Buck Gerenúk feeding
Waller’s Gazelle.
On the evening of the third day we got on to high ground almost imperceptibly, and camped at the southern side of an old fire clearing near Gudaweina. Looking back we could see, in the clear air of the elevated Haud, beyond the tops of the nearer thorn-trees, the various gradations of tint—yellow, brown, green, or blue—on the several bits of jungle or grass glades which we had come through; and beyond all a high rim of deep indigo blue, looking like a sea-horizon, running without a single landmark, showing the great expanse of the Haud forest stretching in every direction in everlasting dips and rises of ground. All the hills about Hargeisa had long ago sunk out of sight.
On the fourth day we marched on to Kheidub-Ayéyu. For a mile we went slowly in the dawning light through thorny jungle, and then we came out into a glade of durr grass, the camels swinging along faster as the path became more visible. We passed a chief’s grave, encircled by a stockade of trunks of thorn-trees twelve feet high.[27] We afterwards emerged on to open rising ground, where we saw oryx and Waller’s gazelles feeding, and in the centre of the path a wart-hog had been rooting up the ground.
The open pasture here was dotted with the old zeríbas of the Samanter Abdalla, Habr Awal, who come from the north for a season every year. They were here six weeks before us, but the rain falling, they had returned to Aror, where we had seen them a few days previously when crossing the open ban. These were also the most northern pastures of the Ogádén tribes, none of which we had ever visited, and we were doubtful as to the nature of our reception.
We entered a patch of bush, when suddenly the jungle became alive with camels and sheep, and several young women rushed at the caravan with their hands spread out and eyes flashing, screaming loudly for help, while others plied sticks and stones to drive off the flocks, in a deafening clamour and clouds of dust; and boys ran off in haste to summon the fighting men of the tribe.
I sat down in the path, trying to look as amiable as possible, for I realised what our sudden appearance must have been to these natives. Several of my men, more ready, raced forward and caught the flying messengers, and brought them back to me as prisoners. The women were sure we were Abyssinians, for we carried guns; but finding we were English, a revulsion of feeling set in, and the boys went off to tell the tribe the joyful news, and the women to get milk for our men.
The mounted guard soon galloped up to us, a sturdy-looking lot, some twenty of the Rer Ali tribe; they expressed their delight by circling their horses, shouting, “Mót! Mót! io Mót!” and coming up again and again, bending down in the saddle to shake hands with us; and their steaming ponies formed a dense circle round us as we endeavoured to do justice to the hands.
The people asked us to stop for a few hours to shoot rhinoceroses, but of course we were unable to spare the time, as we were carrying on a rapid survey, and also had too little water to be able to loiter here in the centre of the Haud. We passed enormous flocks of fat sheep, and near camp we met a pretty young woman driving along her dowry of a hundred camels. Our men said this Rer Ali wealth was good to look at, and that a few determined horsemen armed with guns could have taken off ten thousand camels at one swoop.