Marching into Jig-Jiga on the side of rising ground, opposite the Abyssinian stockaded earthwork, I was promptly visited by a Shúm, or petty officer, and twenty Abyssinian soldiers, who all carried sabres and Remington rifles. Rumours were afloat that the Abyssinian leader, Banagúsé, having heard that an English force was marching up to take Jig-Jiga, was bringing an army against me from his place at Gojar in the hills. The Bertiri said that the soldiers at Jig-Jiga had been on the point of leaving in a fright, but that we had come unexpectedly early in the day, and so caught them in the stockade.

I sat up for a panther in the evening, in a wretched shelter, when it was pitch dark; and a spotted hyæna charged my goat and took it away from under my very nose; but the light was too bad for me to fire, and I returned much disgusted to camp, picking my way home in the dark.

At midnight my caravan leader, Adan Yusuf, woke me up to say that he had received news that Banagúsé was coming to-morrow with two hundred soldiers, and had sent for a reinforcement of two hundred more; and that Banagúsé had said to his people that he would arrest me, whoever I was, and find out the reason of my coming afterwards.

Accordingly, next morning Banagúsé marched into the Jig-Jiga Valley with the large escort of nearly four hundred horse and foot, armed chiefly with Remington rifles. The force was one of organised troops, so far as the Abyssinian military system goes, and the rifles were superior to the Snider carbines of my escort. I watched them for many miles as they advanced over the plain, by the aid of a large astronomical telescope, which we set up on a tripod in camp. The force halted outside the Abyssinian zeríba, eight hundred yards from my camp, a dip of open grass-land, forming the Jig-Jiga Valley, lying between us. Banagúsé went into the zeríba, the bulk of the soldiers squatting down outside, gossiping and holding the horses of those Abyssinian chiefs who had been mounted.

Soon Banagúsé’s headman or Shúm, Abadigal, came spurring across the valley to my camp, mounted on a beautiful gray Abyssinian mare, with a message to the effect that the great man was “at home” in the zeríba, and that he had sent for me. Remembering what had been told me of Banagúsé’s intention to arrest me, I sent back Abadigal to say I would meet Banagúsé half-way if he would go into the valley with a few men only; and I pointed out a conspicuous red ant-hill where we might meet. Abadigal soon returned, saying his master expected me to go to the zeríba, and that he would wait for me there.

Mounting my Arabian trotting camel, and followed by all my nineteen men, leaving only one sentry in camp, I rode out to the ant-hill, and sat there for ten minutes; but Banagúsé not arriving, being tired of the hot sun, I trotted back again; and on Abadigal coming on one of his frequent errands across the valley, I sent him to tell Banagúsé that he might go back to Harar if he liked, but that I should stop where I was, and unless he behaved civilly I would prefer not seeing him at all; moreover, I warned him that my men were few, and that if he brought his crowd with him to my camp I should take it as a hostile act, but that if he came with only a small party I should be glad to welcome him, and give him a reception befitting a man of such rank.

I waited another half-hour, and then I saw through the telescope that the people squatting round the zeríba began to stir, and Banagúsé and his chiefs came out and formed the whole force into a long line facing my camp. The chief mounted, and the line began to cross the valley in my direction; and very picturesque they looked. I longed for a shot at them with my “Ideal” hand camera, but not anticipating such a subject I had put in no plates the night before. As they got nearer I could see the silver-mounted shields and black sheepskin capes of the men, and the rich trappings of the horses, some of the bridles being hung with rows of silver dollars, glittering in the sun. Banagúsé rode in the centre on a white horse, and the line was an irregular formation about two or three deep. On my right a large crowd of Bertiri Somáli horsemen had assembled to watch the expected disturbance, and the whole picture was one of the brightest and most exciting I have ever seen in Somáliland.

I was determined that if Banagúsé wanted to arrest me he would have to use force; and I knew he could not do this because, after the attempted arrest of my brother and myself at Gildessa the year before, Rás Makunan had given strict orders to his frontier generals to treat British travellers with courtesy; so on the whole I decided that if in the game of “bluff” I preserved a tolerably firm attitude, Banagúsé would simply have to give in, and my expedition to Ogádén would be saved from failure.

Calling my men, twenty in all, and forming them into an irregular line, I went out on foot into the valley to meet Banagúsé, hoping devoutly that he would halt his people and come on with two or three in a proper manner. But the Abyssinians continued to advance! I was intensely annoyed that Banagúsé should insist on bluffing, and we all determined not to give in. A few seconds only would decide the matter now, as the array had come to within a hundred and twenty yards, and was every moment getting nearer. I now ordered my men to lie down, and advancing with two of them I waved to Banagúsé to come forward to meet me, and to halt his people. My signs being taken no notice of I blew a whistle, and the men ran up and formed round me into a rallying group, outer circle kneeling and inner circle standing, and a cartridge was shoved into the breech of every rifle. Several of the Abyssinians dropped down ready to fire at a word from their chief, and my Somális made ready, on the order, to aim at the little man on the white horse, riding in the middle of the throng.

Banagúsé wheeled his horse quickly and addressed his people. He had at last been beaten in the game, and a wave passed along the opposing line which we had been watching with such concentrated interest, and they all sat down. Banagúsé trotted forward on his white horse, followed by Abadigal and two others, and I walked towards him with my interpreter, Adan Yusuf, and two men. Banagúsé took the sheepskins from the shoulders of the two soldiers and spread them on the ground; and we sat down side by side on the open plain, near my original ant-hill, the dark Abyssinian force being eighty yards in front, and my camelmen ten yards behind; and about a hundred Bertiri horsemen, sitting in the saddle, formed a picturesque group on my right.

Banagúsé complimented me on my military movements, and asked the reason of them. I asked why he had advanced with all his force, against my wish, distinctly made known to him through Abadigal. “Oh!” he said, “this crowd was brought in your honour; it is the custom.” So, not to be behind him with a soft answer, I said, “This is also an English custom, to do you honour;” and so we parted, shaking hands; and I marched back my own men to my camp, and Banagúsé crossed the valley to his zeríba, followed by his little army.

In the afternoon an Abyssinian named Gabratagli came to me with a small escort, having just arrived from Daríma, a village in the Highlands about a day’s march distant. He was an agent of Menelek, and had been appointed to inspect routes and regulate caravan fees. He reported that Rás Makunan had just arrived at Harar after his visit to Shoa, but had not yet had time to hear of my coming. Gabratagli had, however, heard of it, and had come in haste from Daríma to bid me welcome to the country on his own responsibility, as he knew of my correspondence with the Rás at Gildessa last year, and of Makunan’s wish to know British officers. Gabratagli behaved with great courtesy, and assured me that Rás Makunan would be delighted to hear that I had come at last. He said that the people on the frontier were all mad, and suspicious of the English, but that now he had come all would go well with me. Gabratagli and his friends finished my small stock of whisky and cigarettes; and cheered by the comforts of my table, they became very friendly and communicative.

It appears that Banagúsé is a Taurari or “general commanding the advance guard.”[36] He is in some ways an able man, and is setting up a place for himself at the advanced post of Gojar under Gureis Mountain, just inside the Harar Highlands; and it is said he wishes to found another Harar there. He has the reputation of being disobedient to his superiors and tyrannical to the Géri and Bertiri Somális. He is unpopular in Somáliland, and, if all reports are true, he is not likely to forward British interests. He is the worst of those who extract cattle from Somáliland without paying, under the pretence of collecting tribute for the Emperor; he has made many requisitions on the Habr Awal tribe, which is under British protection; and, moreover, his raids on the Ogádén cattle are likely to damage our meat-supply at Aden in the near future.

According to a story which I have heard on fairly good authority, Banagúsé’s history is as follows:—A few years back, in Shoa, he somehow incurred the displeasure of the Emperor Menelek, and the latter ordered that he should be disgraced and punished. When the Abyssinians took Harar, Banagúsé so distinguished himself that Rás Makunan gave him charge of Jarso District, in which lies the village of Gojar, commanding the Hilindéra Pass; and the fort of Jig-Jiga, commanding the Karin Marda Pass, both of which lead from Berbera and Hargeisa to Harar; he appears, however, to have done nothing for the country, taking quantities of horses and cattle away to feed the troops, and exacting double road fees from Berbera caravans. The Emperor Menelek, who had in the meantime almost forgotten Banagúsé’s existence, hearing the Somáli complaints, sent Gabratagli to Daríma to check the caravan fees; so naturally the two officials were not exactly friends.

Gabratagli was a cheery old man, wearing a tobe, a pair of white calico drawers, and an immense straw hat. He kept a piece of calico soaked in butter over his shaven skull, under his hat, “to keep his head cool,” as he said he was a martyr to neuralgia. He rode a white mule, and had an athletic soldier, dressed in calico drawers, constantly at hand with his drinking-cup and a mysterious bottle, which did not contain water. I took a great liking to this old man.

Gabratagli had travelled much, and had often visited Aden; and he asked me concerning the health of English officers whom he had met many years before, whose names I had never heard; and on my admitting this, he remarked, “If you don’t remember these you must be very young.” Before he left my camp he sent a mounted messenger to Harar with a letter from me to the Rás, and he asked me to stay at Jig-Jiga for three or four days till the answer should have had time to arrive.

It was not till nearly sunset that Banagúsé came over, bringing his whole force across the valley to my camp. I fired a salute as he came in, my men being very pleased, and thinking themselves great soldiers after the morning’s display. I insisted on his halting his people two hundred yards from camp, and bringing only twenty men with him; and to show him that I did not like his methods, I ordered my men to squat down in a circle round the door of my reception tent, and leading Banagúsé and a few chiefs through a lane of my men, I sat down among them with my loaded rifle leaning against a chair and my revolver on. The few soldiers whom Banagúsé brought with him were allowed to wander about the camp at will, one sentry keeping a watchful eye over them. They treat their long Remington rifles shamefully, leaning on them with the muzzles half buried in the earth. Their custom is to keep these rifles loaded while on the Somáli frontier, but not, I believe, in Harar.

I found Banagúsé very intelligent, and his features are well cut and regular, very unlike those of the coarse-featured soldiers. I noticed the Somális have much better features than the Abyssinian soldiers, and smaller hands and feet. I should think Banagúsé must have Arab blood in his veins; although polite, he was not at all disposed to be friendly to me; he knew that I had taken photographs of his stockade on my last visit while he was away, and complained of him to the British Government.

There was a report in my camp that the force he had collected at Gojar was getting ready to attack an Italian who was said to have settled down on the Milmil-Imé route at Sassamani, in Ogádén. At the time I thought of Prince Ruspoli, but subsequently found that the object of the attack, which never came off, was to have been Colonel Paget, who had, I afterwards heard, with great justice restored some looted camels to the Ogádén while on a shooting trip in their country.

During my interview with Banagúsé, Mahomed Ahmed, the poor Gerád or sultan of the Bertiri Somális, sat in my tent looking dejected and never daring to utter a word; it appears his dignity had suffered at the hands of the Abyssinians during the last few months, he being obliged to “trot about like a dog” between the karias to fetch cows for the soldiers to eat. The Gerád was slightly built, and had the intelligent face and well-cut features of the best kind of Somáli, a great contrast to the coarse-featured soldiers who were allowed to hector over him. Despite his old, worn-out tobe he still looked dignified. Before the arrival of these Abyssinians, who came into the Bertiri country like a swarm of locusts when they took Harar, the Gerád had been a man of some repute. But the Abyssinians took away all his power, and he is now of little consequence.

My intercourse with Banagúsé depended on several interpreters; he spoke Amháric to Gabratagli, who passed it on to my interpreter, Adan Yusuf, in Arabic, and the latter translated into Hindustáni for my benefit. By the time a sentence reached me Banagúsé was thinking of something else, so we did not make much progress.

The Abyssinians preferred tea to coffee; and I noticed Banagúsé rather craned at his cup, and handed it to a friend first, suspecting poison. But my headman, Adan Yusuf, full of tact, said quietly, “Mafish khoff” (No fear), and giving a short laugh, he took a long draught from the cup, and filled it again for the great man.

On 9th March, in the early morning, Banagúsé sent over Abadigal to say he was leaving for Gojar, and requesting that I would visit him in the stockade; so posting a sentry in camp I took nineteen of the men in line, rode across the valley, and drew up at the Abyssinian zeríba. Leaving most of the men outside I entered with four, passing a sentry who saluted me by presenting arms in Abyssinian fashion; and walking across the zeríba, I entered Banagúsé’s hut. Here I found his notables assembled, all seated on the ground. I was invited to take my place on a raised platform with Banagúsé, while Adan Yusuf and the other interpreters squatted in front. Banagúsé was polite, but having little to say, he left Gabratagli to do all the talking.

After a somewhat embarrassing leave-taking I trotted back to camp on my camel, and Banagúsé issued from the stockade; and, followed by his army, he marched over the plain towards Gojar; and looking with my telescope from camp an hour later, I made them out in the far distance, and it was pleasant to have seen the last of them.

I was glad to halt at Jig-Jiga for a few days, as the plains were dotted all over with game. My men were a thoroughly good lot of fellows, and I was particularly pleased with the way in which they had enabled me to show a bold front to Banagúsé.

One day I went out into the plains with three or four men, and found immense herds of hartebeests and Sœmmering’s gazelles; but the day being windy, they were very shy. The gazelles were always galloping about and starting the masses of oryx and hartebeests. They would draw up in front of the larger game, appearing to know that I did not want to fire at them, sometimes giving me very easy chances. At last, seeing no chance of the larger game, and being in want of meat, I shot two Sœmmering’s gazelles right and left, one a very good buck with a thick winter coat; and on the way to camp I saw a bull hartebeest standing, as he thought, out of range, some four hundred yards away, so I lay prone and brought him down with a careful shot from the Martini-Henry.

Returning to camp, I found messengers from one Farur Gerád Hirsi, a relation of the Bertiri Sultán, who was at his karia two miles away, and had “pains all over his body,” so he had sent his sons to call me. I gave him twenty drops of chlorodyne and half a dozen quinine pills, one to be taken daily. I was received with great enthusiasm by a crowd of some two hundred of his womenfolk and male relations, all calling out “Nabad” (Welcome). The Gerád said he would have had himself carried to my camp, but not while the hated Abyssinians remained there. The elders flocked around me to lay complaints before me of the treatment they had received from the Abyssinian invaders. They said that Banagúsé was lazy, and did not administer the country a bit; that he and his mob were neither good at fighting nor governing, and that the only thing they could do was bullying the karias for the extraction of cattle, which his soldiers eat raw. The Gerád told me that ten cows were taken last month from his karia alone. Another man, Ibrahim Gúri (Rer Ali), lost seventy-six camels, two hundred sheep, and five huts in one day; and he and his wife were arrested and taken away by the Abyssinians towards Harar. These are samples of the arbitrary behaviour of frontier officials.

At night I returned to my camp from the Gerád’s karia, across torrent beds and wait-a-bit thorns, and learnt the lesson that it is much better to cross one deep ravine low down than the twenty or more tributary ravines from which it is formed. We got to camp at last, relieved in our minds, because the presence of a man-eating lion in this neighbourhood had made us feel rather uncomfortable when stumbling about amongst the ravines in the darkness of the night.

Next morning I sent a haunch of venison to Gabratagli, done up with clean white foolscap paper pinned round it, with a pencil memorandum in English conveying my compliments, as it seemed to me it would do no harm to be polite. My armed Somáli camelman who took it seemed to think it a great joke, and trotted across the half mile of valley to the Abyssinian zeríba in pouring rain, singing cheerfully; and he returned saying my friend was delighted, but, my Somáli asked, “Why did I waste my good venison on such pigs?”

At midday on the 11th came news that Rás Makunan had returned to Harar from Shoa; and at eight o’clock at night Gabratagli sent over the Rás’s letter, with an interpreter. The Rás expressed himself very pleased that I had carried out my promise, made last year, to visit him, and hoped I would come at once, adding that Gabratagli had received orders to make all arrangements for my coming.

On the 13th March we left Jig-Jiga and crossed the plains to Hádo, just inside the Harar Hills; and we camped at Abadigal’s own village. We had now left the Marar Prairie, inhabited by Somáli nomads, and had crossed the border of the Harar Hills, descending by the Marda Pass into undulating country occupied by the cultivating Géri and Bertiri, whose permanent villages are clustered about everywhere, and are controlled by Abyssinian magistrates, whose title is Shúm.

The Shúm who was my host was Abadigal, Banagúsé’s right-hand man, whom I had seen lately at Jig-Jiga; he was a good fellow, broad-shouldered and good-natured, and looked very imposing in his military dress, with a black sheepskin cape and a long curved sabre; and although the Bertiri villagers detest the Abyssinian occupation as a principle, Abadigal enjoys the personal respect of those under him.

The pass by which we entered the mountains is called Karin Marda, and is very prettily wooded, the road having a greatest elevation of about six thousand five hundred feet above sea-level. A great change came over the landscape as we topped the pass. Behind us lay a thickly-wooded slope descending to the immense Marar Prairie, covered generally with short grass without a single bush, which is a thousand square miles in area, and has a greatest length of fifty miles and a greatest breadth of thirty-six miles, with a mean elevation of five thousand five hundred feet above sea-level. In front of us, at our feet, the road wound through picturesque forest for half a mile, and then the whole face of the country was covered with jowári cultivation and clusters of substantial villages. Beyond, to the south-west, rose ridge upon ridge of blue hills and deep valleys, among which, some forty miles away, lay the city of Harar. To the right towered the tremendous mass of Kondurá (or Kondudo) to about ten thousand feet, and beyond Harar a similar mass, called Gara Muláta, shut out the view to the west.

At this season we found the signs of cultivation to consist only of old stubble; the land was being ploughed up to receive the new seed, the dry season being nearly at an end and the monsoon rains expected shortly.[37] Everywhere, in pairs or singly, oxen were drawing the primitive Bertiri plough, and the country had a peaceful look after the thorn forests and open grass plains of the nomad Somális, where sheep and camel paths, and zeríbas, had been almost the only evidences of human occupation.

The Shúm kindly gave me his house, a very substantial dwelling fifteen feet high and eighteen feet in diameter, made in a circular form, of stout saplings and jowári stalks, with a beehive-shaped roof of the same material, covered by ten inches of neat layers of thatched grass; and altogether it formed as clean, well-built, and comfortable a dwelling, for the climate, as one could wish. As we got intensely cold night winds at this elevation (five thousand five hundred feet), I was glad indeed to exchange my “Cabul” tent for Abadigal’s hut. The state of the thermometer, which sometimes can go down to 49° and 50° Fahr. in the early mornings, does not accurately describe the cutting nature of a Somáli night wind, the more keenly felt when one has been travelling all day under a burning Jilál sun.

An Abyssinian soldier brought me a present of fifteen fresh hen’s eggs; I offered payment, but he refused, saying that eggs were of no value, and a great many good ones were daily thrown away as refuse. Somalis do not keep fowls, so I was delighted at the change of food.

Mahomed Ahmed, the Gerád of the Bertiri tribe, visited me at Abadigal’s hut, with the same old story; he said that the Bertiri wished for the arrival of anybody in European shape who would administer the country and save them from the Abyssinians. He said, as an inducement, that any Europeans taking over the country would make plenty of money; he added that ever since I had come to Jig-Jiga he had been kept on the run, carrying messages to various villages many miles away, or looking for cattle, because the Abyssinians wanted to prevent his coming to me. He had crept to my hut stealthily by night; and of course I warned him of the danger he exposed himself to. He said that my arrival threw the Jig-Jiga garrison into a great state of alarm. My friends the Bertiri, I found, loving to make mischief, had magnified my difficulties with Banagúsé into a great British victory over the Abyssinians! I believe that half the Abyssinian suspicion of English designs on the frontier is due to Somáli gossip.

We set out from Hádo at daylight, and leaving cultivation after an hour, we descended by a road, bad for camels, into the beautiful valley of Helmók, camping by the margin of a running stream. This valley, which leads into the Tug Fáfan to the south-east, is covered with forest and dense undergrowth, where the latter has not been burnt off by jungle fires. It has been a favourite resort of elephants and rhinoceroses, but since the Abyssinians came to Harar their numbers have diminished, and we only saw the track of one bull rhinoceros, which had come to drink at the stream two nights before.

Marching from Helmók in the afternoon, we arrived at the village of Kanyasmatch Basha-Basha, which lies on the saddle between two very remarkable hills called Eilalami, the village itself being called Bakaka. To the west of the Eilalami ridge is Feyambiro, and to the east is Bursúm.

The country between Helmók stream and the Eilalami ridge is a beautiful, well-watered valley, covered with forest, uncultivated and used as pasture by the Géri and Bertiri flocks at the proper season. The ascent to the saddle on which Bakaka village stood was steep for camels, and we wound through this large village after dark, threading our way through a crowd of Abyssinian, Gálla, and Harari villagers, and yelping pariah dogs, till we reached Basha-Basha’s house.

The rank of Kanyasmatch may be described as that of General commanding the right wing of an Abyssinian army. Fi Taurari Banagúsé and Kanyasmatch Basha-Basha are the two commanders who respectively lead the Abyssinian advance into the Bertiri and Habr Awal countries to the north, and the Ogádén to the east.

I was led into a large stockaded enclosure behind Basha-Basha’s house, where a tent had been prepared for me. This tent was fourteen feet in diameter across the floor and of bell shape, with perpendicular walls seven feet high hanging to the ground all round. The centre pole was twelve feet high, of male bamboo grown, I think, in Abyssinia, and the material of the tent was a single thickness of American shirting. We had to wait outside a while, among a crowd of gaping villagers and dogs, while the tent was being prepared with carpets for my reception. On entering it I met Basha-Basha, who welcomed me to his village. He was a little man, sparely built, and had lost his left eye. He had an abrupt, peremptory way of talking, but he was said to be very popular and to have a great reputation for straightforwardness, being kind to his inferiors and “very terrible in war.” Fortunately I had not to test his fighting powers, but I found him everything that could be wished for as a host, and he impressed me more favourably than any of the Abyssinians whom I had met. He apologised for not being in his dress of ceremony on the ground that he was in mourning; but next day he very kindly condescended to put on his cape of lion-skin and a black velvet waistcoat covered with embroidery, to show me the costume. He admired my big-game rifles, being much delighted with the double four-bore, weighing twenty-two pounds, which he said was the right gun to kill elephants with. I heard that Basha-Basha when a child was adopted by the wife of Rás Makunan, and through this connection with the family of the Rás and his own ability he had advanced to his present post.

On the 15th I remained all day in Basha-Basha’s tent, occasionally appearing at the entrance to show myself to the crowd which had come to see me. In the evening I wanted to go for a walk, so, as an excuse, I proposed to visit Feyambiro. I had the greatest difficulty in persuading Basha-Basha and Gabratagli that I was not going to choose the site for an English fort there. They thought it most extraordinary that I should want to go for a walk, and Basha-Basha quietly ordered a detachment of soldiers to go with me! I carried out my intention, going four miles along a very uninteresting public path covered with people passing to and fro, between cultivated fields, and we came to a few huts belonging to a caravan of Berbera traders; and this, I was told, was Feyambiro, where all caravans from Somáliland unload and change to donkey transport, leaving the camels to graze at Feyambiro, as the road ahead, over the twenty-five miles to Harar, winds through deep gorges and is too rough for camels. Gabratagli asked why I should want to see Feyambiro, when I would pass it on the morrow while going to Harar. I got the exercise, but did not enjoy the trip, because I was dogged the whole way by a hundred Gálla peasants and Abyssinian soldiers.

We set out from Basha-Basha’s on the morning of the 16th March at seven o’clock. I left all the camels and camp at Feyambiro, taking on with me only my servants and a little personal baggage, the transport of mules and porters being supplied free of charge by Gabratagli. Passing over very hilly country intersected by deep gorges, we arrived at Harar at 2 P.M., being escorted for the last two or three miles by several companies of the soldiers of the Rás, in clean white dress, to the number, as I subsequently ascertained, of about a thousand.

As we arrived at the head of each company, the men presented arms in the Abyssinian way, and were marched off in front or in rear of the procession according to the place assigned to them, the whole being under the command of a Gerasmatch, or General of the Left.

Near Harar I caught sight of an European white helmet, and was met by Signor Felter, an Italian merchant, who spoke French fluently, and very kindly offered to come with me as far as Makunan’s house. Count Salimbeni and Signor Felter and another gentleman formed the Italian community at Harar at the time of my visit. The former had represented the Italian Government, but was shortly leaving for Aden.

I had an interview with the Rás at his audience-house in the centre of the town, the members of his household and leading men of Harar being present. The audience-room or shed was decorated with carpets, a raised dais at one end being reserved for the Rás; an European easy-chair or two occupied one side of the room, while the natives squatted on their heels on the carpets. The interview was short, as is the custom on first meeting, the visitor being supposed to be tired after his journey. Rás Makunan asked me a few questions about Aden. It seems that he not long ago went to Rome, where he received a decoration. He is well informed on European subjects.

After this interview I was taken to the house of Alaka Gobau Desta. He appeared to be a learned man, and his position in England would have been something similar to that of a college “Don,” though I think Alaka simply means “chief.” He spoke excellent English, and said he was a native of Gondar in Abyssinia. In the trimming of his hair and beard he called to mind pictures of Spanish gentlemen about the time of Queen Elizabeth. He was formerly in a mission at Zanzibar, where he learnt English; and he married a Goanese from India, since dead, who could paint in water-colours, and whose sketches were hanging on the walls of his house. My friend had furnished it as far as possible in the English style, and while there I enjoyed the comforts of an English lodging free of cost, besides good champagne and roast beef cooked by the wife of an Armenian who works for the Rás. I have nothing but pleasant recollections of the very graceful and kind hospitality of the Abyssinians at Harar, and of Signor Felter and his charming wife.

My baggage not arriving on the 16th, I rode out five miles, on a mule, along the road, to look for it. When it at last arrived in the evening, I found my servant Ibrahim, a Somáli boy of nineteen, had met with an accident; an angry Abyssinian, armed with a spear, had been chasing his own servant, when the latter ran to Ibrahim for protection; the aggressor turned on Ibrahim and threw his spear, and trying to ward off the blow he received the spear through the palm of his hand. It was a very bad cut, severing an important vein, so that the hand had been bleeding at intervals for nearly two days; and Ibrahim arrived in a very weak state. I complained to the Rás, and the culprit was caught and put into prison, Ibrahim receiving the small compensation of twenty-five piastres, or about three rupees. I told the police officials that all my servants had orders to use their carbines, if necessary, in self-defence, and I expressed astonishment at Ibrahim’s forbearance.

On 17th March I had a long interview with Rás Makunan, when he expressed great friendship for the British; and I conveyed to him the kind regards of General J. Jopp, C.B., Political Resident of Aden, and the Italian Consul-General Cecchi, and of other officers known to him personally or by correspondence. After the audience I met Count Salimbeni at dinner at the house of Signor Felter.

On the following day I called on M. Gabriel Guigniony, a French merchant, and Monseigneur Taurin Cahagne, officially “Vicaire Apostolique des Gálla.” He has been many years in the country, and probably knows more about Gálla history than any man living.

In the afternoon I spent a long time with the Rás, and gave him a photograph album of Indian scenes, and also a tiger skin mounted on red cloth. The Rás was very much struck with some of the photographs, which represented Indian elephants in a “khedda”; and he asked me whether he could get experts from India to try their hands at taming the African elephant.

I showed him Sir Richard Burton’s book, First Footsteps in East Africa, which contains such a graphic and true description of Harar, and in which there is a sketch of the city. Gobau Desta read Burton’s historical account of Harar to the Rás, translating as he went along; and he said it was true in every detail. I also showed the Rás my photo of two rhinoceros heads. He is said to have been a keen hunter, and he sent for my Express rifle, by Holland, and took down the number, saying he would like to order one like it to shoot lions with, as “he preferred English rifles for big game.”

I took a ride with the Italians to Jebel Hákim and round Harar; and in the evening I dined with M. Guigniony, who proved a charming host.

On the 19th I called on Count Salimbeni, and in the afternoon had another interview with the Rás. Having come to the city only as a private visitor, I was careful to steer clear of politics in our conversations. But the Rás insisted on looking on my visit as partly political, and seized the opportunity of stating his ideas, through Gobau Desta, to an English traveller. After the interview I took down notes, from Gobau Desta’s dictation, concerning Abyssinian ideas, which were read to the Rás and approved of. He particularly wished me to get them published in England.

The notes referred chiefly to Abyssinian dealings with foreigners.

It appears that during the last few years Abyssinia has imported immense quantities of breech-loading firearms, and has become, so far as the Abyssinian feudal organisation goes, a military Power; and Abyssinians are beginning to remember that once their country included parts of Yemen and the Soudán. Since Theodore’s time they have been trying to gain possession of a seaport, and now they dream of absorbing the Somáli tribes till they reach the coast, either of the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, or the Indian Ocean. They declare that they will not be content till they have full control of one of the seaports to which their merchandise goes, preferably Massáwa, Jibúti, or Zeila. They hint that now the African coast-line is being divided among the Europeans the Africans are entitled to their share. The Abyssinians say that the expeditions which annually advance farther into Ogádén are undertaken for the purpose of exacting tribute, thus establishing the Abyssinian claim to suzerainty over the Somáli tribes; and that, if possessed of one of the northern ports, their Ogádén expeditions would naturally cease.

However impracticable these ideas may sound to Europeans, they seem to me interesting as showing what are Abyssinian ambitions, and what may be the mainspring of the eastern movement which began with the absorption of Harar, formerly a buffer state between Abyssinia and the Somális.

The Abyssinians regard the European Powers with mixed feelings. They say that they are wishing for the internal improvement of their country according to European methods, and promise commercial privileges to the Power which can bring about such improvement. They are, on the other hand, shy of the word “Protectorate,” and naturally wish to be recognised for ever as an independent State. Abyssinians claim to have authority as far as the confines of the Equatorial Province, and even claim lately to have done something against the Central African slave trade.

According, therefore, to my friend’s statement, Abyssinia would appear to be the Power on whose progress the future enlightenment of Central Africa largely depends. My own hopes fall far short of this; for though enlightened and honourable Abyssinians, of whom Rás Makunan may be taken as the type, may have high ambitions, yet the ruck of the people, from the specimens of soldiers whom I saw at Harar, appear to be certainly no better than the nomad Somális, except in their possession of rifles.

The Rás was unwell on the 19th, and could not see any one. I received visits from the Archbishop and M. Guigniony. The medium of conversation with Europeans in Harar was French; curiously enough, the only person who could speak English fluently was Gobau Desta, the Abyssinian who generally acted as my interpreter with the Rás.

On 20th March I received a visit from Count Salimbeni, and after dinner I had a long farewell interview with the Rás, when he gave me the following presents:—

(1) The Rás’s photograph.

(2) The Rás’s own drinking-cup.

(3) Three other cups of buffalo and rhinoceros horn.

(4) A buffalo-hide officer’s shield decorated with silver.

(5) Two Abyssinian spears.

(6) A gray riding mule and embroidered equipment.

The mule, which was a strong, pretty, and very useful animal, was sent to Desta’s house for me, and afterwards accompanied me twice to the Webbe.

The interview of the 20th March, which was held at 8 P.M. by lamplight, was the last I had with the Rás in his house. As it was a farewell visit, he had sent for his household and elders, and I amused them by showing the various English positions in use with the match rifle, several attempting them on the floor of the audience-room.

The Rás again asked me about taming elephants, a subject which appears to have impressed him. The presents for me were laid out in front of us all amid a buzz of admiration from the courtiers. I thanked Makunan for them, and said that it would crown his kindness if he would give me a letter to his frontier generals providing for my safe passage through districts occupied by his soldiers. I had the greatest difficulty in getting this out of him, as his suspicious officers strongly advised him to put nothing on paper. By insisting, however, I at last got the letter.

On 21st March I called on Wandi, chief of police, as he had sent a message to say he was sick and unable to come to me. I found him in bed with fever.

I then had the presentation mule dressed in all its state satin embroidery, and, myself clothed in a canvas shooting hat, kháki drill coat, with a high starched collar, drill breeches, and brown leather Elcho boots, I sat on the mule and went to meet the Rás, who was leaving for Jarso on an inspection. Riding half a mile down a path, I came on the usual procession of soldiers, and found the Rás at its head. We dismounted and bade each other a final good-bye, the Rás going off to Jarso and I returning to Harar.

In the evening I rode out with the Italians to Jebel Hákim, and visited some wonderful caves in the limestone rock, which have their openings in the top of the hill. They are formed by rain-water collecting in natural pans on the open grass-covered summit and sinking into the hill, chemically eroding the limestone, and producing immense well-like chasms. This water finds its way to the surface round the base of the hill, where good water is always to be found at every mile or so. This hill overlooks Harar from a distance of about a mile.

On 22nd March I called on an Armenian and his wife who are employed by the Rás; and after saying good-bye to the Europeans I took the road to Feyambiro, with my servants and a dozen soldiers who had been told off as porters to carry my baggage. Felter and Guigniony came some distance to see me off, the latter riding a beautiful little Abyssinian horse. These horses are very pretty and graceful, but restive; in shape they resemble the Arab, and are about fourteen hands high.

My wounded servant was so weak that he had to ride on a mule. Count Salimbeni had, however, by careful treatment, stopped the bleeding and put him in a fair way to recovery, though he was still very weak.

I reached Feyambiro on the same day, being entertained by the Shúm, Basha-Gisáo; and while encamped here I had a curious adventure, probably unique in the annals of camping out. I was, as usual, sleeping on the ground inside a Cabul tent. After nightfall I was awakened by a disturbance going on outside, men running to and fro through the camp and shouting. I ran out and could see nothing at first, it being a dark night, and the only forms visible were those of my men and camels, which loomed out against the sky, and they seemed to be all rushing about wildly. At my tent door I found Adan Yusuf, who said a Bertiri bull had gone mad and had broken loose from a cattle-shed in the village, and was charging about through my camp knocking over everything in its way. It had already knocked over two men. Presently the bull rushed past me; I could just make it out, but soon lost its form among those of the running men. I jumped out of the way, and in another charge, having made a circle among the camels, he came straight back full tilt into my tent! All the men rushed for the tent, and I followed, and heard cries inside. Coming up, I saw an Abyssinian soldier run at the tent door with a drawn sword, and then there was a confused jumble of shouting men and the bellowing of the bull. Some one at last produced a torch, and a curious scene was disclosed. The bull had charged through my tent and entangled his head in the closed back of it, which had been firmly laced up; and Adan Yusuf had run in and caught him by the horns. The Abyssinian soldiers had then hamstrung him with sabre cuts and had cut his throat, so that he had fallen upon my bedding, a pool of clotted blood from his throat standing an inch high, covering my pillow, blankets, and all my kit. Taking hold of his hind leg they had then dragged him out by the front door, carrying the blankets along with him.

The curious part of the adventure was that with all this disturbance of my kit, two spring candlesticks with their glass globes, which had been rolling about under the bull’s feet, were uninjured!

On the 23rd I marched to Hado, and was again the guest of Abadigal. We then marched to Jig-Jiga, where I rejoined part of my caravan which I had left behind during the Harar visit. After waiting here for two days to reorganise my expedition, I started for the Jerer Valley on my way to Ogádén and the Webbe.