230 THROUGH UNKNOWN AFRICAN COUNTRIES. 
These, as 1 have before mentioned, are the principal 
weavers of this country, supplying the Boran and many 
other tribes with cloth, and are also excellent agriculturalists, 
raising very good coffee, tobacco, and cereals. To the 
north of Lake Abaya I could make out many points from 
which smoke issued, proving the region to be thickly popu- 
lated, the Amara giving me the names of different tribes 
according to the positions in which I have placed them on 
my map. They comprise the Yero, Done, Gonjabelo, Bu- 
sia, and the Jeratu. All these peopie raise corn, and many 
of them weave a coarse cloth. Very nearly all the tribes 
that I met or heard of living high up in cold countries had 
learned to make some sort of cloth from force of necessity, 
whereas I did not find a single tribe living in the hot 
country that knew how to weave. 
The Jeratu are the most powerful people about Lake 
Abaya, and extend far to the west. They are on good terms 
with their neighbors, except with the Busia. These latter 
are the common pests of all the tribes, living only by loot. 
They are few in number, but prove themselves a very 
formidable foe to their neighbors, with their poisoned 
arrows and tricky methods of warfare. They conceal 
themselves in holes in the ground, and attack usually at 
night. 
The Amara and Jan Jams buy much ivory from these 
various tribes to the north, and sell this again to the Boran, 
— the Boran, as I have stated, being in communication with 
Somali traders from Bardera. These “ Hawayi” Somalis pay 
enormous prices to the Boran for their ivory,—as much 
as ten oxen for a tusk weighing eighty pounds, —and are 
then obliged to transport it several hundred miles to Merka 
or Modisha, so that their profits are not very great. 
The water of the lake was wonderfully clear and fresh, 
and full of fish and hippopotami. One of the species of 
