The mag, dia,[2] or blood money for a man killed is one hundred milch-camels. Among the Habr Yunis, Habr Gerhajis, if one man of the tribe kills another the blood money is one hundred she-camels and four horses, half this number being considered enough for a woman. For the loss of an eye or permanent disablement of a limb fifty camels have to be paid, and for the loss of both eyes or disablement of both limbs the full blood money, as for murder, is demanded. If blood is drawn from the head about thirty camels are demanded, and even for a bruise the demand is for three or four camels. Such minor cases, however, are, as a rule, specially referred to the mullahs for decision. As a matter of fact, in most cases the blood money actually paid is far below the nominal amount. If a man captures his wife during a raid on another tribe, he generally sends a present afterwards to her parents to secure peace; should, however, a married woman be carried off, or one to whose parents cows have already been paid by another man, the offence is a grave one, and the tribe of the woman must fight. One of the most unpardonable offences is the striking of any one with a shoe or whip, or the open hand, and theoretically this act can only be wiped out by blood.

There are always innumerable blood feuds going on in Somáliland, but as a rule the tribal fights are not very serious, a dozen men killed in every thousand engaged being a fair proportion. The men slain in these combats are buried on the spot, and then begins a long series of negotiations for the settlement of the amount of blood money, which generally lasts months, or even years, before any result is arrived at. Often at a council all the old men on both sides will get up in a fury and leave hurriedly for their kraals with angry shouting, showing that diplomacy has failed.

This sitting in council discussing tribal politics appears to be the principal occupation of Somális, and at Berbera, in the native town, they may generally be seen sitting in circles holding protracted discussions. They appeal to our courts to decide the greatest and most trivial cases, delighting in arbitration; and tribes from very great distances inland, even from Ogádén or the Marehán country, come to the Berbera Court with cases, a great number of which have to do with raids of some sort, which have been committed either upon grazing flocks and herds or upon caravans.

Although a good deal of intermittent fighting is prevalent all over the interior, the Somális have no quarrel whatever with the English. They hold respect for the English as being their natural protectors and arbitrators. The chronic fighting which goes on throughout the country is only looked upon by the elders as healthy blood-letting, giving the young men something to do. It is only considered serious when it occurs on the main caravan routes, thereby damaging trade. In Guban quarrels and raids have practically ceased within the last five years, a fact which is entirely due to British influence.

The Somális love display, and do honour to their own sultans[3] by the performance of a ceremony called the dibáltig. When this function is to be gone through a body of horsemen is collected, and line having been formed, the tribal minstrel or gérára sings, while sitting in the saddle, long extempore songs in praise of the sultan and the tribe, the most atrocious flattery being the leading feature of the song. At every great hit scored by the minstrel the song rises to a shriek, and all the horsemen turn and gallop away, returning and reining up in a dense mass, crying “Mót!” (Hail to thee). The men are generally dressed in the red khaili tobes, and the saddlery is covered with red tassels. Among the Esa tribe the dibáltig is represented by a dance on foot, with shield and spear. In this dance the warriors go through the performance of pretending to kill a man, crowding in a semicircle round him, and stabbing him again and again, all the while yelling “Kek-kek-kek! Kek-kek-kek!” as they gasp for breath. I have the authority of Captain Abud, the assistant Resident at Berbera, for stating that the dibáltig is never performed except on the election of a sultan or in honour of an English traveller, whom the people recognise as a representative of the paramount authority in the country. It may be performed in honour of Europeans other than English who visit the country, but only when they do so under the ægis of the British Government. Among Somális themselves it is the open recognition of the authority of a sultan, and notifies the acceptance of his rule by the sub-tribes or jilibs performing it. It may therefore be looked upon as a species of coronation ceremony. The word mót is the royal salute. The assistant Resident at Berbera had a case brought before him in which a part of the Eidegalla tribe had thrown off allegiance to Sultán Deria, and when Captain Abud’s intervention was successful, one of the terms proposed by the delinquents themselves was that they would dibáltig before him as a recognition of their return to his control.

The influence of the Mussulman teaching is apparent in many of the predominating customs throughout the country. The Somális are as a rule clean and decent in their dress, and of course such a thing as a drunken Somáli in Somáliland is practically unknown. I have seen a man dangerously ill with snake-bite, and believed to be dying, refuse brandy when offered to him as a medicine, saying that he would rather die than take it.

In speaking of Somális I do not, of course, attempt to describe the Aden hack-carriage driver or boatman. These products of civilisation are not found in the interior of Somáliland; they are, to my mind, the only true Somáli savages. The Aden Somáli as a boy diving for silver coins in the harbour is a delightful little fellow, but when he grows up he becomes odious. As a cabman or boatman he sees too much of the weaknesses of Europeans, and as a result of the familiarity he loses his respect for them. To cite an instance of the familiarity which breeds contempt, Aden Somális have been known to call visitors from passing ships “damned fool passengers”! The real jungle Somáli from the African side of the Gulf never quite gets used to Aden life. After having made his money there, he returns to his own country to invest his savings in cows, camels, and sheep, and a wife or two to tend them. He lives the old pastoral life, and soon shakes off every trace of his sojourn among the white men. Give him a fine house in Aden, and he will build a round gurgi of mats and skins inside it.

In the far interior I have more than once met a horseman, looking quite like a jungle Somáli, tricked out in all the finery of a mounted warrior, yet whose salutation has been “Good morning, sir,” in excellent English, and I have found that he has been to Marseilles and London, having done his spell as a fireman on a steamer; and he has come back at last to his country, disgusted with civilisation, and worse in many ways than when he started on his travels. With such a man the jungle Somáli will often refuse to eat, saying he is no longer a clean Mussulman, that he is a Frinji, and must eat alone.

Whatever faults a Somáli may have, lack of intelligence, and what, for want of an English word, may be called savoir faire, are not among them. His bringing up, in a country where every man has his spears ready to hand to answer an insult on the moment, tends to make him keep his temper and maintain a diplomatic calm. Once that calm is broken through, however, he becomes a veritable madman. From laughter to rage is the transition of a second. Luckily he keeps his infrequent tantrums for black men. The rich white man is a privileged person, being allowed the eccentricity which may be excused in the great. If a white man, in pyjamas and slippers, unfortunately loses his temper, and kicks a lazy Somáli all round his zeríba for breach of contract, the latter sulks for a time, but soon gives way before the ridiculous; yet he will permit no Somáli to insult him.

There is no written Somáli language, so only a few mullahs who are learned in Arabic can read the Koran. The bulk of the people who cannot read are more prejudiced than the mullahs, wishing to be on the safe side, and having all sorts of complicated rules which mullahs know to be unnecessary. For a long time we could not get our men to eat game which had had the throat cut low down, although the customary bismillah had been said as the knife was drawn. On going to Hargeisa I appealed to Sheikh Mattar and his mullahs, who explained to them that they might eat the flesh of game bled in this way, and after the sheikh’s decision we never had any trouble on this point. It is an important one, for a gash in the skin from ear to ear is very unsightly in a valuable trophy when set up in England.

The fastidiousness of Somális varies according to circumstances. They say all game is dry, and will not generally eat birds or fish, and they will despise all other food if there is a fat sheep to be procured. Not eating birds, their ignorance about them is extraordinary, and I believe very few varieties have distinctive names.

The life of a Somáli includes many interesting observances, which unfold themselves day by day in the course of a journey. Some are very regular in their prayers and prostrations at the orthodox hours, praying for all they are worth, in season or out of it; others seldom or never pray. When on the Gálla frontier, however, I noticed that every one of my followers, in view of approaching death, became very devout, and mustered in great force in line for the daily church parade at sunset, no one being absent; and all day on the frontier the Somáli looks for a prowling enemy under every bush, fingering his tusba or chaplet to keep away evil.[4]

When the new moon appears he plucks a tussock of grass and holds it in flattering compliment between the slender crescent and his eyes, to keep them from being dazzled by the light. If he sees a tortoise he stands upon it, first casting off his sandals, believing, I think, that the soles of his feet will thereby be hardened; but whatever the motive may be, the act is very commonly practised.

One of the chief faults of the Somáli is carelessness. When a caravan moves off in the early morning there is generally a forgotten camel or straying sheep to be hunted for, which has perhaps wandered miles away into the bush. The men who have not to lead camels linger round the camp-fires warming their spears, thereby storing up heat for ten minutes longer to comfort their hands on their cold morning march. There is a great deal of shouting to the stragglers to bring along things which have been left behind. On our Abyssinian frontier reconnaissance our men temporarily lost, at different times, our goats, three Arab riding camels, the horse, a flock of sheep, and one or two baggage camels, besides two boxes of Martini-Henry ammunition. The man who loses or forgets a thing generally remembers the omission after travelling about fifteen miles, and he then cheerfully trots back to get it, returning perhaps at noon next day. He is philosophical as to results, for if he loses your property, is it not his fate? and no man can fight with fate or with the will of Allah! He has lost your property, and there is an end of it.[5]

Although I have made many jungle trips in India and elsewhere, yet in no country have I had such obedient and cheerful followers and such pleasant native companions, despite their faults, as in Somáliland. In my earlier and later trips I have often been from one to four months in the interior with no other companion than the Somális; and I cannot say there has been a dull moment.

Captain H. M. Abud, who has for some years lived in, and had the immediate administration of Berbera and Bulhár, and the greater part of the Somáli coast protectorate, and who is doubtless the best authority on the intricate intertribal relations of the Somális, has very kindly furnished me with a few notes on what he knows about their early history. He says: “The real origin of the Somális is wrapped in mystery. They themselves say that they are descended from ‘noble Arabs,’ who, having had occasion to fly from their own country, landed on the Somáli coast and intermarried with the aboriginal inhabitants, many of whose descendants still exist, though they now mingle with the Somális.

“The Somális, although none of them, except a few mullahs, can write, know their genealogical descent by heart, and, although the custom is beginning to die out, nearly every youngster is made to learn the names of his forefathers in their order. Out of at least a thousand elders examined by me while working at the genealogy of the tribes, none could trace their descent further than twenty or twenty-two generations; and if this number is correct the dawn of the Somáli nation would be placed about twelve or thirteen hundred years ago, nearly coinciding with the rise of Mahomed, on whose account the Arabs were obliged to fly from Mecca. This coincidence in time is so much in favour of the Somáli claim; but, on the other hand, it is difficult to believe that ‘noble Arabs’ would knowingly give their children the barbarous names some of them have. In any case we must seek away from the true African races for the origin of the Somáli, for he bears no trace of the negroid type. It is supposed by some, from a resemblance, fancied or real, in the languages, that the Somális may be allied to the races of Hindustan. So far, however, the subject has not been thoroughly worked out, and for all practical purposes the descent from ‘noble Arabs’ may be assumed as a convenient starting-point.

“The two great tribal groups of the Somáli nation are named Ishák and Dárud from their supposed progenitors, Sheikh Ishák bin Ahmed and Sheikh Jaberti bin Ismail, whose son Dárud is said to have been. The Habr Awal, Habr Gerhajis, and Habr Toljaala tribes, with whom we have most dealings in Berbera, belong to the Ishák group; and the Ogádén, Bertiri, Abbasgúl, Géri, Dolbahanta, Warsingali, Midjerten, Usbeyan, and Marehán belong to the Dárud group. The descent of the Esa and Gadabursi tribes is unknown, but it is more than probable that they are offshoots of a great tribe called Rer Afi.

“The tribal collective prefixes Rer, Habr, Ba, and Ba Habr are often met with. The Somális are a nomad race, and the tribes wander about, each in an orbit of its own, in search of pasture for its flocks and herds. A wealthy Somáli surrounds his huts, cattle, sheep, and camels by a zeríba of brushwood, and one of these, with the contents, is called a rer, being the kraal or temporary village. It will easily be understood, therefore, that all the descendants of a man called, say, Ibrahim, may be called the ‘Rer’ Ibrahim after him.[6]

“Every Somáli, being a Shafai Mussulman, can have four wives at a time, and it is each man’s object to have as many children as possible, to increase his own power and that of his tribe. Plurality of wives being allowed, the children of one wife must be distinguished from those of another. This is done by the prefix Ba. For an example of this, we have the case of the Rer Dahir Farah sub-tribe of the Habr Toljaala. The children by an Ibran woman were called the Ba Ibran; those by a Habr Awal woman were called the Ba Awal, and those by a woman named Gailoh, the Ba Gailoh.

“There are comparatively few names used among the Somális, the changes being rung on different combinations of Mahomed, Ali, Hassan, Esa, Samanter, Ismail, Gadíd, and others, many of which are names used in every Mussulman country. Owing to this scarcity of names, and to the vast number of people consequently named alike, the use of nicknames is very prevalent. A Somáli will, as often as not, when asked his name, tell you his nickname, and I have known many a man at a loss when asked his real name. For instance, the descendants of Daud Gerhajis are called the Eidegalla, meaning ‘he who rolls in the mud,’ while those of Said Harti are known by his nickname, and are called the Dolbahanta tribe.

“Somáli children are, as often as not, named after the circumstances of their birth, unless they receive ordinary Mussulman names: for instance, Wa-berri means that the man bearing this name was born in the morning, from berri, morning. Similarly, the bearers of the name Gédi, ‘a march,’ were born while the rer or kraal was shifting to another pasture. Gadíd denotes a man born at noon, and Róbleh, from rób, rain, a man born in wet weather. Descriptive nicknames are suggested by some personal peculiarities, as Afhakam, Afweina, ‘big mouth,’ Daga-yéra, ‘small ears.’ Even Europeans do not escape, and such names as Gadweina, ‘big beard,’ Gudani, ‘small stomach,’ Madah weina, ‘big head,’ have been bestowed on English officers without any disrespect being intended; and the bearers of these nicknames are known by them, especially when Somális are speaking among themselves.

“The usual divisions among Somális are the tribe, the sub-tribe, the clan, and the jilib or family. Thus the chief of the Eidegalla, Sultán Deria, would describe himself as Habr Gerhajis (tribe), Eidegalla (sub-tribe), Rer Mattan (clan), Rer Guléd (family). If further asked he would describe himself as one of the Ba Ambaro, or sons of Ambaro. In the event of a man having a large number of sons, he is entitled to call himself a separate family; for instance, Shirmáki Adan, a man still living and still procreating, has already twenty-three sons and twenty-nine daughters, and these are now called the Rer Shirmáki Adan. A weak clan is likely to be looted and absorbed by a stronger, and thus the weaker clans join together for protection. When whole families so unite the members combine under the name ‘Gáshánbúr,’ or ‘brothers of the shield.’ Somális have no surnames in the English sense, and when a distinction is to be made, the name of the man’s father is added to his own. Thus the son of Shiré Shirmáki is Deria Shiré, and he again might have a son called Hussein Deria.”

Without myself having gone so deeply as Captain Abud into evidence on historical questions, I have been led, in a long intercourse with the natives at the camp-fire and on the march, to draw my own conclusions on certain points.[7] From ruins, cairns, and graves which have been pointed out to me to be of Gálla origin, I have been led to believe that before the Arab immigrations what is now called Somáliland, even to the northern coast, was owned by the Gállas. The immigrant Arabs and their followers with “friendlies” on the spot, becoming strong, began to seize the coast, driving the original Gállas inland towards the parts of their country which lie round Harar and beyond the Webbe. On the frontier between the Somális and Gállas there are periodical raids still in active progress from one side or the other. These raids were occurring at Karanleh on the Webbe when I went there in 1893, and put me to much inconvenience; and in 1889, when I visited a mission station called Golbánti on the Tana River, not far from Lamu on the east coast, I found a Somáli encroachment taking place.

The Gállas at this place a few years before my visit numbered between one and two thousand souls, rich in cattle, but latterly they had been annually raided by the Masai from the south and the Somális from the north, till the village of Golbánti had dwindled down to about one hundred and fifty inhabitants, and it had been only kept going by the exertions of, and protection afforded by the representative of the United Methodist Mission who was stationed there. Three years before my visit the former missionary and his wife, an English lady, had been murdered there by the Masai, and less than two years later the German station of Ngai, a few miles up-stream, had been burnt by a party of over a thousand Somális, who came to within a short distance of Golbánti, but were unprepared to attack the fine stockade and house which had been built by the missionaries, the upper verandah having been thoughtfully lined with a few rifles.[8] The German missionaries from Ngai had taken refuge in the Golbánti house, and saw the flare of their own mission burning a few miles away. The Gállas at Golbánti said they feared the Somális even more than the Masai, as the former being good swimmers, the Tana River was no obstacle to them.

The southern Somáli tribes are very bold, and are said to raid cattle from the Gállas and take them to the mixed Gálla and Arab town of Lámu, on the east coast, to sell them again. As they have horsemen, they are said to be able to cope with the Masai, whom they sometimes meet when both are raiding the Gállas near the Tana. I saw a few of the southern Somális walking about Lámu. They appear to be rougher, more savage, and finer men than the northern Somális.

The Gállas of Golbánti were well-featured men, very quiet in manners, brown in colour, with thin lips, and slightly built.[9] The Somális are very like them, but rather bigger and better built, and the only difference that I could observe was that there appeared to be some Arab blood in the Somális. The little I saw of the nomad Gállas at Imé and Karanleh on the Webbe tended to strengthen me in the belief that the Somális are Gállas with a very slight strain of Arab in their blood. The Somális themselves, of course, deny this, and claim their descent to be from the higher race. The Gállas and Somális, though such bitter enemies, are much alike, and both are utterly different from the negritic and mongrel Swahili races to the south.

On the Tana I found a river population called the Wapokómo, negroes of fine physique, lorded over and held in bondage by the warlike Gállas; and on the Webbe Shabéleh a river race called the Adone, who were also negroes, were working in the fields and punting rafts on the river for their masters, the Somális.

My theory is that the Gállas seem to be wedged in between the continually advancing Somális from the north and the Masai from the south, the apex of the wedge being somewhere near the Tana mouth, and the base at the sources of the Juba. The effect of this pressure is perhaps driving the Tana Gállas up the river, to the country where they are more numerous and can hold their own.

Monseigneur Taurin Cahaigne of Harar, who probably knows as much as any man living about the Gállas, hinted, so far as I can remember, that the origin of the Gálla nation was probably near the mouth of the Tana, and that they spread northward and westward from there.

The tribe occupying the coast round Zeila is the Esa, and those about Bulhár and Berbera are the Habr Awal, and farther east Habr Toljaala. The nearest inland tribe to Zeila is the Gadabursi, and those on the Berbera side are the Habr Gerhajis and Dolbahanta. The six above named are the tribes with which the British authorities have most directly to deal. Of these the most capable in war is probably the Esa. The Gadabursi and Habr Awal fear them, and it is only because the former tribes are mounted and the latter have no horses that the balance of power is maintained. The Esa are chaffed by the Ishák tribes for being uncouth and barbarous. The men go about dressed in a simple short cloth round the loins, while eastern Somális generally wrap themselves in a full tobe. The Esa women do not necessarily cover up the breast, while among the Ishák tribes all but the oldest and most destitute are well dressed from head to foot. In no tribe that I have seen do the Somáli women cover the face.

The Gadabursi tribe is rich in ponies of a poor stamp. The Jibril Abokr sub-tribe of the Habr Awal is, I think, the best mounted among the tribes named, and the Dolbahanta also have enormous numbers of good ponies, and are wild and addicted to raiding on a very large scale.

It is certain that Somáliland has at different times been occupied by highly-organised races, whose habits of life have been quite different from those of the present nomadic tribes. Widely distributed over the country are traces of permanent settlements, many of them probably of great antiquity. Some appear so ancient that they might belong to any time, of which all record has been lost. Many of these ruins are traced to Mussulman occupations by the Arabs from Yemen, some hundreds of years back, but other older remains are assigned by tradition to a people who were “before the Gállas.” There are no writings, and many of the remains are scarcely recognisable as being of human origin. Sometimes blocks of dressed stone are found lying in a rectangular pattern on the ground, overgrown and half buried by grass and jungle; a series of parallel revetment walls on a hill overlooking a pass is occasionally to be met with, and frequently one may observe the scanty evidences of an ancient tank to catch rain-water. It is possible to travel for weeks in Somáliland without coming on these remains; they are met with by chance, and it seldom occurs to the natives to think of pointing them out to travellers.

Near the mullah village of Guldu Hamed, at Upper Sheikh, are the remains of a very large ruined town, and close by there is a graveyard containing some five thousand graves. I believe these remains are not very ancient, but are traced to early Mussulman settlements from Yemen. West of Hargeisa is an old fort of considerable size, crowning the detached hill called Yoghol. In the Gadabursi country there is the ancient ruined town of Aubóba, and at the head of the Gáwa Pass, on a hill to the west, and about four hundred feet above it, are some massive ancient ruins, which must have once been a fort, commanding the pass. They are called Samawé, from the name of a sheikh whose tomb crowns the ruins. The hill-top is surrounded by parallel retaining walls built of dressed stone, rising in steps from the bottom. In some places the walls were six or eight feet high, and there were remains of extensive ancient buildings filling the enclosure. Surmounting the whole in the centre was the ruin of a building of cut stone, which appeared to be the sheikh’s tomb.

The position of the Samawé ruins would favour a supposition that some power holding Harar, and having its northern boundary along the hills which wall in the southern side of the Harrawa valley, had built the fort to command the Gáwa Pass, which is one of the great routes from the Gadabursi country up on to the Marar Prairie. On the other hand, the fort may have been built by a power holding the coast, to close the pass on the Harar side.

Within half a mile of the Samawé tomb, on the sloping ground to the south, we found a curious stone enclosure, half buried in jungle. It was in the form of a rectangle measuring fifty-seven yards by fifty-eight yards, marked by long rows of dressed stones, each about nine inches by a foot, lying loosely on the ground. Some of these were blocks of limestone, and some apparently basalt.

Near Hug, in the mountainous Jibril Abokr country, my brother found many signs of old “Gálla” habitations and graves, and some well-made pathways down the hillsides. His followers told him that the hills having in the olden time been used as places of refuge by the Gállas, these roads were made to enable the cattle to be quickly driven up in case of alarm—the custom being for a part of the clan to camp on the top of a hill, in order to hold it, while the rest looked after the flocks and herds grazing below. He was told that the Gállas on the Abyssinian border, and the Abyssinians themselves, still do this.

All over the territory of the Ishák tribes, and in the Dolbahanta country, we found many old Gálla graves and cairns. At Kirrit there is a well in which a very ancient cross has been carved in the face of the rock. Crowning nearly every prominent hill in the countries named is a cairn or pile of stones, each stone being, roughly speaking, about the size of a man’s head. They are made up of many hundreds of such stones, and are generally about twelve or fifteen feet high and eight yards in diameter. Each one is circular, having in the centre a depression, suggesting that there may have been a tomb beneath, which has fallen in. I never cared to dig one up, not wishing to offend the susceptibilities of the natives. Some of them are of immense size, and are called Taalla Gálla or Gálla cairns.

There is a curious legend accounting for the origin of these cairns, which was told me by one of the Esa Musa tribe, while I was camped on the Golis Range, and by others of the Habr Awal at different times.

The drift of his story was that when the Gállas were in the country there once lived a great and powerful queen, called Arroweilo. She was very wicked, and was the origin of all evil in women at the present day. For some reason she conceived a ferocious prejudice against all male children, and a mother, to escape from her tyrannies, fled into a far country with her baby boy. As years went on this son grew, and when he had become a man he returned into Arroweilo’s country armed with a sword. He attacked Arroweilo in a lonely pass, and hacking her to pieces, tied her remains on a camel, and sent it off with a parting cut. The camel trotted in mad career all over the country, and wherever a piece of Arroweilo fell, the pious native, as he passed, said a prayer and threw a stone “to keep her down.” The chief use of these cairns now is to form cover for robbers when watching for caravans; and my brother and I found they made very recognisable points when seen through the telescope of a theodolite.

At Badwein (i.e. “Big Tank”) in the Dolbahanta country, one hundred and fifty miles, as the crow flies, from Berbera, we found a tank forty feet deep and a hundred and twenty yards in diameter, evidently excavated by human labour. Near it was a temple or large house with walls still standing at a height of ten feet, and the space enclosed was so large that a party of horsemen could ride into it.

The Dolbahanta told us that before the Gállas a race of men occupied the country who could read and write. Unfortunately none of their literary work was visible, as we examined many remains for inscriptions, but found none. One man, for a small fee, took us four miles out of our way to read an inscription, but the result was not promising, for we only found on a tombstone some scratches, perhaps twenty years old, evidently made by an idle sheep boy. All these discoveries of ancient remains go to prove that the elevated parts of Somáliland (not semi-desert Guban) have once been capable of permanent settlement under a more secure form of society than at present exists.

The deserted village of Dagahbúr in Ogádén is an example which shows how settlement and cultivation have been successfully begun, and abandoned because of the insecurity resulting from intertribal feuds. At Dagahbúr there were formerly many square miles of jowári cultivation, which have been abandoned within the last few years, and now there is only left an immense area of stubble and the ruins of the village. Dagahbúr used to be a thriving settlement of one thousand five hundred inhabitants, with trade caravans plying regularly across the Haud to Hargeisa and Berbera; and now not a hut is left.

The fact is, that although the natural conditions are suitable to the settlement of large tracts of country, and though many of the people are willing enough to engage in cultivation, yet the tribes and sub-tribes are so incessantly at feud, that the religious mullahs or widads, who enjoy a certain immunity from raids, alone dare settle down and cultivate; and now that many of the old wells and tanks have fallen into disuse and ruin, the water-supply could only be restored by a great expenditure of capital, for which there would perhaps be no adequate return for some generations.

CHAPTER II
THE NOMADIC LIFE

Varieties of camels—Somáli camel willing and gentle—Method of loading camels—On the march—Weight of loads—Marching hours—Scourges, gadflies, ticks, and leeches—Firing camels—Sore back—Camel food—Grazing customs—Breeding habits of Somáli camels—The milk-supply of she-camels—Description of Somáli ponies—Fodder—Ticks—Donkeys—Their usefulness in Somáliland—Cattle—Cow’s milk—Ghee—Hides exported to America—Sheep and goats—Powers of subsisting without water—Camel-meat and mutton the favourite meal of Somális—The annual movements of trading caravans governed by seasons—Duration of seasons—Great heat—Movements of the nomad tribes—Caravan marauders—Tribal fights—Gangs of highway robbers—Methods of the raiders—English scheme of protection popular—Trade greatly injured through insecurity of routes—A peculiarity of the Somáli guide—Mysterious strangers—Remarkable faculties of adaptability in the Somáli—Baneful effect of civilisation.

There appear to be two distinct varieties of camel in Somáliland,—the Gel Ad, or white variety, sold mostly on the Berbera side, and the Ayyun or dark Dankali one, which is common on the Zeila side. Both have the single hump. The Esa themselves admit the superiority of the Berbera camel, and offer a higher price for it. There are certain camels fattened for the butcher, which are never used for carrying loads. They can be recognised by their hairiness and the great development of the hump, but they are not, I believe, a distinct variety. Somális know their animals individually by name. A fine large camel may often be christened “Maródi” (the elephant); another, noted for its pace, is sometimes flatteringly called “Faras” (the horse).

The Somáli camels, as contrasted with those of India, are willing and gentle; and although whilst being laden they will generally complain, and make feints at biting, yet I have seldom known them injure any one. In moving about the camp at night one has often to pass among them as they kneel in rows, sometimes stepping over them, or stooping under their outstretched necks, but I have never had experience of a vicious camel in Somáliland. Even when undergoing firing operations they rarely bite, although the head is left free. This accommodating disposition I attribute greatly to the manner in which they are treated by the natives, who, though rather cruel to their ponies, will never ill-use a camel. Many Somális are utterly ignorant of loading, this work being done largely by the women. When a camel is intractable it is generally through ignorant handling. The Somális talk and sing to their animals when loading and unloading, and whistle while they are drinking, some of these songs used upon such occasions being of very ancient origin. During loading the camels are made to kneel, and the head-rope is passed round the knees and made fast there.

When marching with loads they need to be watered every fifth day, though upon emergency we have often worked them for ten days without distress. While on the march they are tied head to tail, as in Northern India. In rocky places, where the caravan animals are liable to stumbles and sudden stops, the tail is sometimes torn off.

The usual load is not less than about two hundred and seventy-five pounds, exclusive of mats, but it varies according to the nature of the load. Dates are bad to carry, being compact and heavy in proportion to their size, and the date load is generally two gosra, or two hundred and fifty pounds. European baggage comes under the same category. The marching hours are from about 4 A.M. to 9 A.M., and from 1 to 5 P.M. The camels are allowed to graze during the midday heat, and for half an hour before sunset. It takes three-quarters of an hour to load up, from the time of rounding in the grazing camels to the start off, and unloading takes about fifteen minutes. In stating these particulars I am giving our own average with complicated boxes, tents, loads of trophies, and so forth, a Somáli caravan taking probably less time. The usual rate of marching is from two and a quarter to two and three-quarter miles an hour, not counting short halts to adjust loads. The fastest rate, for a short distance, which I have tested has been three and a quarter miles an hour. The loaded Somáli camel will not trot as a rule, though sometimes the Midgáns train them to do so, leading them by a string.

Camels are always delicate, and I have considered myself lucky when I have not lost more than five per cent of my camels on a three months’ expedition. In Ogádén the Balaad, or small gadfly, is a terrible scourge to them, and, to a lesser extent, so is the large gadfly, or Dúg; they are also infested with ticks, which swell to the size of a date-stone, and are seen clinging round the eyelids. In drinking the camels often take in small leeches, which fix themselves to the root of the tongue, growing to a great size and filling the mouth with blood.

Should a camel show stiffness, he is at once fired, either by raising small blisters with a red-hot ramrod or spear, or by striping with hoops of red-hot iron. Open sores have glowing stones strapped over them, followed by an application of moist camel-dung; and when off his feed, he is dosed with melted sheep’s tail. Thorns are excised from the foot with the biláwa or dagger, and the spike—often two inches long—having been extracted, camel-dung is applied, and as a general rule the cut soon heals.

A great cause of sickness is a sore back, brought on by the chafing of a load. The worst place is in front of the hump. A camel when let out to browse is likely to bite such a sore until it festers and becomes full of maggots. There is a fly which is on the look-out for these sores, and instead of laying eggs deposits lively maggots, which crawl about briskly directly they leave the body of the fly. A red-beaked bird, very common in Ogádén,[10] then attacks the sore, plunging its sharp beak again and again into the hole, picking out the maggots and decayed mass, and even the good flesh, until there is a cavity into which a man’s clenched fist may be thrust. When in this condition it should always have a strip of calico, steeped in carbolic solution, tied over the wound when sent out to graze, to protect it from the birds, a dozen of which can be often seen clinging flat to its shoulders, giving out at intervals their long-drawn, discordant, shrill note.

The Somáli camel does not require grain, but thrives entirely on whatever it can pick up by the way. Except at certain seasons in Guban, the coast country, there is always an abundance of food for them everywhere, in the unlimited expanse of grass and acacia forest, as they feed and thrive on many grasses that ponies will not touch. When grazing, or browsing on the leaves of the mimosa jungles, they roam about in enormous droves, attended by a few men and women. In Ogádén and the Dolbahanta country I have seen driven past a succession of herds, each containing over a thousand camels, as they were taken to pasture in the mornings or back to the karias at night. They often have to graze at a distance of six miles or so from home, for, as the food near the karias is eaten up, they are driven farther out daily, and after a month or two the mat huts themselves are packed up and the tribe marches on, perhaps ten miles, to a fresh pasturage. Horsemen are constantly scouring the surrounding country to watch the next tribe, or to bring early news of a pasture having received heavy rain.

Camels can be much more quickly rounded up and driven to the home karia than cattle or flocks, so they are trusted much farther afield, and the number of camels sometimes seen is astonishing, the whole horizon being covered with them. When camped at Gagáb by the Milmil river-bed we daily saw between ten thousand and thirty thousand driven to water past our tents, belonging chiefly to the Rer Ali tribe. In Ogádén even an outcaste Midgán will sometimes own three or four hundred, and the only limit to their numbers is the capability of their owners to water and protect them. When a tribe becomes rich every man’s eye is covetously turned to this accumulation of camels, and it is not long before attempts are made to raid them in a mass. We were told of instances in the Dolbahanta country where ten thousand had been looted at one swoop. When unladen they can be driven at great speed, and as the raiders are nearly always on horseback, the attack is very sudden.

When grazing, in dry weather, they are watered every six days or so, but when men are lazy, or animals very numerous, much longer periods are allowed to elapse. When rain has fallen, and the grass is green, camels, sheep, and goats are sometimes not watered for three months. We often found tens of thousands of camels and sheep grazing at least forty miles from water. The men and horses attendant on them live almost entirely on camel’s milk, a little water being carried over these great distances for the women and children.

Mobs of camels are generally led by an old one of immense size, a large wooden bell (kor) being hung round his neck to indicate the position of the mob after dusk. When returning from a good pasture, they show the exuberance of their spirits by cantering and kicking their heels in the air. A man running at best pace can with difficulty overtake one which is bent on avoiding him, and for a greater distance than two hundred yards the man is nowhere. They may often be seen scampering about the sands at Berbera, the men following them for hours trying to catch them.

According to the Somális, camels have a young one every second year, generally in the Gu or monsoon. They begin to foal when three years old; the foal—black, tawny-yellow, or white as a well-washed sheep—soon gets on its legs, and in a few days can scamper about. They are called Gódir, Gel-Ass, or Gel-Ad, according as they are born black, reddish yellow, or white, and they retain these shades through life. Yearlings, older camels, and she-camels with their young are kept in distinct mobs. The Somális object to the firing of a gun near, or otherwise startling the she-camels when about to foal, as they gallop away in panic, injuring stock. A she-camel, besides nourishing her foal, will daily give milk for two men who have no other food, and in the event of more being required, the young one is killed, and the skin removed, and whenever the mother is milked its skin is rubbed against her nostrils. She becomes quite tractable, and will follow the man who carries the skin. If the foal is allowed to live, as soon as it can browse the udders of the mother are tied with bits of string, and the milk reserved for human beings.

Somáli ponies average about thirteen hands and a half, and are bred by every tribe except the Esa and Géri. Of the tribes I have met on different expeditions, those having the most ponies are the Dolbahanta, the Rer Ali, the Rer Amáden, the Habr Gerhajis, and the Jibril Abokr sub-tribe of the Habr Awal. In the Nogal country we saw enormous numbers, one man sometimes owning one hundred and fifty. The Somáli pony carries a light weight splendidly; his feet are harder than even those of an Arab horse, and, indeed, unless well shod the latter would make poor work on the rocky ground over which the Somáli animal, which is never shod, will gallop at full speed. He is handy among bushes, and will go for three days, or even longer, without water, eats nothing but grass, and requires no care. I have never seen a Somáli pony covered up or groomed; it is exposed to all weathers, and is usually infested with ticks. The Kud-kudaha is a tick about half an inch in diameter, with a tortoise-shell back, its bite being venomous and drawing blood. Ponies are bred solely for intertribal fighting, the mares being considered the best.

Sir Richard Burton, in his First Footsteps in East Africa, gives an admirable description of the Somáli pony and his rider, not very flattering to either. But he could not have seen the best stamp of pony among the Gadabursi, and we have noticed that the tribes farther to the east were not so cruel as the Gadabursi, a man often dismounting and walking to save his animal.

The few ponies which are kept in waterless tracts, as a guard for the grazing camels, receive each a daily allowance of the milk of two camels mixed with a quart of water, the latter being brought from great distances. They are never used as pack animals, being too valuable in the eyes of the Somáli to be degraded by doing donkey’s work. Mules are sometimes used on the Zeila-Harar road, but are found nowhere else in Somáliland, to my knowledge.

We tried the best Somáli ponies ridden by their owners against an ordinary 14.1 “Gulf Arab” which I imported from Bombay, and which was ridden by my brother. The Somáli invariably jumped off with a good start, keeping it for about one hundred and fifty yards, and then dropping hopelessly behind when once the advantage of the start was lost.

Donkeys are not much used for transport except on the Zeila-Harar roads, where the nature of the country is stony. They are largely employed in taking salt and rice from Zeila to Harar, a bag of rice weighing one hundred and seventy pounds, or half a camel load, being carried by each. Only women ride donkeys, the Somáli man considering it beneath his dignity to do so.

When surveying in 1886, with a small escort of Bombay Infantry sepoys, I provided each man with a donkey, either to ride or to carry his valise and water-bottle on, according to inclination. There were twelve men so mounted, and the experiment proved a great success. The donkeys were driven herded together by two little boys. The escort was composed partly of these men and partly of Hindustáni policemen mounted on ponies, carrying carbines in saddle-buckets. In my later journeys, however, finding that the natives of Hindustán, being used to plenty of water, were at a great disadvantage when crossing waterless tracts, I formed the escort purely of well-drilled Somális, and this arrangement proved less expensive and better adapted to the requirements of the country.

Cattle are kept chiefly by the tribes inhabiting hilly country where water is plentiful, and by the mullahs in their settlements. Cow’s milk is generally tainted by the smoked vessels in which it is kept, and to obtain good milk it is necessary to see the cow milked. Ghee, or clarified butter (subug), is prepared from the cow’s milk which is left after the people have drunk their fill, and this ghee is sent down for sale to Berbera, where the coast people, who live chiefly on rice, consume a great quantity. Somális need fat or butter, and when not eating mutton or camel’s flesh, or drinking large quantities of milk, they insist upon a plentiful allowance of ghee to mix with their rice. The cattle from the interior are largely exported to Aden for the supply of the garrison, and vast quantities of hides are annually exported to America. It is possible that the Aden supply has been affected of late years by the great drain caused by the Abyssinian foraging expeditions into Ogádén.

Sheep and goats constitute the ordinary Somáli meat food. Camel meat is preferred, but it is considered a luxury, and cattle are seldom killed. The common sheep are of the black-headed variety (dumba), with fat tails, and they are seen whitening the hillsides wherever tribes are encamped. In the rains they get very fat, their tails becoming flabby masses. At this season the Bur Dab raider hurries back to his family, to luxuriate on the delicious meat. Sheep are given as presents to caravans, and, like fruit in India, “they represent in the bountiful East the visiting cards of the meagre West.” In many places a chief is not supposed to be officially aware of a stranger’s presence till he has received his gift of a sheep or two, or a piece of cloth. Sheep and goats can ordinarily go a week without water, but when grass is green they require none. We saw thousands of sheep grazing in the Haud pastures, forty miles away from water, and we were told they would remain there for three months.

Somáli sheep have no wool to speak of, and are never sheared. A few goats are herded with every flock of sheep, and the goats, being by far the more intelligent animals, take the lead when the flock is moving. The shepherd walks in front, calling to the goats, and they are followed by the sheep. Sheep are imported in large numbers to Aden. In 1891 there were sixty-eight thousand exported chiefly to feed the garrison. Amongst the tribes quantities of sheep are killed daily, and devoured at the evening meal in the karias, with singing and dancing. Mutton only ranks second to camel meat as the favourite food of a Somáli.

The annual movements of the trading caravans and the nomad tribes of Somáliland depend, of course, on the seasons. Roughly the duration of the seasons is as follows:—

(1) Jilál—January to April—the driest season; great heat.

(2) Gu—May, June—the heavier rains (little felt on the coast).

(3) Haga—July, August, September—the hot weather. The karíf wind, or south-west monsoon, blows furiously. It is hot in Guban, with sand-storms, but cold on the Haud and other parts of the high interior.

(4) Dair—October, November, December—the lighter rains. Heavy on the coast.

(5) At the end of Jilál is a short season of greatest heat just before Gu, called Kalíl.

Of these seasons the Haga is the most unpleasant on the coast, the karíf, a strong south-west gale, sweeping along with great fury, blowing the dust and stones in the face of any caravan so unfortunate as to have to march against it, and making it impossible to keep a tent up. The wind generally commences at midnight and blows till 2 P.M. on the next day; the remainder of the twenty-four hours, from 2 P.M. till midnight, being a time of great heat, which is even more unpleasant than the wind, unless tempered by a slight north-east breeze, coming as a reaction after the fourteen hours’ gale. My usual plan was to make the longest marches in the mornings, in spite of the wind, and on halting, to camp under the shade of a tree till the wind should have stopped sufficiently for us to pitch tents. Then at night a bivouac was made by piling all the baggage and camel-mats into a steep wall, all of us sleeping under the lee of it in the open, by which means one could get a comfortable sleep till morning; but I never kept up a tent during the wind-storm.

At this season coast communication by dhow is very uncertain; dhows cannot beat against the karíf, but while sailing before it they make about eleven knots an hour. Dhows for Aden cannot leave the Berbera harbour during the Haga season until evening, when the lull occurs, and then they sail out to near the lighthouse, three miles west of the town, waiting till midnight to cross towards Aden; on getting thirty-five miles out to sea they are usually clear of the karíf. This wind seems to cease above the level of Guban, and above Gólis the heat of July is mitigated by cool south-west breezes which are not very violent. As one descends again to the Webbe Shabéleh valley in the far interior, one comes into the karíf again; it is much worse at Bulhár, Berbera, and Karam than it is on the Zeila side.

In the Kalíl season, the intense heat just before the rains, I have registered 118° Fahrenheit under the shade of a double “Cabul” tent at midday, in my camp at Malgui in the maritime mountains. As we marched to the camp where this heat was registered, several of the men were bleeding from the nose, and on my asking them the reason, they said cheerfully, “Oh! Allah makes our noses bleed to cool our heads.” The Somális do not wear anything on their heads, and the close-shaven skulls of the older men are entirely exposed to the hot sun.

Caravans coming down from a distance of ten or twelve days’ march—that is, from Milmil or from this side of Gerlogubi—generally make two trips to the coast each year. For the first trip they come down from the interior late in the Haga, or about September, leaving Berbera again for the interior in the Dair, about December. They then come on a second trip in Jilál, bringing down animals, hides, ivory, feathers, gum, and ghee; and return in Kalíl, taking up chiefly rice and cloth.

From distant parts of Ogádén, or the Webbe, caravans make one trip a year, coming down at the end of Haga and returning in Kalíl or the beginning of Gu. Many smaller caravans, coming from the nearer parts of the Haud and Ogo, and engaged in petty barter, make more than two journeys to and from Berbera. Those coming from Fáf in Ogádén make the journey in, say, fifteen days’ fast marching without halts. The gédi, or march, is usually from four to five hours, ten to twelve miles being covered. The start is made at 4 A.M., marching goes on till 9 A.M., the midday halt giving the camels time to feed till 1 P.M., when another march is made till about 5 P.M.[11]

Eastern tribes make longer marches than the Gadabursi and Esa. The longest are made over waterless or uninhabited country, while in the inhabited tracts the caravan dawdles at every encampment. Our own men used to advise us to make one long march instead of two short ones, but we found it did not benefit the camels, the only saving being in trouble to the men, as the camp had to be formed once instead of twice.

In the hot weather on the Berbera maritime plain, the best time to march is at night, especially if there is a moon; the caravans swing along at a great pace in the cool of the night, especially if the paths are good and there is not too much jungle. Caravans leaving Berbera in the evening march throughout the night, reaching Laferug, thirty miles from Berbera, before halting.

At Berbera the camels are handed over, by arriving caravans, to the Esa Musa sub-tribe of the Habr Awal, or other nomadic people similarly situated, who tend them till such time as they shall be required for the return journey to the interior.

In Haga the Esa Musa and similar tribes are to be found at or near the base of Gólis Range, and in Dair they climb up this step into the Ogo country, which is vacated by the Habr Gerhajis tribe, who in their turn have retired far into the Haud, where the pastures are good at this season. In Jilál, the dry season, the Haud, having neither green grass nor surface pools, is uninhabitable, and the Habr Gerhajis being obliged to come north into their Ogo pastures and about Gólis Range, the Esa Musa are apparently pushed down into Guban and the maritime plain, which is their own country. In the Gu, or heavy rains, the best season for grass, the Esa Musa have only their own sheep and cattle to look after. They are then found in Ogo, the Habr Gerhajis being far out in the Haud, taking advantage of the green pasture.

All the nomads belonging to the coast tribes go into the Haud when there is green pasture and surface water, each tribe moving generally north and south, and keeping to its own strip of the plateau. Their best pastures are in the Haud, but they all have to leave in Jilál, and are then sure to be found north of the Haud edge. Sometimes the Habr Awal cross the Haud nearly to its southern edge, and at others the Ogádén come northwards till about half-way across. In this way what may be called the “orbits” of tribes overlap. In the Gu, or rains, when the Habr Gerhajis are far away in the Haud, and competition at the coast is at its lowest ebb, the Esa Musa export their cattle and sheep to Aden. They have agents at Berbera, and as opportunities offer, batches of, say, ten oxen or two hundred sheep are brought down for export, marching by easy stages. Coming from Bur’o, eighty miles from the coast, cattle or sheep reach Berbera in four to six days, while caravans generally cover the distance in three days.

Overlooking the Berbera-Bulhár coast track, at a spot about twenty-four miles west of Berbera, is a low spur of bare sandstone hills, called Dabada Jiáleh, ending at a single jia thorn-tree, and it is known as a spot which has till a few years ago been used by Esa Musa marauders as a watching-place when on the look-out for Ayyal Ahmed or Ayyal Yunis caravans passing along the track. There are similar spots all over the country, known as watching-places, sometimes a sandy hillock, sometimes a “boss” of rock (dagah, the South African kopje); and many have descriptive names, such as “Dagaha Todoballa” (rock of the seven robbers), showing the use to which they have been put.

Annually when wandering in search of rain, tribes which are at feud are liable to meet where their orbits overlap, and so often is there a fight, and a few graves on the scene of action are left to mark the event. The country is further rendered unsafe by raiding and plundering parties which surprise caravans, and gangs of highway robbers, who do not disdain to attack small parties, or single men and women in charge of a camel or two.

In the Gu, when the coast tribes are in Ogo and Haud, and there are pools of surface water everywhere and green grass for the ponies, and the tribes, moreover, have all their numbers present, a great deal of petty warfare and raiding goes on. Large mounted bands of young men go out from the tribes and travel great distances in search of caravans, or of grazing flocks. When out on raid the cavalier ties a grass water-bottle to his saddle-bow, together with a quantity of sun-dried meat, and thus provided he will often cross seventy miles of thorn forest to surprise his neighbour’s flocks and herds. The attack, made at dawn or in the afternoon, is arranged to take place suddenly, and it is timed when the male owners are scattered far and wide, sleeping in zeríbas or under the shade of trees, wrapped up in their tobes, and the flocks are only attended by boys and girls. The looted animals are hastily driven off, urged by gentle spear pricks, and the raiders return to their tribe to the musical strains of lowing cattle, bleating sheep, and screaming camels. If the enterprising horsemen are pursued in force the captured flocks are relinquished, but the camels, travelling faster, are clung to as long as possible, at the risk of a human life or two. A looted horse is a great prize, and the happy gainer will boast long and loudly of his deed.

In my several expeditions we were constantly crossing the tracks of these looting parties, which muster from thirty to four hundred mounted men. We actually fell in with a Dolbahanta troop, which was returning from an unsuccessful raid on the Habr Toljaala herds, having covered a journey of one hundred and forty miles.

Sometimes when resting at night the men sleep in line on the ground, the bridle of each pony being passed round the man’s wrist and the pony standing over him. In fighting order the troops are in single or double line, extended at an interval equal to the breadth of one pony.

The tribes near the northern coast most addicted to raiding appear to be the Jibril Abokr sub-tribe of the Habr Awal, the Mahamud Gerád Dolbahanta, and the Eidegalla, Habr Gerhajis. Late caravans, going into the interior in the beginning of Gu by the Mandeira route, are liable to be raided by the Jibril Abokr, parties of whom come from Arabsíyo, by Argán, to the low Assa Range, an extensive tract of broken country, and there wait for several days together on the chance of catching caravans on their way through the Murgo and Jeráto Passes. The time is chosen when the Esa Musa and Habr Gerhajis are absent in Ogo and Haud searching for pasture, and have left unoccupied the stretch of country below the passes. The marauders, hiding in broken ground and deep ravines, will subsist for a long time on stolen camels, picked up here and there, until a sufficiently large caravan yields a rich harvest of camels and property, with which the robbers then decamp to their own country.

Caravans going from Berbera to Hargeisa, Milmil, and the south-west, fearful of danger, will go directly south by Sheikh, and thence round by Toyo Plain, to Hargeisa. The Sheikh Pass is also used by caravans fearing to go into the interior by the Gaha and other eastern passes, which are annually threatened by the Mahamud Gerád; but both the Sheikh and Jeráto Passes have been greatly improved, both in point of safety and practicability, by the British authorities within the last three or four years.

When water and grass are to be had for the horses, the Mahamud Gerád, Dolbahanta, and the coast section of the Habr Gerhajis organise strong mounted bands, which sweep through the Duss and Gaha Passes, and raid sometimes as far as Biyogóra and the Berbera maritime plain, carrying off everything they can steal, and retiring at once. They often make raids in the Waredad Plain above the Huguf Pass in the Habr Toljaala country, and few are the caravans which have the hardihood to come through this country by the Haliélo route. In fact, the Mahamud Gerád raids from the east, across the caravan routes to the Ogádén and Marehán countries, do immense harm to the Berbera trade.

In the Dolbahanta country we found many natives with hides piled in their karias ready to be taken to Berbera, but fearing to risk them on the road. One caravan took advantage of the protection afforded by our escort to pass through the disturbed Bur Dab district. That caravans have persisted in crossing the country at all in face of the dangers to which they have always been exposed, speaks well for the value of Berbera as a port, and for the trading enterprise of the Somális. The British system of furnishing armed “biladiers”[12] for the protection and at the expense of caravans has given great encouragement to trade.

Men of caravans on meeting in the jungle will halt to exchange the news, and with one’s own caravan it is difficult to make a guide pass his own karias. I have often been led five or six miles out of my way because the guide’s karia lay in that direction. His ambition is to bring the caravan to his home, to show off his own importance to his relations, and to be able to play the host with a liberal distribution of his master’s presents. On the march our men have constantly shared their allowance of food with strangers who have been going our way, and we have sometimes been astonished, when loading up at dawn, to see half a dozen natives warming their spears over the dying embers of our watch-fires, who have turned up in the night from no one knows where. In many cases these are women, and being industrious, they save the men a good deal of work.

Somehow or other there is nearly always a woman or two in camp, generally young, pretty, and respectable, with the hair enclosed in the regulation dark blue bag, denoting that she is married. When I ask where she has sprung from I always hear, “Oh, one of Mahomed’s cousins,” or “Jáma’s sister.” Generally “Jáma’s sister” was going to a karia on ahead, to see about a stolen sheep. These relatives are always quiet, cheerful, and thrifty, eating little and doing the work of two men, besides inducing half a dozen youngsters to work harder at camel-loading to show off their muscles. They appear whenever we come to a karia, and disappear mysteriously at another farther on, just as passengers get into a train at one station and leave it at another. Often my men have told me that the new-comers were people who had been waiting to make a journey, but, fearing to do so till we came by, they had joined us for the sake of our protection, working for us in return.

Sometimes I have been standing over a fire in the cold wind an hour before dawn, waiting for the cook to bring me my cup of coffee, without which I never march, when a youth, whom I have never seen before, has put down his shield and spears on the grass, and going to my bedding, has brought my ulster, saying, “Oh, Sircal![13] here is your coat,” in the most natural way, as if I had paid him for a month.

It is wonderful how quickly these strangers worm themselves into one’s service. An unlicked cub of a karia dandy comes up with shield and spear and joins your caravan. In a few days he has shown some special qualification, for tracking or camel-loading, for helping the cook, or carrying the theodolite. An accident deprives you of one of your men, and he receives the sick man’s rifle and cartridge belt, and is numbered among your escort. In a fortnight he has come to the front as one of your best men, and on the next expedition he may be head camelman, and perhaps on a third or fourth he may be interpreter and caravan leader. When he first joined you a year before he knew no language but Somáli and a little Arabic, but while in your service he has picked up a fair amount of Hindustáni. A few years later you meet him again as a merchant, who has in the interim accompanied half a dozen European sportsmen on shooting trips, and has now invested his savings in merchandise, trading with tribes which he would never have dared to visit except in the service of his white masters. Many a time have I wished that I could transform the complacent, shaven-headed, sleek-looking scoundrel back into the original unsophisticated cub with the well-oiled mop of hair who came into my camp two or three years before!