There was a row going on among the coast people while we were at Bulhár. Near Eil Sheikh, on the shore, fourteen miles west of Bulhár, two men had fought in the jungle, a man of the Ayyal Gadíd being killed by a man of the Rer Gédi section of the Ba-Gadabursi Shirdone clan; after the duel the Shirdone man had run away to his karia.
The whole of the Ayyal Gadíd sub-tribe who were in Bulhár at once assembled to drive the Shirdone out of the town, and Mr. Jones promptly shut up five of the slayer’s relatives in the lock-up to prevent their being lynched. Next day he sent half a dozen police, mounted on fast camels, to catch the murderer, and in the evening I walked out with my host to a crowd of Gadíd, who were burying the dead man wrapped up in a white tobe, and we found that he had already been partly eaten by hyænas before being brought in, as one fleshless arm-bone was standing out from under the tobe.
We left Bulhár on 16th February, marched about twelve miles, and camped at Eil Sheikh, between Elmas Mountain and the sea. We took up eighty gallons of water at Eil Sheikh for the waterless march of fifty miles to Kabri Bahr. On the following day I got an aoul buck with the Martini-Henry while on the march, the meat being very welcome. I saw a good many oryx and followed a pair of ostriches, but both without success, the flat-topped khansa bushes being very thick and thorny, and difficult to get through. We reached Kabri Bahr on the 19th, and Digan on the evening of the same day.
Here one of Colonel Carrington’s men came into camp from the west, he having been sent to look for elephants. I sent a note to the Colonel, whom I had met in India, giving him notice that I was on a trip to the far interior, and would not therefore interfere with his hunting ground; and I marched to Ali Maan, where I found the country very much dried up, and water scarce, owing to a very dry Jilál season and the failure of the Dair or winter rains. The Rer Nur, Gadabursi, gave a dance of fifty men, on foot, with spear and shield, in my honour; and, as a return courtesy, I took a photograph of them. There were two large karias here. The men professed themselves, as usual all over Somáliland, to be English ryots (subjects),[35] and they made complaints against their neighbours, which they wished me to settle. While I was at Ali Maan the Esa attacked some Gadabursi and killed one of them, and in leaving I passed a party of young men going out to try and find an Esa to kill, and so square off the score.
In the Dibiri-Wein country, by a beautiful reed-margined river-bed, in the wet sand I found the footmarks of a herd of elephants which had passed about twenty-four hours before. Following these for a mile I discovered, to my horror, imprinted over them the uncompromising outline of an European boot! The herd had been followed, not by Colonel Carrington, but by another traveller. I left these footprints in deep disgust, without even inquiring the name of their owner, and marching on in haste I reached Gebili a few days later.
I was riding at noon ahead of the caravan, and had just stopped to look at some old stone ruins half-buried in rocks and grass, when my guide Daura ran up and reported, “Awálé is killed,” and when the caravan came up it was headed by Awálé Yasín strapped on a camel, in great pain, with his leg broken below the knee, the tibia sticking out of the flesh for two or three inches. He had been fixing a loose load when the camel had fallen on him, crushing his leg. I gave him chlorodyne to try and alleviate the pain. Then as we neared the camp we lifted him off the camel, and four men bore him down the steep descent of fifty feet to the Gebili watercourse, to the south of which I pitched my tent. Following a sheep track, we soon found a few shepherds of the Jibril Abokr, who were returning from watering their flocks. They sent a mounted messenger to their karias, lying ten miles to the south, and next morning a native expert at bone-setting arrived on the scene. I explained I was not a doctor, and that the sick man might choose between us; and he chose the Somáli, while I stood by to help and to see fair-play. I am not responsible for the following method:—
First they washed the leg with warm water. There was a gash some two inches wide, where the bone had come through. The limb was pulled violently to get it straight, and the knee was then bent till the calf pushed against the back of the thigh; more pulling was done to get the broken bones in a straight line, and then the bandaging began.
Cutting a tobe into strips we wound it round and round the bent leg, a neat hole being made with the point of a spear wherever the bandage came over the gash in the flesh, so as to keep the wound exposed and thus allow of future inspection. The whole of the bandage was covered with subug, or clarified butter, as the work progressed.
Over the tobe bandage was wound a final wrapping of soft keirán leather. The whole of this dressing was to remain on for seven days, and then to be opened; if the bones had not joined at the end of that time they were to be reset by the aid of a wooden splint. If they had joined, a light bandage would be again put on, and in a month he should be able to walk.
Awálé bore the pain without a sound, under circumstances which would probably have caused an Asiatic or European to yell, and next day I sent him off to the Jibril Abokr karias strapped on a camel, with about two months’ rations of rice and dates, and plenty of cloth to buy more; but it afterwards transpired that the hákim, native-like, had bolted with the whole of this and left Awálé to shift for himself. However, he managed to get attended to by a good Samaritan from a passing caravan, in the shape of a distant relation, who took him to Berbera, where I found him four months afterwards; he was then able to walk, but rather lame. A broken leg may not seem a great matter, but happening away from any transport except a baggage camel, and perhaps miles away from water in an uninhabited wilderness, it becomes a terrible misfortune.