The Ground Of The Valley Is A Stiff Clay,
Sprinkled With Pebbles Of Primitive Formation:
The hills are mere rocks,
and the torrent banks with strata of small stones, showed a watermark
varying from ten to fifteen feet in height:
In these Fiumaras we saw
frequent traces of the Edler-game, deer and hog. At 1 P.M. our camels and
mules were watered at wells in a broad wady called Jannah-Gaban or the
Little Garden; its course, I was told, lies northwards through the
Harawwah Valley to the Odla and Waruf, two depressions in the Wayma
country near Tajurrah. About half an hour afterwards we arrived at a
deserted sheepfold distant six miles from our last station. After
unloading we repaired to a neighbouring well, and found the water so hard
that it raised lumps like nettle stings in the bather's skin. The only
remedy for the evil is an unguent of oil or butter, a precaution which
should never be neglected by the African traveller. At first the sensation
of grease annoys, after a few days it is forgotten, and at last the "pat
of butter" is expected as pleasantly as the pipe or the cup of coffee. It
prevents the skin from chaps and sores, obviates the evil effects of heat,
cold, and wet, and neutralises the Proteus-like malaria poison. The Somal
never fail to anoint themselves when they can afford ghee, and the Bedouin
is at the summit of his bliss, when sitting in the blazing sun, or,--heat
acts upon these people as upon serpents,--with his back opposite a roaring
fire, he is being smeared, rubbed, and kneaded by a companion.
My guides, fearing lions and hyenas, would pass the night inside a foul
sheepfold: I was not without difficulty persuaded to join them. At eight
next morning we set out through an uninteresting thorn-bush towards one of
those Tetes or isolated hills which form admirable bench-marks in the
Somali country. "Koralay," a terra corresponding with our Saddle-back,
exactly describes its shape: pommel and crupper, in the shape of two huge
granite boulders, were all complete, and between them was a depression for
a seat. As day advanced the temperature changed from 50° to a maximum of
121°. After marching about five miles, we halted in a broad watercourse
called Gallajab, the "Plentiful Water": there we bathed, and dined on an
excellent camel which had broken its leg by falling from a bank.
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. He was a spectacle of wildness as he sat before the blazing fire,--
his joy by day, his companion and protector in the shades, the only step
made by him in advance of his brethren the Cynocephali.
We were detained four days at Agjogsi by the nonappearance of the Gerad
Adan: this delay gave me an opportunity of ascending to the summit of
Koralay the Saddleback, which lay about a mile north of our encampment. As
we threaded the rocks and hollows of the side we came upon dens strewed
with cows' bones, and proving by a fresh taint that the tenants had lately
quitted them. In this country the lion is seldom seen unless surprised
asleep in his lair of thicket: during my journey, although at times the
roaring was heard all night, I saw but one. The people have a superstition
that the king of beasts will not attack a single traveller, because such a
person, they say, slew the mother of all the lions: except in darkness or
during violent storms, which excite the fiercer carnivors, he is a timid
animal, much less feared by the people than the angry and agile leopard.
Unable to run with rapidity when pressed by hunger, he pursues a party of
travellers stealthily as a cat, and, arrived within distance, springs,
strikes down the hindermost, and carries him away to the bush.
From the summit of Koralay, we had a fair view of the surrounding country.
At least forty kraals, many of them deserted, lay within the range of
sight. On all sides except the north-west and south-east was a mass of
sombre rock and granite hill: the course of the valleys between the
several ranges was denoted by a lively green, and the plains scattered in
patches over the landscape shone with dull yellow, the effect of clay and
stubble, whilst a light mist encased the prospect in a circlet of blue and
silver.
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