We again met and formed the double camp over the wells at Hargeisa, and during the few days we were there we had pleasant company; for two sportsmen’s caravans—those of Col. R. Curteis of Poona, and of Captain Harrison, 8th King’s—passed through Hargeisa on their way to the Haud hunting-grounds.
The first fifty miles from Hargeisa being perfectly safe country, we made our fresh start on 24th August in two half caravans, and as the climate during this part of our wanderings was somewhat peculiar, showing that the Haud and Marar Prairie share in the great rainfall of the high Abyssinian plateau, I will give a short account of the first portion of the journey, the facts being taken from our Diary.
24th August.—We had only gone three miles when a deluge of rain came on, and having taken refuge under some very thin bushes for half an hour, we were drenched through. The storm showing no signs of abating we went on again, splashing through water up to our ankles; and so on for another mile, till we came to the banks of a small watercourse, down which rushed a yellow torrent which we tried to cross, but were obliged to beat a retreat; one camel rolled over and over, and the bags of rice were scattered along the bed of the stream, and fished out by the men going breast-deep. So we looked out for a little sandy rise, and camped under pelting rain, which continued till 7 A.M. next day. By 10.30, having waited for the stream to become passable and for our kit to dry, we were able to march, reaching Dofaré at 3.30 P.M. The karias of the Rer Samanter were found all along the way from Haraf, and we met hundreds of cows and thousands of camels. It rained all night long; and another storm, with thunder and lightning, came on at 8 A.M. next morning, just as things were beginning to get dry.
26th August.—We started off in pouring rain at 9 A.M. It rained more or less the whole day, and everything was soaked. My brother went on ahead with his half of the caravan towards Dubburro, but the caravan twice lost him and the guide, and he was on foot from 9 A.M. till 4.30 P.M. in a deluge of rain. Luckily we had before surveyed this ground. At last he gave up trying to find the tracks of his caravan, and walked to Dubburro, where he found it halted, after a march of twenty-five miles under continuous rain. I had halted some miles in rear of him, but had not the least notion where I was. The whole country seemed flooded.
27th August.—My brother arrived at 7.30 P.M. at my camp, his own having gone on. He had lost his caravan, so I lent him my pony, and he at last reached his men, after having gone thirty miles, all but the last two miles being on foot, in rain-soaked boots, with violent toothache added to his other miseries. The last hour was in the dark, but he was kept from falling asleep at the roadside by the roaring of a lion.
Élinta Kaddo, 28th August.—It rained during the night. We had a few days of pleasanter weather after this, but it rained, more or less, daily during the whole of this trip till we reached Gildessa.
We marched across the beautiful Marar Prairie, to Gumbur Dúg, halting at several of the high conical hills which rise out of the elevated plain to nearly seven thousand feet above sea-level, as we wished to get a base from which to triangulate in points of the Harar Highlands which we were not able to visit.
We reached Gumbur Dúg on the morning of 1st September. Gumbur Dúg is a low, grass-covered hill of white limestone. Jig-Jiga was now close to us. Next morning vast herds of hartebeests were seen on the plain, comprising several thousands; and when we shot one, the plain was covered with a line of swiftly galloping animals, a mile or two in length, half obscured in clouds of red dust and flying turf.
To the south was a karia of the Bertiri tribe, and we sent two scouts on in the evening to find out whether Jig-Jiga was still occupied by the Abyssinians. These men returned late at night, reporting the karia deserted, but that they had found men tending camels. The Bertiri karias were all at Jig-Jiga, and the Abyssinians were encamped some miles off in the Gureis Hills, coming to Jig-Jiga every morning to water cattle and horses, and returning to their villages at night. The scouts reported that they met some Midgáns near the water, and that these men ran at them and would have attacked them, but were afraid of the two rifles. It afterwards transpired that my men had been telling a lie; they had really met a large crowd of Bertiri, who had run at them, thinking they were robbers; and my two scouts, in their fright, had fired a round of buckshot into their faces. They afterwards confessed to having knocked down a woman with a pellet in the lip. On my instituting an inquiry among the Bertiri next day, the elders said, “It is so, and she is dead; she is only a Midgán woman, and has no relations, so it doesn’t matter.” Asking them to show me the grave, they said it didn’t matter, and that the Abyssinians would have killed fifty instead of one, and that the English were good people! Failing to get any sensible answers to my questions, I explained the heinous nature of the offence, and advised them to complain at the Resident’s Court at Berbera. But no complaint was ever made, so I think that though a woman was really knocked down by a spent pellet, she was not killed; and the elders reported her death in the hope of a present.
On 2nd September we marched over some rolling and open ban to the Jig-Jiga Valley, and camped at the water within three hundred yards of the ill-famed Abyssinian stockaded fort, which had been such a thorn in the side of the Jibril Abokr tribe. We found it untenanted; and as the Bertiri made no objection, we went over it and took some photographs.