Page:First Footsteps in East Africa, 1894 - Volume 1.djvu/207

 its course, I was told, lies northwards through the Harawwah Valley to the Odla and Waruf, two depressions in the Wayma country near Tajurrah. About half an hour afterwards we arrived at a deserted sheepfold distant six miles from our last station. After unloading we repaired to a neighbouring well, and found the water so hard that it raised lumps like nettle stings in the bather's skin. The only remedy for the evil is an unguent of oil or butter, a precaution which should never be neglected by the African traveller. At first the sensation of grease annoys, after a few days it is forgotten, and at last the "pat of butter" is expected as pleasantly as the pipe or the cup of coffee. It prevents the skin from chaps and sores, obviates the evil effects of heat, cold, and wet, and neutralises the Proteus-like malaria poison. The Somal never fail to anoint themselves when they can afford ghee, and the Bedouin is at the summit of his bliss, when sitting in the blazing sun, or,--heat acts upon these people as upon serpents,--with his back opposite a roaring fire, he is being smeared, rubbed, and kneaded by a companion. My guides, fearing lions and hyenas, would pass the night inside a foul sheepfold: I was not without difficulty persuaded to join them. At eight next morning we set out through an uninteresting thorn-bush towards one of those Tetes or isolated hills which form admirable bench-marks in the Somali country. "Koralay," a terra corresponding with our Saddle-back, exactly describes its shape: pommel and crupper, in the shape of two huge granite boulders, were all complete, and between them was a depression for a seat. As day advanced the temperature changed from 50° to a maximum of 121°. After marching about five miles, we halted in a broad watercourse called Gallajab, the "Plentiful Water": there we bathed, and dined on an excellent camel which had broken its leg by falling from a bank.