TURNED TOWARDS THE EAST AGAIN. 107 
two lions came and drove them off. Owing to the dark- 
ness, I could not get a shot at these lions; but Fred 
knocked over a hyena that came close to his tent, after 
which everything was quiet. 
In the morning we retraced our steps some distance 
along the Laga Tug. Wal-da-Gubbra on our parting 
promised eternal friendship, and said he was sorry to turn 
us back, but that if he did not do so he would lose his 
head, or else his right hand. He said he had made a 
tedious journey of three days, —having to walk a good 
deal of the time on account of the thick bushes, —so as 
to try to smooth matters over with me. He was most 
anxious that I should carry with me to Europe good 
reports of himself and the Abyssinians, gave me two bul- 
locks, and promised us plenty of food until we reached 
the Shebeli River. I tried to be as pleasant as possible to 
him, and made him believe, before I parted from him, that 
I was going straight back to Berbera. 
After a six hours’ march northeast, we stopped at a tug 
called Daro, where there was much salt in the ground. 
It was quite-hot, the elevation of the place being 2,780 
feet. We remained here the next day, as the camels had 
not had nearly enough salt lately. It was interesting to 
see the beasts swallow great masses of the salty earth. 
There were many oryx and zebras about, and Fred and I 
had considerable sport shooting them. These zebra 
grevil are wonderfully tenacious of life. One of them 
ran a long distance with two bullets from my .577 express 
through both his lungs, and did not fall until I had given 
him a third wound in his neck. We found zebra meat to 
be the best of all game, tasting like beefsteak, but with a 
wild flavor. 
Our marches took us through a country which was very 
much cut up by rifts and valleys, running in a southeast- 
