On our second day at Túli we were unsuccessful with the rhinos, and when the water came from Dagahbúr we marched to Gumbur Wedel, a small hill four miles to the north-west across the Rhinoceros Valley. Here we found oryx, ostriches, and Sœmmering’s and Waller’s gazelles very plentiful, and rhino tracks numerous. My brother was very keen to get a rhino, but had so far had no luck.
At 5 A.M. on 6th August we left Wedel, and for three miles struggled through thick grass and jungle, and then struck a good path running north-west. After going a mile along this I saw fresh rhino tracks where a pair had crossed the path during the night, and so going on with the caravan, I left my brother to take up the pursuit. At our evening camp he arrived with the heads of both, a very fine bull and a cow, and we skinned them by firelight.
On the morning of the 7th August the caravan marched sixteen miles to a karia of the Rer Gedi, Abbasgúl, to us a new sub-tribe, at a place called Haddáma. Early in the day, while walking along the path, I came on the fresh tracks of a large bull rhino, so, as it was my turn, leaving the caravan and traversing work in charge of my brother, I left the path on these tracks, followed by Géli and Hassan. The rhinoceros had taken a straight line for a ridge of low hills to the south, which are a continuation of the Harar Highlands, and after following for several miles through thick jungle and over burnt clearings, the sun getting hotter and hotter, we at last put him up at about noon, making him rush off through the forest without our even getting a sight of him. I took up the tracking patiently for an hour more, and then we heard the trampling and snorting and smashing of thorn-trees again. Following at a run, we saw him standing broadside on, listening, in the centre of several acres of very transparent but dense and thorny wait-a-bit cover. We at once lay down. Not hearing our footsteps any more, the rhino trotted forward, head held high, for fifty yards, and then stood and listened again. He looked decidedly vicious. We crawled up to a small evergreen shrub, and I sat up behind it, and taking a steady rest upon my knees, fired for his ear at a range of seventy yards with my ten-bore rifle.
The bull dropped in his tracks, an inert mass. Going up, we found that the ten-bore had hit him exactly where I had aimed, the bullet entering under the left ear and stopping under the skin of the right temple.
I was twenty-five miles from camp, and as the camel was fully occupied in carrying the massive head and a few shields, I had to tramp the whole way. This, added to the hot tracking work of five hours before we got the rhino, and the fast run after putting him up, made a long day’s work, and I was right glad at sunset to meet some men whom my brother had considerately sent back with water and dates to bring us on to my half of the caravan, which he had halted for me at Haddáma. He had himself gone on to Waror, for we never allowed shooting to delay the rate of progress, and I came up with him there next morning; as usual, we reformed the double camp, with our “Cabul” tents side by side. The camp was pitched near the wells in a beautiful glade, covered with green grass, kept short by the Abbasgúl herds. We found an immense number of cows watering here, the chief wealth of the Abbasgúl being in cattle. The wells at Waror are narrow, circular funnels seventy feet deep, sunk through the red alluvial earth of the Jerer Valley. Steps were cut all the way down, and water was passed to the surface by a chain of nine naked men, standing one above the other, their feet resting on these steps, the full and empty leather buckets being passed up and down from hand to hand to an accompaniment of singing in chorus.[30] We showed the Abbasgúl how to do it with a large bucket and a long rope, whereat they were greatly pleased.
The Waror pasture, with its closely-cropped grass, under open thorn jungle, looked like an English orchard; and the wind blowing coldly with a leaden sky, heightened the resemblance. There was plenty of game about here. Round the base of a small rock called Dubbur, perched on the top of some high ground five miles from Waror, oryx and ostriches abound. At one place, near Waror, my brother found the ground pounded up, where some Midgáns’ dogs had brought an oryx to bay, and in the grass the blood of the animal and a broken arrow; close by were the pugs of a lion. A lion roared at night while we were at Waror. The people said one was in the habit of showing himself about once a day in broad daylight, and that he had killed twelve men, the last of whom fell a victim the day before we halted at the wells.
The Abbasgúl headmen came to us and gave us quantities of milk, calling us their protectors. They said that their tribe was once rich, but was now poor, because of the Abyssinians. They were unfortunate in being next to the east of the Bertiri, whom the Abyssinians had already absorbed.
The only Somáli tribes which may be said to be under Abyssinian influence are the Géri, Bertiri, Abbasgúl, a few of the Esa, and Malingúr. But they are all unwillingly so, and have at various times clamoured for help from the British. They all trade with Berbera.
The Rer Amáden and the riverine negro population of the Webbe are well disposed to the British, though not much connected with Berbera except to the east in the Shabéleh district, whence a large proportion of Berbera caravans are derived.