Revoil Journey to Geledi town: the clans of Banadir

Various Somali tribes or clans claim the territory between these towns and the possessioll of the road connecting thelYl, resulting in incessant quarrels and daily bloodshed in the environs of Magadoxo and sometimes even in the town itself. The most important of these tribes, which holds the caravan road from Magadoxo to Gualidi and thence to Gananeh, is that of the Gobrons, whose chief Omar Yusuf,

a tributary of the Sultan of Zansibar, resides at Gualidi. It was Achmet YusufX a brother of this chief, who traitorously poisoned the German traveller Kugelbach. Between Gualidi and Magadoxo, and even in the former territory, the supremacy of this tribe is however stoutly disputed by the Wadans -a rivalry which results in reduplicated exactions on the traveller, and a regular competition as to xvho shall levy the greatest contributions. Omar Yusuf sent 200 men of his escort in front of M. Revoil to plotect him as far as Gualidi. Directly on leaving hiagadoso, the explorer and his followers found the road stopped by a

troop of Bedaveen of the nomad Abgal and Mursoude tribes, and they only got over this difEculty by the help of the escort, who kept the Arabs in awe while the caravan regained the road by a circuitous path. This operation had to be repeated two or three times in the day;and there was even a slightskirmish at the gates of Gualidi where, after seve:n hours’ forced march at racing pace under a perpendiclllar sun, the traveller and his followers arrived on the evening of the 24th of June.

Source

M. Révoil’s Journey into the South Somali Country Source: Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society and Monthly Record of Geography, New Monthly Series, Vol. 5, No. 12 (Dec., 1883), pp. 717-719

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