Chapter XXVII: Appendix: II

PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY

WITH NOTES ON PRONUNCIATION AND MEANING OF NATIVE NAMES

The Somáli country occupies the triangle known as the “Horn of Africa,” whose eastern angle is Cape Guardafui. The coast line, beginning at Gubbet Khrab, in the north-west, runs eastward for about six hundred miles to Cape Guardafui, thence southward for eleven hundred miles to Kismáyu, near the mouth of the Juba River (Webbe Ganána).

Starting with the north Somáli coast at our port of Berbera, the first natural feature we come to is the sea-beach of sand and coralline limestone, backed by the hot, semi-desert Maritime Plain, from two to twenty miles broad, its breadth varying with the distance of the Maritime Ranges from the coast. The plain, gradually sloping upwards from the sea, rises to about three or four hundred feet at the base of the Maritime mountains, and these rise about a thousand feet higher. Beyond the Maritime mountains stony, jungle-covered, interior plains rise to the high Gólis Range, the true plateau of the interior of Africa, which is in places nearly six thousand nine hundred feet above sea-level. The country from the coast line to the foot of Gólis, some thirty-five miles inland, is called Guban. Gólis Range, with its prolongations east and west, forms the seaward face of the high interior country, which is called Ogo.

On the north Somáli coast there are harbours at Berbera and Zeila, an uninhabited creek at Khor Kulangárit, near Zeila, and the open roadstead of Bulhár, partially protected by a surf-beaten spit of sand, which runs for a few hundred yards parallel to the beach, over which at high tide small dhows can pass, but steamers have to anchor outside.

Berbera is built in two parts, three-quarters of a mile distant from one another. To the east is the native town, composed of a few Arab rubble buildings, a fort, and a large number of permanent Somáli huts of matting and poles (called _agal_). These huts are divided by streets, the different blocks of building space being allotted to the respective Somáli tribes, clans, and families. Three-quarters of a mile to the west is the new or official town, originally built by the Egyptians, the houses being of rubble masonry, in one story, with flat roofs. There is a good pier.

Berbera harbour, which is an excellent one, and the best to be found either on the north or east Somáli coast, is formed by a sand spit, similar to that at Bulhár, but rising above high-water mark. It starts from the native town and runs west for two miles till well beyond the official town. Inside this spit large steamers are well protected. On the shore, nearly three miles west of the new town, is a good lighthouse, built by the Egyptians before the British Government took over the north Somáli coast from them. Clearing the point of the sand spit it marks the entrance to the harbour. The water-supply is obtained from a spring near the old Egyptian fort of Dubár, eight miles inland under the Maritime Ranges, the water being brought over the Maritime Plain in pipes.

The plain immediately round Berbera is covered with white pebbles and devoid of bushes; a mile or two inland it becomes sandy and covered with a flat-topped mimósa, which is called _khansa_, growing here to a height of about three feet. There are also scattered thorn bushes about twelve feet high. The plain round Berbera has been greatly denuded of bush for firewood since 1885. I have watched this denudation gradually going on year after year, and have attributed it to the increased traffic since the British have been at Berbera, and to the fact that the town is now well populated all the year round, giving the bush no chance of recovering after the trade season is over. In the Maritime Ranges there are gaps, through which can be seen the towering blue line of Gólis. At a distance of about twenty miles east and west of Berbera the Maritime Ranges come down to within a mile or two of the sea, receding again at Bulhár to form a semicircle of hills with a radius of fourteen miles; then towards Zeila the Maritime Plain widens to thirty or forty miles.

This town is one hundred and seventy miles north-west of Berbera by the coast caravan track, and consists of one compact town of mat huts, with about fifty substantial Arab buildings. There is, strictly speaking, no harbour, but vessels lying off the place are protected by small islands to the north and west. The site of Zeila is low, and at high spring-tides it is almost an island. Water for the use of the town is carried in goatskins from Tukusha, three miles to the west.

For a mile or two inland the Zeila Maritime Plain is a desert of smooth sand, then there is a strip of low evergreen bush, and behind this a great open grass plain or _ban_, intersected by many dry river-beds, fringed with tamarisks and acacias. Travelling across this plain in 1890, my brother described it in his Journal as follows: “Except one or two low hills there is nothing to break the broad sheet of dull yellow, merging into blue haze on the horizon, here and there divided into light and dark patches by the shadows of the drifting clouds.”

This prairie rises to Eilo and Bur-ád Ranges to the south, thirty-five or forty miles inland, and stretches away to the north-west along the foot of the Tajurra Mountains nearly to the French settlement of Obok. Between Obok and Zeila is another settlement created by the French, called Jibúti, which within the last three or four years has risen into notice. The site is a promontory of coral rock, and there is a good harbour and a pier. The French are working hard to develop the place, in order if possible to make it compete with Zeila as a trade port.

At Bulhár, forty-two miles west of Berbera by the coast track, the Ayyal Yunis sub-tribe of the Habr Awal settle during the trading season, from November to April. At this time both Berbera and Bulhár are surrounded by the karias, or temporary kraals of the halted trading caravans, and these karias stretch far out into the Maritime Plain; but from May to October the town is nearly empty, a detachment of police being kept there as a guard. The Bulhár Plain is a vast expanse of bush, surrounded by blue mountains, and viewed from the sea, with the long line of white beach in the foreground, is very striking. Two very notable landmarks well known to sailors are Elmas Mountain, thirteen miles west of Bulhár, and Laba Gumbur Mado (the “two black hills”), twenty-five miles east of Berbera. Elmas rises to about 1500 feet, and is a cluster of bold peaks.

The Maritime mountains are composed principally of limestone, and some of them are nearly as barren-looking as the volcano at Aden. Here and there they are cut through by river-beds like the _wádi_ of Arabia, water percolating slowly, hidden at various depths below a glaring expanse of dry powdery sand. Sometimes it is so near the surface that the sand is moist, and water can be got by scraping out a hole with the hands, though generally it is obtained by digging the _lás_, or shallow pit, through the surface sand.

However inviting these smooth stretches of sand may appear, a camp should never be pitched in the main channel. On a dozen different occasions, after heavy rain in the hills, I have seen a yellow flood, two to four feet deep and fifty yards wide, rush foaming down the dry channel of the Issutugan with great speed, rolling down in front of it a mass of branches, débris, and large boulders, and undermining the high perpendicular banks, pieces of which would drop into the river with a loud splash. At such a time the whole of the river-bed in front of the freshet has been absolutely dry, untouched by water perhaps for months. These freshets dwindle to a trickling stream in about six hours, and may cease to flow in two days. The water does not always reach the sea, as the dry loose sand of the Maritime Plain drinks it up. After one of these floods has run itself away a thin layer of mud remains deposited, which dries, cracks, and curls up into small flakes, to be swept away in a few days by the wind, leaving the surface of the sand again exposed.

At Bulhár, when there has been particularly heavy rain in the hills, the Issutugan comes sweeping down over twenty miles of river-bed and plain, and reaching the coast makes a clear cut through the high bank behind the sea-beach. When the river dries the sea-bank is again in the course of time silted up by the surf to its original height. At ordinary times the water of the Issutugan, which is a typical _tug_ or Somáli sand-river, loses itself in the sand at So-Midgán, twenty-three miles inland from Bulhár, and sinking deep down below the Maritime Plain, collects behind the sea-bank, where it can be reached by digging.

Vast numbers of shallow pits, which render riding rather dangerous at night, are seen at intervals along the coast between Bulhár and Zeila. They contain water which is brackish, but drinkable. After being used for some time the well deepens, striking through the layer of fresh water into the underlying sea-water, and a new pit has to be dug. Where the Issutugan cuts through the Maritime hills, which it does for forty miles of its course, there is generally a tiny rivulet of water running along the centre of its bed, now and then sinking out of sight, to reappear again a mile or two below, the sand saturated with water held in suspension, forming awkward although not dangerous quicksands.

The aspect of the Maritime mountains is very forbidding. Bare precipices rise everywhere, or the hills form great rounded shoulders, having a surface of gravel sprinkled over with a wretched scrub of little brown bushes a foot high, which are generally dry as tinder. Between Berbera and Bulhár the mountains come closer to the sea, and take the form of low, table-topped plateaux of black trap rock, with fringing precipices about thirty feet deep, and a steep talus slope of débris dropping three hundred feet to the level of the river-beds which cut through these plateaux. Hegebo, near Berbera, is a typical plateau of this kind, and on the Zeila side of the British Protectorate this sort of ground covers an enormous area. On the top of the plateaux the surface has the appearance of having been rained upon by showers of black stones. Here and there tufts of feathery grass grow in the crevices, and there is light, open jungle of flat-topped thorn bushes. Everywhere there are boulders and jagged or rounded pieces of rock, so that where there are no paths caravans cannot go. The sun beating down on the polished black surfaces causes great heat, and distresses the baggage animals, and the stones are very trying to horses’ feet, even camels going better over them. The sand-rivers find their way through these plateaux from the high mountains to the sea, forming deep gullies, the expanse of sand and green bush below contrasting strangely with the black frowning heights on either side.

Between the Maritime mountains and the great Gólis Range are elevated, undulating, interior plains, intersected by river-beds and ravines running generally from south to north. These slope up in continuation of the Maritime Plain, but present greater variety of scenery; here a strip of gravel and rocky ground scantily dotted with low mimósa bushes, and cut up by torrent-beds choked with rough boulders and a tangle of savage thorns, there a wide sand-river winding through a belt of thick forest of the beautiful _gudá_ or larger thorn-tree, with a dense undergrowth of pointed aloes, making it impossible to move about except in the sheep and game paths. Narrow strips of thorn bushes and dark green poison trees (_wabé_) wind down from the mountains, marking the tributary watercourses. The river-beds themselves consist of broad, flat, sandy reaches between alluvial banks, which have been scarped perpendicularly, at alternate points on the right and left, where the swirling water has undermined them with an inward sweep. Large _gudá_ trees grow closely together at the edge of the steep or overhanging banks, their branches being covered with long drapery of _armo_ creepers, which hang down, often as much as thirty feet, to the level of the river-bed below. Behind the jungle which fringes the banks is high grass, until the ground rises, when the red soil, exposed by the action of the rains, is worked into miniature hills and valleys. Here and there at the side or in the centre of the channel is a clump of thorn-trees, round which the sand has been washed up into a bank, and masses of driftwood are heaped round the lower branches. Between the parallel sand-rivers of the interior plains are watersheds of stony ground, very trying to travel over, the sunbeams beating down on the stony path, glittering on the points of the aloes, and being reflected like fire from the thousands of chipped rocks, scattered pieces of quartz, feldspar, and mica which everywhere crop above the surface.

Two days’ march due south of Berbera, having crossed the interior plains, we arrive at the higher mountains, rising to nearly 6900 feet. Gólis is the collective name, though Somális have a name for each flat-topped bluff, as Daar-áss (Red clay), Gán-Libah (Lion hand), Ban-yéro (Little plain), and Dig-wein (Big ears). In fact, in Somáliland every watering-place, hill, or mound, and many a prominent tree, has some descriptive name known to all the local tribes.

The Gólis Range forms a gigantic step rising abruptly on the northern or coast face, and presenting to the sea, thirty-five miles distant, great scarped precipices and bold descents, long walls of perpendicular rock, red, yellow, or gray in colour, fringing the summit for many miles. The whole interior of Somáliland presents the appearance of having, in some great movement of the earth’s crust, been elevated from the level of Guban, an abrupt break or fault occurring at Gólis Range, which seems to have been upheaved for about six thousand feet; while at Hargeisa the country is crumpled up into a chaos of hills, Guban rising gradually into Ogo in several successive steps instead of in one great fault. On the Hargeisa side the country between the levels of Guban and Ogo is called Ogo-Gudan. At the base of the fringing precipices, which are two or three hundred feet high, vast tumbled masses of rock which have slipped from the crest lie heaped together half buried among the foliage of tall cedar-trees and a profusion of forest growth, forming caves and moss-grown recesses with great variety of wild flowers, and clumps of maiden-hair fern growing in the damp crevices of the rocks. The soil is a rich black vegetable mould.

There can be no greater contrast than that between this fine mountain country and the brown sterile shores of the Gulf of Aden. Often as one looks down from the top of Gólis the whole of Guban is hidden from view by an immense expanse of white cloud lying below, resembling a storm-tossed sea, the tops of Deimoleh-Wein and other detached hills rising like islands above it. The air is so clear in the elevated interior that from a hill in the Eilo Range, above Zeila, I have recognised each separate bluff of Gólis at a distance of one hundred and twenty miles. In these hills the roar of a lion or the alarm note of a koodoo antelope can be heard echoing up the gorges for great distances.

On the northern slope, at about a thousand feet below the level of the crest of Gólis, is a ledge of broken ground, a mile or two wide, running parallel to the range for twenty or thirty miles. It is called Mirso, or “The Haven,” and is a favourite pasture of the Habr Awal and Habr Gerhajis tribes, and also good ground for koodoo. It is covered with jungle, but the soil is shallow and stony. A gigantic blue-green cactus, or euphorbia, called _hassádan_, grows here to a height of about forty feet, and gives a very dense shade. The sap is a white milky liquid, which pours from every cut in the tree, and if caught in cups and dried, it solidifies into a kind of rubber. The top of the range is covered with dense jungle of mountain cedar. In the gorges some of these trees, called _dayeb_, grow tall and straight, often four feet in diameter at the foot, and over a hundred feet high; but more frequently the _dayeb_ forest is of comparatively stunted growth, being about forty feet high, with the trunks and branches much bent and twisted. The best trees which I saw were under Daar-áss Bluff, near Kulméye in Mirso, and on Wagar Mountain, farther east.

From the crest of Gólis the country slopes towards the south-east, falling gently towards the interior, the cedar forests ceasing at a distance of about six miles inside the crest, and opening out into grassy downs or thorn-covered wilderness. Soon, as we pass through Ogo, the Haud waterless country, from one hundred to two hundred and fifty miles across, is reached; and on its farther edge the ground again drops slightly, as at Milmil, into Ogádén, the broad broken surface of Ogádén finally sloping into the valley of the Webbe Shabéleh or Leopard river, beyond which is the Juba. Where the Haud Plateau drops at Milmil the limestone surface, which is covered with red soil, breaks up into flat-topped hills, which continue the level of the Haud, but cease a little farther south. They are covered with high _durr_ grass, and form some of the most favourite retreats for lions. Thus the Gólis Range and its prolongations east and west are the most prominent natural feature in Northern Somáliland, forming the watershed between Ogo, the high cool country, and Guban, the arid coast belt. Guban is drained by sand-rivers and ravines, which, starting in Gólis, pass through the interior plains and cut through the Maritime Ranges, the water being eventually lost under the Maritime Plain, to reappear near the surface behind the sea-shore. I consider the whole of the Guban country to be almost valueless, except as a pasture for sheep and goats, as it is only upon reaching the high country that the soil is found to be fertile.

The Haud is the great elevated wilderness which separates Ogádén and Harar from Ogo, Guban, and the coast. The Somáli word _haud_ is used to describe a peculiar kind of country, consisting of thick and sometimes impenetrable thorn jungle, broken up by shallow watercourses, and generally having an undergrowth of _hig_ or _dár_ aloes. The great waterless plateau which is generally called the Haud is really a district, and besides the variety of ground usually called _haud_, it includes large strips of open, rolling, grass plains called _ban_, or, to the south-east, semi-desert country called _aror_. _Ban_ is the Somáli term for an open plain absolutely, or nearly devoid of bushes.

In the wooded parts of the Haud dense thorn jungles alternate with small glades of _durr_ grass six feet high, luxuriating in beautiful feathery clumps, with a level red soil; ant-hills crop up at about every hundred yards, their pinnacles often rising to twenty-five feet. Some of the dead thorn-trees are to be seen standing half eaten by white ants, and the débris of fallen ones are found scattered about half-buried in the soil, where they have been swept along by sheets of water during the last rains. The remains of _galól_ bushes attain an almost iron hardness, and many a wound have I and my followers received at night by stumbling against a _gori_, or jagged stump, half hidden in the high grass. There is excellent pasture in the glades and between the bushes, the Haud pastures being considered better than those of Ogo or Guban. Extensive tracts of fertile soil, of good depth, are to be found at about five thousand feet elevation, which, although, except at one or two mullah villages, none of them are under cultivation, owing to the nomadic life of the people, may yet in the distant future become very valuable. The rainfall in the higher parts of the country is ample, and the water would only require to be stored in tanks, as is done in the drier parts of India, to ensure a supply all the year round. Of course for three months in the dry season the whole of the soil is baked hard by the sun, but the same thing occurs in India. In June, when there is a hot wind at the coast, cool breezes blow over the elevated Haud, making it possible to march all day long; and although in the sun it is hot, yet in a tent pitched under the shade of a flat-topped _gudá_ tree it is sometimes quite chilly, even at midday, while it is disagreeably so in the early mornings.

The Haud was first crossed by Mr. F. L. James and his party in the winter of 1884-85, and a description of the journey is given in his book, _The Horn of Africa_. Their camels were carrying loads for thirteen days without touching a drop of water. The description of the Haud in the above-named work, although I believe it to be an accurate portrait of the country passed over by that expedition, does not give any idea of the pleasant coolness and apparent fertility of the more elevated North-eastern Haud. Mr. James’s party crossed this district at almost its widest part, and in the _Jilál_ or driest season. The plateau is traversed by several _warda_, or great trade routes, to the far interior from the coast, generally running nearly north and south. In the strips of _ban_, or open plain, often many miles wide, all caravan paths are lost, each caravan crossing independently of landmarks, and no impression is left on the growing grass. Once the _ban_ is passed, however, all tracks will have converged into one well-worn path, or group of parallel paths. One of the most important of these is the Warda Gumaréd crossing the plateau from Hargeisa to Milmil.

The drainage from the Haud and Ogádén finds its way into the Nogal Valley, or into the Webbe Shabéleh, eventually falling into the Indian Ocean on the east Somáli coast, which is assigned to the Italian sphere of influence. In reality, the Shabéleh, I believe, does not actually reach the ocean, but falls into marshes near Mukdisha (Magadoxo). Farther south, beyond the Webbe Shabéleh and the Webbe Ganána or Juba, is the Tana River, rising near Mount Kenia in the Masai country and flowing east. The Somális make annual raids as far south as the Tana, to within a few days’ march of Lamu on the east coast, but, as far as we know at present, the permanent Somáli country may be considered to lie well to the north of the Juba. Most of this river lies in Gállaland, and its sources have been scarcely touched by any European explorer, except, perhaps, by the Italian explorer Captain Bottigo.

I have said that some of the highest ground in Somáliland is the great upheaval of Gólis, continuations of which stretch far away to the eastward, parallel to the sea-shore as far as Cape Guardafui, forming the bold, almost unexplored coast line which is visible from the decks of steamers passing along the southern side of the Gulf of Aden. But there is a still higher mountain system, that of the Harar Highlands, up to the foot of which the Haud Plateau extends. The Haud gradually falls towards the south-east, and rises ever higher the farther one goes westward, its north-west angle being occupied by the high _ban_ known as the Marar Prairie. This magnificent expanse of open grass land is fifty-six miles long by thirty-five broad, having an area of nearly one thousand square miles, and an elevation ranging from 4900 feet to 6300 feet. There are a few grassy knobs like the Subbul hills which rise singly out of the plains to nearly 7000 feet above sea-level.

In the _Jilál_ season the Marar Prairie is a sheet of yellow grass, quite dried up, but still containing nourishment—the varieties being chiefly _darémo_, _dihe_, and _durr_, all three having valuable fattening qualities for horses or camels. After the first rains the young grass begins to come up in patches of vivid green, the old, longer grass falls, and soon the plains are entirely covered with a carpet of rich green turf, short and crisp, inviting a gallop, and having almost the appearance of unlimited English pasture. The soil is red and powdery. Some of our camps on the plains were between 6000 and 7000 feet above sea-level. The country is probably similar to the South African veldt, the great elevation in a measure compensating for the nearness to the equator.

There is heavy rainfall, the Marar Prairie partaking of that of Harar and Abyssinia, but the water sinks to a great depth, so that with the exception of temporary rain-pools the surface is waterless. There are, however, many permanent watering-places in the jungle-covered hills and broken ground bordering the prairie to the north and west, and in the Harar Highlands, whose lofty summits can be seen overlooking the western edge of the plain, some of them rising to over 10,000 feet. The Somális say there is sometimes ice on these mountains, and that people die of cold.

The Marar Prairie supports enormous masses of game, and I have had many a good day’s sport upon it, which will never be forgotten. Although this is the largest _ban_ which we have actually circumscribed and measured, it may not be larger than many others in unexplored parts of Somáliland, but is probably the best in quality. Some of the low-lying _ban_—as, for instance, that of the Zeila Maritime Plain—is of very poor quality, and this is partly why the Esa is not a mounted tribe. I am told by Dolbahanta tribesmen whom I have taken to Marar, that there are similar elevated plains at the back of the unexplored Warsingali country. There are many other fine patches of _ban_ in the Haud which have been explored by us, as at Aror and Toyo.

My brother, while passing through the Esa country, wrote in his Journal: “After leaving Doleimalleh we came across a strip of plain which seemed to afford an example of the manner in which the _ban_ is formed. There were miles upon miles of dead and bleached thorn-trees, about twenty feet high, evidently vigorous some ten years ago. These had either been killed by very heavy floods, as the ground is flat and water does not drain off easily, or they had been destroyed by extensive fires. Among these trees were scores of red ant-hills, eight or ten feet high, and many of the dead trees were overwhelmed by them, just a branch or the part of a trunk projecting here and there. When the trees have all been eaten the termites no doubt leave, and their mounds are washed away by rain and wind, leaving behind only a vast grassy plain.”

The extreme north-western angle of the Marar Prairie is marked by a hill called Sarir Gerád, and from its base the ground falls abruptly to the north into the Harrawa Valley in the Gadabursi country, and to the west into deep gorges which lead towards Gildessa. The bushes cling in a sharply-defined line to the rugged hills of denudation into which the high prairie breaks up. The general formation of these hills is mountain limestone, much eroded in the ravines by the chemical action of water, and weathered into holes and caves, lined with deposits of stalactite. Some of the torrents which descend to the east of Sarir cut through deep alluvial deposits, leaving overhanging earth banks eighty to one hundred feet deep. The whole of this wild and mountainous region is very remarkable and picturesque, and the more interesting to a sportsman because, together with the Harrawa Valley, it is still visited at the right season by two or three herds of elephants. The average elevation of this valley is about 5000 feet above sea-level, and it has deep alluvial soil cut up by ravines with perpendicular banks. The vegetation is very luxuriant, the predominating kind being the _hassádan_ or euphorbia, which here grows to a height of from thirty to sixty feet. There is a great variety of flowers, and the grass is excellent in this valley, which stretches away several days’ journey into the Esa country.

It can be well understood in a country of such an extended area, and varying so much in elevation, that a large variety of plants and trees exists; and in addition to the vegetation already noticed there are many bushes and trees which one learns to recognise in the course of a journey. It is of course impossible to mention them all, but the following are a few of the most conspicuous:—

The most thorny of all the bushes I consider to be the _billeil_. This horrible bush grows to a height of about ten feet, and is covered with small curved hooks of great strength which cannot be disregarded. The _sockso_, _adad_, _galól_, _khansa_ are other more or less thorny bushes which are met with everywhere. The _adad_ produces the best gum-arabic (_hábag_), large transparent knobs the size of a pigeon’s egg being visible in the joints of the branches. The _galól_ is a twisted, straggling, and untidy-looking thorn-tree, growing to a height of fifteen to twenty-five feet, the root being used for hardening and making watertight the bark _háns_ or water-vessels used by Somáli caravans. The branches have very little strength, and are useless for building platforms in when watching for game. There are thorns over an inch long, each springing from a white bulb.

The jungles in Ogádén chiefly consist of the _galól_ and the _khansa_. The giant euphorbia called _hassádan_ grows in the hills and in the Haud, seldom much above or below five thousand feet. The _derkein_ is a tree allied to the _hassádan_, but it is found at a lower elevation, and is very common in the Dolbahanta country, growing in thick compact groves, and within these groves it is the custom of the natives to bury their dead. Two large thorn-trees of great beauty are the _gudá_ and the _wádi_. The _gudá_ has a dark stem and grows to a height of from thirty to fifty feet, spreading out to an umbrella top and giving excellent shade. The _wádi_ has a whitish stem and spreads out like the _gudá_, but more symmetrically, and is ornamented with white thorns about five inches long. The _kedi_ and the _mégag_ are conspicuous trees. The _kedi_ grows without a branch for about eight feet, and then breaks out into a compact rounded mass of long, green, soft thorns, growing one out of the other, in the same way as a prickly pear. The _mégag_ is much the same in shape, but there are no thorns, and it breaks out into small twisted branches, matted together, with tiny blue-gray leaves. Another tree is the _garas_, having leaves like a laurel, while the roots and bifurcations of the stems contain deep recesses which often hold drinking water after rain. The _wabé_, or dark green poison-tree, is very common in the mountains, a concoction of arrow-poison being made from the roots. The _athei_ is a small bush with gray leaves, the twigs of which form the native substitute for a toothbrush in Somáliland. _Ergin_ is a slender, green, grass-like bush of the cactus kind, with a milky sap, which forms dense cover and is often the resort of leopards. _Dár_ and _hig_, the latter of which produces excellent rope-fibre, are varieties of the aloe, and cover enormous areas. There is no ground more favoured by the lesser koodoo.

Of the largest trees the most conspicuous are the _darei_, a fig-tree, and the _gób_, a very large thorny tree growing on the banks of river-beds, with edible berries of an orange colour, the size of a cherry, and containing a large stone. In taste they resemble apples, and are delicious eating. The _tomaiyo_ is a root like a knotted swede, growing three inches below the surface in the soft red soil of the Haud and Ogádén. It is green and purple outside, and inside consists of a white watery pulp which will allay thirst. This plant is difficult to find, and has to be burrowed for. _Armo_, a vividly green creeper with large, fleshy, heart-shaped leaves, covers all the trees by the river-beds, hanging festooned like a curtain, and turning the _gudá_ thorn-trees into natural shady bowers. Of the three best grasses already mentioned as growing in the Haud, the _durr_ grows to about six feet, the _darémo_ to about fifteen inches, and _dihe_ to about four inches. All these grasses curl and twist about very much, the _durr_ spreading out into branches like a bush. The favourite cover chosen by a lion is in nine cases out of ten either _durr_ grass, _khansa_ forest, or the reeds (_alálo_) growing at the margin of a river-bed.

The Somáli climate is on the whole very dry and bracing, and there is no malarial fever to speak of except on the Webbe Shabéleh river.

In the Maritime hills the highest shade temperature I have registered is 118° Fahr. at midday, and on the cool elevated Haud country the temperature just before sunrise has often been as low as 56° in June. The lowest temperature I ever registered was 49°.

During the months of July, August, and September 1892, my brother took daily five or six observations with barometer and thermometer. The following shade temperatures, taken at random from his tables, may be of interest:—

+------------+-----------------+----------+------------+------------+
| | | Elevation| |Thermometer.|
| Date. | Place. | in feet | Time. | |
| | | above | | °Fahr. |
| | |sea-level.| | |
+------------+-----------------+----------+------------+------------+
|July 4-8 | Berbera | 35 | 8 A.M. | 94½ |
| | | | 12.15 P.M. | 99 |
| | | | 6 P.M. | 99½ |
| | | | 9.30 P.M. | 95 |
| ” 17-20 | Hargeisa Wells | 3938 | 6.30 A.M. | 67 |
| | | | 8 A.M. | 67 |
| | | | Noon. | 82 |
| | | | 5.25 P.M. | 80 |
| | | | 9.5 P.M. | 74½ |
| ” 23 | Kheidub-Ayéyu | 3841 | 1.30 A.M. | 56 |
| | (Haud) | | 5 A.M. | 61 |
| | | | Noon. | 83 |
| | | | 9 P.M. | 75 |
| ” 25-28 | Gagáb (Milmil) | 3429 | 5 A.M. | 63 |
| | | | Noon. | 85 |
| | | | 2.30 P.M. | 82 |
| | | | 9 P.M. | 68 |
|August 8-10 |Waror (Jerer | 4161 | 4 A.M. | 59 |
| | Valley) | | 6.30 A.M. | 63 |
| | | | 9.30 A.M. | 69½ |
| | | | 1 P.M. | 84 |
| | | | 3 P.M. | 85 |
| ” 31 | Harrhé | 5761 | 1 P.M. | 80 |
| | | | 2 P.M. | 75 |
|Sept. 3-5 | Makanis (Marar | 6209 | 6 A.M. | 56 |
| | Prairie) | | 7 P.M. | 65 |
| ” 9 | Kalerug | 6310 | 3.30 P.M. | 72½ |
| ” 10 | Sarir Gerád | 6330 | 6 A.M. | 56 |
| ” 24 | Biyo Kabóba | 3353 | Noon. | 103½ |
| ” 25-26 | Hassein Gedíchi | 2252 | 5 A.M. | 67 |
| ” 30 | Lehellu | 10 | 2 P.M. | 93 |
|October 4 | Zeila | 45 | 3 A.M. | 84 |
| | | | 10 P.M. | 85 |
+------------+-----------------+----------+------------+------------+

GLOSSARY OF GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES

The names have been spelt in accordance with the Royal Geographical Society’s system, vowels having an Italian pronunciation, _ei_ being pronounced as in the English word “weight,” and so forth.

The following will occur often in geographical names, some being modern terms, others having fallen into disuse in ordinary conversation:—

_Ad_, _Ado_, white.

_Ass_, red.

_Ban_, an open plain; as _Ban-yéro_, little plain.

_Biyo_, _Biya_, water; as _Biyo-foga_, distant water;
_Biya-ha-gódleh_, water of the place of caves.

_Bur_, a mountain or hill; as _Bur-mádo_, the black hill.

_Daba_, foothills; as _Daba-ádo_, the white hills.

_Dagah_, a rock; as _Dagaha-dáyer_, the monkey rock.

_Dih_, a valley; as _Dih-wiyileh_, the valley of rhinoceroses.

_Dur-dur_, a perennial spring.

_Eil_, a deep well; as _Eil Sheikh_, the Sheikh’s well.

_Gad_, a headland or bluff; as _Gadki-góbleh_, the bluff of the
place of the _gób_ tree.

_Ged_, a tree; as _Ged-wein_, big tree.

_Gola_, _Gol_, a peak; as _Gola-dagah_, the rocky peak;
_Gol-adéryu_, the peak of koodoos.

_Gumbur_, a hillock; as _Gumbur-ta-jifto_, the sloping hillock.

_Habr_, _Rer_, and the Arabic _Ayyal_, are tribal prefixes.

_Hassádan_, an euphorbia tree; _Hassadinleh_, the place of the
euphorbia.

_Hedd_, or _Dúd_, a forest; as _Dúd-libah_, the lion forest.

_Kabr_, graves; as _Kabr Ogádén_, the Ogádén graves.

_Karin_ or _Duss_, a pass; as _Karin-dagah_, the rocky pass.

_Lás_, a shallow well or sand-pit; as _Lás Ánod_, milk well.

_Mádo_, _Mádu_, or _Madóba_, black.

_Magala_, a town; thus Berbera is called _Magala-sahil_, the
“coast town.”

_Nás_, a pointed breast or hillock; as _Nás-gódki_, the hillock
of the cave; _Náso hablod_, the maiden’s breasts.

_Sarar_, a plateau; as _Sarar-ki-adáda_, the white plateau.

_Tug_, a sand-river; as _Tug-dér_, the long river.

_Webbe_, a large running river; as _Webbe Shabéleh_, the
leopard river.

_Wein_, great; _yer_, small.

The plural is often formed by doubling the last consonant and adding _o_; as _Dubbur_, plural _Duburro_.

_Leh_ is a termination constantly occurring in geographical names, and meaning locality; thus:—

_Armáleh_, the place of armo creepers.

_Libah_, a lion; _Libableh_, the place of lions.

_Shabél_, a leopard; _Shabéleh_, place of leopards.

_Warába_, a hyæna; _Warábileh_, the place of hyænas.

Besides those given above, the following meanings of names which are to be found in the map will be interesting:—

_Adadleh_, the place of _adad_ trees.

_Alóla-Jifen_, sloping plateau.

_Badwein_, large tank.

_Biyo-ado_, white water.

_Biyo Frinji_, the Franks’ watering-place.

_Bur Ád_, white hill.

_Bur Ánod_, hill of milk.

_Bur Dab_, rocky hill.

_Burka_, the hill.

_Daar-Áss_, red clay.

_Dabada Jiáleh_, hill of the _jia_ tree.

_Dagaha Madóba_, the black rock.

_Dagahbur_, rocky hill.

_Deimoleh_, place of _deima_ trees.

_Dere-gódleh_, the ravine of the cave place.

_Derin-galólo_, the ravine of _galól_ trees.

_Digirin-leh_, place of guinea-fowl.

_Dig-wein_, big ears.

_Dih-bauna_, valley of rock rabbits.

_Eil Anod_, milky well.

_Eil Armo_, well of the _armo_ creeper.

_Eil Birdáleh_, well of the _birda_ tree.

_Eil Midgán_, bushman’s well.

_Eil Sheikh_, the Sheikh’s well.

_Gal Hedigáleh_, gully of the stars.

_Gán-Libah_, lion’s paw.

_Garasleh_, the place of _garas_ trees.

_Gol Adér-yu_, the peak of koodoo.

_Goriáleh_, place of tree-stumps.

_Gudáweina_, the large _gudá_ tree.

_Gumbur Dúg_, the hillock of gadflies.

_Hedd-Gódir_, koodoo forest.

_Hegebo_, many hills.

_Issutugan_, straight river.

_Laba-Gumbur-mádo_, the two black hillocks.

_Magala-yer_, little town.

_Marodíleh_, the place of elephants.

_Nasíya_, resting-place.

_Sarar-awr_, the camel plateau.

_Shimbiráleh_, the place of birds.