Resuming Our March At 5 P.M., We Travelled Over Ascending Ground Which
Must Be Most Fertile After Rain:
Formerly it belonged to the Girhi, and
the Gudabirsi boasted loudly of their conquest.
After an hour's march we
reached the base of Koralay, upon whose lower slopes appeared a pair of
the antelopes called Alakud [33]: they are tame, easily shot, and eagerly
eaten by the Bedouins. Another hour of slow travelling brought us to a
broad Fiumara with high banks of stiff clay thickly wooded and showing a
water-mark eighteen feet above the sand. The guides named these wells
Agjogsi, probably a generic term signifying that water is standing close
by. Crossing the Fiumara we ascended a hill, and found upon the summit a
large kraal alive with heads of kine. The inhabitants flocked out to stare
at us and the women uttered cries of wonder. I advanced towards the
prettiest, and fired my rifle by way of salute over her head. The people
delighted, exclaimed, Mod! Mod!--"Honor to thee!"--and we replied with
shouts of Kulliban--"May Heaven aid ye!" [34] At 5 P.M., after five miles'
march, the camels were unloaded in a deserted kraal whose high fence
denoted danger of wild beasts. The cowherds bade us beware of lions: but a
day before a girl had been dragged out of her hut, and Moslem burial could
be given to only one of her legs. A Bedouin named Uddao, whom we hired as
mule-keeper, was ordered to spend the night singing, and, as is customary
with Somali watchmen, to address and answer himself dialogue-wise with a
different voice, in order to persuade thieves that several men are on the
alert.
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