On 9th March, in the early morning, Banagúsé sent over Abadigal to say he was leaving for Gojar, and requesting that I would visit him in the stockade; so posting a sentry in camp I took nineteen of the men in line, rode across the valley, and drew up at the Abyssinian zeríba. Leaving most of the men outside I entered with four, passing a sentry who saluted me by presenting arms in Abyssinian fashion; and walking across the zeríba, I entered Banagúsé’s hut. Here I found his notables assembled, all seated on the ground. I was invited to take my place on a raised platform with Banagúsé, while Adan Yusuf and the other interpreters squatted in front. Banagúsé was polite, but having little to say, he left Gabratagli to do all the talking.
After a somewhat embarrassing leave-taking I trotted back to camp on my camel, and Banagúsé issued from the stockade; and, followed by his army, he marched over the plain towards Gojar; and looking with my telescope from camp an hour later, I made them out in the far distance, and it was pleasant to have seen the last of them.
I was glad to halt at Jig-Jiga for a few days, as the plains were dotted all over with game. My men were a thoroughly good lot of fellows, and I was particularly pleased with the way in which they had enabled me to show a bold front to Banagúsé.
One day I went out into the plains with three or four men, and found immense herds of hartebeests and Sœmmering’s gazelles; but the day being windy, they were very shy. The gazelles were always galloping about and starting the masses of oryx and hartebeests. They would draw up in front of the larger game, appearing to know that I did not want to fire at them, sometimes giving me very easy chances. At last, seeing no chance of the larger game, and being in want of meat, I shot two Sœmmering’s gazelles right and left, one a very good buck with a thick winter coat; and on the way to camp I saw a bull hartebeest standing, as he thought, out of range, some four hundred yards away, so I lay prone and brought him down with a careful shot from the Martini-Henry.
Returning to camp, I found messengers from one Farur Gerád Hirsi, a relation of the Bertiri Sultán, who was at his karia two miles away, and had “pains all over his body,” so he had sent his sons to call me. I gave him twenty drops of chlorodyne and half a dozen quinine pills, one to be taken daily. I was received with great enthusiasm by a crowd of some two hundred of his womenfolk and male relations, all calling out “Nabad” (Welcome). The Gerád said he would have had himself carried to my camp, but not while the hated Abyssinians remained there. The elders flocked around me to lay complaints before me of the treatment they had received from the Abyssinian invaders. They said that Banagúsé was lazy, and did not administer the country a bit; that he and his mob were neither good at fighting nor governing, and that the only thing they could do was bullying the karias for the extraction of cattle, which his soldiers eat raw. The Gerád told me that ten cows were taken last month from his karia alone. Another man, Ibrahim Gúri (Rer Ali), lost seventy-six camels, two hundred sheep, and five huts in one day; and he and his wife were arrested and taken away by the Abyssinians towards Harar. These are samples of the arbitrary behaviour of frontier officials.
At night I returned to my camp from the Gerád’s karia, across torrent beds and wait-a-bit thorns, and learnt the lesson that it is much better to cross one deep ravine low down than the twenty or more tributary ravines from which it is formed. We got to camp at last, relieved in our minds, because the presence of a man-eating lion in this neighbourhood had made us feel rather uncomfortable when stumbling about amongst the ravines in the darkness of the night.
Next morning I sent a haunch of venison to Gabratagli, done up with clean white foolscap paper pinned round it, with a pencil memorandum in English conveying my compliments, as it seemed to me it would do no harm to be polite. My armed Somáli camelman who took it seemed to think it a great joke, and trotted across the half mile of valley to the Abyssinian zeríba in pouring rain, singing cheerfully; and he returned saying my friend was delighted, but, my Somáli asked, “Why did I waste my good venison on such pigs?”
At midday on the 11th came news that Rás Makunan had returned to Harar from Shoa; and at eight o’clock at night Gabratagli sent over the Rás’s letter, with an interpreter. The Rás expressed himself very pleased that I had carried out my promise, made last year, to visit him, and hoped I would come at once, adding that Gabratagli had received orders to make all arrangements for my coming.
On the 13th March we left Jig-Jiga and crossed the plains to Hádo, just inside the Harar Hills; and we camped at Abadigal’s own village. We had now left the Marar Prairie, inhabited by Somáli nomads, and had crossed the border of the Harar Hills, descending by the Marda Pass into undulating country occupied by the cultivating Géri and Bertiri, whose permanent villages are clustered about everywhere, and are controlled by Abyssinian magistrates, whose title is Shúm.
The Shúm who was my host was Abadigal, Banagúsé’s right-hand man, whom I had seen lately at Jig-Jiga; he was a good fellow, broad-shouldered and good-natured, and looked very imposing in his military dress, with a black sheepskin cape and a long curved sabre; and although the Bertiri villagers detest the Abyssinian occupation as a principle, Abadigal enjoys the personal respect of those under him.