The whole of the country ahead was unmapped, the first European caravans to go so far south being those of Colonel Paget to the south-west of us, and of Mr. Clarke, which had gone to the interior a few days before towards the south-east. Eventually, however, we left both these caravans far to the west.
From our elevated position, which was now 6800 feet above the sea, we had a fine view of the Maritime Ranges and Berbera Plain, and we obtained a back azimuth on the Berbera Masjid tower, thirty-five miles distant. It was very cold at night, the thermometer going down to 58°, with a chilling drizzle and clouds of mist which often enveloped us, making observations impossible.
On the 22nd we marched back to Upper Sheikh, and while we were camped near the graves at night, the mullahs from Guldu Hamed ran to us crying that looters were coming down on us. Men were seen running by, who said they were Habr Gerhajis, and that their cattle had been lifted by a neighbouring tribe. We remained under arms for a while and then turned in. Next morning it transpired that the camels had only been allowed to stray, and had afterwards been found.
We marched six miles to Dubbur, the last water before we should reach Bér, about sixty miles farther, and filled up our casks. Now we entered the great wooded and undulating waterless plains, crossing the Habr Toljaala boundary soon after leaving Dubbur, and always holding south-east. On the east a long low range of hills shut in the view, but west and south of us was one immense forest of small thorn-trees, except on the margin of the sand-rivers, where some of the gudá thorn-trees reached a height of fifty or sixty feet. In a river-bed, called Goité, horsemen of the Habr Gerhajis, from Bur’o, came to hold a mounted parade in our honour.
On 27th February we reached Yirrowa, and chose another theodolite station. There were several curious flat hillocks and cairns of stones, called Taalla Gálla, perched about the corners of the Yirrowa Hill, and here we got an azimuth on to Bur Dab Range, still blue in the distance.
At a thickly wooded pasture called Bér, five miles farther, in the valley of Tug Dér, we found water at a depth of ten feet in twelve wells. Very heavy floods sometimes come down this valley, as can be seen by the large trunks of trees everywhere stranded along the cut banks of the watercourse, which is at places one hundred and fifty yards broad. The Tug Dér freshets, coming from Bur’o, pass east into the Nogal Valley, and so to the Indian Ocean.
We were told that there were always from fifty to five hundred robbers in the Bur Dab Range, and passing caravans were often looted. It has been the custom of these robbers, who belong to the Mahamud Gerád, Saad Yunis, and Músa Abokr tribes living near the coast farther east, to loot across this Bér Plain every year, going right up to Guldu Hamed. When raiding they only water their ponies once in three or four days. Near Bér we found tracks of forty horsemen, and ascertained that they were those of a Dolbahanta force, which a month before had gone to loot the Habr Gerhajis pastures at Bur’o, but had been driven back, losing three ponies.
Several very ragged-looking Somális, with the usual spears and shield, came into camp and insisted on being fed; they had gone to Bur Dab to recover some camels looted from them three days before, but on reaching the mountain they had first seen vultures hovering about, and had then discovered the robbers in great force sitting over a feast of the carcases of the stolen camels; and being afraid to attack, they had returned disheartened, hungry, thirsty, and tired. They told us that Colonel Paget and his brother had their camp near Wadama-go, ahead of us, where they were shooting lions. The Pagets had already had one sharp skirmish with Bur Dab robbers, being obliged, we heard, to use their rifles freely in self-defence.
We reached Kirrit well, near Wadama-go, on 3rd March. There were numbers of old graves here, and the well, supposed to have been dug out of the gypsum rock by ancient Gállas, is very curious. At the mouth it is a hole twenty feet in diameter, narrowing as it descends, with a rude cross quarried out of the face. To get water, one has to descend twenty feet, and then crawl along a narrow rocky passage for thirty feet to a very deep pool, six feet wide and thirty feet long. It is quite dark, and there is a strong smell of sulphuretted hydrogen, with which the water is impregnated from the gypsum rock. The water is disagreeable to drink, and causes diarrhœa. Robbers from Bur Dab often use this well when on their raids. The gypsum rock is very smooth and white, and in some places presents the appearance of the flagstone flooring of a cathedral, being split up into squares. The graves, which are made of these rocks, are generally plastered over with powdered gypsum.
Next day we marched across a broad tributary valley of the Nogal to a flat-topped hill called Daba Dalól, eight miles to the east. We crossed the tracks of Colonel Paget’s caravan, and the next day we received a note from him concerning some robbers whom he had taken prisoners.