I walked through the throng to Gabba Oboho; and shaking hands with him and a dozen of the nearest counsellors, and spreading a camel-mat in the centre of the circle, I sat down with Adan Yusuf, my interpreter, sending the rest of my party away with the animals to get fodder and cook their evening meal. The greeting of the negroes was very friendly; they pressed round me, feeling my Elcho boots and admiring the leather and particularly the laces, pinching the material of my corduroy breeches; and taking off my canvas shooting hat, which was passed round with a buzz of wonder and then politely handed back to me. Gabba Oboho could not conceal his curiosity, and asked me why my arm was brown outside and white under the sleeve; so I gave a lecture on the effect of the sun on the European skin to an open-mouthed and admiring audience.
Gabba, now managing to secure silence, in the course of a long oration said he was glad an Englishman had come; that he and all the headmen wished to sign a paper with my Government, that all the inhabitants of the Webbe were “subjects” of the English, who, they had often heard, were good people; and he now wished to know at once whether I had brought the paper, so that he might make his mark. He stopped, and the expectant crowd waited for my reply. I explained that I had not been ordered to visit the country and had brought no paper; that I had come to look for wild animals and to see the great river, the Webbe, of which during some years I had heard so much; that the English wished to be friends with all people, and the officer who signed papers lived at Aden, more than twenty days’ journey, as they knew, to the north. I found it difficult to make them understand the difference between a British officer on duty and one on leave, and a subdued buzz of disapproval showed that they were not half satisfied with my reply.
An Adone elder pointed to our mule, and asked where we had got it; and on hearing it was a present from Rás Makunan, he said, “Ah! it is as we feared, you English have sold us to the Amhára!” I said the English had done nothing of the kind. I also told the elders that the English would be pleased if more caravans came trading to Berbera, and that Government would assist such caravans in every way possible. Gabba Oboho then led me, through an avenue of high palm-trees, to the nearest village, and into a dirty courtyard occupied by two cows and some goats, in the corner of which his own huts stood. He had turned out of the largest and caused it to be swept for my use; and he gave my followers a raised platform of wicker-work, outside the hut, to sleep upon.
I remained in the village all the evening, receiving the visits of the leading natives and a dense crowd of men, women, and children, constantly pressing round the hut, old Gabba now and then angrily whipping them off with a cowhide whip. The elders of Imé were very friendly indeed; and the climax was reached when one venerable, pointing to his hut in the distance, said I might have it if so disposed, and his best wife into the bargain; and he patted one of the surrounding females on the head. She was by no means a beauty; and turning to him and smiling blandly, I answered, “Labadi donei-máyu” (I don’t want either of them), much to the amusement and delight of his second-best wives.
The headmen asked me many questions about Europe; and whether I thought the Italians could conquer Abyssinia if so disposed; and which was the greatest nation in the world. To this poser I replied, “Allah knows; we are all strong,” whereat they exclaimed to one another, “He tells the truth; if he were a liar he would say the English were the strongest.” It speaks well for the management of affairs on our North Somáli coast, that although these people were so far in the interior that they had hitherto never seen one of my countrymen, yet they knew and felt respect for the English name.
The Adone living at Imé have been great cultivators of jowári, which they eat; but they declared that the Abyssinians had been there some months before my visit, had shot several people, and taken off live-stock; and that they sent emissaries occasionally to collect tribute. Many of the Imé people have therefore left Imé and have gone to Karanleh, another large collection of villages three marches down the river to the east; and they say that Karanleh has now become the more important place. The Imé people certainly seemed very poor and very timid. They were afraid to go outside the palisades of the villages at night, and they held Jáma Deria and the Amáden in great awe. Gabba Oboho said that if I wanted to shoot buffaloes, hippopotami, and giraffes, I must go three days’ march to the south, to the Webbe Web, which is a tributary of the Webbe Ganána or Juba river, and that the people there were Gurré Gállas. He represented them to be “good people,” and that if I were a friend of his they would be pleased to see me, if I did not loot or fight with them; and that I had better go to Berbera and return in two months’ time, when our camels would be able to ford the Webbe. He said that for my caravan to cross on their clumsy rafts in the present flooded state of the river would take from four to seven days.
My leave was now coming to an end. I had already asked for an extension, but to find out whether it was granted I had to make all haste to the coast. We stayed four days at Imé hunting for the balanka or waterbuck, which is unobtainable anywhere in Somáliland except on the Webbe. Crowds of Adone thrust themselves on us during our rambles, hoping to get meat. I found the sport in the Webbe valley very interesting, though the heat was great, intensified by the high buffalo-grass through which we had to force our way. We were generally out on foot all day, often going to the river to rest in the cool, dense forest which clothes the banks for a hundred yards on either side of the stream. I shot two waterbuck, thinking, on account of their small size, that they must be a new species. But later experience on a second trip proved them to be young ones.
We found the cotton-bush flourishing wild on the river banks, and heard that cotton is grown farther to the east, towards the Shabéleh district. The name of this river at Imé is not the Webbe Shabéleh, but the Webbe Sidáma, which, I heard, is the Gálla name for the river. Shabéleh appears to be the name of the district through which the river runs at the point where Mr. F. L. James’s expedition struck it in 1884. The chief sources of the Juba are the Webbe Web, Webbe Ganána, and Webbe Dau, in order from north to south. The Imé people were calling their own river simply the Webbe (River).
I had now only time to ride back to the Rer Amáden karias at Dambaswerer, where my caravan was, and then to go quickly for thirty marches, occupying fifteen days, to Berbera. Bidding good-bye to our friends the Adone, we left at 2.50 P.M. on the 9th May for Dambaswerer, mounted on the same animals which had brought us to the Webbe. We rode till late at night, sleeping as before in the open, and at 3 A.M. resumed our ride, and going on with two short intervals for repose, we reached Dambaswerer at sunset on the same day. The sturdy Abyssinian mule which I rode came in first, then the two Arab camels, and last the five Amáden on their ponies, straggling in one by one; these latter were very much done up, having been in bad condition at starting.
Rás Makunan’s mule had been a marvel of staying capacity throughout the journey, and I would never wish for a better animal for steady work. The Arab trotting camels from Aden are excellent, having both speed and endurance; and a certain amount of kit can be carried on them in saddle-bags in addition to the rider.