Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 4.djvu/464

 those laid down by d'Abbadie, Des Avanchers, Cecchi, Traversi, and other recent travellers in the Abyssinian and Shoa highlands. A broad zone of unvisited lands still separates the northern and southern networks, whereas the various systems of itineraries for the most part already overlap each other in the other little known regions of the African continent.

Unfortunately the present political condition of Somali Land renders the exploration

of the interior both difficult and dangerous. The division of the tribes into numerous distinct clans also obliges travellers to pay a considerable amount of blackmail, levied by every little village potentate under the form of presents or other pretexts at every station along the route. Moreover, strangers have to adapt themselves, as everywhere throughout tropical Africa, to a more or less dangerous climate, which, however, thanks to the dryness of the atmosphere, is here less fatal than in most other torrid zones. Other terrors also dog their steps, and several