After The Monsoon This Plain Is Covered With Rich Grass.

At other seasons it affords but a scanty supply of an "aqueous matter" resembling bilgewater.

The land belongs to the Mummasan clan of the Eesa: how these "Kurrah-jog" or "sun-dwellers," as the Bedouins are called by the burgher Somal, can exist here in summer, is a mystery. My arms were peeled even in the month of December; and my companions, panting with the heat, like the Atlantes of Herodotus, poured forth reproaches upon the rising sun. The townspeople, when forced to hurry across it in the hotter season, cover themselves during the day with Tobes wetted every half hour in sea water; yet they are sometimes killed by the fatal thirst which the Simum engenders. Even the Bedouins are now longing for rain; a few weeks' drought destroys half their herds.

Early in the afternoon our Abban and a woman halted for a few minutes, performed their ablutions, and prayed with a certain display: satisfied apparently, with the result, they never repeated the exercise. About sunset we passed, on the right, clumps of trees overgrowing a water called "Warabod", the Hyena's Well; this is the first Marhalah or halting-place usually made by travellers to the interior. Hence there is a direct path leading south-south-west, by six short marches, to the hills. Our Abban, however, was determined that we should not so easily escape his kraal. Half an hour afterwards we passed by the second station, "Hangagarri", a well near the sea:

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