Page:First Footsteps in East Africa, 1894 - Volume 2.djvu/132

 ateau. The Maritime Plain, at the points visited by Lieutenant Speke, is a sandy tract overlying limestone, level to the foot of the hills, and varying from half a mile to two miles in breadth. Water is not everywhere procurable. At the village of Las Kuray, there is an old and well built well, about twelve feet deep, producing an abundant and excellent supply. It appears that the people have no implements, and are too barbarous to be capable of so simple an engineering operation as digging. The vegetation presents the usual appearance of salsolaceous plants thinly scattered over the surface, with here and there a stunted growth of Arman or Acacia. The watershed is of course from south to north, and the rain from the hills is carried off by a number of Fiumaras or freshets, with broad shallow beds, denoting that much of the monsoon rain falling in the mountains is there absorbed, and that little finds its way to the sea. At this season (the dry weather) the plain is thinly inhabited; there are no villages except on the sea-shore, and even these were found by the traveller almost entirely deserted, mostly women occupying the houses, whilst the men were absent, trading and tending cattle in the hills. The harbours are, generally speaking, open and shallow road-steads, where ships find no protection; there is, however, one place (Las Galwayta), where, it is said, deep water extends to the shore. Meteorological observations show a moderate temperature, clear air, and a regular north-easterly wind. It is probable that, unlike the Berberah Plain, the monsoon rain here falls in considerable quantities. This land belongs in part to the Warsingali. Westwards of Las Galwayta, which is the frontier, the Habr Gerhajis lay claim to the coast. The two tribes, as usual in that unhappy land, are on terms of "Dam" or blood-feud; yet they intermarry. The animals observed were, the Waraba, a dark-