FIRST JOURNEY TO THE WEBBE SHABÉLEH RIVER, 1893
Form an ambush over the pool at Kuredelli—A rhinoceros
wounded—Unsuccessful hunt after the rhinoceros—Two lions
seen—Another rhinoceros wounded at the pool; three
lionesses arrive; interesting moonlight scene—A lioness
drinks, and is wounded—Death of the lioness—Follow and
bag the rhinoceros—Exciting hyæna hunt with pistol and
knife—Abbasgúl fight—Unsuccessful rhinoceros hunt—We march
into the monsoon—Walleri buck wounded by me and pulled down
by a leopard—Death of the leopard—Camp again at Túli—Two
rhinoceroses bagged; furious charge—The Sheikh Ash, a
friendly tribe—A leopard in camp—Ambush at the Garba-ali
pool; leopard and hyæna bagged—Abundance of game—First
enter zebra country—Man-eating lions at Durhi—Malingúr at
Durhi—Elephant-hunting in Daghatto valley; a bull bagged—Large
number of elephants—Interesting scene in Daghatto—Leopards
seen—Uninhabited country—Difficulty in finding the Rer Amáden
tribe—Halt at Enleh and send out scouts.
I left Jig-Jiga for the Jerer Valley and Ogádén country on 26th March
1893, with the whole of my caravan, consisting of three fast Aden camels,
thirty-three baggage camels, and the mule which Rás Makunan had given me;
and I had still my following of the twenty-one faithful Somális armed
with Snider carbines. I had finished my visit to Harar; and now, armed
with Rás Makunan’s passport, I was free to strike across Somáliland to
the Webbe Shabéleh river, four hundred miles inland, and to shoot big
game unmolested by Abyssinian soldiers, and, what was more important, in
hunting-grounds hitherto untouched by Europeans.
We should have started early on the 26th, but had great difficulty in
getting guides to the Rer Ali tribe, because the Bertiri at Jig-Jiga were
afraid that if they assisted us they would be made to regret it by the
Abyssinians. But on my showing Makunan’s passport to the _Shúm_ in charge
of the stockade, he promised the timid people that they would receive no
harm on my account, and I marched with two Bertiri guides at 9 A.M.
We threaded our way through grass plains and jungle to Kuredelli in the
Jerer Valley, which runs south-east towards the Webbe Shabéleh; and on
reaching this place in the evening, I was delighted to find a pool of
water in the rocky bed of the river, the edges of which were literally
covered with tracks of large game. Among other animals a lion and a
rhinoceros had come to drink on the preceding night.
The river-bed was very rocky, and sunk some fifteen feet below the level
of the surrounding plain, which was covered with dense mimósa jungle.
Half a mile up the channel, to the west of the pool, was my camp, pitched
under some large shady trees in a glade of good but rather dry grass.
There had been a very severe drought during the _Jilál_ season, as is
usual, but the drought this year had been particularly severe because the
previous _Dair_ or light winter rains had failed, so that Kuredelli was
one of the few pools of surface water left in the whole of this elevated
country, and there was not a drop to be got for many miles round. The
water was covered with duckweed, and was of a bright emerald green colour
throughout, and had almost the consistency of pea-soup; but, curiously
enough, it was perfectly sweet and good, and we drank it for a week
without its doing us any harm.
The pool was not more than fifteen yards long by five wide, its longer
axis pointing up and down the river-bed; and on the northern side it
was overhung by a steep scarp of rock some five feet high, where the
limestone had been undermined by the swirl of the river when in flood.
Above the rocky scarp were thick thorn-trees, whose branches overhung
the river-bed, and under these branches, on the edge of the scarp and
overlooking the pool, I constructed a small bower, bearing a rugged
resemblance to a box at an European theatre. Nothing could spring on us
from behind because of the interlaced branches of the trees which made
our roof, while the floor was a smooth slab of limestone rock, and in
front and at the top of the small precipice were piled thorn branches
breast-high, so that I could fire over them. The front of the box was
otherwise quite open, and the field of view embraced two right angles.
We made this retreat in an hour, and I took up a position, as night
fell, in the bower with my two hunters Géli and Hassan. We carried my
three rifles and spare ammunition, and four more men brought my bedding,
blankets for my hunters, a lamp, matches, and my water-bottle full of
coffee. We did not forget a waterproof sheet each, to be used in case of
rain.
My four carriers had also brought a donkey with them, which they tied
up to a heavy block on a flat slab of limestone which shelved down into
the pool on the farther side, for we hoped thereby to attract lions; the
carriers then went off to camp, and left us squatting silently in our
shelter.
I describe our arrangements thus in detail because I have in this way sat
out for game on scores of nights, and one description will serve for all.
There is one thing I never omit, when about to spend a night in one of
these jungle shelters, or when marching by night, and that is to decorate
the centre rib of each of my game rifles with a long strip of snow-white
foolscap paper, to assist the aim; for, however good the moonlight may
be, it is impossible to see the tiny ivory foresight at night.
I sat over this pool on five successive nights. On the first night three
hyænas came, but no lion or rhinoceros. The hyænas invariably came
silently down to drink till they saw the living bait, and then at once
took fright and galloped away; on the succeeding four nights I therefore
dispensed with the bait. For two hours, after the moon rose, several wild
ducks kept us interested by playing about in the water and quacking,
quite unaware of our presence. I then went to sleep. We saw nothing on
the next evening, and I slept all night in the shelter, waking up covered
with dew at daylight, and returning, rather stiff with the exposure, to
camp.
On the third night I was roused by Géli, whose eyes I could see full of
excitement in the semi-darkness, and still crouching below my screen of
branches, I could hear the wallowing of some heavy animal in the soft
mud at the water’s edge. We were all on the alert as I gently felt for
the four-bore which Hassan shoved into my hands. On cautiously poking
my head above the screen, I saw the great form of a rhinoceros standing
motionless as a carved sphinx in the moonlight, casting a deep black
shadow upon the white rock. I stood erect, and raising my arms placed
the butt of the four-bore to my shoulder. The action was seen, for the
beast trotted forward a few steps, and then galloped across the slabs
of rock for a path which ascended the bank on my side of the river, and
led behind my shelter. I fired at his shoulder hurriedly, and, sad to
say, heard no answering “tell,” showing that the bullet had not struck;
and before I could look under the smoke I heard the rhinoceros, with a
succession of snorts, gallop up the bank and trot behind my shelter;
then all sound ceased but the animal’s breathing, which we could hear
distinctly, close to and above us, only separated from us by the stout
interlaced branches of the back of our “box.” We stood with rifles at
the “charge,” ready to fire and throw ourselves down into the river-bed
should his ugly head and horns protrude into our bower. He did not keep
us in suspense long, but after listening for more than a minute, he
trotted off, the sound of his footsteps getting fainter on the still
night air, and eventually dying away.
[Illustration: The Pool at Kuredelli]
On the 29th I returned to camp at sunrise, and swallowing a cup of hot
coffee, which my cook, having heard the shot and divined its purport, had
prepared for me, I took up the tracks with two camelmen, letting Géli and
Hassan sleep in camp. We followed them till noon, the sun being fearfully
hot; and either through the unskilfulness of my trackers, or through the
absence of blood on the track causing me to lose heart in the fearful
_Jilál_ heat, we had to leave the trail at a stony ravine; and in the
afternoon we returned to camp, tired out.
Swallowing some food, I took a short sleep; and towards sunset I went
out again with Géli and Hassan into the bush to the west. Suddenly Géli
pointed, and saying “_Libah!_” (Lions!) started to run across an open
plain of bare red earth; and there, three hundred yards away, were a
lioness and young lion reclining by the stem of a tall, shady thorn-tree,
looking at us. I had been searching for rhinoceros, and was burdened
with my double four-bore rifle, weighing twenty-two pounds, so when Géli
started running he at once got ahead of me, and Hassan, carried away
by the excitement, followed suit. The brutes, seeing three men running
across the plain towards them, stood up, stretched themselves, and giving
a toss of the tail and a savage growl, they cantered easily away across
the sun-baked earth in full view, and plunged into the low mimósa jungle
beyond. I ran up to Géli very much put out, and snatching my ·577 Express
from his hand, and giving him the heavy rifle to retard his pace, I
plunged into the bush and grass after the lions, but the grass was so
thick and dry that I soon overran the almost invisible tracks, and though
we made several tries back on to the red soil, we eventually lost them,
and I returned to camp disgusted with the afternoon’s entertainment, and
lectured my men in rather a wrathful way on the folly of out-running me.
On the next night we all awoke at the same time, while the moon was
still low, having been roused by the disturbance of the pool; and we
made so much noise in throwing off our blankets and getting ready that
a rhinoceros, which had come down to the pool, heard us and made off. I
fired the four-bore, and my bullet caught it in the shoulder, sending
it galloping up the bank, snorting as before. On this night the beast
waited, listening close behind my hiding-place for nearly ten minutes;
then all sounds ceased, and I thought it must be dead. It had, however,
slipped quietly away; so there was nothing to be done, and we went to
sleep. When we woke again the moon was well up, it being about two
o’clock in the morning. Géli had awakened me, having seen something pass
among the bushes on our bank of the river, between my hiding-place and
the camp.
The moon was throwing a fine light on the flat limestone slabs which
composed the floor of the river-bed, and as we gazed in the direction in
which Géli pointed, rubbing our eyes, we saw against the white background
three large animals walk out from the bushes into the open near the pool;
one glance told us that they were three full-grown lionesses.
They walked quietly across till they reached the place where the
rhinoceros had been standing when first hit; and then they stood
together snuffing at the blood, which we found next day in quantities
on the rocks. I could count their twelve short and stout legs showing
in silhouette against the white floor of the river-bed, as they stood
motionless, heads bent over the fresh blood, appearing to consult
together. I reserved my fire, as I knew they had come to drink, and would
give me a better chance, nearer to my shelter, later on. The lionesses
then walked slowly across the river-bed in single file, and up a path
which ascended the opposite bank, and then they disappeared. But they had
not really gone, for from time to time during the next half-hour I could
see their round heads raised in silhouette against the sky-line, above
the black outline of the bank; they too were watching the pool for game!
I must have dozed off to sleep again, for the moon had swung over a
good deal towards the western horizon, when I noticed Géli squatting in
a listening attitude, and I heard the steady lapping as of an animal
drinking. Géli whispered, “Now, be ready, Sahib!” and slowly raising my
head above my screen, pushing the muzzle of my Express forward at the
same time, I saw over the barrels the body of a lioness extended, hind
quarters flattened against the rock, shoulders high and head down towards
me, lapping the water on the farther side of the pool. I did not wait
long, but glancing between her upraised shoulders and lowering the muzzle
till the white paper on the rib between the barrels had disappeared, I
pulled the trigger. My bower was full of smoke, and I ducked under the
screen as the report of the rifle was instantly followed by a roar and
a splash, and jumping to our feet we just saw the lioness, after having
sprung into the centre of the pool to get at us, in the act of raising
her dripping body out of the water. No doubt the cold douche had damped
her enthusiasm, and she had turned back. Before I could take a sight down
the barrels she rushed off across the river-bed, pulling up in the sombre
belt of bush on the farther side to roll about and growl. There was
nothing more to be done, and though my Somális hinted that she might be
hunted by moonlight, I, mindful of our Gebili leopard, preferred to wait
till morning before following a wounded lioness into those dark-looking
evergreen bushes which cast such uncertain shadows.
I woke up again at sunrise, and without going to camp or tasting food,
I at once took up the tracks of the lioness. Her line of retreat was
sprinkled with blood. We drew the bushes under the opposite bank very
carefully, and then began to ascend the bank by the path, the wind being
with us, blowing towards the south. Before we had reached the top we
heard several loud roars a few hundred yards beyond, and as we appeared
on the higher level the roars were redoubled, issuing from very low,
gray, leafless mimósa bush. We followed, keeping to the tracks, and at
last saw, eighty yards away, the head of the lioness, held vertically,
regarding us intently from the partial concealment of a tuft of grass on
the farther side of a glade. She seemed to be on the eve of charging, the
black point of her tail twitching nervously behind her head, which bore a
very nasty expression. I fired, but missed the small mark. There were now
eight of us, some of my men who had come to take away the blankets and
other things from the bower having joined us. We stood in an irregular
line, fully expecting a charge, and I fired another standing shot at the
small, wicked-looking head, my bullet going harmlessly through the grass.
Looking under the smoke quickly, I saw her still in the same place, but
she was in a greater rage than ever, and kept up a steady low growling.
This was my first experience of one of these animals after having been
so badly mauled by one, and the situation was becoming therefore highly
exciting. I now sat down, and resting both my elbows on my knees, took a
very careful shot at her. Her head dropped, showing I had killed her, and
we walked up to where she lay.
My first bullet, fired at her while drinking at the water, had struck
her in the left forearm and shattered it, accounting for her not having
charged; and my last bullet had touched her left cheek; and then,
entering perpendicularly, it had expanded and carried away half the brain
pan. She was a very fine lioness, the skin being in splendid condition. I
told Géli and Hassan to stay and skin her, as I had now to follow up the
rhinoceros wounded in the early part of the night. But they begged to be
allowed to go with me, so I left two camelmen to do the skinning of the
lioness.
Going to camp and hastily swallowing some coffee, we returned to the
scene of last night’s adventure, and found the tracks of the rhinoceros
plentifully sprinkled with blood. One of the legs appeared to be injured
at the shoulder, as the trail where the foot had been dragged along the
ground was plainly visible.
At nine o’clock we entered very dense mimósa bushes, of a peculiarly
thorny kind, called _billeil_, and under one of these we saw the
rhinoceros, a large cow. She saw us first, however, and charged, getting
a pair of four-bore bullets in the chest at rather long range as she came
on. Hassan handed me my eight-bore, and I carefully aimed at her shoulder
as she picked herself up and came on again; but there was nothing in
the rifle, and I had to bolt off to the right, leaving her to select a
victim from among my men, who, more active than I, were dancing about the
bush yelling out directions to me to fire! When I had got in a couple of
cartridges I fired at her right and left; and the second shot, striking
obliquely through her shoulders from the front, brought her to the
ground, and she died, still retaining the kneeling position after life
had left her. Going up to her, I found that last night’s ball from the
four-bore had injured her shoulder. She had gone several miles, had taken
three four-bore and two eight-bore bullets, and had died game, having
chosen the worst kind of bush she could pick out for the final scene. I
photographed her as she lay kneeling, leafless thorny mimósas spreading
their branches all round her, in this strong, defensive position which
she had chosen as her last retreat, the sun casting a shadow in every
wrinkle of her thick hide.
Returning to camp, I laid the rhino and lioness heads side by side and
photographed them, making a curious and unique picture to remind me of a
good morning’s sport before breakfast.
While arranging the bower at midday for our last and fifth vigil, a large
spotted hyæna came to drink; and not wishing to disturb lions by firing
a rifle, I ran after him, followed by my Somális. We had no weapons but
unloaded Sniders, and my knife and double pistol. Running hard to cut him
off, I was ahead of the men as he gained the slope of the river bank,
and fired both barrels of my pistol, missing him with one barrel and
knocking him over with the second. He picked himself up and disappeared
over the top of the bank, taking the same path which the wounded lioness
had followed in the morning; we, however, gained on him, as he was now
crippled by my bullet, and he hid under a low mimósa. The men came up
in front, and one of them shoved the butt of a Snider into his face,
under the low-spreading branches. He seized hold of this and chewed at
it vigorously, while I was able to get round unobserved in his rear, and
creeping behind the stems of the bush, to drive my knife mercifully into
his ribs. Every hyæna destroyed means a large number of sheep and goats
to the good.
At about three o’clock on the afternoon of this day, 20th March, my camp
being still at Kuredelli, a large force, consisting of two or three
hundred men, mostly naked, and all armed with shield and spear, or bow
and quiver, issued from the bush north of camp and came running past,
going due south. As they passed the camp they scarcely answered our
hurried questions, but my men gathered that they were Abbasgúl Somális
belonging to some karias a few miles to the south of us, and that their
cattle had just been raided by the Habr-Awal and driven north through
the bush of the Haud. My men laughed at them for going naked, but they
said they had no time to bother about their tobes; they had come light
for running, and only wanted their cattle back. Party after party passed
us, and men singly and in couples, all in the same state of nakedness and
breathless excitement.
I sat up, as on the four previous nights, in my favourite bower, and at
about 1 A.M. these people returned with a large mob of cattle which they
had recovered and were bringing home. They were talking excitedly as they
approached the pool. We heard one man ask, “Where were you wounded?” and
another answer, “Oh, in the leg, but it isn’t bad.”
There were recriminations going on between two parties. The party which
first came up was met by another party coming from the north-west, which
appeared to have lost the enemy, for the first arrivals called out, “Why
were you not at the fight; why did you run away?” and were answered, “Oh,
we lost the way.” I wanted to challenge, but Géli and Hassan advised
silence. This I would not agree to, for I thought that the men, nervous
and excited as they were, if they did discover our presence accidentally
by a rustle or otherwise, might suspect a hidden enemy and send a flight
of arrows into my hiding-place to make sure. So I called out “_Kumá?_”
(Who are you?), and as they halted Géli said it was a “_Sirkal_” (_i.e._
Government man or Englishman) with his two hunters, sitting up for game;
and that they must look sharp and drink, and begone.
The men came down to drink, saying they would bring the cattle to water
in the morning, and they further asked to be allowed to bivouac near
my camp for additional security in case they should be followed. They
said, “It is all right; we know you are an Englishman, and that you are
here for no harm. The country is yours, we are your subjects; we beg
to be excused for having killed some of the Habr Awal, for we know the
Government dislikes bloodshed. But without our cattle we should have
died.” Kuredelli is two hundred miles from the coast, and this is only
one instance in many showing that British influence is recognised not
only on the Somáli coast itself, but also in the distant interior. And no
Englishman had been in this neighbourhood till my brother and I explored
it a few months before.
These two or three hundred men had followed the tracks of their cattle,
and between three o’clock on the previous afternoon and ten o’clock in
the morning they had reached the open plains to the north; the distance
covered in the ten hours could not have been less than thirty-five miles,
with many delays inseparable from fighting and driving cattle over rough
ground at night. They had found the Habr Awal, about half their strength,
in the _ban_ or open grass plains, and had at once attacked them by the
light of the moon, killing two of the enemy and losing a man themselves,
killed by a poisoned arrow. The enemy then fled.
The cattle were driven past with clouds of dust and a clamour of excited
voices, and then they all disappeared in the distance, and I heard my
sentry challenge them as they drew up at my camp half a mile away, and
after another half-hour of chatter they gradually settled down to rest. I
had never met this clan of the Abbasgúl before. The men flocked to camp
next day from their karias in great numbers, and seeing the trophies
of the lioness and rhinoceros lying on the grass outside my tent door,
they said, “The Abyssinians can’t do that; their guns are small, and are
only good for killing women and children and old men with: you English
are our friends, and all the Ogádén tribes look to you, our masters, for
protection against Abyssinia.”
On 31st March we made two marches to Girbi, seventeen miles eastward
along the Jerer Valley, and the next day we made a short march in a heavy
storm of rain, the burst of the south-west monsoon; and the red clay
became so sticky that we were obliged to halt in the thick bush. When
things were a little dry again, I went out towards sunset into the level
thorn forest to look for oryx. We had gone about a mile from camp when
we saw a large rhinoceros bull trotting along under the trees a quarter
of a mile away, having evidently winded us. We ran at an angle to cut
him off, but he changed his pace to a heavy gallop, crashing through
the thick parts of the jungle as if they had been clumps of grass. We
followed in his wake, but failed to get within shot, for a rhinoceros
should not be fired at from a greater distance than about eighty yards;
and so we settled steadily down to his tracks, hoping to catch him up
before nightfall. He retreated into very thick bush, and as he was going
with the wind he twice winded us, and made off when we were close up, but
the jungle being thick we could not see him. At last, night coming on, we
left him and returned to camp after dark, very tired and disappointed.
Next day, the 2nd April, we marched on. As we advanced down the Jerer
Valley by rapid stages we passed suddenly from country dried up by
continued drought into a world of green grass and jungle, with an
overcast sky, the effect of the bursting of the south-west monsoon over
the lower Jerer Valley some ten days before. Nothing can be more pleasant
in Somáliland than this sudden change: the camels march better owing to
fresh fodder; the air is rendered cool, allowing one to travel during any
hour of the day; and the thorn-trees give out a strong perfume.
At 5.30 P.M. on 3rd April we camped in the bush, without water, at
Manjo-adéyu. Before camping I fired at a buck Waller’s gazelle, wounding
it badly, but it did not drop at once, and we had to follow it up. I was
rather fagged, having done a long march on foot owing to my camel being
lame; and sending on ahead my Midgán hunter, Hassan, I followed the
tracks with Géli at a leisurely pace. We at last came to the buck, lying
dead, and Hassan standing over it. He reported that he had just seen the
buck pulled down before his eyes by a large panther, which had caught
sight of him after springing upon it, and had cantered away through the
forest.
Sending the three camels and mule out of sight into some thick bush to
the south, and ordering a camelman to overtake the caravan and have the
camp pitched, I sat with Géli and Hassan by the stem of a tree on a bare
patch of ground some fifteen yards from the body of the buck, the sun
shining horizontally from behind our backs.
We waited for half an hour, then Géli pointed to the north-east, and the
panther came gliding silently through the underbrush, coming straight for
the body of the buck. While he was yet one hundred and fifty yards off I
saw his beautifully spotted skin and bullet head, and marking his course
I chose a bush eighty yards away, aligning the sight so as to be ready
to fire when he should come out into the open beyond it on our side. I
held the ivory foresight over this spot, and as he passed the bush and
his head and shoulders appeared, I pulled, a satisfactory thud answering
the ring of the rifle; and in the stillness following the shot I saw a
tail violently agitated above the grass. Slipping in a fresh cartridge
to replace the empty case, I walked up and found the panther dead, shot
through the neck.
I laid his body by the side of that of the Walleri, and photographed the
pair, cutting down some thorn-trees, whose branches threw long shadows
over the picture; then calling for the camels and loading up the bodies,
we followed the tracks of the caravan, and found camp pitched two miles
from the scene of this incident.
We made two marches to Haljíd, where, hearing by night the croaking of
thousands of bull-frogs, we discovered a considerable body of water, in
the form of a pool half a mile long, occupying the river channel in the
centre of the Jerer Valley. There were plenty of rhino, oryx, and lesser
koodoo tracks here. I remained halted all day on 5th April, shooting
three oryx out of a herd, a welcome supply of meat; and on the evening
of the 6th we marched to Túli. We lost our way while hunting at some
distance from the caravan, and only found the new camp at midnight after
a lot of signal shots had been fired. I remained in this neighbourhood
for four days to hunt, as rhinoceroses were very numerous here, coming
to drink at night at the pools in the centre of the valley, and going
away great distances in every direction to hide in the thickest mimósa
forests by day. The best way to find them is to visit the pools in the
early morning, and follow any fresh tracks of the night before. In this
way, after four or five hours’ tracking, one is likely to come upon them
feeding about, or, if after eleven o’clock, lying under a shady bush
asleep.
On 7th April my men found a dozen young ostriches in the thick jungle
near Túli Hill. They were pretty little birds with soft yellow and black
down for plumage, and beady black eyes, and stood a foot high, on sturdy
yellow legs. I did all I could to get the parent cock bird: first, by
following behind a camel, and then by sitting till midday in ambush
near the nest; but all my attempts were unavailing. We had these young
birds for ten days or more in our camp, carrying them, when marching, in
hutches made of empty beer boxes, on camel-back; and they became very
tame, but eventually, one by one, they all died.
On the 8th April I rose before dawn with Géli, Hassan, my camelman Abokr,
my syce Daura, and a guide. We took one camel with us, and holding due
west we entered the thick mimósa forest which is called Gol Wiyileh,[38]
or the “Valley of Rhinoceroses”; and after going four miles, when we had
gained the centre of the valley, in dense bush, we came to fresh tracks
of three of these animals, which had passed late in the night, making for
the south-west from the pools of the Jerer Valley. They led us through
many miles of thick bush, but the tracking was easy owing to there being
three of them together; and at one o’clock in the afternoon, after having
left camp for seven hours, we came on them standing together in the dense
shade of a very thick clump of umbrella mimósas. There was a full-grown
bull, accompanied by a large cow and a bull calf, the big bull having a
very fine front horn.
I at once sank to a sitting position, holding my eight-bore, while Hassan
laid down the heavy four-bore on the grass beside me to be used in case
of a charge. The big bull was eighty yards away, and I fired for his
ear, and he dropped dead, remaining in a sitting posture and looking as
if carved in stone. I fired the other barrel at one of the others, which
turned out to be the large calf, and the game made off. We decided not to
follow them up at once, but to give them time to get over their fright,
as they had never actually seen us. So I took a careful photograph of the
big bull, and after taking off the head and some shields, I sent Daura
back to Túli on Rás Makunan’s mule, telling him to bring the camp to a
deserted zeríba which we had noticed while tracking, not far from where
the bull lay.
Leaving Abokr, the guide, and a camel by the body, I took my two hunters,
Géli and Hassan, and followed the track of the remaining rhinoceroses,
which was plentifully sprinkled with blood. I came upon them in very
thick cover, standing forty yards away, heads towards us; and at once
sitting down with the rifle I was carrying, which happened to be the
heavy four-bore, I fired at the nearest head through a maze of interlaced
branches.
The four-bore pushed me over on my back, and the rhinos charged us at
once with a volley of puffing sounds, crashing through the jungle at full
gallop. As I rose to my feet the first, the young bull, passed me, and
took after the two men; the big cow followed, passing me at a distance
of only ten yards, and I threw the rifle to my shoulder and knocked her
over, making her turn a somersault with her four legs fighting the air!
Giving a hurried look at her, and seeing her lying still, I rushed on
after the other; but although he had been twice hit I lost him, after
another half mile, in some high _durr_ grass. Returning to the big cow,
I found her still unconscious, but gently breathing, lying on her side,
and I finished her with a shot through the head. The young bull, I think,
must have eventually recovered, as the two wounds in the head, having
missed the brain, would not have injured him mortally. Leaving the men
to prepare the heads and shields for conveyance to camp, I walked to the
deserted zeríba and found the camp pitched inside, and dinner ready;
and two hours later, at sunset, the trophies came in, Daura chanting a
hunting song.
We spent the morning of the 9th preparing the trophies, and in the
evening marched back to Túli. I shot an oryx with good horns, and a
Walleri buck, and next day we made another march of ten miles.
We reached the grazing grounds of the Sheikh Ash Ogádén, a very friendly
set of people, whom I had met before. The men, who were with the camels
grazing in the outer pastures, ran away on first seeing us, mistaking my
men, who carried Snider rifles, for Abyssinian raiders. But soon they all
rushed back, shouting and crowding round my riding camel, and raising
scores of hands for me to shake.
Getting into the thick of the tribe later on, we camped among their
karias, beside a tall red ant-hill; and while camp was being pitched,
wishing to draw off the crowds of people from worrying my men at their
work, I withdrew to a distance of a couple of hundred yards and, under
the shade of an _Adad_ thorn-tree, exhibited coloured prints from the
_Graphic_ Christmas numbers, and a book representing the different
varieties of British soldier. The men, women, and children pressed round
me in a dense mass, remarking, “You are not like the Amhára;[39] we are
not afraid of you; you don’t mean any harm.” They were particularly
delighted with some old Zoological Society’s _Proceedings_ which
contained coloured illustrations of a Waller’s gazelle and of a Somáli
wild ass; and they said, “Now we have seen that the English can do
everything!”
I had a serious difficulty here. One of the Bulhár men, having quarrelled
with Adan Yusuf, my caravan leader, decided to leave me; and as is the
custom, seven more coast men, drawn from the same tribe, although bearing
no malice, joined their fellow-tribesman as a matter of principle. I
called for volunteers from the Sheikh Ash tribe; and about twenty at once
offering themselves, my own followers, seeing I was independent, returned
to obedience. I dismissed the two ringleaders with ten days’ rations and
their back pay, and wished them a safe return to Berbera. It is a good
thing when making up a caravan not to draw too many men from one tribe.
I gave several Korans and prayer-chaplets to the mullahs here, and they
were received with real pleasure. The mullahs are the traveller’s best
friends in Ogádén; they are intelligent, have great social influence,
and are particularly useful in giving introductions, passing a traveller
on from tribe to tribe. The more intelligent among them can write in
Arabic. From these mullahs I heard that at Durhi, in the Malingúr tribe,
on one of the roads to Imé on the Webbe, I was certain to come upon
Grevy’s zebra, which had not yet, I believe, been shot by Europeans; so I
determined to go there.
On the 13th I broke up my camp at Yoghon among the Sheikh Ash karias, and
marched along the bed of a torrent, deep cut in the red earth, to a pool
called Garba-aleh.
Before striking camp at earliest dawn, just as Suleiman the cook, whom
I always told the sentry to awaken before the bulk of my followers, was
beginning to prepare my coffee, a leopard jumped into the middle of the
camp to seize my best milch goat, which was reclining under the lee of a
pile of camel-mats; but Makunan’s mule, by braying at the brute, aroused
the whole camp. The Somális rushed unarmed at the leopard, while I dived
quietly under my bed and drew out my coat, which had cartridges in the
pockets, and a rifle; but of course by the time all this was ready the
leopard had gone!
Approaching the water at Garba-aleh I saw three hyænas making off through
the thorn forest; and I sent a Martini-Henry picket through one of them,
by which I hoped to secure his eventual death, and so save some Malingúr
sheep.
I met an old man called Mader Ádan, the first Malingúr I had seen, and
he greeted me cheerily, and told me to expect lions and rhinoceroses in
plenty at Eil-ki-Gabro, a march or two ahead. He said his own karia had
been driven from the district by the former. This was joyful news.
The Garba-aleh pool, about twenty yards in diameter, in the bed of
a deeply-cut sand-river, looked promising for lying in ambush, so
I constructed a shelter on the principle of that which had been so
successful at Kuredelli, the back of the bower being an overhanging wall
of earth fifteen feet high. As it had been a hot day even for the _Kalíl_
season, and likely to bring game early to water, I occupied my ambush at
about five o’clock, and we sat quiet.
[Illustration: A Herd of Oryx]
While it was yet light a large spotted hyæna came warily up to the water,
looking round to right and left, and starting nervously at every sound,
and I shot him through the brain as he drank, his body dropping into
the water. At dusk a beautiful male leopard walked down to the pool,
and I fired, hitting him through the lungs; he stumbled away and fell
in a ravine a few yards on the farther side of the pool. Fearing hyænas
would come and spoil the skin, we got a lantern and went to look for him,
and walking up cautiously to the ravine we found him lying dead. With
my whistle I called up three men, and bearing the leopard to camp, we
skinned him by the camp fire. I then returned to the pool and missed a
hyæna, and finding it was too dark to shoot, and that mosquitoes, which
breed in these stagnant pools, were rather bad round our bower, making it
impossible to keep still, I went to camp and turned in for the night.
On 14th April we marched to Eil-ki-Gabro, and found lion and rhino tracks
at the water. Making another shelter I sat up on the chance of a shot,
but saw nothing.
Disappointed here, the next day we went to Náno, a small valley in the
mountains, where we found plenty of game, the kinds seen being koodoo,
lesser koodoo, oryx, Sœmmering’s and Waller’s gazelles, and a rhinoceros.
I had a long hunt after the last, as the men were pitching camp, but
going hard for two or three miles over very broken thorny country he
fairly beat us, and we gave him up and returned to camp, knocked up by
the hot sun.
We made an evening march to a river-bed, choked with dense, evergreen
jungle and some high trees hung with rope-like creepers, and our
guide, going into the thickest of this to look for water, started a
cow rhinoceros and calf. He came running back to us shouting, “_Wiyil,
wiyil_” (Rhinoceros), while the mother and her young one galloped out
on the farther side of the jungle with a crash, and took away over the
low stony hills. By the time I could get possession of my big rifle and
run after them, they were seen quite a thousand yards away disappearing
round the shoulder of a rocky, thorn-covered hill, and running up to this
spot a few minutes later I was unable to sight them again, and the ground
being unsuitable for tracking we lost them.
We made three more marches to Durhi; and I came upon the tracks of a herd
of zebras an hour before pitching camp there on the 17th. Here we found
several karias of the Malingúr Ogádén. The first people we saw were a
group standing round an open grave; and on inquiring we found they were
burying the body of a young woman who had been torn out of a hut from
among several of her sleeping friends on the night before by a man-eating
lion.
These people had never seen one of my countrymen before, but on hearing
I was _Ingrés_ (English) they ran at me, calling out that I must shoot
the lion and drive away the Amhára. I was led some miles into the bush
to the west, where I found a party of the Malingúr following the lion,
armed with their spears; but the tracks led on to very stony and thorny
hills, and my guides being either unable or unwilling to keep them, we
gave it up and I returned to camp, which had been pitched between two
large karias. We had a severe thunder-storm at night; a lion walked round
my tent during the storm, as we saw next morning by his tracks in the mud
only five yards away from the head of my bed!
On the following day I went out and shot two Grevy’s zebras, the meat of
which my men finished. We also saw tracks of another lion.
Next day I shot another zebra, the flesh of which I gave to the Malingúr.
I tied up a camel at night, intending to sit out for a lion, but owing
to the rain I had to abandon the idea; and when we went to the camel at
midnight, we found it had been killed by hyænas, an enormous number of
which haunted the outskirts of the karias.
While I was encamped at Durhi the Malingúr told me that their chief, Umr
Ugaz, had gone to Harar to make a compact with Rás Makunan, agreeing to
pay regular tribute and to acknowledge his sovereignty. The Malingúr,
although demonstrative in their first welcome to me, afterwards became
very reserved, because they feared that civility to Europeans might
get them into trouble with the Abyssinians. They are in the line of
Abyssinian invasion eastward along the Fáfan Valley, and have been
utterly cowed. Having been deprived of most of their horses their
fighting power is much reduced.
On the 20th we travelled two marches to Las Damel, and thence to Garabad.
On reaching this place at noon, I found a very large herd of oryx feeding
on either side of the caravan route, and shot three. On the first shot
the herd, instead of running away, charged up round the wounded one as
they do when hunted with dogs; and reloading, by a quick right and left,
I was able to bag a second and third animal. A great deal of the meat was
eaten by the men, and the rest was sun-dried for future consumption.
The valley of Daghatto, on the Gálla border, said to be swarming with
elephants, was now only ten miles on the west of us. So halting at
Garabad, I sent Géli and two Malingúr guides, who had joined us, into the
Daghatto Valley to see what they could find; and they returned at night
showing pieces of freshly-chewed aloe, and reporting that they had seen
an elephant.
We marched into the Daghatto Valley next morning, passing between low,
flat-topped hills, and camped in thick umbrella mimósas, forming a strong
zeríba with felled trees, as our guides reported the country dangerous.
The jungle descended gradually to the Daghatto stream, which was a mile
to the west of us, its course being north and south. It has its source
in the Harar Highlands, and flows towards the Webbe. Where we struck the
stream it had cut its way through very wild and hilly country, said to
harbour Gálla marauders.
Directly the camp had been pitched I organised a small hunting caravan,
consisting of the three fast camels, the mule, and six men, with food
for two days. We set off at once, and soon reached the Daghatto stream.
We found it to be an exquisitely beautiful little river, overshadowed
by very large and wild forest, with hanging masses of creeper, there
being a carpet of rich grass. Footprints of elephants of different dates
were everywhere visible in the earth, and stems of trees were broken, or
the trees uprooted and overturned by the herds, as they had fed along
parallel to the course of the stream. Some of the tracks in the soft mud
close to the stream were holes two feet deep. There was a deep and rapid
current, which prevented our crossing with the camels, but we held along
the eastern bank, going up stream, towards the north.
We found evidences of a large bull elephant having bathed and fed about
on the night before, and taking up his tracks for two or three miles, the
footprints which we had been following were joined by those of several
others, and soon the whole country seemed to be covered with traces of
elephants, trees being denuded of the branches or overturned at various
dates, and it became evident that a large herd was in the valley with us,
and had been there for some days.
I sent Hassan Midgán and a Malingúr guide along the river bank to
reconnoitre, and ordered them to work round and join us, when the height
of the sun should indicate noon, at a little hill visible above the sea
of forest two or three miles on ahead. Mounting the mule I made straight
for this landmark with Géli and Daura, directing Abokr and a camelman to
bring on the three camels slowly behind us.
Reaching the hillock I cautiously climbed to the top, and began examining
the expanse of flat, green tree-tops, to try and discover the game.
Daura began dancing about and snapping his fingers with pleasure, and
pointed to some reddish brown spots among the topmost branches of a
thorn-tree half a mile away; and looking long and carefully, I saw one of
the red patches move just once, backward and forward. We knew then that
what we saw were elephants’ ears. While we were still looking we heard
the scream of an elephant, and the patches of red were raised above the
foliage as the owners moved together through the jungle, pressing on one
another, their course marked by the great swinging ears.
Soon they stopped, and stood bunched together to listen, and we knew that
they had seen or winded the two men whom I had sent round to the left an
hour ago.
This was awkward, but I ran hard for the line I thought they would take
when they should resume their retreat; and getting into a thick patch
of jungle, with Géli in attendance, I waited, hiding my body behind the
stem of a tree, the wind blowing in our faces from where the elephants
had last been seen. On they came, passing us at a great pace, and letting
them go by, I fired at the ear of the largest, thirty yards away, a loud
crack answering the report of the four-bore. They only screamed and
redoubled their pace, and I ran on in their wake, half smothered in the
cloud of dust they had raised.
The jungle was one of the _billeil_, the worst kind of thorn bush, and
they soon left me far behind. I ran back to the hill to get a bird’s eye
view of their line of retreat, as shown by the clouds of dust rising
above the jungle, and I hoped they would stop; but they made off up the
Daghatto Valley in a straight line, evidently bent on leaving the country.
While I was watching their course, a Malingúr came to me, and said that
Abokr had climbed a tree which he pointed out to us half a mile to the
east, and that he had seen elephants. I shouldered the four-bore, and
followed by Géli and Daura leading the mule, I went to the tree, and
found Abokr among its branches. He extended his arm and pointed out the
elephants, which were a fresh lot altogether. We could only see brown
patches among the tops of some thorn-trees five hundred yards away, and
although they did not move, from former experience we knew what they were.
All the elephants in Daghatto seemed to have been rolling in reddish
brown clay, which, contrasted with the vivid green background of the
trees under strong sunlight, made them look of a brick-red colour. The
jungle in which they had taken refuge was a small grove of large trees
growing together, and for about two hundred yards in front was very
thorny _khansa_ bush, the flat umbrella tops nearly meeting at a height
of about four feet from the ground. There was no cover higher than this
except the clump of trees where the elephants were, and a few small,
flimsy _adad_ bushes rising above the _khansa_ undergrowth. The elephants
themselves, half hidden in the foliage of the large trees on which they
had been feeding, had a good view all around from the citadel which they
had chosen, making it difficult to approach unobserved. The passages
underneath the _khansa_ bushes were too tortuous and thorny to be of any
use. A belt of high jungle on our left grew to within a hundred yards of
the herd, and at the same distance beyond them was an extensive forest,
the wind blowing over the elephants’ heads in our faces.
By taking advantage of the belt of forest on our side, I managed to
get within a hundred yards; and then crawling out into the _khansa_
undergrowth for twenty yards, I sat on a low ant-hill which rose above
it and rested my elbows on my knees, and remained motionless for some
time with the rifle up, waiting for a chance. The eyes and temple of the
largest elephant could be seen in a gap of the foliage, and taking a
careful aim at the centre of the temple I fired, and bolted back through
the _khansa_ to the edge of the high trees, to receive them there if they
should charge. They made off, however, up wind, all except one, a large
bull with moderate tusks, which we found kneeling, stone dead, under
the trees, a crimson stream flowing from a hole through the temple just
where I had aimed. This was a good test of the powers of the eight-bore
Paradox gun, the distance being eighty yards.
Going after the others, I found they were three cows and a calf, so I
gave up the chase and returned to the hillock to look round. A curious
sight there met our eyes. The Daghatto Valley lay before us, one unbroken
expanse of tree jungle, and we could see five or six groups of elephants
making away up the valley, going north. There were probably not less than
one hundred and twenty in all, looking very red under the low evening
sun; sometimes their backs could be seen in a shining line above the
jungle, sometimes they disappeared in the thicker parts.
It was now getting late, and after a short search for the elephant which
I had hit in the head at the beginning of the hunt, I gave up the chase
and, collecting my people, made for camp, many miles distant.
Had I chosen I could easily have shot more elephants upon this occasion.
Elephant-hunting is, to my mind, one of the most exciting forms of sport,
but when one has had a certain amount of success, there can be no excuse
for continuing it merely for the pleasure of killing. Upon this journey,
however, my comfort depended greatly upon the good opinion my Somális
had of me, and I could not afford to have my motives for not firing at
elephants misinterpreted.
While we were returning to camp at sundown a leopard sprang out of some
undergrowth a few yards ahead of us, and he had bounded away before I had
time to fire. As we reached camp, with Daura, as usual after a successful
hunt, taking the lead and singing, all the camp men fell into line to
mark their appreciation, and crowded round me to salaam and shake hands.
On the 23rd, starting early and carrying axes and knives, we went to
remove the head-skin and cut out the tusks of the bull elephant. As we
walked up to the grove of trees and came in sight of the body, a fine
panther, which had been quietly sleeping against it on the lee side, gave
us one look and bounded away. I could not fire, as Géli’s head was just
in the way when I first saw the spotted skin. The brute had come, no
doubt, during the night to lick the blood, and had been caught taking a
nap rather later than usual. I followed through thorny jungle to try and
get another glimpse, but the panther had disappeared.
We had rain all day, and returned to camp very damp, with the tusks, in
the evening. The whole valley was practically a swamp, and we several
times had to wade up to our knees, and once up to our waists, in mud and
water. Only by first trying the depth of the slush with our own bodies
did we succeed in getting the camels on to camp.
We marched back on the morning of the 24th to Garabad, and in the evening
to Denleh, where we fell in with a trading caravan of the Malingúr. On
the 25th we made two marches to Segag, by a picturesque river-bed called
Sullul, with running water, and a number of wells overshadowed by large
camel-thorn trees (_gudá_). The banks were of red earth, which had been
much undermined by the river, leaving a perpendicular scarp of about
fifty feet.
Until Captain Baudi, with Signor Candeo, came this way on their journey
to Imé, three years before my visit, no European had reached either
Durhi, Segag, or Imé.[40] My men said that Baudi was attacked by Rer
Amáden robbers at these wells, and I saw the site of his camp, but had no
means of verifying the report.
The Rer Amáden are the Ogádén tribe next to the south of the Malingúr,
and they have pastures nearly as far as the Webbe Shabéleh river; and on
the farther side of the Webbe the Gálla country begins in the west, and
that of the Aulihán Somális in the east. My coast Somális had already
begun intriguing to try and get me back to Berbera, as they fear the
Gálla border; and my expedition nearly came to a premature conclusion
through want of information and guides.
The country for many days was quite uninhabited. I wanted to send a
message to the Rer Amáden, whom I had never seen, to let them know, as I
have always done, if possible, when entering a new tribe after a stretch
of uninhabited country, that my intentions were peaceful, but the whole
of the waterless bush ahead being reported empty for forty miles, my
messengers were afraid to go forward, and we had no information where the
Amáden were, or whether they might attack us or not. There was also a
chance of the messengers being killed by marauding Gállas.
My leave was drawing to a close, and my idea, long formed, of going
to Imé and the Webbe Shabéleh seemed fated to disappointment. The Rer
Amáden were reported by the Malingúr to be a very warlike and powerful
tribe, and they had never yet seen an Englishman; so with my small party
of twenty camelmen, further weakened by our having to detach scouts and
messengers, it seemed rather risky to make a plunge into the country
ahead without information.
After several ineffectual attempts to find out the Rer Amáden, or tracks
of their grazing camels, I pushed on through uninhabited country along a
good path leading southwards, and on 27th April we halted at Enleh. Here
I determined to make one final attempt to communicate with the Amáden,
and if unsuccessful, to return by the north-eastern route to the coast,
now distant three hundred miles, going through the Malingúr, Sheikh Ash,
Rer Ali, Rer Harún, Habr Gerhajis, and Habr Awal tribes.
We halted at Enleh from 27th April to 2nd May, waiting for the scouts to
return to camp. I had chosen the two Ogádén guides, one of whom was a
_widad_ named Yunis, and had given them large water-bottles and dates to
carry in their hands, and had told them to look out for rain-water, and
not to return for four days, unless they found the Amáden karias.
The whole of the country which we had passed over, after leaving the open
Marar Prairie at Jig-Jiga, had been low and hilly, covered with thorn
forest of no great height, and since leaving the Jerer Valley it had been
much cut up by ravines and watercourses. The most important of these were
the Tug Fáfan, which we crossed near Náno, and the Sullul and Daghatto
streams.
At the seasons when it is occupied by the tribes, all this country gives
excellent pasture, and supports horses, camels, cattle, donkeys, sheep,
and goats; but there were no permanent settlements on this route between
Hargeisa and the Webbe, a distance of about three hundred miles.
In parts of the Jerer Valley, notably at Dagahbúr, Haljíd, Harakleh, and
Jig-Jiga, cultivation could be extensively carried on; in fact Dagahbúr
was, not long ago, a thriving settlement, but it had to be abandoned for
the usual reason, tribal feuds and the absence of any strong government.
The Rer Amáden do not generally send caravans to trade at Berbera, but
deal indirectly through the Sheikh Ash and Rer Ali.
[Illustration: A Sounder of Wart-hog.]
[Illustration: A Herd of Gerenúk.]