Chapter X: Second Journey to the Webbe Shabéleh River, 1893 (1)

The new caravan—Pass Lord Delamere’s party—Captain Abud in camp
at Hargeisa—Sheikh Mattar—Cross the Haud, and arrive at Seyyid
Mahomed’s town in Ogádén—Holy reputation—Why the Somális have
no Mahdi—Scene at the Seyyid’s town—Native impression of some
European travellers—Every European a doctor—Malingúr mission
to Harar—Ruspoli’s men seized—Jáma Deria’s Englishman—Reach
the Webbe and bag a waterbuck—Friendly Gilimiss Somális—First
news of the Webbe bushbuck—Shooting a crocodile—Great
beauty of our camp on the Webbe banks—Gálla raids on the
Gilimiss—The crossing of the Webbe at Karanleh—Unexpected
Gálla news—Entertain Gálla chiefs in camp; a defiant speech—A
Gálla trip planned—Fresh hippo tracks in the reeds—A waterbuck
swims the Webbe; a noble buck—Sad death of a horse—The
Aulihán—A row in camp—Unsuccessful buffalo hunting—Wounded
waterbuck struck down by a lion—Starving negroes eat the
carrion—Disturbed country; the Gálla trip impracticable—Recross
the Webbe—Driving for bushbuck—A fine wart-hog bagged—A man
seized by a lion; extraordinary story—A leopard bagged—A buck
killed by leopards before our eyes—A row at Garbo—Success of
the Lee-Metford—The Awáré pan; beautiful hunting ground—Lions
roaring at night—Unsuccessful lion hunts—Magnificent lion shot;
a surprising leap—Abundance of lions—Return to Berbera; and go
to England.

During the first trip to the Webbe we had been four and a half months in the interior, travelling over more than eleven hundred miles of camel track. I found at Aden that an extension of leave had been granted, and at once prepared a second caravan, intending to go back to Imé, and taking Gabba Oboho at his word, to explore Gállaland and the Juba under his guidance.

On 30th July ’93 we landed again at Berbera with thirty-four men armed with Snider carbines and forty-five fresh camels. The coast men were very much afraid of Gállaland, and insisted that we ought to have at least a hundred rifles; but fighting not being my object, I considered our party strong enough, and after explaining that I would only cross the Gálla border if the Gállas should prove peaceful, the men took a more cheerful view of the prospects of my journey.

We marched from Berbera on 31st July, and on the second day we passed Lord Delamere and his shooting party on their way to the coast. Captain Abud was at that time encamped at Hargeisa, carrying on political business with Eidegalla chiefs. Sheikh Mattar of Hargeisa, whom I met here, advised me not to go to Imé, but to try Karanleh, three marches farther down the Webbe; and he gave me an Arabic letter to Seyyid Mahomed, a mullah whose permanent town lay in our front. By visiting the Seyyid I should cross Ogádén by a route several days to the west of my former one through Dagaha-Madóba.

I crossed the Haud by the Warda Gumaréd, the route we had taken on our first crossing, when I had gone to Milmil with my brother the year before; this time I carried water for five and a half days only. About three marches out from Hargeisa I crossed the fresh tracks of seventy-five horsemen of the Abdalla Saad, Habr Awal, who had gone to loot the Eidegalla a few hours before my caravan passed over the ground.

Crossing the Rer Ali and Rer Harún tribes, always friendly, on the 16th I arrived at Seyyid Mahomed’s town. It is a permanent village of three or four hundred huts, about the size of Hargeisa, its site being near the Tug Fáfan, in the Malingúr tribe. The banks of the stream, which we found dry, were dotted with thriving and very extensive patches of _jowári_ cultivation. The inhabitants are mainly widads and mullahs from different Somáli tribes.

Pitching camp under some shady trees near the river, on the Fáfan banks, I went with the elders, through a dense crowd, to the Seyyid’s hut. He was too old and feeble to walk over to camp, and had sent his son to ask me if I would mind coming to him, to make his acquaintance and give him medicine. The Seyyid is known far and wide as a holy man, even my Dolbahanta headman, Adan Yusuf, having heard of him. Adan was glad to meet such a holy man, who was said to be invulnerable. He added that the Abyssinians lately tied the Seyyid up and fired at him point blank with Remingtons, but the bullets melted; they then bound him to a _gudá_ thorn-tree, and collecting all the dry branches about, they lit a roaring fire at his feet, but he obstinately refused to burn; so then they gave up interfering with him!

If he were a fighting man the Seyyid would probably have developed into a first-class Mahdi, and long ere this he could have made a combined movement against Abyssinia; but his influence, like that of other Somáli sheikhs and mullahs, is almost entirely social and religious. He lives a quiet life, cultivating _jowári_, reading the Koran, and educating youths. Among the nomad tribes the fighting elders abound, but they have not the wide influence of these cosmopolitan Mahomedan priests, and, moreover, there is no element of cohesion among them, each working for the good of his own clan and ignoring the general interests of the community. The Seyyid was cordial, and I gave him medicine at the door of his hut in the presence of his wives and children, who squatted on their heels in a semicircle around us, whilst the townspeople collected in a dense mass to gaze at us through the palisades of the courtyard which separated the hut from the main street of the village. He had only seen one English party, that of Colonel Paget and Lord Wolverton, two months before, and they had left a very good impression; not so the caravan under Prince Ruspoli, for he, less fortunate, had had a good deal of trouble with the natives in Gállaland, on the Webbe, and even in Somáliland. I mention this because the troubles of this Italian caravan had an adverse influence over the success of my trip.

Before we left the hut of the sick man he had written for me an Arabic letter to Hussein-bin-Khalaf and Núr Róbleh, the two Mahomedan chiefs of Karanleh. While we were halted at the Fáfan, crowds of sick people and cripples from the village constantly loitered in and about camp, begging for medical treatment from _ninki frinji wein_ (the great foreigner).[47] Every European being believed to be a doctor, they rushed to me for treatment, presenting the most complicated diseases, such as cataract in the eye and cancer. My medicine bag containing only chlorodyne, pills, vaseline, quinine, and the simplest medicines, I treated what cases I could, and sent the worst away with a small present of meat or calico and a few comforting words, which were listened to in dead silence by the crowd of relations.

At the Seyyid’s village I heard that Ugáz Umr, the Malingúr chief, had returned from Harar, after laying complaints against frontier Abyssinians before Rás Makunan. Eight men, who had either deserted from Prince Ruspoli or had been dismissed by him, said that some of their comrades and all the guns had been seized by Ugáz Umr, and were to be sent to Harar. They asked me to interfere; but for political reasons I declined.

On 22nd August, at sunset, we reached Bokhaiyer, another permanent village, occupied by the Rer Amáden tribe. Here I met many old friends, among them Jáma Deria and his sons, who had escorted me to Imé a few months before, and were in this country on a short visit. I was standing about, the centre of a mob of the villagers, when Jáma Deria and six horsemen rode up, covering us with dust, and Jáma shouted that “his Englishman had come.” He took jealous care of me, whipping away the crowd, and never ceased begging till I left next morning.

After several days’ hard marching we reached the Webbe at Sen Morettu, a permanent village of the Gilimiss Somális, standing on the north bank, about six marches south-east of Imé, Karanleh lying half-way between the two villages.

In this journey, owing to the great difficulty in getting reliable guides, we had made a détour to the east, doing fifty-two marches between Berbera and the Webbe, the direct distance being forty short marches. We actually struck the Webbe at Dagah-Yeleh on 25th August, and in the evening I went out and shot my first adult _balanka_, or waterbuck. Both the bucks I had shot at Imé, under the impression that they belonged to a new species, I now found to be only young ones.

Next day we made one long march westward, by the river banks, to Sen Morettu. The Gilimiss Somális were strong here, and came in numbers to my camp to present their salaams. Late at night they brought for sale the skin of a _dól_, or Webbe bushbuck. This was the first time I had heard of such a thing as a _dól_, and I resolved not to leave the Webbe till I had shot one. I got a very large crocodile by moonlight; it was floating with the eyes above the water, only thirty yards from the tent, no doubt waiting for one of the milch goats to come and drink.

This night camp on the banks of the Webbe at Sen Morettu was striking in its scenery, and will ever live in my memory. The Gilimiss who had brought the _dól_ skin had left, and the camp had settled down into slumber, except for one watchful sentry. The moonlight was so bright that everything had a distinctive colour, the sky being of a deep blue, studded with stars in the regions farthest from the moon. I went to the river bank and looked out on the water gliding by, in streaks of silver and dark brown, across the shadows of the tall casuarina-trees,[48] which rose one hundred and twenty yards away on the opposite bank. Several of the trunks had fallen, and lay aslant upon the steep bank of the river. Now and then a gust of wind swept with a peculiar roaring sound through the feathery tree-tops, and ruffled the surface of the water with broad patches of silver as it blew across to our camp. Sometimes monkeys chattered, or squirrels shrieked, disturbed by prowling animals in the dense evergreen bush, bordering the river. Each movement I made was the signal for the splash of one or two crocodiles as they regained the water.

Glancing into the camp, I could see, in the bright moonlight, men and animals lying in different positions, as if they had been suddenly struck down by sleep. Adan’s horse lay by the cook’s fire fast asleep, with his head against a camel-saddle, and on the other side of the glowing embers were Suleiman the cook and three white milch goats, lying close together. The forty-five camels were sitting on their hard nether humps packed close, with tails to the wind, steadily chewing the cud, their eyes flashing with quiet enjoyment; for this is the only time when they are not pestered by flies, and they evidently deem it far too valuable to be thrown away entirely in sleep; though occasionally, for a short spell, the head and neck will be laid stretched out flat along the ground and the eyes closed. All around were lying camel-trunks, water-casks, bags of rice, and mountains of camel-mats, piled in the form of a rough circular wall, enclosing the camels; and taking shelter from the wind between these and the camels were the sleeping men, scattered in twos and threes, with their rifles by their sides. The bright light threw deep black shadows on the short grass; we were in a glade a quarter of a mile wide, bordered by a fringe of tall casuarina-trees. At the edge of the glade, up stream and near the river bank, a deserted village of large beehive huts of brown straw stood out against the gray, indistinct background of the trees. Large logs of driftwood and snags, with half their length out of the water and looking very black, gave one the impression of crocodiles; and certain pairs of gray dots, sometimes disappearing and again reappearing a few yards away, resembling pieces of driftwood, were really the projecting lumps on the heads of crocodiles, which were floating with the eyes just above the water, looking out for prey.

The climate at Sen Morettu was perfect for sleeping out, and I found myself regretting that before two months were over I should have to leave this interesting river, and almost certainly never get a chance of seeing it again.

We marched to Maaruf, a landing-stage exactly opposite to Karanleh, which was on the south side of the river. We passed through numbers of the Gilimiss people, who said they had come to the north bank for fear of the Gállas, who were out raiding. The camels had been late in getting off from Sen Morettu, so I walked on with the two shikáris. We found several of the Gilimiss elders at the landing-stage, and had a long talk about the means of getting across, while sitting under some very large trees which gave a welcome shelter from the midday sun. The Webbe was rather low, the width being only ninety yards. The people occupying the banks were Gilimiss Somális and Adone, or Webbe negroes.

The Gilimiss cultivate on both sides of the river when not in fear of the Arussi (Geríré) Gállas, who live in the hills ten miles away to the south, and often raid along the south bank. The Gálla name for the Webbe is Webbe Sidáma; no one calls it Webbe Shabéleh here. Shabéleh (“the place of leopards”) is merely the name of the district farther down to the south-east, where Mr. F. L. James and his companions first struck the river in 1884. Since that journey no Englishman had visited the Webbe till the previous spring, when my own caravan and that of Colonel Paget reached it simultaneously, as I found on my return to Berbera in June.

I sent one of the Gilimiss into Karanleh to call Hussein-bin-Khalaf and Núr Róbleh, and to present my Arabic letter. The first chief was sick, but Núr Róbleh sent word to say he would come over to see me in the evening. Meanwhile I went to look for bushbuck in the thick belt of forest along the margin of the river.

On first arriving at the landing-stage I had been met by a rival of Núr Róbleh, who undertook to take my caravan across on rafts made of dried tree-trunks. But Núr Róbleh, arriving on the scene while I was away hunting, arrested the other chief and his partisans, and tied them all up at the foot of a tree, placing one of my escort on guard over them with a loaded rifle. However, when I walked into camp, much to Núr Róbleh’s disgust, I set them free.

The Amáden and Gilimiss told me it would take seven days to cross; but before leaving Aden I had bought sixty fathoms of three-inch rope. This we made fast to bollards driven deep into the mud on both sides of the river, and pulling the rope taut we attached two of the native rafts to it by running loops, so that they could be easily hauled backwards and forwards; this was a great improvement on the primitive way of punting and paddling the rafts across the swift current and landing four hundred yards below the shoving-off point By this method, instead of seven days, it took us only one day for the baggage and one day for the animals, all the latter swimming over; the more timid of the camels were bound and towed over by a crowd of swimming men, shouting and splashing to keep off the crocodiles, while I fired a blank cartridge now and then from the bank. I also shot two crocodiles, one a very large one. It lay dead on an island, and four small boys jumped into the river, and swimming to the island, towed the carcase to the bank. The natives are in the habit of swimming their horses and cattle across when moving to better pasture. We saw one negro family, including women, children, mats, cooking pots, and all their effects, moving across on a raft so overloaded that half of them were sitting in six inches of water. Where cows drink, the natives construct brushwood semicircular fences to enclose the shallows and so deter the crocodiles from attacking the animals; yet, despite all precautions, the loss caused by crocodiles is very great.

By the evening of 29th August our camp was properly established on the southern bank, and we were on the Gálla side of the border. At night Núr Róbleh returned to me. I had sent him out to look for Dubbi Harré and Gudan Abatteri, two Arussi Gálla chiefs of great influence, to whom Seyyid Mahomed had written a letter on my behalf. He now came with news of one of these. He had given the letter to Dubbi Harré, who was now staying in a village five miles to the south-east, owned by a rich Somáli named Yahia; and Dubbi Harré had unexpectedly said that his own tribe and all the Gállas had had serious difficulties with the Prince’s caravan which was in front of me, these being the first Europeans they had ever seen, and they wished no more white men to enter their country, adding, if I still wished to see him, I might send soldiers to take him, but he would have gone to Gállaland. He feared to come to camp lest I should have him flogged, for he believed all Europeans were bad, and only invited people to visit them in order to make them prisoners. The first party of Europeans whose acquaintance he had made had said they meant peace, and had made war. Of course I took his statements regarding this caravan to be very one-sided and, because advanced by a native, probably untrue.

Knowing that Prince Ruspoli had pushed through to the far interior of Gállaland with about one hundred and twenty rifles, and that they had lost a great many men in one way and another, I did not hope that my party, consisting of a single white man, with only thirty followers and with limited time, would be able to force its way through the tribes which my predecessors had already passed, should they be hostile to us. Fighting, except in self-defence, was not part of my programme, as I had promised the men at Berbera; I meant, if possible, to enter the country by the invitation of the natives or not at all.

I gave Núr Róbleh some calico and a Koran, telling him to ride quickly to Dubbi Harré and give him the presents, and to assure him that if he would come to my camp he would have safe conduct, and be hospitably entertained, and free to go when he liked. After an interval of twenty-four hours, during which I hunted unsuccessfully for _dól_, Núr Róbleh returned with better news. He had found Dubbi Harré on the point of leaving for the mountains; but, the presents softening him, the Gálla chief had promised to come to me, though he protested that it would be of no use; he had declared he would never be able to persuade his countrymen that there could be any good in me.

On the morning of 30th August six horsemen came in. There were three Somális, Yahia and two friends, and three Gállas, Dubbi Harré being one of them. Dubbi Harré was a remarkably handsome and pleasant-looking old man, clean shaven, with thin, well-cut features. Taking Dubbi Harré by the hand I led them into the tent, in which had been arranged on the right and left rows of boxes covered with folded blankets; there was also a box for myself against the tent pole, and a mat on the ground for Adan Yusuf, the interpreter. As usual, we began the conference with coffee.

Dubbi Harré said that his country had been peaceable and happy till Europeans had come a few months ago; but that they and the Abyssinians had brought in rifles, and had fought; and now the people were firmly resolved to allow no one into the land who carried firearms or were escorted by men so armed.

I contended that I had come as a friend. He answered, “Yes, the other white men said that too.” Without going into the rights and wrongs of the case, it seemed to me that the caravan which had gone before me had been singularly unfortunate in the impression left behind, and I thought, that being the case, in the limited period of my leave it would be at least very uphill work ingratiating myself. I did my best, however, and Dubbi Harré and I became good friends over our coffee. He said he had seen my men as he came into camp; he liked the look of them; they were well behaved and orderly; they were clean and respectable Mahomedans and few in number, and altogether different from the rabble of Abyssinians, Arabs, and Soudanese whom the other Europeans had brought; and now, having seen us, he believed we wished him no harm. He and his two companions were no longer afraid to be with us—though he had been afraid, very much afraid, at first. I told him that if I had come for war I should have brought more men, and that he, a chief skilled in fighting, had seen there were only thirty, and could judge for himself whether we looked like invaders.

Dubbi Harré spoke quietly, with a pleasant smile on his face. He looked what he was, a fighting chief, of great intelligence. I said, “What will happen if we go to Wéb, in your country?” He said his people would fight; I declared we would hurt no one. He said, “No, but they will hurt you, and I wish to prevent you going. They are looking for a white man to kill, because they are angry with your countrymen the white men, who came first and fought with them. If your countrymen had not come first we should have received you well, but now it is different. I believe you, but the tribes won’t; so take my advice and don’t go. You will find game in the empty country between the Aulihán Somális and the Geríré Gállas; there are elephants and giraffes; you can get Yahia here to arrange your trip. If, however, you persist in wishing to go to the Webbe Wéb, I will go on and tell my people, and will come back, and if I think it safe I will take you there myself.”

Attracted by the prospect of shooting buffaloes and hippopotami, which were to be found at the Wéb, and not in the Aulihán country, I stuck to my idea of going into Gállaland, declaring that I had not come all this way to see Somális. So it was arranged we should go to the Aulihán for eleven days; and then, returning to Karanleh, meet Dubbi Harré, and be taken by him to the Webbe Wéb. This matter having been settled, Dubbi Harré and his friends remained my guests till the cool of the evening, and then rode away with Yahia.

At sunrise, on 31st August, I broke up the Karanleh camp and marched through some five miles of _jowári_ plantations, near the south bank of the river, to Yahia’s village, where I shot a noted man-eating crocodile. These hideous pests swarm here; once I shot a wild goose, which, falling into the stream, was at once seized by a crocodile and drawn under while still struggling. In the evening we made another march to a spot near the river where we had been told to expect a school of hippopotami, and I shot two good waterbuck bulls on the way there. We saw fresh tracks of the hippos in the reeds, and I sat up by moonlight in the jungle overlooking them, hoping to bag one as it came to feed on shore. But at 4 A.M., finding nothing stirring in the reeds, we gave it up and returned to camp by moonlight. The Gilimiss, our guide, said that the hippopotami were scarce and wary, as the Adone negroes, during a recent famine, when nearly all their cattle had died of disease, had killed hippopotami for food, and had greatly reduced their numbers.

The great epidemic of cattle disease which three or four years ago raged in Masailand, and other parts of East Africa was also felt in Ogádén, the cattle and the koodoo antelopes dying of it in large numbers. It was felt as far north as the Marar Prairie.

We made a morning march on 1st September, and another in the evening. While passing over ground blackened by fire, and covered with young grass, I shot a buck Sœmmering’s gazelle and a waterbuck. At dusk, coming to dense forest by the river, I ordered the men to pitch camp at the edge, and entering the jungle unattended, I saw a red object standing motionless near the stem of a large tree twenty yards away. I felt certain it was an antelope, but was unable to make it out in the half light. I put up the rifle and fired, when the animal rushed past me and fell in a ravine close by, rolling over on its side; and on going up to it, I found, to my delight, it was a young buck of the _dól_, or striped and spotted Webbe bushbuck, which I had been so anxious to get. Going into camp to call up the men, I shot a buck lesser koodoo. As the forest appeared to have plenty of game in it I resolved to halt for a day’s shooting. The camp was in a very pleasant place, at the corner of a patch of forest looking down on the river from the edge of a steep bank.

Next day at dawn I went out and soon came upon a waterbuck. We had been making for a wide glade of fresh grass, and on emerging from the forest we caught sight of him going up a bank two hundred yards away. I fired, and we ran to the spot, but his tracks leading away without any sign of blood, I knew I had missed. He took us through several very thick patches of bush, the game paths sometimes forming tunnels four feet high in the vegetation; and at last, the light appearing ahead, we forced our way through a thicket and found ourselves unexpectedly on the very verge of the Webbe, a few yards from the water’s edge.

Directly we showed our heads outside the jungle my man Géli pushed me back and pointed out into the centre of the stream, which lay before us, flowing deep and swift, a hundred yards broad; out in the middle appeared the head and horns of the noble waterbuck swimming for the opposite shore. It was too good a prize to lose, so, waiting till he shook the water from his flanks and cantered up the slope of stiff mud, I fired, and striking him behind the withers brought him down; and then another shot finished him. In his struggles he had slipped down the bank to within six feet of the water, and I was in a great fright lest after all his splendid head should go to the crocodiles. We ran the three miles back to camp along the margin of the water, and on reaching it I set all the men to work, cutting down the trunks of dead dry trees to form a raft, and by the afternoon it was ready.

Géli and a Gilimiss guide then poled themselves across the river, and after three hours they returned with the head. I was so anxious to measure it that I shouted to Géli to place the horn against his Snider rifle, while I marked another Snider which my men handed to me, and found that the buck’s horns could not measure much less than twenty-four inches, a large pair for the Webbe, where waterbuck horns are comparatively short. I anxiously watched the men come over with my specimen, and then I carried it to my tent. At night we had several alarms, caused by hyænas and lions, the camels rising suddenly together, running about camp, and stumbling over tent-ropes in the dark. I remained several days hunting waterbuck with great success.

While we were encamped here Adan Yusuf’s horse met with his death in rather a melancholy way. At noon the men were lying under shady trees round camp, sleeping like hogs, and I sat in my tent writing up my journal. The camels were a mile away, browsing under the care of one man, and the horse and Rás Makunan’s mule were hobbled by tying the near fore and near hind leg together, according to Somáli custom. The three milch goats and the horse and mule were allowed to wander about near camp, the man who usually looked after them, thinking I had gone to sleep, having retired to the shade of a tree to do likewise.

About an hour afterwards I heard a loud whinny from the mule, and looking out of the tent I saw her swimming out in the middle of the stream, her head bobbing up and down in the water. She was being carried down fast, so I fired a gun into the air to wake the men, and we all jumped up and ran to the edge of the water. There was a perpendicular scarp just below the site of the camp, where the swift current had undermined the bank, and towards this she was being carried. We ran to the beginning of the steep place, and two of the men, plunging into the river, caught her head as she came on with the current, and bringing her to the bank, after a hard struggle, with all hands helping, we landed her high and dry. Examining the bank, we found several long streaks in the mud showing where the mule, while drinking, had slid in; and then we went to look for Adan’s horse, and a search up and down the river only disclosed similar marks in the mud farther down stream; we never saw the horse again, and no doubt the crocodiles got him. Indeed, hobbled as she was, it was wonderful how the mule kept above water and it was lucky she had the sense to whinny, and so attract attention to her accident.

The Gilimiss guide whom we had taken from Karanleh told me that we should be attacked by the Aulihán if we followed the river down as far as Burka, and represented the Aulihán to be very dangerous people. But I found, upon questioning my own men, that the guide had lately been concerned in the killing of an Aulihán, and that tribe naturally wanted his blood; so, to avoid trouble, I dismissed him and went on without a guide. This was not difficult, because a good native path followed the course of the river, and we were never so far from the bends that we could not bring from them, in our casks, the water for camp use.

On 5th September we arrived at a low precipitous hill called Burka, shooting a bull oryx on the way. We met some of the Aulihán who were watering their flocks, and on 6th September we followed them to their karias, which were some distance inland. The name of this sub-tribe was Rer Afgab, Aulihán. They gave us milk and a display on horseback; and they asked us to go to their country to shoot, stating they would barter cattle in exchange for cloth, and that if I took the cattle afterwards to the Gállas in the Wéb country I would get plenty of ivory.

On 7th September, finding that the giraffe ground was at least four days to the south of Burka, we marched back towards Karanleh, to be ready to meet Dubbi Harré on the day appointed. We made a long march to our old camp at Ellán, where I had lost the horse, and thence we went to Yahia’s village. Dubbi Harré had not yet arrived, so we retraced our steps down the river to shoot for a few days, halting at a place called Shendil. Our camp was pitched on open ground outside a belt of forest some four miles long by one mile deep, fringing the Webbe. On the northern bank, opposite to Shendil, was Sen Morettu, where we had first struck the river a fortnight before. To the south of us lay an even plain gradually rising towards the Gálla mountains, being covered in alternate patches of thick thorn bush and glades of long, coarse, buffalo grass.

The operation of pitching camp was interrupted by a row between two of my men, one of whom had two fingers broken by the descending butt of a Snider rifle, which had been intended for his head. Having held an inquiry, and disarmed and placed the culprits under supervision at opposite ends of the camp, to let them cool down, I went out into the thick bush to the south and had some exciting shooting, getting two very fine waterbuck.

On the 12th I went out shooting on a wide open plain which had been cleared by fire, only the leafless trees with charred stems being left standing above the black ground; young grass, always very attractive to game, had begun to spring up, and here I shot two more waterbuck, both carrying good heads. In the evening, going into the high forest by the river to look for the _dól_, or bushbuck, to our astonishment we came to some very large bovine tracks, which my guide, a Gilimiss, at once pronounced to be those of wild buffalo. There were two old bulls. We followed them in and out among the glades and thick cover near the margin of the river, and found the marks where they had lain and rolled in the mud during the previous night; but it became dark before we could come up with them. My guide, a Midgán, said that four bull buffaloes had strayed from the Gálla country a few years before, and that his father had shot two of them with poisoned arrows, those which we were hunting being the two survivors; and I am inclined to think these two were perhaps the only specimens on the Webbe, for I had always been told that buffalo did not exist anywhere near Somáliland.

I made a very strong zeríba while we were halted here; for the Aulihán at Burka told me that the Gállas were constantly raiding down to the river, and that while on the southern side we were liable to attack, owing to the strong antipathy to white men which had sprung up in Gállaland. We were reminded of the insecurity of the border by passing the skeletons of two Gállas, who a month before had been promptly killed by the Aulihán “because they looked like robbers.” Their unburied bodies had been cleaned by vultures, and left to lie in the long grass by the side of the path; and whenever, attended by my two hunters, I went out to shoot on the burnt ground west of camp, we passed them; and the grinning skulls made us involuntarily feel along our cartridge belts to see that they were not empty. This condition of insecurity is very uncomfortable, and it is also a great nuisance when one is out shooting, as when hunting _dól_ in the thick bush one cannot hope for success if attended by more than two men, because of the difficulty in moving silently; and three riflemen, miles from camp in thick bush, would make a poor defence against a strong raiding party of Gállas.

I devoted one day to a buffalo hunt, which was more exciting than successful. In the early morning we went into the forest again and came on the fresh tracks of the two buffalo, in the densest bush near the river bank, the whole jungle being composed of evergreens and a network of creepers. It was necessary to stoop and sometimes to crawl on all fours through the tunnels of vegetation; sometimes five or six creepers clinging around arms and legs held me fast, so that it would have been impossible to shoot; I had to go bareheaded because of the tangled vines which constantly swept off my canvas hat; but this did not matter, because the density of the forest afforded protection from the sun’s rays,—indeed there was perpetual twilight inside. Underfoot were the débris of all kinds of timber, almost impossible to climb over without making some noise. The whole jungle smelt of monkeys. They could be seen overhead covering the branches in clusters, their chattering giving notice of our approach as we stole along. There were two kinds: the large dog-faced baboon, different from those found in the mountains of Somáliland chiefly in the absence of the full gray mane; and a small tree monkey, whose scientific name I am ignorant of.

After creeping about noiselessly for the space of two hours with Géli and Hassan, I put up the buffalo at a distance of about twenty yards, but we could only hear the heavy pounding of the earth and cracking of sticks as they galloped off, with continuous crashing through the undergrowth, and the hollow sound of the larger limbs of the trees breaking as they charged ahead. We followed, in the course of the morning putting them up no less than seven times. Once we came to their lair, at a spot in the densest line of thicket close to the river, where four large banyan-trees grew together, their roots and descending branches interlacing to form a labyrinth of caves with upright pillars. The place was nearly dark; it smelt of buffalo and was full of their droppings; one of the exits was a tunnel through the thicket about five feet high. Through this they had escaped, and finding they could not pass under a branch six inches thick, which spread horizontally across this opening at a height of four feet, they had charged it full tilt and broken it short off. Following the buffalo, we put them up again, but they broke back towards the eastern part of the jungle, the original end from which we had first driven them. I had been after them for three hours, and though we had heard their rush close to us many times we had never obtained a glimpse of them. They were dodging about in the thickest parts of the forest and would not face us among the glades.

At last I decided to go to camp and organise a drive. I assembled all the men, and sending them in at the west end, I sat with the two hunters on an old platform from which the boys were accustomed to scare birds from the crops, at the east end, and waited for the buffalo to be driven past me. The platform was a flimsy structure some six feet high, and commanded a good view of the edge of the woods and the reeds bordering the river, through which I hoped the buffalo would break.

The men from the west end of the jungle were extended to form a semicircle, and they moved towards me, firing guns and shouting. The brutes now got into a patch of the thickest bush, near where we had found their lair in the four trees growing together, so to get them out of this stronghold my men set fire to the jungle. Towards evening, when the fire was at its height, the buffalo at last made up their minds, and instead of coming into the reeds they broke back through the line of men, charging into them in spite of a shower of badly-aimed Snider bullets; and escaping from the forest, they cantered over a mile of open grass plain to the dense thorn bush and high grass on the slope leading up towards the Gálla mountains. Of course by the time I had run through the half mile of covert into the open they had disappeared. They never returned to Shendil while we were encamped there, and I have no doubt they left the country altogether.

At dusk on the evening of the 13th I went out to the burnt plain and got up to a herd of waterbuck, shooting a cow in mistake for the bull, and then wounding the bull. He got away into long grass, and night coming on I lost him. Going to follow him up next morning I first made for the body of the cow. I found that a lion had discovered it early in the night, and, eating his fill, had left the remainder to the hyænas. Following up the tracks of the lion, I found the carcase of the wounded bull, which the lion had followed up and struck down, close to a thicket of thorn bush and high grass. Part of the haunches was consumed, and the lion had apparently gone into the patch of grass to sleep or watch over the meat.

Silently sitting down behind a bush close by with my two hunters, I waited from eight o’clock till noon for the lion to come out. Vultures were perched on all the tops of the thorn-trees, and would occasionally swoop to the ground and walk round at a respectful distance from the meat; but they always took alarm again and flew back to their perches, no doubt fearing the lion would come out. Lions often watch meat in this manner by day. So still did we sit behind our screen of bushes watching the dead waterbuck that a large spotted hyæna came up to within two yards of my face without seeing me! I had to cough, otherwise he would have been right on to me, and there is no knowing what even a hyæna would do when so close. He gave one look, and the hair bristling up along his back he rushed away, coming to a halt eighty yards off to look back. Then he cantered through the jungle and I lost sight of him.

Finding the lion did not come out of the grass, we searched it through and through, and discovered that he must have heard us coming when we first found the carcase in the morning, and retired before us. So we gave it up and returned to camp. We had scarcely left the spot twenty yards behind us on our way home, when two Adone women, one of them young, plump, and almost pretty, came up and asked us for meat. We pointed to the carcase of the waterbuck, which had been partly eaten by the lion, and although it had lain under a tropical sun all the morning, they at once set to work to cut off the meat which was left, to take home for their own dinner.

The _Dair_, or rainy season, now coming on, the river began to rise rapidly. It was long past the time agreed upon for meeting the Gálla chief Dubbi Harré at Karanleh, and Yahia now sent me word that the Gállas had looted several animals from the Karanleh people, and fighting between the Somális and Gállas had broken out, all communication with Gállaland being thus interrupted. Finding that I had not enough leave left to go into Gállaland unless Dubbi Harré came down to Karanleh to help me, I decided to march as quickly as possible through Ogádén and the Habr Gerhajis country to the coast, four hundred miles distant.

On the 15th I went to the burnt plain and shot a very fine lesser koodoo buck, and in the evening, while marching to Yahia’s, I bagged two more waterbuck.

The next day we arrived at the ford at Karanleh, called Maaruf, where we had first crossed the river. The stream was now in flood, the bollards which we had driven into the mud had been carried away, and it took all the evening to stretch the rope across. I had not a fathom of rope to spare, and I feared that unless we could cross next day we might be kept a week or two on the southern bank through the further rising of the river. We, however, crossed with great difficulty on the following day. During the passage a freshet came down, drowning one camel and overturning a raft, with a good deal of valuable kit and a Snider rifle, several documents, amongst which were several maps, going down in thirty feet of water. The loss I felt most was that of my botanical collection. Although my men spent the whole evening diving for the things they were never recovered. I did not care to halt on the northern bank and order another day’s diving, because of the danger from crocodiles. The men had done their best, but in the strong current the efforts of even my Aden Somális, who are superb divers, were in vain.

On the following day we journeyed down the river along the northern or Somáli bank, and made two marches to the neighbourhood of Sen Morettu, halting just opposite the forest at Shendil, where I had unsuccessfully hunted buffalo a few days before. I sent men across on an Adone raft which I had caused to be towed down from Karanleh, but they returned and reported that the buffalo had not come back from the hills. On the short march to Sen Morettu I shot a very fine waterbuck and a Sœmmering’s gazelle, and the next day I shot a waterbuck and a lesser koodoo. I was anxious to get a good specimen of the _dól_, with a view to having it scientifically identified, so we had all the pitfalls in the neighbouring forest repaired by the Adone; but none of the bushbucks fell in while I was at Sen Morettu.

On the 21st I organised a beat for _dól_. I saw nothing, but one of the men in the line of beaters, Hadji Adan, shot a fine buck with his Snider. He was in company with a doe, which broke back through the line, hopping over one of the men, hitting his forehead with her hoofs, and so knocking him down! She succeeded in making good her escape, as the other men were too astonished to fire. At sunset I shot another good waterbuck.

I now marched for the coast. The return journey was over ground most of which I have previously described. We passed through several Somáli tribes, all of which were of course friendly. On the way the natives told me that the Abyssinians had received a great defeat from the Danakil tribes near Obok, and that my Abyssinian friend Basha-Basha had been killed; also that war had broken out between the Abyssinians and the Suákin dervishes. But I was unable to verify either of these reports.

During three days I made six marches, covering sixty miles, in a course running almost due north. The only game I saw on these marches was a wart-hog, which appeared staring me in the face at a distance of ten feet, as I was moving through long grass at dawn. The rising sun was shining in his eyes, and I knocked him over stone dead by a shot in the chest before he had time to realise the situation. He had a beautiful pair of tusks, long, thick, and white.

On the morning of the 26th I heard that near a karia ahead of us a man had been lately attacked by a man-eating lion and was not expected to live. I made a short march to the karia and halted for the noon camp close by. At the request of the relations of the sick man, while camp was being pitched, I walked over to the karia with my hunters, carrying a bucket full of carbolic lotion, a quart of carbolic oil, iodoform, lint and bandages, and a syringe. We came to a hut, outside which was a crowd of people; and looking in I saw, lying on the bare ground, the body of a man without any clothing on. He was smeared over the head and body with dust and blood, and had seven or eight deep fang wounds in the small of the back and low down in his left side near the bowel. All these wounds were uncared for, and on closer inspection I found them to be swarming with white maggots! I asked permission to have him carried outside the hut, where it was lighter; but his relations at first objected, saying in his hearing that he was sure to die, it would only give him unnecessary pain, and it was the will of Allah that he should die. The man, however, after some persuasion consented, and as gently as we could we lifted him from the floor of the hut, where he had been lying for the last thirty hours, and laid him on a camel-mat outside.

Having obtained permission to try my best with the medicines I had brought, I first got his wife to wash him all over, the other relations looking on at every movement of the white man with great interest; I don’t think they cared much about the sick man. When he had been washed he looked more cheerful, and turning him over I made a careful examination of the wounds. There were eight deep holes in the small of the back, dangerously near the spine, where the lion had taken him up and dropped him two or three times; and there were a couple of wounds deep in the left side, which had not, fortunately, penetrated the bowel. I told the man that there was no reason, with luck, why he should not recover, and he became quite cheerful, and gave me permission to probe the wounds. His uncle now appeared with a piece of stick having a shred of tobe twisted round it, and with this rough instrument we probed all the wounds, and I syringed them out carefully with carbolic lotion. The bystanders never ceased wondering at the performance of the glass syringe. The wounded man, like a true Somáli, never even murmured during this treatment. At last I was able to let him sit up, clean and almost smiling, all the holes in his body neatly plugged with pieces of lint soaked in carbolic oil; I gave his relations medicine for twenty days’ use, and a new tobe for bandaging, as well as a lecture on further treatment. They never ceased begging for the syringe, but I could not spare that, as we were going through lion country and might want it.

The story of the occurrence, which the natives then told me, was interesting. This man, with twenty other men and boys, had been asleep, two nights before, in a camel karia a few miles away. The camel karias are merely thorn fences round the camels, and there are no huts, the men sleeping on the inside of the fence in the open air. At about five in the morning, just before dawn, a lion sprang into the zeríba and seized this man, his companions making off, and the camels stampeding into the darkness. The man’s own account of what occurred then follows. He struck at the lion frantically with his hands, and the brute let him go, retiring to a little distance to watch him. The lion came on again, taking him up a second time and carrying him a few yards to the edge of the fence. Again the man struck out at the lion and he let go. A third time he took him up, and again the man, who was nearly exhausted, drove him off; and the lion, either frightened away by the dawn of day or impressed at the spirit shown by his victim, sneaked off. The man remembered no more till his friends returned some time afterwards, expecting to find only a few bones; and they carried him to the home karia and threw him into a hut to die, the thought of giving him food or washing the blood and dust from him not occurring to them; and there he had lain for thirty hours. To this day I have never heard whether or not he recovered, but having seen instances of wonderful recoveries among Somális, I am inclined to think he had a very good chance, that is, provided his relations used the carbolic lotion and did not steal the white tobe directly my back was turned.