Ostriches (Goreiyu) are occasionally seen in level plains all over the country, especially where the bush is not very thick. They are only numerous in the open prairies. They are terribly shy, and the best rifle to take in hand on seeing an ostrich is the Lee-Metford. As a rule they are seen running along at a great pace at a distance of between eight hundred yards and a mile away, having seen the human beings first. Or they stand perfectly still, with their bodies under cover and their small heads looking over the top of a bush if there is one to be found. In all our journeys my brother and I only succeeded in shooting one cock ostrich each.
Speke’s Gazelle ♂ (Gazella spekei).
Length of horns on curve, 11¾ inches.
In 1891, on the plain south of the Miríya Pass, my brother and I witnessed an instance of the manner in which Midgáns hunt the ostrich. We saw an ostrich and its half-grown chick walking over the bare plain, followed by an unladen camel, behind which were stalking the Midgáns. They said that they had been after the birds since the morning of the day before, and having already killed the female, hoped to get the male bird then or on the following day, and if successful they would catch and rear up the young one. Ostriches are said to be often shot by following them on horseback, the riders being placed in relays along the probable line of flight. They are kept moving by day to prevent their feeding, for they cannot see to move or feed by night, so that in a few days they become weak and are thus easily ridden down. Midgáns often keep a few of them tame, no doubt mostly caught when very young, but I have never seen ostrich farming on a large scale in Somáliland.
The spotted hyæna (Warába) is very common, and the striped hyæna (Didar) rather rare. There is a wild dog called Yei, which the natives say hunts in packs, but I have never seen one. Spotted hyænas prowl round the zeríba of the traveller every night, looking for scraps of meat. I have had goats carried off by them when tethered to the zeríba. Among the karias they sometimes carry off children and kill women, and men found asleep by them alone in the bush are often attacked, the face being nearly always seized and a large piece torn away. So voracious is the hyæna that it often pulls off the tail of a camel or the udder of a cow.
Crocodiles (Jaház) swarm in the Webbe Shabéleh river. There are a few schools of hippopotami (Jér) one of which had its usual abode near Sen Morettu, but I failed to find it, only coming upon the fresh tracks.
There are giraffes (Giri or Halgiri) in the Aulihán country, three days from Burka on the Webbe, but I gave them up for the chance of going to the Arussi Gállas.[55] This differs from the South African giraffe in its markings. The South African form is more spotted; the Somáli form has lighter markings, and the patches of colour are divided into more hexagonal and sexagonal shapes, as pointed out in a letter to the Field by Mr. Rowland Ward in February 1894, who there gave a description of the first one shot in Somáliland by Major C. E. W. Wood.
While on the Webbe I was informed that four buffalo (Jámus), all bulls, had strayed from the Geriré Gálla country through eighty miles of bush, and had taken up their abode in the forest on the Webbe banks at Sen Morettu, four years before my visit to that spot. My informant, a Gilimiss Somáli, told me that his father had killed two of them two years before with poisoned arrows, and that two remained. I found their fresh tracks, the first I had ever seen, and tried very hard for a whole day to get a sight of them. We put them up eight times at a few yards’ distance in the fearfully dense forest without once seeing them, and when we organised a drive next day they broke through the line of beaters and got away, making for the distant Gálla hills. These are the only buffalo I ever heard of in Somáliland. They are said by the Gállas to be plentiful on the Webbe Wéb, a tributary of the Juba, four days distant from Karanleh.
Baboons (Dáyer) are occasionally seen in the rocks round the river-beds, especially in different parts of Guban. My first meeting with these animals was an interesting experience. It was when on my first surveying expedition, and while encamped at Aleyaláleh on the Issutugan river, with an escort of Indian cavalry and mounted police, that I first saw baboons. At this spot the river cuts deeply into a plateau, forming a gully two or three hundred feet deep. A troop of some two hundred baboons came down towards evening from the cliffs, on their way to drink at the stream. Several of the old males were nearly as large as retriever dogs, and had handsome gray manes, which at dusk gave them the appearance of lions. There were several females carrying young ones on their backs, and as the long strings of baboons climbed along the narrow ledges, they kept up a hoarse barking which sounded very like language, and could be heard from a great distance echoing among the hills. They are savage brutes, and take up positions as if to dispute the passage of any one climbing the cliffs; and I have no doubt, with his long teeth and great strength, one of the old males could kill an unarmed man if so disposed.