I heard that the Kásin Ishák, a clan of the Habr Gerhajis, were at Syk, and expected trouble; but when we reached the Syk fig-tree we found only a few of the elders, who said that they had received a good report of us from the Abdul Ishák clan, which had met us on the former journey at Eil Ánod, and so they had been waiting to receive us hospitably. I had left my camp at Mandeira, about fifteen hundred feet below, and had come up the Jeráto Pass with seven troopers as an escort. On reaching Berbera we marched to Bulhár along the coast track, and on 26th April we made another exploring trip to the Interior Plains, returning at the end of it to Berbera and thence to Aden, where I completed my map of the Habr Awal country for Government.
A Moonlight Drink
“Sakaro” Antelope.
In the following autumn, although not actually sent on duty, I obtained six weeks’ leave to Somáliland, on condition I would do a map of my route for Government. I was very anxious to go to Zeila and make an exploration through the Gadabursi hills, coming out at the coast again at Bulhár. So far the hills between Zeila and Bulhár had been quite unknown. On this trip I was in company with three friends, two of whom, finding the game scarce, soon returned to Zeila. I held on, however, and we struck without guides through the mountains, finally reaching Dímis, near Bulhár, having traversed the last sixty miles with only three pints of water per man. This caused some suffering from thirst, which the men were able to partly alleviate at Eil Sheikh by jumping into the sea and moistening their skins. One pony died from the effects of this march the day after we reached Bulhár.
We had timed our trip at a bad season for game, and the only satisfaction which I got for fitting out a very expensive expedition, and for a good deal of hardship, was a map of hitherto unexplored country.
In 1887 I made the two big game trips recorded in the last chapter, and in 1889 a short shooting trip to Gólis, which was of minor importance. In 1891 I was ordered to place myself at the disposal of the Resident at Aden in order to reconnoitre the trade routes in the Dolbahanta, Habr Toljaala, Jibril Abokr, Esa, and Gadabursi countries. My brother, Lieut. (now Captain) E. J. E. Swayne, 16th Bengal Infantry, whom I will call E⸺, was deputed to assist in the survey, and joined me at Calcutta as I passed through that place on my way from Mandalay to Aden. We reached the Somáli coast in February, and started with thirty-two Somális and one Madras “boy.” There were twenty-six baggage camels, and we each rode a camel led by a Somáli at walking pace. Going by Dubár and Sheikh, we arrived after eleven days at Alla-uli, a watering-place in a narrow valley just behind the crest of the highest bluffs of the Gólis Range, at an elevation of six thousand feet above sea-level.
On the following day, after establishing a small camp on the top of Fodwein Bluff, we chose our theodolite station within a short distance of the edge of Fodwein, which falls several hundred feet sheer to the Mirso ledge below. This was the first of a long chain of stations for fixing the main positions on our route, by observations of the stars for azimuth and latitude, with a six-inch transit theodolite.
We remained here four days, and obtained a good azimuth on to a point on a small hill called Yirrowa, fifty-five miles away to the east of south, on the main route to the Dolbahanta country. Looking towards Yirrowa from the top of Gólis we could see only one immense expanse of dark brown bush, becoming quite blue in the distance and looking like a sea-horizon, broken only by the small hill Yirrowa, and a long, light blue line, dancing high above the horizon in the heat haze and mirage, which indicated the Bur Dab Range, two days’ march beyond Yirrowa.