The tribes near the northern coast most addicted to raiding appear to be the Jibril Abokr sub-tribe of the Habr Awal, the Mahamud Gerád Dolbahanta, and the Eidegalla, Habr Gerhajis. Late caravans, going into the interior in the beginning of Gu by the Mandeira route, are liable to be raided by the Jibril Abokr, parties of whom come from Arabsíyo, by Argán, to the low Assa Range, an extensive tract of broken country, and there wait for several days together on the chance of catching caravans on their way through the Murgo and Jeráto Passes. The time is chosen when the Esa Musa and Habr Gerhajis are absent in Ogo and Haud searching for pasture, and have left unoccupied the stretch of country below the passes. The marauders, hiding in broken ground and deep ravines, will subsist for a long time on stolen camels, picked up here and there, until a sufficiently large caravan yields a rich harvest of camels and property, with which the robbers then decamp to their own country.
Caravans going from Berbera to Hargeisa, Milmil, and the south-west, fearful of danger, will go directly south by Sheikh, and thence round by Toyo Plain, to Hargeisa. The Sheikh Pass is also used by caravans fearing to go into the interior by the Gaha and other eastern passes, which are annually threatened by the Mahamud Gerád; but both the Sheikh and Jeráto Passes have been greatly improved, both in point of safety and practicability, by the British authorities within the last three or four years.
When water and grass are to be had for the horses, the Mahamud Gerád, Dolbahanta, and the coast section of the Habr Gerhajis organise strong mounted bands, which sweep through the Duss and Gaha Passes, and raid sometimes as far as Biyogóra and the Berbera maritime plain, carrying off everything they can steal, and retiring at once. They often make raids in the Waredad Plain above the Huguf Pass in the Habr Toljaala country, and few are the caravans which have the hardihood to come through this country by the Haliélo route. In fact, the Mahamud Gerád raids from the east, across the caravan routes to the Ogádén and Marehán countries, do immense harm to the Berbera trade.
In the Dolbahanta country we found many natives with hides piled in their karias ready to be taken to Berbera, but fearing to risk them on the road. One caravan took advantage of the protection afforded by our escort to pass through the disturbed Bur Dab district. That caravans have persisted in crossing the country at all in face of the dangers to which they have always been exposed, speaks well for the value of Berbera as a port, and for the trading enterprise of the Somális. The British system of furnishing armed “biladiers”[12] for the protection and at the expense of caravans has given great encouragement to trade.
Men of caravans on meeting in the jungle will halt to exchange the news, and with one’s own caravan it is difficult to make a guide pass his own karias. I have often been led five or six miles out of my way because the guide’s karia lay in that direction. His ambition is to bring the caravan to his home, to show off his own importance to his relations, and to be able to play the host with a liberal distribution of his master’s presents. On the march our men have constantly shared their allowance of food with strangers who have been going our way, and we have sometimes been astonished, when loading up at dawn, to see half a dozen natives warming their spears over the dying embers of our watch-fires, who have turned up in the night from no one knows where. In many cases these are women, and being industrious, they save the men a good deal of work.
Somehow or other there is nearly always a woman or two in camp, generally young, pretty, and respectable, with the hair enclosed in the regulation dark blue bag, denoting that she is married. When I ask where she has sprung from I always hear, “Oh, one of Mahomed’s cousins,” or “Jáma’s sister.” Generally “Jáma’s sister” was going to a karia on ahead, to see about a stolen sheep. These relatives are always quiet, cheerful, and thrifty, eating little and doing the work of two men, besides inducing half a dozen youngsters to work harder at camel-loading to show off their muscles. They appear whenever we come to a karia, and disappear mysteriously at another farther on, just as passengers get into a train at one station and leave it at another. Often my men have told me that the new-comers were people who had been waiting to make a journey, but, fearing to do so till we came by, they had joined us for the sake of our protection, working for us in return.
Sometimes I have been standing over a fire in the cold wind an hour before dawn, waiting for the cook to bring me my cup of coffee, without which I never march, when a youth, whom I have never seen before, has put down his shield and spears on the grass, and going to my bedding, has brought my ulster, saying, “Oh, Sircal![13] here is your coat,” in the most natural way, as if I had paid him for a month.
It is wonderful how quickly these strangers worm themselves into one’s service. An unlicked cub of a karia dandy comes up with shield and spear and joins your caravan. In a few days he has shown some special qualification, for tracking or camel-loading, for helping the cook, or carrying the theodolite. An accident deprives you of one of your men, and he receives the sick man’s rifle and cartridge belt, and is numbered among your escort. In a fortnight he has come to the front as one of your best men, and on the next expedition he may be head camelman, and perhaps on a third or fourth he may be interpreter and caravan leader. When he first joined you a year before he knew no language but Somáli and a little Arabic, but while in your service he has picked up a fair amount of Hindustáni. A few years later you meet him again as a merchant, who has in the interim accompanied half a dozen European sportsmen on shooting trips, and has now invested his savings in merchandise, trading with tribes which he would never have dared to visit except in the service of his white masters. Many a time have I wished that I could transform the complacent, shaven-headed, sleek-looking scoundrel back into the original unsophisticated cub with the well-oiled mop of hair who came into my camp two or three years before!