178 THROUGH UNKNOWN AFRICAN COUNTRIES. 
formed themselves into a strong central government, in 
which at present nothing but harmony prevails. All the 
Boran are worshippers of Wak, believing him to be an all- 
powerful man living high up in the heavens, working for 
their good or evil; but they have no idea of a future ex- 
istence. Whenever they desired anything especially, they 
would sacrifice some animal to Wak under a tree; and 
often on ordinary occasions when they slaughtered an ox 
or a sheep they called upon Wak to help them. 
The men usually had a plurality of wives, but were 
above the average savage in their ideas of morality. For 
years the Somalis from the coast towns near the mouth 
of the Jub have been accustomed to trade with the Boran 
for ivory, and it is from these traders that many of the 
reports concerning the Boran and their country have 
reached the ears of European residents on the coast. The 
Rey. Mr. Wakefield, who was for many years a missionary 
at Kismayo, collected a mass of material, but the majority 
of the reports furnished him were false. 
The Boran speak the same language as the Arusa 
Gallas, but differ widely in the pronunciation of some of 
their words from the Gallas living about the Tana River. 
We rested ten days at Aimola, during which time I 
bought twenty-two good camels, eight oxen, and some 
sheep and goats, paying out for these one hundred and 
twenty pieces of cloth, one hundred and forty pounds of 
mixed beads, seventy pounds of brass wire, and eight of my 
poorest camels. My boys had much work training the new 
camels to carry loads; but the Somalis, as I have said, are 
the best camel-men in the world, so it was not long before 
all the animals were thoroughly mastered. The water- 
holes of Aimola are situated on a plateau three thousand 
feet above the sea, called the Budda Ardesa, where the 
nights are always cool and the days not uncomfortably hot, 
