CHAPTER IV

GOVERNMENT EXPLORATIONS

Early trips to the coast—Disturbed state of Bulhár—Stopping a

fight—Two skirmishes—First exploring trips—Hostility of the

natives—An unlucky trip—Start with my brother to explore the

Habr Toljaala and Dolbahanta countries on duty—Camp on Gólis

Range—Theodolite station at 6800 feet—Enter the waterless

plains—Advance to the Tug Dér—News of raiders ahead, and of

Col. A. Paget’s party—Dolbahanta horsemen—Advance to the

Nogal Valley—Constantly annoyed by the Dolbahanta—Prehistoric

tank and buildings at Badwein—Advance to Gosaweina—More

horsemen—Insecure border, and scene of a raid—Explore Bur

Dab Range—Robbers’ caves—Exploration of my brother on Wagar

Mountain—Lovely scenery—Return to Berbera—Start on a second

expedition to the Jibril Abokr country—The top of Gán

Libah—A new hartebeest—Death of a leopard—Hargeisa—Natives

clamouring for British protection against Abyssinia—Bold

behaviour of a leopard—Advance to the Marar Prairie—Camp at

Ujawáji—Extraordinary scene on the prairie—Quantities of

game—Gadabursi raid—Jibril Abokr welcome of the English—A

shooting trip on the plains—News of three lions—Vedettes posted

over lions—Advance to the attack—Savage charge; unconscious

and in the clutches of a lioness—My brother’s account of

the accident—His own narrow escape, and death of a fine

lion—Civility of the Jibril Abokr—Abyssinian news—Return to the

coast—Recovery from wounds—Third expedition; to the Gadabursi

country—Great raid by the Jibril Abokr on the Bahgoba—Curious

adventure with robbers—Betrayed by vultures—Raiding

tactics—First meeting with the Gadabursi—Meeting with Ugaz

Núr—The rival sultans—Construction of an Abyssinian fort at

Biyo-Kabóba—Esa in a ferment—Speech of Múdun Golab—My brother

bags a large bull elephant—March to Zeila.

In order to show the state of Somáliland when the British

Protectorate[17] was first established after the departure of the

Egyptians, I propose to give a short account of my trips into the

interior prior to 1887.

Soon after I had joined the Aden garrison in 1884, two English officers

returned from a shooting trip to the Gólis Range south of Berbera; this

was, I believe, the first journey to the Somáli interior undertaken by

any Englishman since the attack on Sir Richard Burton’s expedition thirty

years before. Accompanied by a friend, I was the next to make a short but

unimportant shooting trip to Gólis—in January 1885.

The first exploring party—that of Mr. F. L. James—had preceded us by

about a month, and was already at Gerlogubi in distant Ogádén. The

Egyptians had a few months before evacuated the coast, the Pasha leaving

with about half a battalion of soldiers and a few field-pieces, and Mr.

L. P. Walsh, one of the assistant Residents at Aden, had taken over

charge of Berbera and Bulhár with a few Aden policemen. At the same

time Zeila was, so far as I remember, handed over by the Egyptians to a

British Consul, with a French Consul also living in the town. My next

visit to Somáliland occurred two months after my return from the shooting

trip to Gólis.

The Egyptian military quarters at Bulhár had been reported flooded by a

freshet from the Issutugan river, and I was sent over from Aden to meet

Mr. Walsh and go with him to Bulhár, in order to choose a site for hut

barracks, to be put up by the Indian Sappers who were under my command.

I chose the site for the huts and returned to Aden. I arrived again at

Bulhár on 27th September 1885, with thirty Sappers and all the material

for constructing the huts, and camped near the site which we had chosen.

For the first three weeks there was no chance of leaving camp even to go

_aoul_ shooting on the plain. Several native reports had reached us that

the hill tribes, especially the Habr Gerhajis, were likely to come down

and attack us, and not knowing the nature of Somáli information at that

time I was inclined to believe these rumours.

[Illustration: ♂ WATERBUCK (_Cobus ellipsiprymnus_).

Average length of horns on curve, 20 inches.]

When the work was, however, fairly under way I took a few strolls into

the plain. On one occasion, when out, attended only by my hunter, Ali

Hirsi, we blundered within half a mile of a large party of raiding Habr

Gerhajis horsemen from the hills, whom the police from Berbera were

trying to catch. Not knowing anything about the locality of the band

I fired at a bustard, with the result that the robbers bolted for the

hills, thinking the police had come up with them.

Bulhár was now getting full of people, the clans coming down into the

plain. Two of these clans had a feud in active operation, and a large

tree near Elmas Mountain was about this time the scene of a ghastly

murder. Eight men and as many women and children of one of the clans were

attacked when asleep under a tree by their enemies, and all had their

throats cut. My hunter, Ali Hirsi, who belonged to the clan which had

suffered, promptly asked leave to go to the interior and see his father,

who, he said, had been suddenly taken ill. I afterwards found that this

was incorrect, and that Ali Hirsi, being the son of an _ákil_, had found

it incumbent on him to answer the family call to arms.

Shortly afterwards my friend the late Mr. D. Morrison, Mr. Walsh’s

assistant, arrived from Berbera to take charge of Bulhár, and he at

once found his hands full with this feud between the two clans of the

Shirdone Yunis, Habr Awal, called respectively the Boho Shirdone and the

Ba-Gadabursi Shirdone. British interests suffer sadly by these feuds

occurring near our ports, as for the time being all trade is liable to be

stopped.

A few days after M⸺’s arrival a messenger came running in at dawn one

morning to say that the Boho had taken possession of the Bulhár wells,

three miles west of the town, and were that morning going to be attacked

by the Ba-Gadabursi from Elmas, each side being about five hundred

strong. M⸺ at once decided to ride out with his interpreter and try to

dissuade the Ba-Gadabursi from attacking. I accompanied him on one of the

Sapper mules, taking with me Khoda Bux, a Panjábi muleteer, also mounted.

After going three miles, at the Bulhár wells we came upon the Boho

Shirdone halted, awaiting the attack. Here I found my hunter, Ali Hirsi,

sporting a _khaili_ tobe, with a good nag grazing close by. He came up

cheerily to me, with nothing of the servant about him, and shook hands.

I asked him after his sick father, and with a bland smile he said he had

got well again, and was going to fight the Ba-Gadabursi.

We rode on, and crossed a bare, undulating plain, which in the evenings

is sometimes covered with sand-grouse, and where I had often hunted

_aoul_, and a mile beyond the Boho we came upon the Ba-Gadabursi, not

halted, but already advancing in line to the attack!

[Illustration: SOMÁLI HORSEMAN.]

It was a stirring scene. About two hundred horsemen and three hundred

spearmen on foot were advancing in a long line facing to the east, coming

to meet us. The horsemen formed the left wing, marching along the flat

sandy plain which stretched down to the raised sea-shore on our right,

which, though we could hear their roar, hid from our view the white

breakers of the Gulf of Aden. On our left the plain rose to low sand

hillocks covered with grass and scrub, and along these came the right

wing on foot, the men extended at about a pace apart, keeping a very good

line, each man carrying his spears and shield and wearing his white tobe

wound round his waist. Most of the horsemen wore the _khaili_, or red and

blue tobe. The plain over which we had ridden stretched between us and

Bulhár, which lay four miles behind us.

Our little party of four cantered to meet this array. Now and then a

horseman darted out from the line, and galloping round in a circle, threw

his spear, and picked it up again while at full speed. As we approached

they set up a song, but stopped when M⸺ rode up to one of the _aukál_, or

elders, and demanded a parley. There was a good deal of angry shouting

at first, and the horsemen pressed round us in a dense mass, so that we

could only extricate ourselves by drawing our revolvers. Seeing we really

had some serious business on hand, one or two of the leading Ba-Gadabursi

elders, prominent among whom was a well-known firebrand called Warsama

Dugál, entreated the horsemen to wait and hear what “the Government” had

to say. M⸺, by the aid of his interpreter, quietly explained that if they

would only put off the attack for a day he would try and settle the feud

satisfactorily to both parties. While the interpreter was explaining

this, M⸺ asked me to try and bring out the thirty Sappers, to be ready on

hand if required. I told Khoda Bux in Hindustáni, and, like the sporting

Panjábi that he was, he was delighted with the errand, and kicking up

his mule, he started off at a gallop. A Shirdone galloped in pursuit,

shouting and brandishing his spear, but M⸺ quickly headed him, and

persuaded him to get back into the line and not make a fool of himself.

The elders, who had seen the force of my friend’s sensible argument from

the first, soon quieted down the horsemen; while I rode off with Warsama

Dugál and persuaded the infantry to stop, for they were quietly creeping

ahead among the sand-dunes. When they saw me riding on a kicking Panjábi

mule, with a revolver which I had forgotten to put in its holster, and

old Warsama in company excitedly yelling at them, they began to laugh,

and good-naturedly squatted down on their heels, with the butts of their

spears planted in the ground, glowering over their shields at a line of

hillocks in front which hid the Boho from view. At their earnest request

I allowed them to advance fifty yards to the top of the hillocks, “so

that they might see the Boho.” They said they were thirsty, and the sight

of the wells would do them good! The people told us that it was very hard

being stopped in this way. They did not want to touch a hair of any white

man’s head, they only wanted to wipe out the Boho. However, the elders

agreed to send back the clan to Eil Sheikh, and themselves to come into

Bulhár with M⸺ and see what they could do to settle the feud. The Sappers

at last came into sight, and about a dozen of the elders accepted our

escort to get them safely through the Boho lines. I extended my men, a

section on either side, marching in single file, while M⸺ and the elders

rode bunched together in the space between. We passed the Boho line in

this order, having first sent the interpreter on to explain. The Boho

looked savagely at our protégés as we passed, but were too sensible to

attack us for the sake of slitting the throats of a few elders, so not a

horse was mounted and all went off quietly. Arrived in Bulhár, my friend

rode out with his interpreter and brought in the Boho elders. After two

days’ talking the feud was settled for the time being, though it broke

out again a week later, and gave M⸺ an immense amount of anxiety and

trouble. Twice my little party was called out in aid of the civil power,

but not having to act in self-defence, we were able to keep the peace for

a time without firing a shot. M⸺ ordered the tribes to live apart, the

Ba-Gadabursi fourteen miles to the west at Eil Sheikh, the Boho fifteen

miles to the east at Géri, and every few days or so he would persuade

the elders to meet in Bulhár for a conference. It was only a question of

blood-money, but what a question! We always knew how things were going,

for when the relations were strained the two semicircles of old men who

were seated on the ground would shroud their faces in the ends of their

tobes, only allowing a slit to look through, and they would add the

supreme insult of shading their eyes with their hands; when things were

improving they looked their enemies frankly in the face.

Soon after the cessation of hostilities at Bulhár I was sent surveying up

the Issutugan river with an escort of fifteen sabres of the Aden troop, a

body of Indian cavalry which is permanently stationed at Khor Maksar, the

outpost near Aden. This was my first exploring trip.

After this trip I returned to Aden to prepare for further explorations

in the Habr Awal country, and at the end of December 1885 I arrived at

Bulhár with three sowars of the Aden troop, twelve mounted Panjábis,

enlisted in Aden as policemen for this special purpose, and ten sepoys

of the Bombay Infantry,—in all an escort of twenty-five men. Although we

were ready to start the survey by 1st January, the Bulhár tribes were in

such a disturbed state that M⸺, finding it necessary to utilise whatever

troops came to his hand, was obliged, in his official capacity in charge

of Bulhár, to ask me to remain, and to give him the benefit of the

services of my escort till the tribes should become more settled.

The Shirdone feud had broken out again, and some of the Boho having

managed to get into Bulhár to buy food, the Ba-Gadabursi were reported to

be coming in from Eil Sheikh to attack Bulhár. M⸺ sent out notice that if

they did come in they would be fired at. One morning, while at breakfast,

we received news that the Ba-Gadabursi were actually in sight, and

advancing to the attack. I jumped on my pony and rode out alone into the

plain to reconnoitre; and seeing that this was true, cantered into Bulhár

again, and on my way to M⸺’s quarters I called to the daffedar to turn

out my fifteen mounted men. When M⸺ and I came out again, both mounted,

we found my police ready and in the saddle, attired rather curiously,

for most of the men had only found time to put on their turbans, and had

their cartridge belts strapped over whatever clothes they had worn when

lounging about inside their huts.

As soon as we had got beyond Bulhár we saw the Ba-Gadabursi advancing

slowly over the plain, about seven hundred yards away, and reining in

we fired a couple of rounds from the saddle, and returned the carbines

to their buckets, then, drawing swords, we advanced at a gallop. The

Ba-Gadabursi, of whom there were over a hundred mounted and about ten

on foot, bolted at the first shots, and the horsemen were soon lost to

sight in the haze of the Maritime Plain, while the men on foot, seeing

themselves abandoned, tried to hide in the grass, but were all caught by

my men and brought in as prisoners, only one being slightly wounded by

a sword-point through the arm. With the men were brought in seventeen

spears and some shields, which M⸺ gave to the prisoners when he released

them next day.

The Ba-Gadabursi were quiet for a week after this; and then, on another

morning, a runner came to report that they were again coming in, in

force, this time on foot. Our ponies had all been knocked up by scouting

for hill raiders in the Selei direction on the previous day, so we called

our available men out on foot. M⸺ took command of the fifteen dismounted

policemen, while I collected my own sepoys and an Infantry guard which

was then stationed at Bulhár; they amounted to about thirty rank and

file, all belonging to the Bombay Infantry. While the Ba-Gadabursi

were still quite a thousand yards away, M⸺, having drawn up the police

along the sea-shore, gave the signal which we had agreed upon, firing

two volleys at the distant line of a few hundred natives. They bolted

at once, and I had a running skirmish with them for half an hour over

two or three miles of grassy plain, after which we lost touch of them

altogether. We found, however, some fifteen men hiding in the grass or

diving about in the surf, and one wounded man, and brought them all in,

with a collection of some thirty spears which had been thrown away in the

retreat. Most of these were given back next day.

There was a lull after this, but on the following day half a dozen elders

of the offending tribe came in and called upon M⸺, and we held a council

with them outside his quarters, a large crowd of spectators coming from

Bulhár village to look on. The elders, led by Warsama Dugál, explained

that they had no quarrel with the Government, but only with the Boho.

Their young men had, however, been boasting a good deal, not seeing why

they should be kept out of Bulhár, saying that they didn’t care for the

Government, and would go in and burn the town. The elders had then given

them Punch’s advice, “Don’t,” but they had not listened to it. “Now,”

said the elders to M⸺, “you have fired upon our boys; that was bad of

you, but next time they will listen to our advice.” After we had shaken

hands cordially with them, for they were all personally known to us,

they rode away to Eil Sheikh. The wounded man, who had only received a

bullet through the foot, was put under medical treatment, and in a few

days limped out to his tribe. Soon after the second skirmish M⸺ brought

the Boho and Ba-Gadabursi to a settlement, only to break out again some

months later.

Meanwhile, on 1st February I was free to start for the interior on my

survey trip. I had arranged to go in by So Midgán and Eil Ánod to the

Interior Plains, and thence to strike through the Maritime Range to

Bulhár. My caravan consisted of eighteen Aden hill camels[18] with Arab

drivers, seventeen sabres of Indian mounted police, and ten Bombay

Infantry sepoys. We drove with us a small herd of Aden donkeys, so that

the sepoys could either ride or pack their valises on them. We arrived

at So Midgán, twenty-three miles from Bulhár, at dusk, and next day we

marched to Eil Ánod, ten miles farther. We expected to come upon the

Habr Gerhajis tribe, which was supposed to be slightly hostile to the

British, and was noted for raiding; and as we passed the spurs of the

Sarar-awr (camel-back) plateau, on the way to Eil Ánod, we saw the tops

of the hills white with sheep and lined with men, who were in a great

state of alarm, shouting down at us. Later we found a karia with only a

few women in it, who said all the men had run away, thinking we had come

to loot them! Knowing mounted men cannot climb hills, they had taken the

precaution to drive the flocks up, taking charge of them for the time

being, and leaving the women to mind the rest of their property below.

We reassured these women, who then ran up and brought down the men, and

after a short conference the flocks were driven into the plain again.

The owners of the karia turned out to be a _jilib_ or family of the Habr

Gerhajis, and soon an intelligent-looking young man who had lost one

leg came forward mounted on a pony and shook hands. He was Deria Shiré,

the son of an important elder of the Habr Gerhajis tribe named Shiré

Shirmáki, whom I afterwards met and made great friends with during the

elephant-hunting trip described in the last chapter. The latest news I

have heard of Deria Shiré, who, although a well-mannered young man, is

rather a scoundrel, was to the effect that two or three years ago he

speared his old father in the leg, nearly killing him. I found him very

polite, and he accompanied us to the wells, at the same time remarking

that he had not the slightest knowledge why we had come, and that his

tribe were very suspicious. No other white man had ever been to Eil Ánod

before, and he did not quite see why we had come now.

We found a few men at the Eil Ánod wells, who received us with black

looks, and we took possession of one of the old zeríbas and put a sentry

over a well, which was reserved for our own use. Deria Shiré left us,

saying that he could not be responsible for what his tribe might do;

we had come armed with guns and were strong, and he hoped we would

leave him alone. Meanwhile, as we were pitching camp, my interpreter,

Samanter, went down to the wells and got into conversation with some of

the tribesmen who were lounging there. He came back to me in a great

state of excitement, saying he had reliable information that we were to

be attacked that night, and that I was to make a strong zeríba, and not

leave camp myself nor allow any of the men to do so.

There was plenty of game in the Eil Ánod plain, and as I thought, if I

followed Samanter’s advice, the Habr Gerhajis would only be strengthened

in their belief that we meant harm to them, I decided to fortify the

zeríba, and leaving fifteen men inside, to sally out myself with the

ten others, and beat the jungle for game. We made a circuit of the bush

within two miles of camp, firing at the tiny _Sakáro_ antelopes and

hares, and getting a mixed bag of three hares and six antelopes. At dusk,

carrying our game, we returned to the zeríba, on the way passing a large

tree where about a hundred and fifty men were collected, all having their

spears with them, and a few saddled ponies were grazing round the tree.

These people took no further notice than to scowl at us as we passed.

After we had reached the zeríba I came out again with two sepoys and

the interpreter, and walking up to the tree where the tribesmen were

collected, I called out “_Salaam aleikum_” (Peace be with you). There

was no answer for some time, and then an old man with a white beard and

a wicked-looking, clean-shaven skull, treated me to a surly stare and

mumbled; “_Salaam_.” Then he looked down and spat on the ground, and

began absent-mindedly scratching the earth with a bit of stick, and then

smoothing out the marks with his hands. The rest of the crowd remained

silent, all looking sulky and mischievous. Some were gazing at us with a

rude stare, others were shading their eyes with their hands, or hiding

behind their tobes. My interpreter harangued them, asking why I was

received so coldly by the tribe. There was a long pause till two old men

cleared their throats and looked at each other, and without rising one of

them spoke. “_Warya ninki Frinji_” (I say, foreigner) was the beginning

of his speech, and it was translated into Hindustáni by Samanter as the

old man went on.

The gist of his remarks was that the tribesmen wanted to know why I had

brought all these soldiers into the Habr Gerhajis country, and whether we

had come to steal cattle, for if so, we had better go back again, as they

had none. There was plenty of cattle among the other tribes.

We had come, my interpreter said, on a peaceful mission, to report upon

the trade routes, and to ascertain whether they were safe for caravans

coming to trade in Berbera and Bulhár. There was a good deal of loud

discussion among the assembled men, and then the old man who had first

spoken, becoming more friendly, said that he and his tribe knew nothing

about the looting of caravans. He accused all the sub-tribes around of

looting, but said the Abdul Ishák never looted, and I was to tell the

Government. At that time the Abdul Ishák, Habr Gerhajis, were well known

as the most persistent looters of caravans, but I promised to convey the

message to the authorities, and made the old man happy. Peace was now

restored, and we spent a quiet night, the Abdul Ishák sending us several

vessels of milk; and in the morning we parted amicably, and continued our

trip, eventually reaching Berbera.

This incident at Eil Ánod, only thirty miles from the coast, shows how

little Europeans were trusted or known in the early days of the British

Protectorate. Many shooting parties have been through the Habr Awal and

Habr Gerhajis countries of late years, but at that time the country was

quite unexplored, even close to the coast.

About a month after the Eil Ánod incident we set out from Berbera on

another trip, this time going to Mandeira, and thence up the Jeráto Pass

to Syk, in the high Ogo country.

I heard that the Kásin Ishák, a clan of the Habr Gerhajis, were at Syk,

and expected trouble; but when we reached the Syk fig-tree we found only

a few of the elders, who said that they had received a good report of

us from the Abdul Ishák clan, which had met us on the former journey at

Eil Ánod, and so they had been waiting to receive us hospitably. I had

left my camp at Mandeira, about fifteen hundred feet below, and had come

up the Jeráto Pass with seven troopers as an escort. On reaching Berbera

we marched to Bulhár along the coast track, and on 26th April we made

another exploring trip to the Interior Plains, returning at the end of it

to Berbera and thence to Aden, where I completed my map of the Habr Awal

country for Government.

[Illustration: A Moonlight Drink

“SAKARO” ANTELOPE.]

In the following autumn, although not actually sent on duty, I obtained

six weeks’ leave to Somáliland, on condition I would do a map of my route

for Government. I was very anxious to go to Zeila and make an exploration

through the Gadabursi hills, coming out at the coast again at Bulhár. So

far the hills between Zeila and Bulhár had been quite unknown. On this

trip I was in company with three friends, two of whom, finding the game

scarce, soon returned to Zeila. I held on, however, and we struck without

guides through the mountains, finally reaching Dímis, near Bulhár, having

traversed the last sixty miles with only three pints of water per man.

This caused some suffering from thirst, which the men were able to partly

alleviate at Eil Sheikh by jumping into the sea and moistening their

skins. One pony died from the effects of this march the day after we

reached Bulhár.

We had timed our trip at a bad season for game, and the only satisfaction

which I got for fitting out a very expensive expedition, and for a good

deal of hardship, was a map of hitherto unexplored country.

In 1887 I made the two big game trips recorded in the last chapter, and

in 1889 a short shooting trip to Gólis, which was of minor importance.

In 1891 I was ordered to place myself at the disposal of the Resident at

Aden in order to reconnoitre the trade routes in the Dolbahanta, Habr

Toljaala, Jibril Abokr, Esa, and Gadabursi countries. My brother, Lieut.

(now Captain) E. J. E. Swayne, 16th Bengal Infantry, whom I will call

E⸺, was deputed to assist in the survey, and joined me at Calcutta as I

passed through that place on my way from Mandalay to Aden. We reached

the Somáli coast in February, and started with thirty-two Somális and

one Madras “boy.” There were twenty-six baggage camels, and we each rode

a camel led by a Somáli at walking pace. Going by Dubár and Sheikh, we

arrived after eleven days at Alla-uli, a watering-place in a narrow

valley just behind the crest of the highest bluffs of the Gólis Range, at

an elevation of six thousand feet above sea-level.

On the following day, after establishing a small camp on the top of

Fodwein Bluff, we chose our theodolite station within a short distance of

the edge of Fodwein, which falls several hundred feet sheer to the Mirso

ledge below. This was the first of a long chain of stations for fixing

the main positions on our route, by observations of the stars for azimuth

and latitude, with a six-inch transit theodolite.

We remained here four days, and obtained a good azimuth on to a point

on a small hill called Yirrowa, fifty-five miles away to the east of

south, on the main route to the Dolbahanta country. Looking towards

Yirrowa from the top of Gólis we could see only one immense expanse of

dark brown bush, becoming quite blue in the distance and looking like a

sea-horizon, broken only by the small hill Yirrowa, and a long, light

blue line, dancing high above the horizon in the heat haze and mirage,

which indicated the Bur Dab Range, two days’ march beyond Yirrowa.

The whole of the country ahead was unmapped, the first European caravans

to go so far south being those of Colonel Paget to the south-west of

us, and of Mr. Clarke, which had gone to the interior a few days before

towards the south-east. Eventually, however, we left both these caravans

far to the west.

From our elevated position, which was now 6800 feet above the sea, we had

a fine view of the Maritime Ranges and Berbera Plain, and we obtained

a back azimuth on the Berbera Masjid tower, thirty-five miles distant.

It was very cold at night, the thermometer going down to 58°, with a

chilling drizzle and clouds of mist which often enveloped us, making

observations impossible.

On the 22nd we marched back to Upper Sheikh, and while we were camped

near the graves at night, the mullahs from Guldu Hamed ran to us crying

that looters were coming down on us. Men were seen running by, who said

they were Habr Gerhajis, and that their cattle had been lifted by a

neighbouring tribe. We remained under arms for a while and then turned

in. Next morning it transpired that the camels had only been allowed to

stray, and had afterwards been found.

We marched six miles to Dubbur, the last water before we should reach

Bér, about sixty miles farther, and filled up our casks. Now we

entered the great wooded and undulating waterless plains, crossing the

Habr Toljaala boundary soon after leaving Dubbur, and always holding

south-east. On the east a long low range of hills shut in the view, but

west and south of us was one immense forest of small thorn-trees, except

on the margin of the sand-rivers, where some of the _gudá_ thorn-trees

reached a height of fifty or sixty feet. In a river-bed, called Goité,

horsemen of the Habr Gerhajis, from Bur’o, came to hold a mounted parade

in our honour.

On 27th February we reached Yirrowa, and chose another theodolite

station. There were several curious flat hillocks and cairns of stones,

called Taalla Gálla, perched about the corners of the Yirrowa Hill, and

here we got an azimuth on to Bur Dab Range, still blue in the distance.

At a thickly wooded pasture called Bér, five miles farther, in the valley

of Tug Dér, we found water at a depth of ten feet in twelve wells. Very

heavy floods sometimes come down this valley, as can be seen by the

large trunks of trees everywhere stranded along the cut banks of the

watercourse, which is at places one hundred and fifty yards broad. The

Tug Dér freshets, coming from Bur’o, pass east into the Nogal Valley, and

so to the Indian Ocean.

We were told that there were always from fifty to five hundred robbers in

the Bur Dab Range, and passing caravans were often looted. It has been

the custom of these robbers, who belong to the Mahamud Gerád, Saad Yunis,

and Músa Abokr tribes living near the coast farther east, to loot across

this Bér Plain every year, going right up to Guldu Hamed. When raiding

they only water their ponies once in three or four days. Near Bér we

found tracks of forty horsemen, and ascertained that they were those of a

Dolbahanta force, which a month before had gone to loot the Habr Gerhajis

pastures at Bur’o, but had been driven back, losing three ponies.

Several very ragged-looking Somális, with the usual spears and shield,

came into camp and insisted on being fed; they had gone to Bur Dab to

recover some camels looted from them three days before, but on reaching

the mountain they had first seen vultures hovering about, and had then

discovered the robbers in great force sitting over a feast of the

carcases of the stolen camels; and being afraid to attack, they had

returned disheartened, hungry, thirsty, and tired. They told us that

Colonel Paget and his brother had their camp near Wadama-go, ahead of

us, where they were shooting lions. The Pagets had already had one sharp

skirmish with Bur Dab robbers, being obliged, we heard, to use their

rifles freely in self-defence.

We reached Kirrit well, near Wadama-go, on 3rd March. There were numbers

of old graves here, and the well, supposed to have been dug out of the

gypsum rock by ancient Gállas, is very curious. At the mouth it is a hole

twenty feet in diameter, narrowing as it descends, with a rude cross

quarried out of the face. To get water, one has to descend twenty feet,

and then crawl along a narrow rocky passage for thirty feet to a very

deep pool, six feet wide and thirty feet long. It is quite dark, and

there is a strong smell of sulphuretted hydrogen, with which the water is

impregnated from the gypsum rock. The water is disagreeable to drink, and

causes diarrhœa. Robbers from Bur Dab often use this well when on their

raids. The gypsum rock is very smooth and white, and in some places

presents the appearance of the flagstone flooring of a cathedral, being

split up into squares. The graves, which are made of these rocks, are

generally plastered over with powdered gypsum.

Next day we marched across a broad tributary valley of the Nogal to a

flat-topped hill called Daba Dalól, eight miles to the east. We crossed

the tracks of Colonel Paget’s caravan, and the next day we received a

note from him concerning some robbers whom he had taken prisoners.

Near Daba Dalól was a mullah’s village named Kob-Fardód, with a little

cultivation. These people told us that the Mahamud Gerád were out against

the Arasama, another sub-tribe of the Dolbahanta, and that there had been

a fight, two days’ march ahead on our route.

Next day we had a scare among the camelmen. At noon, while the camels and

horses were watering at the well, two miles from camp, under a weak guard

of three riflemen, one of them ran in to say they had been attacked and

the camels looted. E⸺ went out with a portion of our escort to search

for the missing camels; but they had only gone half a mile when fifteen

horsemen, the supposed enemy, cantered up and shouted that they were

Arasama, and that they had come three days’ march to welcome us into the

Dolbahanta country. They told us that more than a dozen caravans were in

their country, afraid to go to Berbera on account of the Mahamud Gerád.

One caravan had even gone round to Berbera by way of the Haud, preferring

to go through waterless country and to carry ten days’ water on the

camels, rather than run the risk of being looted. They also declared that

we were the first Europeans in this country, and denied all knowledge of

some Italians who were reported to have already come to Bur Dab. Here we

met gum-pickers, wandering about the jungle, collecting gum in sacks.

They seemed very poor, with old and rotten tobes.

The Arasama, to whom we had given presents at Daba-Dalól, followed us

through the Ain valley, giving great annoyance by loud-voiced demands for

more. Wherever we halted we were at once surrounded by a crowd of elders,

clamouring for tobes. They were dragged from hand to hand, with a chorus

of angry shouts, the bald-headed old chiefs looking like human vultures.

We halted at a steep, flat-topped hill called Kabr Ogádén, or the Ogádén

graves, where a great Ogádén army once perished at the hands of the

Dolbahanta. The whole country was dotted with Gálla cairns, one of these

curious structures being visible on every hill-top. From the summit of

the hill we got a splendid view of the broad Nogal Valley, and chose our

theodolite station at a Gálla cairn on the highest point.

Next day, followed by the Arasama headmen, still clamouring for tobes,

we marched to their great watering-place, Eil Dab (rocky well). The

tribe was here in strength, with enormous droves of camels and ponies

and flocks of sheep. For a mile round the wells there were clouds of

dust, kicked up by the thirsty animals. The water in the wells, which are

caves in gypsum rock, was very foul. Vulturine guinea-fowl abounded. We

marched due south, crossing to the south side of the Nogal, but we could

not shake off the Arasama, who followed us on their ponies, continually

demanding presents and refusing to be satisfied with what we gave. One

old chief presented us with a sheep, but not liking my return present of

two tobes, he crept into our zeríba at night and stole his sheep back,

while a friend of his engaged the attention of our sentry.

At our Biyo Ado camp more elders from other tribes joined the Arasama,

and while E⸺ and I were up the hill with the theodolite, they issued

forth and looted some camels of the Allegiri tribe which were seen

passing four miles out on the plain. They also took three men prisoners,

but we eventually forced them to release both camels and prisoners. The

Allegiri brought us news of a fight between the Arasama and Barkad Gerád

on one side and Mahamud Gerád on the other, in which the latter were

successful.

Next day, while we were away watering our ponies, the Arasama issued from

our camp, and chasing two Allegiri, whom they had seen from the hill,

they brought them in as hostages for exchange with some looted camels.

Finding the prisoners on our return we released them, and after turning

all the Arasama elders neck and crop out of camp, we gave out that we

intended to be friends with all tribes and would not be mixed up in their

quarrels.

Followed by a large number of avaricious elders, we marched north-east

to Badwein, where we found more wells, and a large tank of water, four

hundred yards in circumference, with perpendicular sides forty feet deep,

supposed to have been excavated in the limestone rocks by ancient Gállas;

but the water was utterly unfit for human consumption. Ruins, which rise

half smothered from among a tangle of aloes and thorn jungle close by,

cover an area of forty thousand square yards, and in some of the houses

the walls are still ten feet high. E⸺ rode into a large house or temple,

to find it two hundred feet long and one hundred feet wide, divided by

a number of partition walls. They are built of limestone and very much

decomposed by rains, and are supposed to be the work of the Gállas, but

no one knows who built them. Some of the Somális say they date back to

the time of some race before the Gállas. The people at Badwein had just

come from Gosaweina, driven from there through fear of the Mahamud Gerád,

and we were assured we would most certainly be attacked by that tribe

if we held to our determination of going to Gosaweina. We were further

told that the plains were very open and the horsemen “as numerous as the

sand,” and that some years ago a force of natives armed with one hundred

matchlocks had been completely wiped out there by a night attack.

Marching eastward, we soon entered the open grass plains, where we saw

the smouldering zeríbas of the Arasama and Barkad Gerád sub-tribes, which

had fled before the Mahamud Gerád. The next day we held across the open

plains to Gosaweina, and scarcely had we started when a party of horsemen

was seen halted on some low hills to the north! We, however, kept

straight on, and the horsemen, constantly increasing in numbers, followed

us, moving parallel to us on the higher ground.

Without halting the camels, we whistled the men up and they formed line,

and moved out to protect the caravan. The horsemen came towards us at

a gallop, but pulled up on our running with a few men towards them. On

getting up to them my men were greatly relieved in their minds to find

that instead of the terrible Mahamud Gerád, they were a detachment of

the Arasama and Barkad Gerád, who had been out protecting their flocks

and herds at Eil Dab and Badwein by scouting for the Mahamud Gerád.

They followed us to Gosaweina, clamouring for cloth, and hobbling their

horses, they made a bivouac on the plain with us at night. We did not

light fires, not wishing to attract the Mahamud Gerád. The horsemen told

us that rain had fallen in the plain to the north of us, below Bur Dab,

and that at Waredad there was a pool full of water.

We had now mapped the Dolbahanta country to the head of the Nogal Valley,

and the time had arrived for our return to the coast.[19] We ran the

gauntlet of the begging Arasama elders back to Eil Dab, and then struck

due south, crossing Bur Dab Range by a pass called Laba Gardai, which

descended into the Waredad Plain below. While we were in camp at Eil Dab

some of our escort, losing patience, began firing with blank cartridge

at the excited mob of Arasama who were pressing round camp demanding

tobes. The elders brought in what they declared to be a wounded man,

and made the occurrence the text for a further demand that we should

pay blood-money or fight the tribe; but we found it was only an old

half-healed scar, and laughed at them.

A trading caravan, anxious to go to Berbera, but fearing the robbers who

infest Bur Dab, took advantage of our protection for the next few days.

In this caravan the women were to the men as six to one, and had it been

attacked when alone it would have fallen an easy prey to a small party of

raiders. To place so much valuable property almost entirely in the charge

of defenceless women is putting temptation in the way of the robber

bands, and often the owners have only themselves to blame.

We reached Arregéd, a deep ravine in the middle of the Bur Dab Range, and

during the night two men were seen skulking in the bush near camp. On the

20th, taking three men and a theodolite, I ascended Bur Dab, and choosing

a station for star observations, spent the night on the top of the hill.

In the morning before descending to camp we explored the interior of the

range, and found that all the plateaux of which it was formed dropped

sheer down into a large basin seamed by watercourses and tunnelled

everywhere by caves. The regularity of the strata and their water-worn

appearance led us to believe Bur Dab to be composed of stratified

limestone rock, and not a volcano, as stated by some Italian travellers.

Possibly they confounded Bur Dab and Bur Dáb, the former meaning “rocky

hill,” and the latter “hill of fire.” The caves inside afford a secure

retreat for robbers, who, indeed, are said never to leave the mountain.

On going down to camp I found that E⸺ and his own followers had been kept

on the alert throughout the night by men prowling round them. They were

distinctly visible in the moonlight, but E⸺ would allow no firing, as

they made off whenever he went out to see who they were. On our return

to Berbera we heard that fifty robbers had reconnoitred our Arregéd

camp, and had made off westward for Kirrit, thinking we had come to Bur

Dab to look for them. For having been severely handled in their attack

on Colonel Paget’s party, they did not care to come into collision with

Europeans again. Further native information was given us regarding this

attack, it being reported to us that the robbers had lost three killed

and ten wounded. As we did not actually visit Colonel Paget’s camp,

however, we could hear no reliable account of what happened.

Marching through the Habr Toljaala country, we reached the eastern

continuation of Gólis Range and descended by the Huguf Pass. Near Huguf

we divided our caravan into two parts; I marched to Berbera _via_ Karam,

while E⸺ ascended Wagar Mountain, two days’ march to the west of Huguf,

to take observations. He marched over very steep and rolling ground,

gradually ascending, and then through a narrow gorge to Sisai, at the

back of Wagar. Sisai is a grassy hollow between the two principal peaks

of Wagar, which are called by different names, the peak to the east being

Bakáwa, and the one to the west, and highest, Tawáwur (nearly seven

thousand feet). Everywhere the hills are clothed with thick vegetation,

and the grass is succulent and green, and many fat cattle of the Mahomed

Esa were seen. The trees are chiefly mountain cedar and _hassádan_, a

kind of euphorbia, affording a dense shade. The party ascended Tawáwur

from Sisai by a good path, passing through heavy timber of cedar and

_hassádan_, the soil everywhere being hidden by the rich vegetation.

About half-way up the party reached a long glade of green grass two

feet high, which wetted them to the knees as they walked through it.

At the side of this glade the cedar-trees were straight, and starting

with a girth of from ten to fifteen feet, rose to a height of ninety

to one hundred feet, the _hassádan_ trees also attaining a height of

about seventy feet. Opening out from this glade in all directions were

excellent paths through the forest made by elephants, and plunging into

one of them, they reached the top of Tawáwur. They climbed on to an

enormous boulder capping the top. Looking over a vast expanse of white

clouds, they waited for them to clear away, but after four hours a dense

fog came up and necessitated a retreat. E⸺ saw countless varieties of

birds, and heard the voice of a panther come up from the valley below,

and at times koodoo antelopes could be heard crashing through the jungle

as the party advanced. About thirty varieties of flowers were gathered,

of great beauty.

E⸺ made two ascents of Tawáwur and one of Bakáwa, and working down the

spurs of Bergéli, he reached camp at Asseil. It was very cold at night at

Sisai, and the temperature throughout the day was 70°, except at noon,

when it rose to 78° Fahr. E⸺ then descended again with his caravan to the

plain below Huguf, and marching to the coast, reached Berbera a few days

before I arrived by the coast route from Karam.

The expedition to the Dolbahanta country was followed by a second

to the Jibril Abokr sub-tribe of the Habr Awal, living in the hills

north-west of Hargeisa and in the open plains near the Harar border.

We took twenty-three men, of whom sixteen carried rifles, and there

were twenty-four camels. The caravan left Berbera on 21st May, going

south-west. We made a moonlight march to Nasíya tree in the Maritime

Plain. Next day we came upon an immense cloud of locusts, which were seen

daily till the 26th,[20] often darkening the sky.

On the 28th we ascended a plateau just under the crest of Gán Libah,[21]

which is the farthest west of the Gólis bluffs, and a most conspicuous

landmark; and it was on the highest point of Gán Libah, at an elevation

of six thousand feet, that we chose our theodolite station. We climbed

the mountain to a point some four miles south of the edge of the bluff,

and camped; and next morning I made an exploration through the cedar

forests to the highest point, from which the whole of the low country to

the north can be seen, including Berbera and Bulhár. I found, however,

that owing to the steep nature of the ground, it would be impossible

to get the theodolite uninjured to the station which we had chosen. We

subsequently found the three points, Berbera, Bulhár, and Gán Libah, very

nearly formed an equilateral triangle, with a side of about forty-two

miles.

The distance covered by the exploration was only eight miles, but it

occupied five hours, as the mountain was fearfully cut up by deep

ravines, while the high trees, growing close together and festooned with

creepers, thoroughly obstructed the path. At the edge of the bluffs are

cliffs on every side, and a beautiful jungle with a great variety of

flowers and plants, especially nastertians, maiden-hair fern, and mosses.

We struck camp and made for the lower plateau, losing ourselves among a

network of steep ravines, but eventually we reached a plain from which

stood out a rounded rock called Dagah Kaburáleh, and we camped in a

grassy hollow at its foot.

Later on we struck south through the _khansa_ jungle to Bér in Khansa.

E⸺ saw a lioness, but she bounded into the long grass before he had a

chance of getting a shot at her. Leaving him at the Bér camp, I made a

reconnaissance into the open prairie of Toyo, sleeping out two nights

without a tent, and shooting for the first time two hartebeests, which

were afterwards found to be new to science, and being submitted to Dr.

Sclater, Secretary of the London Zoological Society, they were described,

and named Swayne’s Hartebeests (_Bubalis swaynei_). Returning to Bér,

and finding E⸺ had gone, I followed in his tracks, and halted for the

night at a pasture called Taláwa-yér, among the karias of the Kásin

Ishák, Habr Gerhajis. As I was riding ahead of the caravan, towards

sunset, looking out for a dead tree near which to camp, and so save

labour in collecting firewood, some karia people came running to report

that a panther had just struck down a goat, and had then been driven

off by the herdboys. I ordered the men to pitch camp and walked over to

the body of the goat. We built a screen of boughs two feet high, taking

ten minutes over the work, and then, with the setting sun scorching our

backs, I sat down with my two hunters behind the screen, and only five

yards from the goat. Several men, who had helped us to make the brushwood

screen, then walked away towards camp, purposely talking aloud to lead

the brute to suppose we had all gone together; and while they were yet

only a hundred yards away I looked towards the goat and saw the panther

was standing over it, his tail towards me. I fired, and hit him high on

the left side, the bullet raking forward, and he rolled over, and looking

under the smoke I finished him with a second shot as he lay twisting and

growling in the grass; and we carried him to camp and skinned him by

firelight. This was the first panther I had ever bagged, though I had

seen many. At dawn I continued the march, and arrived at my brother’s

halting-place before noon.

We made several marches westward, and on 8th June we reached Hargeisa.

This town is built some five hundred yards from the right bank of the

Aleyadéra nala,[22] and at an elevation of thirty or forty feet above it.

Round the place is a patch of _jowári_ cultivation (_Holcus sorghum_),

two and a half miles long and a quarter of a mile broad. Quantities of

live stock of all kinds graze on the low undulating hills for half a

mile from the Aleyadéra nala on either bank. Hargeisa is situated on two

important caravan routes, one from Ogádén and the other from Harar. There

are good direct camel roads to Berbera and Bulhár. Supplies of rice,

tobacco, and dates can sometimes be bought here in the trading season.

Some four hundred people are employed looking after the _jowári_ fields,

and can be seen sitting on platforms, shouting and throwing stones to

scare away the birds from the crops. There is abundance of good water in

the bed of the river, and a masonry well has been built, and is kept in

order by an Arab from Aden. The town is full of blind and lame people,

who are under the protection of Sheikh Mattar and his mullahs. The soil

is red alluvial earth with a thin layer of fine sand on the top, and it

is not better than that which we had seen in the Tug Dér valley, at Bér,

and in the Haud. _Jowári_ crops flourish here as they would in most of

the higher tracts of Somáliland, if the people were not in a chronic

state of petty warfare, and cared to cultivate.

At the time of our visit great anxiety was felt because the Abyssinians

occupying Harar had threatened to attack Hargeisa, and had already

exacted tribute of cattle from some clans of the Jibril Abokr, Habr Awal.

Sheikh Mattar told us that he thought if the Abyssinians came down they

would choose the time of the harvest, six weeks later.

From Hargeisa we continued our journey westwards, camping at Abbárso. Our

tents were pitched five yards apart at this camp, and as I was sitting

outside in the balmy air, enjoying the quiet moonlight scene, I observed

a panther crouching under the outer fly of E⸺’s tent, evidently stalking

something in the centre of the camp. Diving quickly into my own tent for

a loaded rifle, I came out again, only to find the panther had sprung

into the centre of camp and seized a milk goat. There had been a crowd of

men sleeping round the goat, and to get at it he had leaped over them,

placing his paw upon the face of my brother’s cook, without, however,

injuring him. On the sentry running towards him with the butt of his

Snider rifle raised to strike, the brute dropped the goat and discreetly

sprang over some more men and out of the zeríba, and then sneaked away.

The same goat was killed by another panther springing into camp a few

nights later.

We separated our caravans on 14th June, meeting again at Ujawáji on the

17th, among the karias of the Rer Yunis Jibril, Jibril Abokr. The great

subject of conversation among the natives here was the expected approach

of an Abyssinian force, mounted scouts having been thrown out by the

tribes, and news coming in daily.

Near Ujawáji the country gradually became more grassy and open, the

thorn bushes being only thinly scattered about the plain. We passed

a tree called “Mattan,” and two miles beyond this tree, which was a

conspicuous landmark, a long hazy yellow line marked the commencement of

the _ban_ or open grass plain, which is called the Marar Prairie. It was

first crossed by Burton, and is mentioned in _First Footsteps in East

Africa_. A conspicuous rock, called “Moga Medir,” or “Jifa Medir” (Moga’s

eye-tooth of Burton), lay ten miles to the west of us on the edge of the

bush. On the evening of our arrival at Ujawáji we went out to shoot some

hartebeests to provide meat for the men. As we left camp the bushes gave

place to low scrub, and this presently ended also. Then a curious scene

presented itself to us. As far as the eye could reach was an unbroken

plain of rolling yellow grass, rising gradually towards the north, and

bounded twenty miles off in that direction by a waving blue line of hills

running along the horizon, and here and there disappearing below it.

The plains were covered with the camels and ponies of the Rer Dollol and

Rer Yunis Jibril sub-tribes, the number of animals giving one the idea

of a swarm of young locusts moving over the ground. Everything showed up

dark against the background of yellow grass; and single bull hartebeests,

knee-deep in grass, were seen wandering about between the droves of

camels, looking like black dots in the distance. Beyond the masses of

domestic animals we could see, far out on the plains, long dark lines,

which, by using the glasses, we made out to be vast herds of hartebeests,

oryx, and Sœmmering’s gazelles. The rich soil, of a reddish brown

colour, is here and there undermined by burrowing animals and caved in,

making galloping dangerous. The white ants had built up the earth into

ant-hills, whose spires, from ten to twenty feet high, were dotted over

the plain. We shot two hartebeests, both good bulls, and returned to camp

with the meat and trophies, being caught by a heavy downpour of rain on

the way.

Early next morning we had to witness a great equestrian display by the

Rer Dollol and Yunis Jibril horsemen, given in our honour. After the

_dibáltig_ they told us there had been fighting at some wells near us the

day before, the Gadabursi having attacked them from the west, killing one

man and wounding another; and also that an elephant had been killed, not

far away, by Midgáns, with poisoned arrows.

We had promised the Jibril Abokr that we would wait at Ujawáji to hear

further news of the Abyssinians, and to record the complaints of the

elders, for submission to Government; meanwhile, having been told by

the horsemen in the morning that lions were numerous in the Jifa bush,

we resolved to go and look for them there, taking the camp with us. The

Jibril Abokr lent us horsemen to help us search for lion tracks, and we

started ahead of the caravan, sitting on camels which were led by our

gunbearers.

We got away from camp late in the morning, and besides the men we had

engaged, we were followed by a crowd of horsemen, who were anxious to

witness our shooting, and to come in for a share of any venison we might

obtain on the plains between Ujawáji and Jifa. Soon we found ourselves

out in the open, masses of game giving way before us as we advanced. The

size of the party prevented our coming within close range, but we wounded

a bull hartebeest, and E⸺, mounting one of the Somáli ponies, gave chase,

with an Indian hog-spear in his hand. The hartebeest is known to be the

most enduring of the antelopes, having a long and untiring stride, and

though E⸺ circled round the horizon, followed by two horsemen, at a great

pace, it gradually increased its distance, and finally disappeared into

one of the great wave-like dips of the ground.

Presently a party of horsemen appeared galloping towards us, now and then

hidden by the rolling ground, and arriving in front of our party they

circled their ponies, and giving the complimentary “_Mót!_” they came up

and shook hands. They informed us that they had marked down three lions

in the grass, on the open plain, eight miles away in the Jifa direction;

and they assured us the lions would be found in the same place, as six

horsemen had been placed to form a cordon round them, and they would be

afraid to move from the shelter of a patch of rather high grass. The men

said that these lions must have been living within the edge of the Jifa

bush, prowling out on the great plains at night in order to stalk the

herds of antelopes, and that they must have killed something the night

before, and being gorged and lazy, the break of day had caught them

while still in the open, on their way back to the bush to lie up for the

day. These horsemen had been on their way to Ujawáji from Jifa to perform

the _dibáltig_ at our camp, but seeing the lions, and knowing that we

were keen to get at them, they had circled them in, and compelled them

to sit down on the plain and wait for us. Posting six vedettes, they had

then come to give us the news.

It was now about one o’clock and very hot, but we pressed on, resisting

all temptation to fire at any of the game around us for fear of

disturbing the lions; for a shot can be heard at a great distance on

these plains. Towards four o’clock we saw one of the vedettes looming

out of the haze, and then another. It was, however, a long time before

we could make out the lions, which these men were trying to point out to

us. They were five hundred yards away, trying to take shelter from the

pitiless sun in a patch of grass about two feet high; all we could see

being two indistinct dark spots half hidden in grass, and on one of these

moving slightly, we recognised it to be the head of a remarkably fine

lion. Beyond the lions, more than half a mile away, was another horseman,

sitting motionless in the saddle, and looking like a waving palm-tree,

the horse’s legs appearing to be elongated in the haze and mirage.

The Somális who had been watching the brutes said they had been in this

spot all day, getting up to roar now and then, but, knowing by experience

the powers of the Somáli horsemen in the open, they had not attempted

to make a bolt of it towards the distant bush, which loomed up in a

quivering blue line some ten miles to the north of us. Considering the

heat of the sun, and that they had neither food nor water, these horsemen

had stuck to the lions with great perseverance, and we felt that we owed

it to them to crown their hard work by straight shooting.

We guessed that the brutes must be in an uncommonly bad temper after

having been kept out in the full glare of the sun for ten hours; for

lions like to sleep under the shade of dense bush during the heat of the

day. The grass in this part of the plain was fresh and green, and looked

almost like an English lawn, there having been rain about three weeks

before. We dismounted, and my brother and I, each accompanied by one

Somáli, walked towards the lions.

The account of what followed is taken partly from what I saw, and partly

from E⸺’s verbal description; for, being unconscious part of the time, I

was not in a condition to know all that passed.

As we approached within two hundred and fifty yards there was a commotion

in the grass—a fine black-maned lion sprang out, and was immediately

followed by another, nearly as large, but with a yellow mane. They both

stood up and looked back at us for a moment and then trotted away. We

walked after them, hoping they would lie down again; but as we passed to

the right of the patch of grass where they had been lying, and at about

a hundred yards’ distance from it, I saw a lioness stretched out flat,

with her head between her paws. She was facing us, and as we passed her

she rose for a moment, and then glanced towards the retreating lions,

but she crouched down again, her head just visible above the grass, and

never ceased growling savagely. We went straight on at the same pace,

till we were between her and the line of retreat. She was growling louder

and louder, and I walked across her front to get a chance at her left

shoulder, while E⸺ stood ready, when she rose, to fire at her chest. We

stood seventy yards apart, the lioness being seventy yards from each of

us, our three positions thus forming an equilateral triangle. The lioness

moved, and E⸺, calling out that he could see her chest, immediately fired.

The bullet hit her too high, and, as we afterwards found out, in the

withers clear of the spine, the wound causing her to spin round like a

top several times in a cloud of red dust, as if hunting her own tail,

so that I could see nothing to fire at. From the disturbance in the

grass and the savage growls, we decided she must be mortally hit, and

were preparing to walk up to her, when suddenly from the obscuring dust

she came out, charging for me at full speed. She ran extended along the

ground, like a greyhound, and came so fast that I had only time to raise

my rifle, and when the bead of the foresight was somewhere under her

chin, I fired. Quickly shifting my finger to the left trigger when she

was only five yards away, I pulled again, and then jumped to one side,

the rifle still at my shoulder. I remember nothing more, except that her

head came through the smoke and I was half conscious of being lifted off

my feet and sent flying through the air, with the lioness hanging on to

my shoulder, growling horribly!

On coming to, I found that I was standing up streaming with blood, and E⸺

and the two hunters were helping me off with my shirt, the lioness lying

dead on the grass at my feet. There were eight deep fang wounds in my

right arm and shoulder.[23] My brother probed them with a bit of stick

wrapped in a shred of tobe; and then we looked around for the lions, and

saw that they were no longer visible; but E⸺ said that all the horsemen

had followed them, intending to ride them to a standstill and force them

to come to bay.

My wounds, owing probably to the severe shock and weakness from loss of

blood, gave me no pain, and when a Somáli came galloping back and offered

my brother a pony, saying that the lions had come to a standstill,

I begged him not to bother, but to try and bag the big black one. I

remember hearing E⸺ gallop away, and then I must have fainted.

When I came to again, I saw my hunter, Jáma, sitting near me on the body

of the lioness, unconcernedly scrubbing his teeth with a bit of _athei_

stick, which he must have brought from Ujawáji. He said he had been

waiting for me to wake, and to tell him what was to be done next. The

other “Sahib” had gone away, but Jáma had heard a very distant shot, and

concluded he must have come up with the lions again. But he advised me to

wait for the caravan, which he could see coming over the plain from the

east, and mount a camel before trying to go any farther.

When it came up, all the men crowded round, with horror on their faces,

and asked which of the Sahibs had been killed, but I got up and said,

“Neither,” and mounting a camel, directed the camelman to follow the

hoof-marks of the ponies in the turf. How I managed to sit on the camel

in my weak and dazed condition, I do not know. I must have dozed, for the

next thing I saw was a group of dismounted horsemen in front of my camel,

and my brother standing over the most splendid black-maned lion I have

ever seen.

[Illustration: JUNGLE OF “HIG” ALOES AND “GUDA” THORN-TREES.

Henweina Valley, Gán-Libah Mountain in the distance. (_From Photograph by

the Author._)]

I attribute my not having stopped the lioness to the fact that I had

been shooting with a very good .577 double rifle, but in the course of

our journeys the triggers had become rather stiff, making me jerk them

off; and both my bullets, going low, had passed through the brute’s right

foot, making small clean wounds, without expanding. E⸺, who had his gun

open and was pushing in a fresh cartridge, had been horrified to see both

my shots strike up the ground beyond the lioness.

Our two hunters, unlike most Somális, who are not generally a bit afraid

of lions, had retired to a little distance. E⸺ said that after firing the

second shot I had jumped to the right in a perfectly collected manner,

but the lioness had slewed round her tail like the rudder of a boat, and

slightly changing her course, she had hit me like a battering ram and

sent me head over heels. The stock of the rifle was afterwards found to

be badly smashed, either against my shoulder or by falling on the ground,

and a patch of skin off her nose showed where the muzzle had apparently

caught her as I held the gun at the “present” after firing. There was

also an extensive bruise, about the size of the recoil-pad, on my right

shoulder. The lioness lay on me, shaking me savagely and grabbing at my

arm, and E⸺, finding he could not fire without the chance of hitting me

too, decreased his distance at a run from seventy yards to only five; and

she then came for him with a grunt, and he stretched her dead at his feet

with a bullet in the chest.

When my brother, having left me in the care of my hunter Jáma, galloped

after the other horsemen, he found them halted round a tuft of high

grass, having run the lion to a standstill. The horse was the same which

he had ridden when chasing the hartebeest, and it had become very lazy

from the heat of the sun. The saddle was an uncomfortable doubled-peaked

Somáli one, and the stirrups being only intended for the big toe, were

of course useless to him. Thus sorrily equipped, E⸺ walked the horse

forward cautiously towards the tuft of grass, and while he was still

sixty yards from it, the lion poked up his great head to have a look at

him. E⸺ pulled in, and, dropping the reins, took a shot into the grass

where he judged the lion’s chest to be. The brute promptly came on, and

E⸺ had only time to pick up the reins in a bunch and turn the pony round,

and try to get him to move by belabouring him over the quarters with the

barrels of his rifle, when the lion arrived! My brother escaped unharmed,

however, for before he could get into position to fire, the lion pulled

up, and fell over on his side gasping; and the next moment he was dead.

When we cut him open we found that the shot fired at him when in the tuft

of grass had entered his chest, and when we held the heart up to the

light a jagged hole showed where a piece of lead had passed through it.

Yet he had galloped fifty yards, and nearly made good his charge before

giving in.

We sent a camel for the lioness, and laying the two carcases side by

side, we pitched camp close by. Some starving people, who had wandered

from Harar, were glad to make a meal off the carrion. The third lion

escaped, as the Jibril Abokr horsemen, feeling that while we were in this

country they were responsible for our safety, and shocked at the state

I was in, refused to take my brother after him. On the day after the

accident we were delayed in the morning by the bandaging and doctoring

which I had to go through. The only thing we had with us was cocoa-nut

oil, which we had brought for the lamps of the theodolite, and I don’t

think its application did the wounds much good. In the plain round the

tents, a quarter of a mile away, were brown and gray masses entirely

composed of hartebeests and oryx, and nearer were a few solitary bulls,

which loomed up on the swelling ground and disappeared in the hollows,

like ships on the horizon, and their shoulders being much higher than the

quarters, and the legs hidden in the grass, they appeared to be sitting

up. We counted seventeen ostriches as they suddenly appeared out of the

haze, and passed in single file, at a great pace, half a mile off.

In the evening, the sky being overcast and the air cooler, we marched

five miles towards Bottor wells, on the direct road to Gebili. Next day

we got off the open _ban_ into the thorn jungle, and descended into a

grassy hollow at the head of the Bottor Valley. Here there were numbers

of high birch-trees covered with kites’ nests—a noticeable feature of

this valley and easily seen from a distance, the upper branches being

bare and the nests looking like globe signals.

The Ujawáji people, on hearing of my accident, sent several messengers to

inquire how I was getting on, and horsemen came from most of the Jibril

Abokr clans which were pasturing in the neighbourhood, to _dibáltig_ to

us before our start for the coast. We held a council of the elders, when

the complaints against Abyssinia were taken down by us for transmission

to Government.

All these elders professed great personal friendship for ourselves. They

said they had been asked for tribute by the Abyssinian leader Banagúsé

and had refused it, and were now expecting that a force would be sent

against them. The tribe had therefore retreated across the Marar Plain

from their pastures, near the curious conical Subbul hills, which could

be seen twenty miles away rising out of the plain; and they had been

obliged to graze their animals on the poorer pasture at Ujawáji. The

elders said that the Abyssinians had pushed out and built a fort at

Jig-Jiga, about forty miles south of us, within the farther edge of the

Marar Prairie.

On 21st June we passed through Gebili, and reached a spot in thick jungle

with aloe undergrowth, called Armadader. On pitching camp here in the

evening we found fresh elephant tracks, and E⸺ followed them, returning

after dark, having killed a bull with one shot from my four-bore.

We continued our survey through the very mountainous Jibril Abokr country

towards the coast, running the gauntlet of the Rer Haréd clan, which

was at that time very turbulent and defiant towards the British. We had

several night alarms, being surrounded by Rer Haréd spies during our

march, but we were not attacked.

By the end of June my wounds were beginning to become very troublesome,

my right arm swelling to the size of a small sand-bag, from the

shoulder to the wrist, and giving me great pain. Travelling became

almost unendurable, the sterile, broken hills being fearfully hot, the

temperature rising to over 110° in the shade at certain places. We had

now descended to the low coast country, where the south-west wind of the

_Haga_ season was at its height, blowing day and night with great fury.

It was impossible to put up a tent at night, and the sand got into eyes

and ears, and stung our faces and necks in a most disagreeable manner

as we marched along. The only way to obtain any sleep was to pile the

baggage into a heap and lie under the lee of it.

Since leaving Ujawáji E⸺ had sole charge of the survey, as I was unable

to take observations. When we were still ninety miles from Bulhár,

fearing that any longer delay in getting medical help might bring on

blood-poisoning, I left E⸺ in charge of the expedition, and mounting

a camel, accompanied by a few of my servants, I made for Bulhár by

forced marches, reaching the village on 1st July, twelve days after the

accident. Here I was glad to find an hospital assistant, a native of

India, who looked after the wounds and put me in a fair way to recovery,

so that the necessity of going to Aden was obviated. I was never under

the care of a qualified doctor, and was able to go on with the mapping at

Berbera, and to start on an expedition to the Gadabursi country on 10th

September, the wounds having just healed. This record of our Jibril Abokr

trip shows what an advantage it is to have another European with one in

the interior, for I feel sure the lioness would have finished me if my

brother had not come promptly to the rescue, and but for his unremitting

care after the accident I think I should never have reached the coast.

On our next expedition for the survey of the Gadabursi country, our

route, skirting to the north of Hargeisa, passed through Gebili. We

crossed the path taken by a powerful force of the Rer Haréd, Jibril

Abokr, who were out raiding the Bahgoba sub-tribe, and I came upon some

of the robbers in rather a curious manner.

Our caravan was marching from Gebili to a small hill called Bohol-Káwulu,

while with four hunters I took a short cut across a deep valley, the

direct distance being four and a half miles. We had passed the Gebili

sand-river and were working our way up some low foothills, intersected

by deep narrow ravines having perpendicular sides, and choked with

thorn jungle, when I observed about fifty vultures circling over a

tributary gully. Thinking a lion might have killed a koodoo, we made our

way towards the place, and found ourselves at the foot of a platform of

ground having nearly perpendicular sides, about forty feet high. It was

above this little plateau that the vultures were circling, and climbing

noiselessly up I peeped over, expecting to see some dead game.

Instead of this, about thirty yards away were about fifteen men sitting

in a circle round a fire eating camel meat, which they had been roasting,

the carcase of a camel lying close by. One of the men saw my head above

the edge of the platform, and all of them, giving a look of horror,

snatched up their spears and shields and bolted, only a few having the

presence of mind to take away pieces of meat! I jumped up and shouted

to them to stop, but they disappeared; and soon afterwards we obtained

a glimpse of their white tobes as they topped a crag a mile away, still

running hard; and after that we never saw them again.

We saw vultures several times during the next two marches, and once again

I came to a smouldering fire and roasting meat, which had been thrown

down in a hurry. The vultures had been circling and screaming above the

place, but as we approached they all slanted down one after another,

wings extended and motionless, and legs hanging perpendicularly, showing,

in the language of the jungle, that human beings, or perhaps a lion, had

been keeping them from the meat.

Two of our men, who had lagged behind the caravan, saw another party of

twenty men running along with camel meat slung over their shoulders.

All these parties were Rer Haréd robbers who had been engaged in the

late raid, and were retiring in groups with the stolen Bahgoba camels.

The raiding tribe always attacks unexpectedly in a concentrated force,

but on the return journey through the enemy’s country it splits up into

small parties, taking to the most hilly ground, and hiding in the deepest

gullies to avoid observation. Our men were always very nervous while in

the neighbourhood of these robbers; and at our night camp at Bohol-Káwulu

our Jibril Abokr guide, rattling his spears together, shouted out a

long speech into the darkness, telling any lurking robbers that we had

guns and, being very powerful, were not fair game. The performance was

gone through quite gravely, all the other men maintaining silence; the

flames of our camp fires glinting on the rifle-barrels and spears of our

followers, and throwing fitful lights and shadows on the surrounding

jungle, and the guide’s speech to the night, had a very weird effect.

When we entered the Gadabursi country we were visited in camp at Egu by

a party of Gadabursi elephant hunters, who rode up and said they had

taken us for looters and had come up to reconnoitre us. We reached the

Harasáwa Valley, which was very beautifully wooded, the undergrowth of

red and yellow flowering aloes harmonising with the light green masses of

the _ergín_ plant, the dull yellow-ochre of the dry grass, and the darker

blue-green of the thorn and _hassádan_[24] trees. On the evening of 25th

September we passed, near Sattáwa, the karias of Ugaz Núr, till lately

the paramount chief of the Gadabursi tribe. This was the most suitable

place we had yet seen for experimental cultivation, the Sattáwa Valley

having a fertile appearance, with deep alluvial earth and very rank

vegetation.

As we halted at Sattáwa, at sunset, to form camp, there appeared on the

scene Ugaz Núr, his son, and forty spearmen. He stayed in camp all night,

and told us not to go to Biyo-Kabóba in the Esa country, which lay ahead

of us, as he said the place was full of Abyssinian soldiers, who were

building a fort there, and would be likely to attack us. Núr was believed

to be an arch scoundrel, and intriguing with the Abyssinians, and we were

inclined to think he gave us this advice to prevent our inspecting the

fort. He was then in great disgrace with the British authorities because

he had captured an Italian traveller and held him to ransom. He had just

been displaced from the Ugazship, and his brother Elmy had been made

paramount chief of the Gadabursi in his stead. While we were in his camp

we heard that his brother Elmy was marching against him with a force from

Zeila; and soon afterwards I received an Arabic letter from Elmy himself

asking me to help him attack Núr, or, at any rate, lend some rifles. One

of the Ugaz’s sons a youth with a large shield, a mop of hair, and two

shovel-headed spears, gained some importance in camp by strutting about

taking frequent oaths that he would kill Mr. Sala, an Italian traveller,

when he met him.

We left the Gadabursi and entered the Esa country, cautiously skirting

Biyo-Kabóba without going to the wells. We found the Esa tribes in a

great state of ferment because of the fort which the Abyssinians were

building.

At 3 P.M. on 30th September, at Arroweina, there arrived a

grizzly-bearded old patriarch called Múdun Golab, an Akil of the

Odahghub, Rer Gédi, Esa Ad.[25] He made an impressive speech, saying,

“It is a lie that any of the Esa countenance the Abyssinian occupation

of Biyo-Kabóba. We all hate them and do not want them. The English and

the Esa are brothers, and we are the subjects of your Government. So we

ask you now to rid us of these intruders. They wish to treat us as they

treated the Géri, to seize our flocks, kill our people, and burn our

karias. They wish to settle in our country and oust us. We will not have

it.” He said that the Esa were encamped round the Biyo-Kabóba fort, and

that they were holding a council, one party, consisting chiefly of young

men, wishing to attack at once. He asked us to wait and hear the result

of the council, and convey news to the British authorities.

On 2nd October, the council not yet having come to a decision, we

continued our journey through the sterile trap country to the north, and

then turning to the east, we skirted the Bur Ád Range as far as Ali Maan

before again turning north for the march to Zeila.

On 5th October, as we were arriving, late on a dark night, at Hemál

under the Bur Ád Range, we got into very dense and high _gudá_ forest,

bordering the edge of the Hemál sand-river. Our camels were pushing their

way through the centre of this when we heard the scream of an elephant

about a hundred yards to our left, followed by that of another a little

in front. The caravan bunched up in the narrow path, and we all held our

breath to listen. Our elephant rifle was carefully packed up in one of

the camel-loads; the jungle was stirring all round us as the herd moved

off. They seemed to have gone away, and the camels had begun to resume

their march, when we were thrown into confusion by hearing a crash,

as some old cow, for it is generally these that are the most vicious,

charged up towards us with a scream, and then stood a short distance away

behind a tree. Some of the men whispered that they could see her, but

though my brother and I strained our eyes to the utmost, we could see

nothing. At last we moved away from the uncanny spot, and as no further

incident happened, we concluded the elephant which last trumpeted must

have been covering the retreat of the herd, and have stolen away silently

after the others.

Next day my brother went after these elephants, and stalked in amongst

them by creeping through a high grass glade, but finding they were all

cows and young ones he did not molest them. Meanwhile half a dozen

sword-hunters, of mixed tribes, came to our camp. One of these was a

Gadabursi, another a Habr Awal, and the rest Ogádén. Their ponies were

excellent, and better than any we had yet seen among the Gadabursi.

They were after the elephants which my brother had been stalking; and

while in our camp they described to us their method of working.

Like the Hamran Arabs described by Sir Samuel Baker in his _Nile

Tributaries_, they ride after the elephant and hamstring him with

a sword, one man keeping in front on a white horse to attract the

elephant’s attention. I believe the Somális use the sword while at full

gallop, without springing to the ground, but of this I am not certain.

The sabres we saw seemed to be light single-handed ones, an old Egyptian

blade being strapped to a bone handle by means of raw hide. These men

said they had killed twelve elephants during the last two months,—eleven

bulls and one cow,—and that since their party began hunting the year

before two men had been killed by the elephants.

We continued our journey from Hemál to Ali Maan, where I shot a fine

koodoo bull. At Ali Maan we separated into two parties. I marched to

Bulhár by Kabri Bahr, while my brother marched to Zeila, reaching that

port on 19th October. At Buk Gégo he bagged, with one shot, a bull

elephant, a very fine tusker.

The record of these Government explorations undertaken between 1885 and

1891 shows how steadily British influence has been advancing. At the

time of my first visits to the coast none of the routes in Guban were

safe to travel on without a powerful escort, except the track along the

sea-shore from Bulhár to Berbera. All this is changed now, for such is

the confidence which Somális have in our countrymen, that Englishmen

exploring in the interior make small payments for sheep, milk, or other

supplies, by writing on scraps of paper, to be afterwards presented at

the coast; and these “chits” have all the value of money, although they

may have been given by an Englishman who is a perfect stranger, at a

distance of two hundred miles inland. The possession of a bit of paper

written on in English is believed to guarantee the safety of the bearer’s

life, and we have often been begged for scraps of paper by men who wished

to go alone by a short cut over disturbed territory.

The Somális have no quarrel with the English; even should a serious cause

of dispute ever arise, there is far too much hereditary jealousy between

tribe and tribe for them to combine. It is true the Esa caused trouble a

few years ago by their raid on Bulhár, but this raid was directed against

the Habr Awal, and not against the British. The punishment which they

received from us, by their own showing, turns out to have been greater

than was at first supposed, and they now declare themselves to be our

firm friends.

In the surveying trips the opposition to our progress by the tribes was

practically _nil_, unless the extreme avarice and rapacity for presents

on the part of a few Dolbahanta chiefs may be called opposition. In fact,

the only occasion on which I have been treated with the slightest want of

cordiality by Somális was on my second surveying trip in 1886.

I think there are three reasons why the British Government is so much

respected in the interior of Somáliland. The first is undoubtedly the

possession of Aden, about half the population of which is composed of

Somális, who return to their own country after a time and spread the

fame of the Government far and wide. Also, a few Somális go to London as

firemen in English steamers. Another reason for the rapid extension of

British influence is the wise and impartial way in which our coast ports

have been administered by experienced political officers from India. The

third reason is constant contact with English sportsmen, who visit the

Somáli tribes in their own homes.

[Illustration: ON THE MULE-TRACK, NEAR HARAR.

_From a Photograph by the Author._]