The simplest course, and one I have generally adopted, has been to go over to Berbera, stay in camp there four or five days, and to purchase camels and necessaries myself, with the assistance of the headman. If, however, more than forty camels are wanted, this may involve a delay of perhaps ten days.
When returning from the interior I have found it saves a good deal of worry to stay a few days in camp in the hills, and there pay off the bulk of the caravan with cheques on the Berbera agent. The men’s characters would be at the same time given them, and they would be told firmly that they need expect to get nothing more by coming up in Berbera. The bulk of the animals and kit would be sent down with the men, to be handed to the agent for sale by auction. Only a few necessary camels and men need be kept at the shooting camp, and during the two or three days’ halt the trophies can be prepared in bundles ready for transport by steamer, small delicate specimens going in the empty store-boxes; at the same time search-parties might be out looking for koodoo. During the Karíf wind it is pleasant in the hills, while at Berbera there are constant sand-storms, and so for half the day nothing can be done.
Both for a week before and after the expedition it is advisable to keep the headman, body servant, and cook to assist in the arrangements at Aden and Berbera. Berbera has been named as the most convenient port, but a start may also be made from Bulhár or Zeila; and the camels, if a very large number be required, may perhaps with advantage be collected simultaneously from all three places.
APPENDIX II
Physical Geography
WITH NOTES ON PRONUNCIATION AND MEANING OF NATIVE NAMES
The Somáli country occupies the triangle known as the “Horn of Africa,” whose eastern angle is Cape Guardafui. The coast line, beginning at Gubbet Khrab, in the north-west, runs eastward for about six hundred miles to Cape Guardafui, thence southward for eleven hundred miles to Kismáyu, near the mouth of the Juba River (Webbe Ganána).
Starting with the north Somáli coast at our port of Berbera, the first natural feature we come to is the sea-beach of sand and coralline limestone, backed by the hot, semi-desert Maritime Plain, from two to twenty miles broad, its breadth varying with the distance of the Maritime Ranges from the coast. The plain, gradually sloping upwards from the sea, rises to about three or four hundred feet at the base of the Maritime mountains, and these rise about a thousand feet higher. Beyond the Maritime mountains stony, jungle-covered, interior plains rise to the high Gólis Range, the true plateau of the interior of Africa, which is in places nearly six thousand nine hundred feet above sea-level. The country from the coast line to the foot of Gólis, some thirty-five miles inland, is called Guban. Gólis Range, with its prolongations east and west, forms the seaward face of the high interior country, which is called Ogo.
On the north Somáli coast there are harbours at Berbera and Zeila, an uninhabited creek at Khor Kulangárit, near Zeila, and the open roadstead of Bulhár, partially protected by a surf-beaten spit of sand, which runs for a few hundred yards parallel to the beach, over which at high tide small dhows can pass, but steamers have to anchor outside.
Berbera is built in two parts, three-quarters of a mile distant from one another. To the east is the native town, composed of a few Arab rubble buildings, a fort, and a large number of permanent Somáli huts of matting and poles (called agal). These huts are divided by streets, the different blocks of building space being allotted to the respective Somáli tribes, clans, and families. Three-quarters of a mile to the west is the new or official town, originally built by the Egyptians, the houses being of rubble masonry, in one story, with flat roofs. There is a good pier.