The usual load is not less than about two hundred and seventy-five pounds, exclusive of mats, but it varies according to the nature of the load. Dates are bad to carry, being compact and heavy in proportion to their size, and the date load is generally two gosra, or two hundred and fifty pounds. European baggage comes under the same category. The marching hours are from about 4 A.M. to 9 A.M., and from 1 to 5 P.M. The camels are allowed to graze during the midday heat, and for half an hour before sunset. It takes three-quarters of an hour to load up, from the time of rounding in the grazing camels to the start off, and unloading takes about fifteen minutes. In stating these particulars I am giving our own average with complicated boxes, tents, loads of trophies, and so forth, a Somáli caravan taking probably less time. The usual rate of marching is from two and a quarter to two and three-quarter miles an hour, not counting short halts to adjust loads. The fastest rate, for a short distance, which I have tested has been three and a quarter miles an hour. The loaded Somáli camel will not trot as a rule, though sometimes the Midgáns train them to do so, leading them by a string.
Camels are always delicate, and I have considered myself lucky when I have not lost more than five per cent of my camels on a three months’ expedition. In Ogádén the Balaad, or small gadfly, is a terrible scourge to them, and, to a lesser extent, so is the large gadfly, or Dúg; they are also infested with ticks, which swell to the size of a date-stone, and are seen clinging round the eyelids. In drinking the camels often take in small leeches, which fix themselves to the root of the tongue, growing to a great size and filling the mouth with blood.
Should a camel show stiffness, he is at once fired, either by raising small blisters with a red-hot ramrod or spear, or by striping with hoops of red-hot iron. Open sores have glowing stones strapped over them, followed by an application of moist camel-dung; and when off his feed, he is dosed with melted sheep’s tail. Thorns are excised from the foot with the biláwa or dagger, and the spike—often two inches long—having been extracted, camel-dung is applied, and as a general rule the cut soon heals.
A great cause of sickness is a sore back, brought on by the chafing of a load. The worst place is in front of the hump. A camel when let out to browse is likely to bite such a sore until it festers and becomes full of maggots. There is a fly which is on the look-out for these sores, and instead of laying eggs deposits lively maggots, which crawl about briskly directly they leave the body of the fly. A red-beaked bird, very common in Ogádén,[10] then attacks the sore, plunging its sharp beak again and again into the hole, picking out the maggots and decayed mass, and even the good flesh, until there is a cavity into which a man’s clenched fist may be thrust. When in this condition it should always have a strip of calico, steeped in carbolic solution, tied over the wound when sent out to graze, to protect it from the birds, a dozen of which can be often seen clinging flat to its shoulders, giving out at intervals their long-drawn, discordant, shrill note.
The Somáli camel does not require grain, but thrives entirely on whatever it can pick up by the way. Except at certain seasons in Guban, the coast country, there is always an abundance of food for them everywhere, in the unlimited expanse of grass and acacia forest, as they feed and thrive on many grasses that ponies will not touch. When grazing, or browsing on the leaves of the mimosa jungles, they roam about in enormous droves, attended by a few men and women. In Ogádén and the Dolbahanta country I have seen driven past a succession of herds, each containing over a thousand camels, as they were taken to pasture in the mornings or back to the karias at night. They often have to graze at a distance of six miles or so from home, for, as the food near the karias is eaten up, they are driven farther out daily, and after a month or two the mat huts themselves are packed up and the tribe marches on, perhaps ten miles, to a fresh pasturage. Horsemen are constantly scouring the surrounding country to watch the next tribe, or to bring early news of a pasture having received heavy rain.
Camels can be much more quickly rounded up and driven to the home karia than cattle or flocks, so they are trusted much farther afield, and the number of camels sometimes seen is astonishing, the whole horizon being covered with them. When camped at Gagáb by the Milmil river-bed we daily saw between ten thousand and thirty thousand driven to water past our tents, belonging chiefly to the Rer Ali tribe. In Ogádén even an outcaste Midgán will sometimes own three or four hundred, and the only limit to their numbers is the capability of their owners to water and protect them. When a tribe becomes rich every man’s eye is covetously turned to this accumulation of camels, and it is not long before attempts are made to raid them in a mass. We were told of instances in the Dolbahanta country where ten thousand had been looted at one swoop. When unladen they can be driven at great speed, and as the raiders are nearly always on horseback, the attack is very sudden.
When grazing, in dry weather, they are watered every six days or so, but when men are lazy, or animals very numerous, much longer periods are allowed to elapse. When rain has fallen, and the grass is green, camels, sheep, and goats are sometimes not watered for three months. We often found tens of thousands of camels and sheep grazing at least forty miles from water. The men and horses attendant on them live almost entirely on camel’s milk, a little water being carried over these great distances for the women and children.
Mobs of camels are generally led by an old one of immense size, a large wooden bell (kor) being hung round his neck to indicate the position of the mob after dusk. When returning from a good pasture, they show the exuberance of their spirits by cantering and kicking their heels in the air. A man running at best pace can with difficulty overtake one which is bent on avoiding him, and for a greater distance than two hundred yards the man is nowhere. They may often be seen scampering about the sands at Berbera, the men following them for hours trying to catch them.
According to the Somális, camels have a young one every second year, generally in the Gu or monsoon. They begin to foal when three years old; the foal—black, tawny-yellow, or white as a well-washed sheep—soon gets on its legs, and in a few days can scamper about. They are called Gódir, Gel-Ass, or Gel-Ad, according as they are born black, reddish yellow, or white, and they retain these shades through life. Yearlings, older camels, and she-camels with their young are kept in distinct mobs. The Somális object to the firing of a gun near, or otherwise startling the she-camels when about to foal, as they gallop away in panic, injuring stock. A she-camel, besides nourishing her foal, will daily give milk for two men who have no other food, and in the event of more being required, the young one is killed, and the skin removed, and whenever the mother is milked its skin is rubbed against her nostrils. She becomes quite tractable, and will follow the man who carries the skin. If the foal is allowed to live, as soon as it can browse the udders of the mother are tied with bits of string, and the milk reserved for human beings.
Somáli ponies average about thirteen hands and a half, and are bred by every tribe except the Esa and Géri. Of the tribes I have met on different expeditions, those having the most ponies are the Dolbahanta, the Rer Ali, the Rer Amáden, the Habr Gerhajis, and the Jibril Abokr sub-tribe of the Habr Awal. In the Nogal country we saw enormous numbers, one man sometimes owning one hundred and fifty. The Somáli pony carries a light weight splendidly; his feet are harder than even those of an Arab horse, and, indeed, unless well shod the latter would make poor work on the rocky ground over which the Somáli animal, which is never shod, will gallop at full speed. He is handy among bushes, and will go for three days, or even longer, without water, eats nothing but grass, and requires no care. I have never seen a Somáli pony covered up or groomed; it is exposed to all weathers, and is usually infested with ticks. The Kud-kudaha is a tick about half an inch in diameter, with a tortoise-shell back, its bite being venomous and drawing blood. Ponies are bred solely for intertribal fighting, the mares being considered the best.