DIFFICULT MARCHING. 185 
called Garca, in a country very sparsely inhabited, and in 
which there was little game except giraffes and Waller’s 
gazelles. But the next march brought us to a thickly 
populated district about Mt. Jima, where there were many 
Gabbra villages, as well as settlements of Hawayi Somalis. 
These Hawayi Somalis had emigrated from Bardera 
within the last sixteen years, and were now under the 
protection of King Abofilato. 
The two Boran guides were not leading us by the best 
paths, I afterwards found out, but persisted in taking us first 
north, and then south, through the densest sort of jungle. 
From the insolent manner in which some of the natives 
treated us, and the strange behavior of my guides, I soon 
began to suspect there was something wrong. I frequently 
found the tracks of many men on ponies, who had gone 
before us, and my boys would occasionally see natives spy- 
ing at us from behind some bush. Still we could find no 
reason to be alarmed, as in most places in the Boran country 
the natives had been friendly. Two marches from Jima 
brought us to a rather more open country, in which there 
were some curious wells called Le. These wells, which lie 
in a broad meadow, are very remarkable, being approached 
by a winding passage a hundred yards long, which descends 
gradually to the bottom of a large round chamber, fifty 
feet deep, and opening straight to the top. The passage- 
way and the chamber itself have both been cut through 
solid rock. In the latter are a series of basins for receiv- 
ing the water as it is drawn up from a narrow opening 
dug another forty feet below the bottom of the chamber. 
Rough ladders made of sticks, and whipped together by 
leather thongs, lead down to the water. 
Although I saw no inscriptions, or relics of any kind 
that might lead me to suppose these wells had been made 
by the Egyptians, their immense size, and the fact of their 
