Remounting, Under The Guidance Of The Donkey, We Resumed Our East-Ward
Course.
He was communicative even for a Somali, and began by pointing out,
on the right of the road, the ruins of a stone-building, called, as
customary in these countries, a fort.
Beyond it we came to a kraal, whence
all the inhabitants issued with shouts and cries for tobacco. Three
o'clock P.M. brought us to a broad Fiumara choked with the thickest and
most tangled vegetation: we were shown some curious old Galla wells, deep
holes about twenty feet in diameter, excavated in the rock; some were dry,
others overgrown with huge creepers, and one only supplied us with
tolerable water. The Gudabirsi tribe received them from the Girhi in lieu
of blood-money: beyond this watercourse, the ground belongs to the Rer
Yunis Jibril, a powerful clan of the Habr Awal, and the hills are thickly
studded with thorn-fence and kraal.
Without returning the salutations of the Bedouins, who loudly summoned us
to stop and give them the news, we trotted forwards in search of a
deserted sheep-fold. At sunset we passed, upon an eminence on our left,
the ruins of an ancient settlement, called after its patron Saint, Ao
Barhe: and both sides of the mountain road were flanked by tracts of
prairie-land, beautifully purpling in the evening air. After a ride of
thirty-five miles, we arrived at a large fold, where, by removing the
inner thorn-fences, we found fresh grass for our starving beasts.
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