There was no foretelling what the mad English would do.  Sometimes they acquitted a criminal and gave him money and education, and sometimes they sent him to far distant islands in the South and there housed and fed him free, for life; and sometimes they killed him at the end of a rope.

Doubtless Allah smote the English mad to prevent them from stealing the whole world....  If they were not mad they would do so and enslave all other races—­except their conquerors, the Dervishes, of course....  It was like the lying hypocrites to call the Great Mullah “the Mad Mullah” knowing themselves to be mad, and being afraid of their victorious enemy who had driven them out of Somaliland to the coast forts....

Oh, if they would only treat him, Moussa Isa, as an adult, and send him to the Aden Jail to hard labour.  There folk knew a Somali from a Hubshi; a gentleman of Afar and Galla stock, of Arab blood, Moslem tenets, and Caucasian descent, from a common nigger, a low black Ethiopian, an eater of men and insects, a worshipper of idols and ju-ju.

In Aden, men knew a Somali from a Hubshi as surely as they knew an Emir from a mere Englishman.

Here, in benighted, ignorant, savage India, the Dark Continent indeed, men knew not what a Somali was, likened him to a Negro, ranked him lower than a Hindu even—­called him a Hubshi in insolent ignorance.  If only the beautiful Reformatory were in Berbera, and tenanted by Africans.

Better Aden Jail a thousand times than Duri Reformatory.

What a splendid joke if the dog of a Brahmin who persistently insulted him—­even after he had been shown his error and ignorance—­should be the unwitting means of his return to Aden—­where a Somali gentleman is recognized.  There is no harm about a Jail as such.  Far from it.  A jail is a wise man’s paradise provided by fools.  You have excellent and plentiful food, a roof against the sun, unfailing water supply, clothing, interesting occupation, and safety—­protection from your enemies.  No man harries you, you are not chained, you are not tortured; you have all that heart can desire.  Freedom?...  What is Freedom?  Freedom to die of thirst in the desert?  Freedom to be disembowelled by the Great Mullah?  Freedom to be sold as a slave into Arabia or Persia?  Freedom to be the unfed, unpaid, well-beaten property of gun-runners in the Gulf, or of Arab safari ruffians and “black-ivory” men?  Freedom to be left to the hyaena when you broke down on the march?  Freedom to die of starvation when you fell sick and could not carry coal?  Thanks.

If the mad English provided beautiful refuges, and made the commission of certain crimes the requisite qualification for admission, let wise men qualify.

Take this Reformatory—­where else could a little Somali boy get such safety, peace, food, and sumptuous luxury; everything the heart could desire, in return for doing a little gardening?  Even a house to himself as though he were the honoured, favourite son of some chief.