WE FIND: SOME KONSO PEOPLE. 239 
still further increased, the bushes became so dense; but 
in the afternoon we came to a broad valley, and found a 
well-trodden donkey path which ied to a ford in the river, 
and looking across the stream we beheld a village of about 
one hundred inhabitants. As we had been pestered so by 
mosquitoes, and there was considerable danger of fever 
along the river, we followed the donkey path some distance 
as it led up the mountain, and camped on a high, grassy 
knoll. 
The river took a bend to the northwest as it passed 
through a narrow opening in the mountain which seemed 
to me to preclude all hope of progress. I sent off one party 
of boys to see if it would be possible to make our way 
along the river, and another party up the donkey path; 
while a third company of ten men, with Haji Idris, I sent 
to the village across the river to get guides. The latter 
returned in the evening with some people from the Konso 
tribe, and also with two Boran, who said they lived high up 
on the mountains to the southwest, and that they belonged 
to the division of the Boran called Tertala. The Konso 
were very friendly and intelligent people, very dark in 
color, and much resembling the Amara. 
They were clad in enormous cloaks of their own manu- 
facture, and some of them wore turbans on their heads. 
Like the Amara, they have a distinct language of their 
own; but as they trade so much with the Boran, many of 
them speak Galla, so. that I could converse with them 
through my interpreter. I managed in this way to jot 
down about thirty words in the Konso tongue, which 
appear in the appendix of this book. 
We did not move camp the next day, as I wished to trade 
with the Konso people, and also give the camels a rest. 
These animals, for some unaccountable reason, had become 
very weak, and many of them succumbed to the lightest 
