FIRST JOURNEY TO THE WEBBE SHABÉLEH RIVER (_continued_)
Our camp at Enleh—Success of the Lee-Metford rifle—An oryx
hunt—Abundance of game—A night alarm—Attempt to catch a zebra
foal—Strange voices in the bush—News of the Rer Amáden—Jáma
Deria—Advance into the Amáden country—Meeting with Sheikh
Abdul Káder at Dambaswerer—Friendly reception by the Rer
Amáden—Decide to make a dash for Imé—Fine view of the Webbe
Valley—Difficulty and expense of a Somáli outfit—Close to
Imé; doubtful as to our welcome—Cordiality of the Adone or
Webbe negroes—Council of the elders; desire for an English
treaty—Kind hospitality of Gabba Oboho, chief of Imé—A word
for British management at the coast—Invited to return to the
Webbe—Shoot two waterbuck—Return to Dambaswerer—Jáma Deria
at home—Gálla raids—Extraordinary vitality of a Somáli—Jáma
Deria’s avarice—Reputation of Rás Makunan—Oryx shot—A lion
roars at night—Lion surprised stealing the carcase—Exciting
hunt, and death of the lion—Sit up for lion at Durhi—Melancholy
episode; Daura Warsama killed by a man-eater—Unsuccessful
hunt—Clarke’s gazelle bagged—Oryx bull bagged—Artificial
tanks—Form a camp for koodoo-hunting at Mandeira.
At Enleh our camp was pitched on some rising ground, devoid of bushes,
but well covered with young grass, last year’s old grass having been
burnt off. All around, except close to camp, was thorn forest from
twenty to forty feet in height. Extensive jungle fires had occurred here
during the dry season, and patches of young grass were springing up for
two or three miles on every side. This is always the best condition
of any locality for attracting game, particularly when the country is
uninhabited.
I went out on the day of our arrival at Enleh and shot a zebra with my
Lee-Metford rifle, the ammunition for the larger rifles having dwindled
to only a few cartridges. At dusk I went after a very large herd of oryx,
but, losing them by the faint moonlight a little later, I opened fire
on several Sœmmering’s gazelles, and bagged two with as many shots from
the Lee-Metford. This I found an excellent rifle, using a pin’s head
for a foresight, the pin being wedged into the slit which was in the
old pattern military weapon. We cut up the zebra and gazelles for the
twenty-five men whom I had in camp, and the meat was soon disposed of.
On the 28th of April I got a Waller’s gazelle with the Lee-Metford, and
in the evening I crossed a wide valley to the south of camp and fell in
with oryx. We found them, a bull and a cow, in good stalking cover on the
farther side of the valley, near some deserted zeríbas, with open thorn
jungle and tempting young grass. On first sighting them, two hundred and
fifty yards away to the east of us, grazing southwards, the wind blowing
from south to north, I lay down with Géli and Hassan behind a thicket
of high _durr_ grass and waited. The bull walked towards me, and then
grazed for about ten minutes behind some bushes, the cow standing looking
suspiciously in my direction. We continued lying down, and only looked up
at long intervals, each with a bunch of grass held before the face. At
last the bull appeared from behind the bushes; and sitting up, resting
my elbows on my knees, I hit him with the Lee-Metford, and he made off
at a gallop and hid in a deserted zeríba. Following on his tracks, I was
within a yard of the zeríba before I saw the tips of his horns appearing
over the brushwood, only six feet away from me. From the position of
the horns I knew he was listening, and placing the muzzle of the rifle
into the brushwood where his chest should be, I fired and sprang to one
side, and he rushed away in the other direction at a gallop. I ran round
the zeríba just in time to see him disappear in thick cover. Following,
I took a quick shot at him as he crossed a glade one hundred and fifty
yards away, and missed; and after another chase I ran on to him in thick
cover, standing broadside on at fifteen yards, when I gave him a shot
with a Winchester .500 Express. He walked off ten yards and stood again
broadside on, looking at us; and then he dropped suddenly, stone dead.
A day or two later I went out shooting, and got a buck Waller’s gazelle,
and in the chase lost Abokr and my camel; and after firing twelve signal
shots unsuccessfully, I returned to camp. He afterwards turned up all
right. In the evening I went out again, and got a pair of oryx out of a
large galloping herd, emptying the Lee-Metford magazine at individual
animals at ranges of from one hundred to three hundred yards. When after
the oryx we found tracks of natives in the soil, and while walking home
to camp after nightfall we heard distant singing, far out in the bush
to the east. I told off a special guard, the men sleeping with their
cartridge belts on, and doubled the sentries, keeping the first watch
myself; the night, however, passed without incident.
The next morning I made for the remains of the two oryx, part of the meat
of which we had not been able to take away, to see whether natives had
been there. The spot in the bush was well marked by the vultures, which,
having discovered the remains for the first time at break of day, were
stooping in a slanting direction towards the place from all parts of the
sky, wings extended and nearly motionless, legs stretched perpendicularly
downwards. Except the vultures, and a large spotted hyæna which cantered
lazily away from under a bush, nearly bursting with the banquet it had
just had off the oryx, nothing had disturbed the neighbourhood. My men
said the voices of the night before must have been those of “devils,” for
we had gone far beyond the place whence the sound had appeared to come,
and there was no track in the earth, and there had been no rain during
the night to obliterate footmarks.
In the evening, the game never failing, taking my two hunters and a
camelman, I followed some zebra, and by mistake shot a mare, which
dropped out of the herd, and after going a short way fell dead. A foal,
which I had not observed before, trotted after her, and stood a few yards
from the body. This occurred in very thick country; and approaching
noiselessly under cover of a thicket, ten yards from the dead zebra, we
quietly constructed a slip-knot, loading the noose at intervals with
bullets which my men tore with their teeth and spear-points from the
cartridges in my belt. Going to the edge of the thicket, a yard or two
from the foal, we tried to cast the noose over its head; but kicking
up its heels it made off through the jungle. On the way home I fell in
with a large herd of oryx, and shot three of them after a long hunt. We
prepared the meat for transportation, covering it with bushes to keep
off vultures, and marched back towards camp an hour before sunset. While
still two miles from camp we heard voices hailing us from the east, but
not knowing who might be calling, friend or foe, we decided to walk on to
camp without answering the challenge. I only had three men with me, and,
the voices issuing from several directions, we thought the sounds might
possibly come from a force of Rer Amáden; so we continued walking towards
camp, the hailing of the voices sounding sometimes close to us. They were
so close that, as a precautionary measure, we four more than once grouped
ourselves round the trunk of a tree, back to back, with rifles ready. The
owners of the voices had evidently heard my rifle an hour or two before,
and tried to hit off our whereabouts.
Arriving at camp, I found Yunis and the other guide, and three Amáden
tribesmen, waiting by my tent. It was these men’s voices which we had
heard in the bush. Yunis had good news to tell. He and his companions
had come upon some Amáden, a small party of men who had wandered from
the main karias of their tribe, which was encamped two days’ journey to
the south. This party had come into the uninhabited country to collect
gum-arabic, which they pick off the bushes, and send down to the coast
tribes by small caravans, which return with cloth to the interior. The
gum-pickers are always a very poor lot of people, often starving, and
camping without flocks and herds, they undergo great hardships while
carrying on their trade. The “devils” of the night before turned out to
have been these gum-pickers, who, bivouacking in the bush in a small
party without fires, had been shouting to scare lions, which had a bad
reputation here. They had afterwards seen our fires and had retired,
fearing Abyssinians; and following their tracks next day, my two guides
had come up with them. The two Amáden offered on the morrow to guide us
to their tribe and put us well on the road to Imé. They said that their
headmen, the most important of whom were Sheikh Abdul Káder and Jáma
Deria, had heard much of the Englishmen who were at Berbera, and wanted
to see one and shake his hand!
At night came Jáma Deria and Hirsi, his son, mounted on white ponies.
They slept in my camp. Jáma Deria was really a beautiful old man. He was
a fine old fighting chief with a white beard, his features being well
formed, but the complexion nearly black; he is the leading minstrel of
the Rer Amáden tribe, and has composed songs which are sung on horseback
in the _dibáltig_, and on other occasions, far and wide in Somáliland.
His great hobby is lifting cattle and fighting with his neighbours, with
the natural accompaniments, love of horseflesh and minstrelsy. I found
Jáma Deria, despite his failings, to be a dear old man, with splendid
qualities, although his character was rather spoilt by a strong tendency
to stinginess; however, I subsequently became great friends with him.
He expressed himself delighted that an Englishman had at last found out
the Rer Amáden; he said the old men, young men, and children would all
welcome me; and that he would lead me to the Sheikh (Abdul Káder) at
Dambaswerer, where they hoped to keep me as long as I would stop. He said
that he knew all the Imé tribes, who were very much afraid of him; and he
hoped, now that the English were the friends of the Rer Amáden, he would
be able to keep the Abyssinians[41] in their proper place.
On the 2nd of May we broke up our camp at Enleh early in the morning
and marched to Galadúr, where we camped again. Old Jáma Deria and his
son escorted me, and he was delighted to have been before the Sheikh
in welcoming me to the country. He is a rival of the Sheikh, and has
sometimes been his open enemy, having killed several of Abdul Káder’s
relations; he keeps all the neighbouring tribes in a constant state of
alarm, being a regular firebrand and loving a quarrel for its own sake.
As we advanced in the fresh morning air, the old man, in high spirits,
would dash past me at full gallop, to display to the Englishman the
quality of his pony and the red tassels on his saddle and bridle,
returning after each circle to cry “_Mót!_” I could not help thinking
of old Tarquin, in the _Lays of Ancient Rome_, whose spear, according
to Macaulay, “shook more with hate than age.” A Somáli, poising his
spear before throwing it, does it by a sudden jerk against the palm of
his hand, causing the shaft to quiver; and he claims that this keeps it
straight in the air, the effect being somewhat like that of the feathers
on an arrow, or the twist caused by the rifling on a bullet.
As we got into a bit of open grass I shot a Sœmmering’s gazelle. The buck
dropped in his tracks, and old Jáma, hastily dismounting and handing his
mare to his son, paused an instant to whirl the free end of his tobe from
his shoulder and to coil it round his waist, leaving the chest bare; and
then, running like a two-year-old, he raced to the gazelle to perform the
_halal_—that is, to sever the jugular with his short sword, without which
operation all meat is _harám_, or unlawful, to a Mussulmán.
The youth who brought up the horses could not induce them to come near to
the dead gazelle; so Jáma, mounting his beautiful young mare, which he
said was “blood-shy” and required teaching, by voice and heel coaxed her
up to the meat till she brought her dilated nostrils close to it. He made
her jump over the buck several times before he was satisfied. The Amáden,
who had perhaps never seen game shot before, examined the hole in the
buck with great interest, Jáma remarking that the Abyssinians couldn’t do
that near so well, and that the English were good people. He said that I
was to be _his_ Englishman, and while in the country shoot him lots of
zebra, as all the Amáden liked the meat very much.
During our evening march we were overtaken by a violent storm, the burst
of the monsoon, which occurs very locally and at different dates in
different places. We could not advance or retire, the camels having to
stand loaded for over an hour up to their fetlocks in running water, with
an impassable torrent a little distance off on either side, where all
had been lately dry land; my cook Suleiman was caught by one of these
streams while following the caravan; and he was turned over and over, and
would have been drowned had we not gone to his assistance. After the
storm had passed we had hard work to reach the top of the highest ground
in the neighbourhood, a mile from where we had been caught, the camels
slipping at every step on the sloping surfaces of soft red clay. It was
the worst storm I have ever experienced, accompanied by constant thunder
and vivid lightning. Lions roared in some nasty bush round our camp at
night; luckily, however, they did not attack our horses; for the fuel on
the spot being soaked, and it being too dark to send out to search for
any, we could only make a small fire with a scanty supply which my cook
Suleiman, always thoughtful, had wrapped up in a waterproof sheet and put
on a camel just as the storm came on, for the preparation of my evening
meal.
Next day, the 3rd May, we made a long march and reached Gullá. A lion
roared at night, but he was on the farther side of a precipitous
watercourse which he could not pass without going a great distance round;
so he did not disturb my camp otherwise than by the grand music of his
voice, which on the clear nights after heavy rain can be heard for miles,
a performance which it was pleasant to lie awake and listen to.
On 4th May, crossing a beautiful stream called Samani at Bal Balaad, we
marched to the Sheikh’s karia. Jáma Deria, who had been with us so far,
now left us. As I rode up to Abdul Káder’s karia I was met by a dignified
old man, who turned out to be the Sheikh himself, and I respectfully
dismounted from the camel and shook hands; and the Sheikh, by way of
emphasising the welcome, fumbled at the brim of my hat with outstretched
hands to bless me, as is the custom, by touching my forehead and mumbling
a few words of the Koran over me. Asking his permission through the
interpreter, I ordered the men to pitch camp at once among the karias
of the Amáden. I was received with enthusiasm by the Sheikh’s people,
who are his own clan of the Amáden; his karias were also full of mullahs
from every tribe. He gave me some sheep, and a camel worth twenty-five
dollars, to be killed for my men, and a fat calf for myself; and lines
of women came carrying large _háns_ decked with white beads and full
of camel’s milk; and soon a long row of these vessels was set up at my
tent door. In return I gave white shirting and red shawls, which are
afterwards picked to pieces to make tassels for the saddlery. To the
Sheikh’s principal wife I gave a red and blue tartan-patterned tobe worth
four dollars, and a looking-glass; and to the other women I gave beads.
As the Sheikh, supported by a thick stick and two stalwart sons, hobbled
to my tent to pay me a formal call, I blew the alarm whistle and fell
in all the men two deep, and loading with blank we fired two volleys
in the air. Then, folding some red blankets and laying them over store
boxes, I made the Sheikh and his sons and elders sit down. Abdul Káder,
while sipping his coffee, his eyes wandering continually over the strange
objects in my tent, and his fingers picking absently at my blankets,
promised to do all he could for me, remarking significantly that he heard
English people did not burn karias and murder women!
The hundreds of assembled tribesmen listened in silence to the sentences
murmured in a high cracked voice by the old man, who had lost all his
front teeth. Some of his small children, or perhaps grandchildren, naked
and dusty, clung round the poles of my tent, sucking their thumbs, and
gazing calmly at the first white man they had ever set eyes on! A dozen
horsemen of the Rer Amáden then went through the _dibáltig_, covering us
with dust, and the minstrel, sitting in the saddle facing my tent, gave
me, appropriately put into verse, complaints against the neighbours of
the Amáden, which, as a representative of the English, I was expected to
settle, this place being about three hundred and thirty miles inland.[42]
While in camp here I set up a large astronomical telescope and turned
it upon Jáma Deria’s karia, a few miles away on the side of a hill. The
people came in crowds to look through this at all hours of the day, with
a running fire of comments, such as, “By Allah! that is Jáma’s white cow.
How big! like an elephant,” and so forth. The mullahs flocked round my
tent begging for white paper to write sentences from the Koran, which
are subsequently enclosed in a leather bag and sold, to be worn round
the neck as a charm to stave off ill-luck. I gave the mullahs several
_tusbas_ or scented prayer-chaplets made of black wooden beads and worn
as necklaces. There is a superstition that a Somáli who wears a _tusba_
and does not count the beads in prayer at the regular times will be
choked by the _tusba_ in revenge.[43]
Late at night, in the pitch darkness before the moon had risen, a small
child, a little girl of seven, came over from one of the karias to my
camp, begging for food, as she was starving. She had braved the terrible
danger of hyænas, which swarm between the karias at night, to cross
to my camp; so giving her some oryx meat and cooked rice, I sent her
back under escort to her own habitations. I suspect this poor child had
no relations. “I cannot help the child; it is not of my clan,” is too
often the answer given by great healthy Somális on being accused of
heartlessness. This is not due to natural ferocity of character, but to
thoughtlessness, what is everybody’s business being nobody’s business;
and the little sufferers starve and die.
Abdul Káder and Jáma Deria were both particularly glad to help me on to
Imé, because for some months past the Amáden had been at war with the
Adone or negroes at Imé; and Jáma Deria thought this would be a good
opportunity of reopening negotiations. The country between the Sheikh’s
karia and Imé was uninhabited for seventy-five miles, and the people told
us that while passing over this tract we would be exposed to the risk of
meeting Arussi Gálla wandering bands. It appeared that Jáma Deria and
Abdul Káder, though jealous of one another, had settled their differences
for the time being in order to assist me, and we arranged that Jáma and
his son, and Abdul Káder’s son and another Amáden, should guide me to Imé
on the 5th of May.
There being very little of my leave remaining, I decided that there would
not be time to take the slowly-travelling caravan so far, and that it
would be better to leave it, under command of a good camelman, encamped
at Abdul Káder’s karias at Dambaswerer, while with my interpreter, two
hunters, and four of the Amáden, I should ride to Imé and back. The
distance would be about one hundred and fifty miles, according to the
natives, and with the help of my mule and two Arab camels and five Amáden
ponies, without any camp equipage, we hoped to accomplish a short stay at
Imé and to be back again at Dambaswerer within six days. A glance at the
map will show the confidence we felt in the friendship of the natives of
Ogádén, to be able to cut ourselves adrift from the caravan in unexplored
country so far in the interior. Imé is four hundred miles from the coast,
and Dambaswerer is seventy-five miles short of Imé. In 1884, at the time
of Mr. F. L. James’s journey to the Shabéleh district to the south-east,
such a ride would have been very hazardous; but since then things have
been changing for the better every day.
Our cavalcade thus consisted of seven mounted Somális and myself, four
of us having rifles, the other four only shields and spears. In the
saddle-bags on the two Arab camels Abokr and I carried a few blankets
and necessaries, and a bag of coffee, and for meat we depended on the
game we expected to fall in with. We rode during the whole of 5th May,
with a short interval to rest and cast loose the camels at noon; and at 5
P.M. we halted by the side of a pool of rain-water, hobbled the animals,
lit a fire, and threw ourselves down in a circle round it to sleep,
one man keeping watch over the animals. At 3 A.M. we were again on the
move, and began to descend a long slope cut up by deep ravines, which
falls to the Webbe Shabéleh river. We lost ourselves among impassable,
precipitous watercourses several times; the guides, however, always
managed, after much difficulty, to regain the path, which had been grown
over with grass, and, because of the Amáden raids, had been unused for
a year. We reached the Webbe Shabéleh at Imé at 1.30 P.M., having done
the seventy-five miles in thirty-two hours at a moderate pace without a
change of animals.
As we neared Imé the view became very fine. The Shabéleh or Haines
river lay before us, flowing in a tortuous course from north-east to
south-west, its banks marked by a line of very tall casuarina-trees,
with dense undergrowth of many varieties of evergreen bush of great size
and beauty. The lines of high trees, following the winding river banks,
and covering the long narrow islands, reminded me of the banks of the
Seine at Rouen, the casuarina growing in the shape of a poplar. The tall
tops of these trees are constantly waving when there is any breeze at
all, the gray-green foliage reflecting the light and giving a peculiarly
lively character to the landscape. On the southern side were two low
rocky hills, rising from the alluvial plain, wooded round their base; and
in these woods, which were crowned by tall graceful “toddy” palms like
those of India, lay the large cluster of beehive villages of the Adone,
which are collectively called Imé.
Most of the open flats near the river banks are cultivated by these
negroes, or are left as pasture-land, to be grazed over by the Adone
cattle and by the frequent herds of water antelopes and Sœmmering’s
gazelles. Behind the broad river valley, some fifteen miles to the south,
rose a wall of lofty blue mountains, piled in picturesque confusion of
peak and plateau to a height which I judged to be not less than eight
or nine thousand feet above sea-level. The long slope of broken ground
rising from the river to the base of the mountains was covered over its
entire surface with monotonous thorn jungle. The Arussi Gállas, who are
camel-owning nomads like the Somális, occupy these mountainous districts.
These highlands are mysterious and attractive to the traveller, for
the reason that no European penetrated them until the entry of the two
well-armed expeditions of Captain Bottiga and of Prince Ruspoli, which,
so far as I could ascertain from the Somális, were even then fighting
their way through the Gálla tribes in front of me.
The difficulty and expense of fitting out a Somáli expedition may be
realised when it is explained that in the four or five hundred miles
between Berbera and Imé, on the routes I took, there was no permanent
village. The karias are merely Somáli temporary kraals, and the huts are
packed on camels when the natives move for change of pasture three or
four times in the year; and in all my journeys, except during the week’s
visit to Harar, I was never able to obtain anything but occasionally
milk and mutton or other meat. Rations of rice, dates, and clarified
butter were carried for the men for every day we spent in the interior;
also water-casks capable of supplying us for six days when crossing the
Haud. All these supplies had to be carried on camel-back, making a very
large caravan for four and a half months, which was the time that elapsed
before we returned to Berbera, and during which we covered about one
thousand two hundred miles of route. By much cutting down of weight I had
managed to do with thirty-three baggage camels, each carrying two hundred
and seventy-five pounds, the cost price of each camel being £2. I took no
furniture, sleeping on the ground or on camel-mats laid over store-boxes,
in a double-fly tent weighing eighty pounds.
As we rode over the flats near the river, I sent Jáma Deria and his son
forward to the villages, hidden among the palm clusters two thousand
yards away, to warn Gabba Oboho, the Adone chief of Imé, of our arrival.
He took, wrapped up in the end of his tobe, an Arabic letter from Sheikh
Abdul Káder. With the other five Somális I sat down under a shady _gudá_
tree in the open plain and awaited developments, at the same time
hobbling the animals and turning them out to graze.
This was an exciting crisis in the course of my expedition. Between my
advanced party and the camp which we had left behind at Dambaswerer lay
seventy-five miles of uninhabited wilderness. We were eight men in all,
with four rifles. A mile away from us was a cluster of more than a dozen
large villages teeming with suspicious and ignorant negroes, who were of
a different race, and had lately been the enemies of the Amáden Somális
who formed my escort. The only white men they had ever seen were Baudi
and Candeo, and possibly Robecchi, and the party of Italians which had
lately gone into Gállaland under circumstances by no means peaceful.
While we were waiting in suspense watching the long dark masses of
beehive huts, the smoke of wood fires curling up among the palm-trees,
and wondering what reception the first Englishman would meet at the
hands of the Adone, a Sœmmering’s gazelle came along cropping at the
short grass till within range of our tree. Unable to resist the tempting
shot, resting my elbows on my knees, I fired, and dropped him dead. I
had now given the alarm! We knew that all the villages had heard the
shot, and so we caught all the animals, and tethering them to our tree,
sat in a semicircle round them, knowing that if the Imé people should
prove hostile we were in for it, and half expecting to see Jáma and his
son come galloping to us in a cloud of dust followed by an excited,
spear-throwing mob, which we might have to stop with our four rifles!
At the end of a quarter of an hour of suspense, Jáma Deria and his son
appeared as two dots issuing from the forest and galloped up to us;
and after circling their ponies a few times in triumph, and crying
“_Mót!_” they dismounted, and shook hands with us all round delightedly,
in the good old Somáli way, and we knew the suspense was over. Two
good-natured-looking, flat-nosed negroes, who had followed behind them,
then ran up, laughing, and shook hands. They were naked save a piece of
dirty tobe thrown carelessly over the shoulders. They explained, through
my interpreter, that Gabba Oboho had told them to bid me welcome to Imé;
we were to drink first at the river, and then come to his village, where
he was waiting with his counsellors to receive us.
Jáma Deria said that he and his son had suddenly come on the two Adone
just inside the forest, and they, recognising the Amáden saddlery, had
run at him spear in hand; but circling his horse round the bushes, he
avoided them, and shouted out in Somáli the purport of Abdul Káder’s
letter to Gabba Oboho. He had then left the letter on the ground,
and retired a little way. The Adone picked up the letter, and were
arguing whether this was a ruse or not, when they heard my shot at the
Sœmmering’s gazelle, and knew that Jáma Deria had spoken the truth, and
that an Englishman had really come. And so they had run off to tell
Gabba Oboho, at his hut in the nearest village. The shot had had a very
different effect in the other Imé villages, for the inhabitants had
ferried the women and children across the river on rafts, to a place of
refuge, believing the gun to have been fired by an Abyssinian force; and
when we advanced into Imé we saw them perched in hundreds among the caves
and recesses of the small hills across the water; but on seeing us enter
the first village peacefully, and observing our meeting with their chief,
they soon flocked down to look at the wonderful stranger.
We rode through a succession of _jowári_ fields to the river. After
we had allayed our thirst, our guides led us to a large _darei_, or
fig-tree, standing in a small glade, and here we found Gabba Oboho and
all the elders of the Adone seated in solemn conclave on the grass, to
the number of about a hundred. My advent was a great event to these
negroes, whose dull lives are only enlivened by Abyssinian or Amáden
raids, and who live their otherwise quiet existence on the banks of the
Webbe, cultivating the ground or herding cows.
I walked through the throng to Gabba Oboho; and shaking hands with him
and a dozen of the nearest counsellors, and spreading a camel-mat in
the centre of the circle, I sat down with Adan Yusuf, my interpreter,
sending the rest of my party away with the animals to get fodder and cook
their evening meal. The greeting of the negroes was very friendly; they
pressed round me, feeling my Elcho boots and admiring the leather and
particularly the laces, pinching the material of my corduroy breeches;
and taking off my canvas shooting hat, which was passed round with a
buzz of wonder and then politely handed back to me. Gabba Oboho could
not conceal his curiosity, and asked me why my arm was brown outside and
white under the sleeve; so I gave a lecture on the effect of the sun on
the European skin to an open-mouthed and admiring audience.
Gabba, now managing to secure silence, in the course of a long oration
said he was glad an Englishman had come; that he and all the headmen
wished to sign a paper with my Government, that all the inhabitants of
the Webbe were “subjects” of the English, who, they had often heard, were
good people; and he now wished to know at once whether I had brought the
paper, so that he might make his mark. He stopped, and the expectant
crowd waited for my reply. I explained that I had not been ordered to
visit the country and had brought no paper; that I had come to look for
wild animals and to see the great river, the Webbe, of which during some
years I had heard so much; that the English wished to be friends with all
people, and the officer who signed papers lived at Aden, more than twenty
days’ journey, as they knew, to the north. I found it difficult to make
them understand the difference between a British officer on duty and one
on leave, and a subdued buzz of disapproval showed that they were not
half satisfied with my reply.
An Adone elder pointed to our mule, and asked where we had got it; and
on hearing it was a present from Rás Makunan, he said, “Ah! it is as we
feared, you English have sold us to the Amhára!” I said the English had
done nothing of the kind. I also told the elders that the English would
be pleased if more caravans came trading to Berbera, and that Government
would assist such caravans in every way possible. Gabba Oboho then led
me, through an avenue of high palm-trees, to the nearest village, and
into a dirty courtyard occupied by two cows and some goats, in the corner
of which his own huts stood. He had turned out of the largest and caused
it to be swept for my use; and he gave my followers a raised platform of
wicker-work, outside the hut, to sleep upon.
I remained in the village all the evening, receiving the visits of the
leading natives and a dense crowd of men, women, and children, constantly
pressing round the hut, old Gabba now and then angrily whipping them off
with a cowhide whip. The elders of Imé were very friendly indeed; and
the climax was reached when one venerable, pointing to his hut in the
distance, said I might have it if so disposed, and his best wife into
the bargain; and he patted one of the surrounding females on the head.
She was by no means a beauty; and turning to him and smiling blandly, I
answered, “_Labadi donei-máyu_” (I don’t want either of them), much to
the amusement and delight of his second-best wives.
The headmen asked me many questions about Europe; and whether I thought
the Italians could conquer Abyssinia if so disposed; and which was the
greatest nation in the world. To this poser I replied, “Allah knows; we
are all strong,” whereat they exclaimed to one another, “He tells the
truth; if he were a liar he would say the English were the strongest.” It
speaks well for the management of affairs on our North Somáli coast, that
although these people were so far in the interior that they had hitherto
never seen one of my countrymen, yet they knew and felt respect for the
English name.
The Adone living at Imé have been great cultivators of _jowári_,
which they eat; but they declared that the Abyssinians had been there
some months before my visit, had shot several people, and taken off
live-stock; and that they sent emissaries occasionally to collect
tribute. Many of the Imé people have therefore left Imé and have gone
to Karanleh, another large collection of villages three marches down
the river to the east; and they say that Karanleh has now become the
more important place. The Imé people certainly seemed very poor and very
timid. They were afraid to go outside the palisades of the villages at
night, and they held Jáma Deria and the Amáden in great awe. Gabba Oboho
said that if I wanted to shoot buffaloes, hippopotami, and giraffes, I
must go three days’ march to the south, to the Webbe Web, which is a
tributary of the Webbe Ganána or Juba river, and that the people there
were Gurré Gállas. He represented them to be “good people,” and that if I
were a friend of his they would be pleased to see me, if I did not loot
or fight with them; and that I had better go to Berbera and return in two
months’ time, when our camels would be able to ford the Webbe. He said
that for my caravan to cross on their clumsy rafts in the present flooded
state of the river would take from four to seven days.
My leave was now coming to an end. I had already asked for an extension,
but to find out whether it was granted I had to make all haste to the
coast. We stayed four days at Imé hunting for the _balanka_ or waterbuck,
which is unobtainable anywhere in Somáliland except on the Webbe. Crowds
of Adone thrust themselves on us during our rambles, hoping to get meat.
I found the sport in the Webbe valley very interesting, though the heat
was great, intensified by the high buffalo-grass through which we had
to force our way. We were generally out on foot all day, often going
to the river to rest in the cool, dense forest which clothes the banks
for a hundred yards on either side of the stream. I shot two waterbuck,
thinking, on account of their small size, that they must be a new
species. But later experience on a second trip proved them to be young
ones.
We found the cotton-bush flourishing wild on the river banks, and heard
that cotton is grown farther to the east, towards the Shabéleh district.
The name of this river at Imé is not the Webbe Shabéleh, but the Webbe
Sidáma, which, I heard, is the Gálla name for the river. Shabéleh appears
to be the name of the district through which the river runs at the point
where Mr. F. L. James’s expedition struck it in 1884. The chief sources
of the Juba are the Webbe Web, Webbe Ganána, and Webbe Dau, in order from
north to south. The Imé people were calling their own river simply the
Webbe (River).
I had now only time to ride back to the Rer Amáden karias at Dambaswerer,
where my caravan was, and then to go quickly for thirty marches,
occupying fifteen days, to Berbera. Bidding good-bye to our friends the
Adone, we left at 2.50 P.M. on the 9th May for Dambaswerer, mounted on
the same animals which had brought us to the Webbe. We rode till late at
night, sleeping as before in the open, and at 3 A.M. resumed our ride,
and going on with two short intervals for repose, we reached Dambaswerer
at sunset on the same day. The sturdy Abyssinian mule which I rode came
in first, then the two Arab camels, and last the five Amáden on their
ponies, straggling in one by one; these latter were very much done up,
having been in bad condition at starting.
Rás Makunan’s mule had been a marvel of staying capacity throughout the
journey, and I would never wish for a better animal for steady work.
The Arab trotting camels from Aden are excellent, having both speed
and endurance; and a certain amount of kit can be carried on them in
saddle-bags in addition to the rider.
On the evening of 11th May we parted from Abdul Káder, and made an
evening march to Jáma Deria’s own karia. Here we remained one night,
leaving early for our northern journey. Jáma Deria’s people received me
with enthusiasm, the crowds pressing round the camp. Their great delight
was the coloured picture in the Zoological Society’s _Proceedings_ of the
Somáli wild ass, which had become so dirty and so battered by handling
that I had mounted it upon the cover of a packing-case to keep it
together. The people fought with each other to get round me and see it;
those who had not seen the picture kept besieging my camp, crying out,
“Show us the picture.” I showed the women, as a great favour, a coloured
print from an illustrated paper of two pretty English girls skating,
which raised a clamour of admiration, one stout _gabad_ (maiden), with
tresses reeking with butter, calling out, “Why did Allah make us black
and these white?” The men beginning to crowd round, and the remarks
becoming too demonstrative, I put away the picture amid deep groans of
disappointment. The men of the tribe sat round my tent in a dense mass
as I produced a book of engravings of the Franco-Prussian war, from the
pictures of Détaille and De Neuville, and as I explained each picture
through the interpreter their faces became grave at the thought of so
many white men fighting with rifles together, and of the numbers of dead.
Contrary to my expectation they thoroughly understood all the pictures,
liking, of course, the coloured ones the best. The snow upon the ground
was the hardest thing to explain, but I had men among my escort who had
been to London and Marseilles, as firemen on steamers, and I left it to
them. Some of the people said, “It is all very wonderful; why are we not
like the English, who have so big a name? Why has Allah given us nothing
and you everything?”
Jáma’s people told me the Abyssinians were sending a strong expedition
into the Arussi Gálla country shortly. They said also that last year the
Arussi Gállas came from the direction of Daghatto in the north-west, and
destroyed ten karias of the Amáden in a single night. A nephew of Jáma
Deria, an actively built, tall young man, came to me saying he heard
all white men were doctors, and would I examine him? and throwing the
loose end of his tobe from his shoulder he exposed a ghastly wound. A
small throwing spear had entered a few inches below the left nipple, and
passing through his body, had protruded at the back between the shoulder
blades. The wound at the back had healed, but the larger wound in the
breast, nearly an inch wide, was open and discharging freely. Asking when
the wound had been received, I was astonished to learn that it had been
in a fight with some Gálla robbers in the previous _Gu_, or heavy rains,
at least ten months before. The man had lived, and had latterly been
going about his business, with the wound unhealed. He seemed thin, but
otherwise not much the worse. I made him a big poultice, and advised him
to take care of himself and not catch cold, and he and his relations went
away, believing in my treatment. I was glad to hear from Jáma Deria,
on coming this way four months later, that the man was still alive,
and getting well; and I feel certain that the healthy, dry air of this
elevated country, combined with total abstinence from liquor, and diet
consisting almost entirely of camel-milk, gives a wound a much better
chance than it would have under other circumstances.
Jáma Deria begged for everything in my tent on the evening of my arrival;
he very much wanted a coloured plaid, and I found out privately that
he had forbidden Gabba Oboho to ask for it when I left Imé, saying I
had promised it to himself. He never, however, succeeded in making me
part with it. He begged hard for my revolver, and I let him fire at an
ant-hill. His womenfolk and all his relations begged me not to give it
to him, for they said, “If you give that dreadful old man a pistol there
will be no staying in the country; he will go and murder Abdul Káder and
his sons, and will then go and make war on the Karanleh people.” On my
shaking him off next morning, as I did after he had ridden by my side for
four miles, always begging the coveted plaid and revolver, he finally
shook hands with evident regret, saying he hoped I would come back and
bring plenty of English with me, they would all be welcome; and I was
to mind and let him know beforehand by a mounted messenger, so that he
might have time to come and welcome us before his enemy, Sheikh Abdul
Káder, could forestall him. A crowd followed us for quite a mile from
the karias, saying they were sorry we were going; the English were their
friends, and the Amhára would be afraid to do anything now.
I may here mention that Rás Makunan of Harar is the only Abyssinian whose
name carries with it any respect in Ogádén. He has the reputation for
trying to be just; and Somális say that if they could gain access to him
the tyrannies of frontier Abyssinians would be stopped.
On the evening of the 12th May, the day on which I had parted from
Jáma Deria, we went on to a place in the uninhabited thorn bush called
Anamaleh. It having been a very hot day and the camels being tired, at
an hour before sunset we halted. While the men were engaged in pitching
the camp, taking my .577 Express rifle, I strolled off quite alone into
the bush to the east to look for gazelles. Getting on to a slight rise,
I found myself on the top of a plateau, and here I tried to stalk two of
the red Waller’s gazelles; but, hearing the noise made by my men pitching
camp four hundred yards away, they made off. I then walked through open
thorn jungle till I suddenly came on two oryx, which galloped away, but
by a rapid shot as they were disappearing among the trees I brought one
to the ground. Firing three more shots as signals, I brought up Géli and
Hassan, and we carried the skull and haunches to camp, leaving the rest
of the meat on the ground.
I always gave orders to my sentries to wake me if they heard a lion roar,
because it is a sound which is not often heard, even in Somáliland,
where lions are so plentiful; and it is always so interesting to hear.
This night the sentry called me at 1 A.M., and at first I heard the low
moans of a lion a mile or two away; then, after half an hour of silence,
just as I was falling asleep, we again heard him roar louder, and, as it
seemed, at the spot where we had left the oryx meat the evening before.
He was heard again during the night; and so when I was awakened by the
intense cold which precedes the dawn I roused Suleiman the cook, and then
swallowing a cup of hot coffee, I prepared for a lion hunt. I told Adan
Yusuf to take charge of the caravan and march about ten miles, and that
we would, after the hunt, pick up the tracks of the camels; and he was
to have the tent pitched and dinner ready at the noon camp awaiting my
arrival.
As the sun rose I took a trotting camel, the mule, Daura Warsama, Abokr,
the two hunters Géli and Hassan, and a Malingúr guide, with blankets,
water-bottles, and dried meat; and we made straight for the spot where
we had left the dead oryx, knowing well that we should find fresh lion
tracks round the body. There was no oryx, but looking on the ground we
saw last night’s story; a heap of half-digested grass and stains of blood
all over the ground showed where the lion had cleaned the carcase, and
the trail where he had dragged it away led to the north-east over smooth
red earth; and we easily followed it, dotted as it was occasionally by
the broad pugs of the lion.
After we had gone a mile we came to a glade of yellow grass about three
feet high, and in the centre of this glade, which was a quarter of a
mile broad, were three or four low, flat, _khansa_ mimósas growing close
together. Three foxes ran out from these, going off at different angles,
and looking beyond the bushes we saw the lion dragging the carcase slowly
over the ground, and keeping the bushes between himself and us. He looked
grayish black, and I could see over the top of the grass that he had a
fine mane. The distance was about one hundred and twenty yards, and as I
thought he had winded us, and there was no time to be lost, I sat down,
and holding the rifle, rested my elbows on my knees to fire. But I could
see nothing over the bushes, so I again rose to my feet, and seeing he
was still holding on into the open, pulling along the carcase, I walked
up closer, keeping under cover of the bushes, and then I sat down again,
holding the sights of the rifle fixed on a gap in the bushes where I
expected to see his dark mane and head appear. He duly walked on, and his
body was in full view in the gap when I fired. The shock told loudly, and
answering it with a short and rather dismal roar, he bounded away at a
good pace, dropping the carcase of the oryx; and crossing the grass he
rushed into a long, dark jungle of mimósas, and we lost sight of him for
the time. The remains of the oryx, consisting of the shoulders, ribs, and
half the spine, lay where the lion had dropped them on being hit, and
the path he had taken was plainly visible by the blood which had been
plentifully sprinkled and smeared on the blades of the grass as he went
along.
The hunt became more exciting as we followed into the dense _khansa_
bushes, whose flat, wide-spread tops, meeting at a height of about five
feet, formed very dark alleys, through which, however, the lion had kept
on at the same pace. We skirted along a hundred yards to our right, to
a thin place in the covert, and then crossing and searching the farther
edge we found his tracks leading out into another glade, and so, leaving
the jungle behind, we held on after him. Finding he had gone into another
of these dark _khansa_ jungles, we made a circuit round the outside till
we were opposite to where he had gone in; but we found he had not left
the _khansa_, so we continued round the edge till we came to the point
where we had abandoned the tracks as they entered the jungle.
He was therefore evidently in the covert, which we had ringed completely,
and there was nothing to be done but to follow him by the blood along
these dark alleys till we came on him. We should find one of three
things: either the lion would be seen by us alive in the covert, where
I hoped to shoot him; or we should find he had bounded away in front
of us; or we should find him lying dead. Following a wounded lion into
the _khansa_ is very exciting work, because if he charges there is so
little room that it is possible one may shoot a man instead of the lion;
and also when pressing through with rifle at full cock, the slightest
catching of the trigger or hammers in the branches would cause an
accident. It is almost impossible to move through these thorns without a
sound, and the lion, if he is crouching, can mark your progress towards
him, and will certainly see you first.
Moving into the thicket yard by yard, we found where the lion had been
lying while we had been walking round him on the outside; and he had
got up and bounded away and out of the cover, his pugs on the soft sand
outside, where the grass was thin, being over my boot-marks, showing
that he had only just gone. We followed this lion for nearly three
miles, through glades of grass and dense strips of _khansa_, taking the
precaution to “ring” each strip to ascertain whether he had gone out on
the farther side, thereby avoiding much unnecessary danger and loss of
time. Many times he had managed to sneak away without being seen when
we were close to him; so, as the sun was now hot, and we were very much
done up with the hard work, we sat down to consult; we thought also that
if we left him sitting in one place long enough to get his wounds stiff,
there would be more chance of coming up with him. We decided it would
be best for Abokr, Daura, and the Malingúr, with the mule and camel, to
follow very slowly on the tracks, thus driving the lion in front of them,
while, with my two hunters Géli and Hassan, I made a circuit round to the
front, and sat in the grass, ready to fire at the lion in case he should
sneak past us. We tried this twice without success; but the third time
the party with the camel followed the tracks into a strip of _khansa_
half a mile long, its length being in the direction in which we were
going. Under the bushes it was so dark that sometimes we could scarcely
see the sights of our rifles. The lion, if lying anywhere in this, would
be certain to sneak away under cover, and if I went quickly along outside
and sat down where the bushes were thin, as the cover was only about a
hundred yards wide, he could not pass without our seeing him.
We ran on along the edge of the jungle, and getting to a thin place we
sat down to wait for the slowly-moving men and animals to drive the lion
to us. I had scarcely settled down when Hassan gently patted me on the
back and pointed ahead, and there was the lion already stealing along in
front, limping painfully. The distance was ninety yards, and sitting down
and aiming at him over the grass I hit him again, the bullet catching him
in his already lacerated forearm. We crouched to see under the smoke,
which hung in the damp grass (for there had been heavy rain in the early
part of the night), and we heard his growl as he sprang into the mimósas.
Hassan spied him again two hundred yards farther on, as we were running
to try and keep him in sight, and bringing myself to a halt suddenly
and putting up the rifle, I fired again, catching him in the shoulder.
He roared again and fell in the bushes. We advanced, and thought he had
gone on; and we were about to run after him when Daura, who had come
up, pointed him out to me crouching in the thick bushes thirty yards
away, his head between his paws. We all stood still, and then as I moved
sideways to try and spot him he gave a low growl. I could not see him
plainly, but fired into the dark yellow mass which Daura had shown me,
and which I believed to be the lion. The shot told loudly as if hitting
bone, and all was silent, the yellow patch remaining in the same place.
We then walked round the mimósa bush through which I had fired, and found
the lion lying on his side, unconsciously gnawing his wounded forearm.
As we stood over him he showed signs of reviving, and I gave him another
shot. He was a fine lion, and we were very glad at the successful end to
our hard work.
Allowing my men to skin the lion, I retired to the shade of a spreading
_khansa_, and opening a haversack which had been brought on the camel,
I made a hearty lunch of oryx meat and water. We then put the skull and
wet lion-skin on the camel, and after another hour or two, following the
tracks of the caravan, we found the camp pitched and my tent ready. My
men, of course, all insisted on shaking hands in congratulation. The skin
of the lion when pegged out in camp measured nine feet six inches. He was
an old fellow, with a good deal of gray in his mane.
We left Géli and Hassan to rest under the trees and watch the skin of the
lion, which we had stretched to dry in the hot sun for two hours, and
telling them towards sunset to pick up the skin and bring it on to the
evening camp, we went on to a place called Dólababa. We made three more
marches through an extensive forest of _khansa_ called Dúd Libah, or the
“Lion’s Forest,” and in this I knocked over a buck lesser koodoo.
On the 15th we again came among natives, at a place called Tálla. There
were five karias here, and the people, who were Rer Amáden, welcomed us
warmly. I sat up for a lion in a zeríba, but without success. The people
said that lions were eating men daily to the north, at the Malingúr
karias a few marches ahead. This was good news, but the sequel was to be
a sad one!
Passing through my old camp at Segag, I made a short trip into the
Daghatto Valley, but bagged nothing at first, although there were many
lion tracks about. While hunting along the river on the evening of the
18th, I shot a beautiful lesser koodoo buck; and returning towards
sunset, when nearing camp we detected a lioness in the grass, but she saw
us first, and a hurried shot missed her as she bounded away. She had been
stalking my camels which were scattered round camp feeding before being
driven in for the night.
Four marches more, during which we experienced heavy thunder-storms,
brought us to Durhi, the place where, on coming from Berbera, we had
found the Malingúr burying a woman who had been killed by a lion. The
two large karias between which we had formerly camped were deserted. I
made a zeríba outside camp, and sat up unsuccessfully for lions in it on
the night of 19th May. My men made a great noise, singing in chorus to
attract lions; and Daura Warsama, one of my best men, led the singing,
sometimes running out into the dark night and calling, “_Libaha káli,
kaleiya, Sirkál-ki wa dóneiya!_” (Oh, lion, come; the Sahib wants you!)
Daura was a fine fellow, whom I had engaged at Bulhár, belonging to the
Jibril Abokr tribe. He and the interpreter, Adan Yusuf, were older than
most of the men, who were almost boys, and, like many of the Jibril
Abokr, in his youth he had been a great raider. He was always full of
fun, danced well, and led the men’s amusements, and was the most popular
man in camp, as well as the smartest I had out of a particularly good
lot. Daura had been with me on five expeditions during 1891-93. On this
trip, since we had left Harar, I had given him charge of Rás Makunan’s
mule, as he knew a good deal about horses.
Finding the lions had left Durhi, having, no doubt, followed the
karias, as lions will, we struck camp next morning and made for Dagaha
Madóba,[44] where we expected to find the Malingúr. The whole of the
ground between Durhi and Dagaha Madóba appeared to be hidden under an
unbroken expanse of _khansa_ bush, covering the low hills and wave-like
undulations of the country as far as the eye could reach on every side.
Game was plentiful, and we saw Sœmmering’s and Waller’s gazelles, zebra
and oryx. I shot two zebras and wounded an oryx in the course of a long
hunt which took me several miles to the south-east of the caravan track.
When I first came on the zebras at about 9 A.M., Abokr was riding the
Arab camel far behind me, and the party with me consisted of my two
hunters Géli and Hassan, and Daura Warsama, while I rode my mule. I had
been riding armed only with a pistol, Daura carrying my Express rifle;
and when we saw the zebras and I dismounted, Daura pushed the rifle into
my hands, and jumping into the saddle with a switch in his own hand, took
the mule away to the rear to join Abokr, and, as I thought, arm himself
with one of the rifles which were on the camel, while Géli, Hassan, and I
ran after the zebras.
At the end of the hunt, more than an hour afterwards, while we were
cutting up the zebra meat, Abokr came up leading the camel and mule,
and looking put out. He said he had caught the mule, which he had found
galloping about riderless, and he thought that Daura must have come to
some harm from Gálla marauders.
Carefully going back to where Abokr had caught the mule, and taking up
the back trail, we met two Malingúr, the first we had seen for some days;
and answering to our anxious inquiries they first, native-like, said they
knew nothing, and then that they had seen marks in the ground, showing
that a lion had carried away a man. Promising a reward, I took these men
as guides, and they led us to a small ravine, where, on examining the
sand, we found what had been poor Daura’s fate. While he had been quietly
riding along at a walk across the ravine a lioness had rushed upon the
mule, which, shying, had thrown Daura upon the ground and galloped away.
The lioness had sprung upon Daura, and after a struggle, as was shown
by the state of the sand, killed him; and his stick, broken in three
places, lay on the scene of the fight. The lioness had then dragged him
away into the jungle, up a slope covered with thick _khansa_ bushes; and
following at a run, we saw pieces of red-bordered waist-cloth, which
we knew to be Daura’s, hanging to the thorn bushes; later on the piece
of leather, enclosing a verse of the Koran, which he had worn round
his neck, and the pouch, with a jag and piece of oiled rag, with which
he had been accustomed to clean his own rifle, and which he had always
carried, attached to an old luggage-strap, round his waist. On coming
to some very large and dense _khansa_ bushes a little ahead of the
men, I at last found Daura’s body. Every vestige of clothing had been
torn off by the bushes. There were twenty holes in his throat from the
teeth of the lioness, and his right leg had been bitten off at the hip,
leaving a foot of the thigh-bone protruding. His hands and cheeks were
also bitten through, showing that he had fought for his life; and it
seemed particularly hard luck that he of all my men had been caught thus
unarmed, for he was the best shot in the party, and would have been well
able to defend himself if he had only carried the Martini-Henry which was
usually in his possession.
The lioness had disappeared; so wrapping Daura’s body in a waterproof
sheet, and roping it up on to a camel, I started the men off for camp,
and cantered on ahead on the mule to give orders for a grave to be dug.
I had first asked my men to help me follow the lioness up at once, but
they insisted that Daura must be buried first.
As I reined up in camp the camelmen came to me smiling to say “_Salaam
aleikum_,” expecting to hear that I had bagged a lion, which had made me
late. Passing those in front I rode into the zeríba quietly and said,
“Daura is dead.” A curious change came over all the men, who stood about
awkwardly, not knowing where to look; and when I told off men for the
burying party, and another party to follow the lioness with me, the men
moved about dreamily as if not understanding the calamity which had
fallen upon them. Some one said, “Not Daura? Not our Daura?” and they
only realised what had happened when Daura’s body was brought up on the
camel and laid on the grass before them.
I determined to devote the next twenty-four hours to hunting up the
lioness, and having organised a party of trackers, I left the remainder
of the men to bury my follower, and we started off on foot for the
_khansa_ thicket where we had found the body. We described a circle at
fifty yards’ distance from the thicket, the ground being very stony and
covered with bushes, when we at last came upon the track of the lioness;
and following this for three miles over most difficult ground, always
covered with dense thickets, at sunset we gave it up.
Returning to camp I chanced to look round, when my eye fell upon the
lioness, her head being raised above a tuft of grass in a passage between
two _khansa_ bushes.[45] Turning round I took a quiet pot shot at her;
a lioness’s head half hidden in grass, at ninety yards’ distance and in
the dusk, is not a good target, and before I could see under the smoke I
knew that I had missed, for there was only the ringing of the metal of
my rifle in my ears, and no answering thud of the bullet hitting flesh.
Running up to the spot on which she had been crouching, we examined the
track where she had bounded away, and holding the trail for a quarter
of a mile through the thick covert, and with the greatest difficulty,
the men kneeling over displaced gravel, broken twigs, and other scanty
evidences of her passage, and finding no sign of blood, we gave her up
and sadly made for camp, which was reached an hour or two after dark.
On the next day we again took up the signs from where we had left them,
slight rain having fallen in the night; and search as we would, we could
never find any indication of her having stayed in the neighbourhood. All
the tracks were those of the night before, and making a final circular
cast of a mile round through the bush over gravelly ground, we gave up
the search, and I resolved to march on towards the coast, having no more
leave to spare.
Passing Daura’s grave we surprised two hyænas trying to grub up the
stones that had been heaped over the poor fellow, and dropped one dead,
and sent the other moaning away with a bullet in his ribs. The Malingúr,
who turned out to be those who had been at Durhi a month ago, begged
me to remain and have another try for the lion and lioness (for there
were a pair of man-eaters here), so I had a zeríba built, and tied up a
donkey, and sat up all night six feet away from it, but without result.
The Malingúr said that since the lion had killed the woman a month ago,
five men and another woman had been carried off by the pair, my man Daura
being the eighth human victim within the month!
We resumed our journey on the following morning towards the coast.[46]
Passing through the Sheikh Ash tribe and thence by Milmil, we reached the
Rer Ali at Warma-kés in the Haud Plateau, after eight marches, on 24th
May.
The Rer Ali turned out fifty horsemen to _dibáltig_ before me, and I
gave a show in return, advancing over the plain and firing volleys of
blank cartridge with my twenty camelmen, and whistling them up to form
rallying groups against cavalry. I refused, however, to part with any
tobes, so they said I was “good but stingy.” They told me that lately an
English officer had been sent from Aden to Harar, and he had ordered the
Abyssinians to evacuate the town within a fortnight. This information
turned out to be based on my own peaceful visit to Rás Makunan, and was
thus distorted by passing from mouth to mouth! We made a detour to the
east of several days’ journey in order to come on to ground frequented by
Clarke’s gazelle, and I was so fortunate as to shoot a very good buck of
this rare antelope and to pick up two pairs of horns.
While marching through a jungle called Gouss in the Haud, I started about
forty oryx, which galloped past us looking like a body of cavalry with
sloped swords. Sorely tempted, I fired at the galloping line, and then
ran up and found a splendid bull lying dead. His horns were the best I
have ever possessed, being nearly three feet long, very thick, and with a
slight and very beautiful curve backwards.
A large Somáli caravan, going to Berbera, took advantage of our escort
to pass through the Eidegalla tribe with us. I found some interesting
artificial pools in the Eidegalla Haud, and the natives told me that
these had been dug out from time to time in honour of well-known
_Sultáns_ and elders who had died. I examined them, and was glad to find
that they held water for many weeks after rain had fallen, a proof that
the red Haud soil will hold rain-water in suitable places, and that tanks
might be made on a larger scale.
As we came to the Eidegalla tribe, the men, women, and children ran
away on first sighting us, thinking we were Abyssinians; but when they
recognised us they were civil enough. On the evening of 3rd June we
arrived at Syk fig-tree, near the top of the Jeráto Pass, which is sixty
miles from Berbera, and leads from the high Ogo country down into Guban,
the coast district. Coming down into the defile called Aff-ki-Jeráto next
day, I met some Biladiers, or native irregular police, with my mail-bag,
containing four months’ letters; and finding that, owing to my having
received an extension, my leave would not expire immediately, I settled
down steadily to hunt the large koodoo in the great Gólis Range, round
Gán Libah, Henweina, and Garbadir.
[Illustration: On the look-out
GREATER KOODOO (_Strepsiceros Koodoo_).]