Page:First Footsteps in East Africa, 1894 - Volume 1.djvu/206

 At Zayla I had been informed that elephants are "thick as sand" in Harawwah: even the Gudabirsi, when at a distance, declared that they fed there like sheep, and, after our failure, swore that they killed thirty but last year. The animals were probably in the high Harirah Valley, and would be driven downwards by the cold at a later period: some future Gordon Cumming may therefore succeed where the Hajj Abdullah notably failed. On the 15th December I persuaded the valiant Beuh, with his two brothers and his bluff cousin Fahi, to cross the valley with us, After recovering a mule which had strayed five miles back to the well, and composing sundry quarrels between Shehrazade, whose swains had detained her from camel- loading, and the Kalendar whose one eye flashed with indignation at her conduct, we set out in a southerly direction. An hour's march brought us to an open space surrounded by thin thorn forest: in the centre is an ancient grave, about which are performed the equestrian games when the turban of the Ugaz has been bound under the Holy Tree. Shepherds issued from the bush to stare at us as we passed, and stretched forth the hand for "Bori:" the maidens tripped forwards exclaiming, "Come, girls, let us look at this prodigy!" and they never withheld an answer if civilly addressed. Many of them were grown up, and not a few were old maids, the result of the tribe's isolation; for here, as in Somaliland generally, the union of cousins is abhorred. The ground of the valley is a stiff clay, sprinkled with pebbles of primitive formation: the hills are mere rocks, and the torrent banks with strata of small stones, showed a watermark varying from ten to fifteen feet in height: in these Fiumaras we saw frequent traces of the Edler-game, deer and hog. At 1 P.M. our camels and mules were watered at wells in a broad wady called Jannah-Gaban or the Little Garden;