (corresponding with the 1st of
Shaban 1271), a treacherous attack and murder were perpetrated at the
port of Berbera by a party of Habr Owel tribe, upon a party of British
officers, about to travel in that country with the consent and under the
protection of the elders of the tribe, in consequence of which outrage
certain demands were made by the Government of India, and enforced
by a Cockade of the Habr Owel coast; and whereas it has become ap-'
parent that the said tnbe has fulfilled these conditions to the utmost of
ite ability, and has prayed to be relieved from the blockade ; therefore
it is agreed,—
« 1st, That the elders of the Habr Owel will use their best endeavours
to deliver up Ou Ah, the murderer of Lieutenant Stroyan.
J ‘2d’ l hat’ Unf this accomplished, the sub-tribeEsaMoosa, which
ow Reiters, and any other tnbe which may hereafter shelter, harbour
or protect the said Ou Ali, shall be debarred from coming to Aden.