observed in Northern Somali-land. 65 



again the next morning before the sun was up, reaching 

 Bihen at tea-time, where we found the tents already pitched, 

 for we ourselves had taken it easy on the march, and had 

 rested for some hours in the shade of a large tree covered 

 with creepers, where butterflies and Sun-birds were very 

 plentiful. 



Bihen is another oasis, caused by a strong spring of deli- 

 cious water that comes bubbling out of the rock at the root 

 of a large fig-tree. After forming two large pools, which, 

 by the way, are full of small turtles, it loses itself in a dense 

 mass of tall rushes, a favourite resort of lions a few years 

 back. The bright green of the close-cropped sward and of the 

 tall rushes is very grateful to the eye after the arid country 

 through which the road from Berbera passes, so we decided 

 to stay here for a few days. The following morning Aylmer 

 started off to a sugar-loaf mountain called " Dimoleh." 

 It has hitherto been marked on the maps as " Inaccessible 

 Peak,'^ the natives saying that no man had ever been known 

 to reach the top. However, Aylmer and his two " boys " 

 succeeded in reaching the summit after a stiffish climb. 

 Hersi, one of the natives, gave a most amusing account of 

 the horrors of the ascent in Somali-English, and finished up 

 by saying : " If Mr. Elmer give me two hundred pound to 

 go up again, I don^t take him ; what use two hundred pound 

 if you no live to spend him ? " Hersi was a great wag. 

 While at Bihen we were visited by hundreds of baboons, 

 who barked at us from the rocks above ; they have a secure 

 and safe sleeping-place close by, which has all the appearances 

 of having been thus used for ages. It is an overhanging 

 cliff, inaccessible from below; here on the upper ledges sleep 

 the young ones and females, while the old males form a 

 semicircle about the top, and woe to any prowling leopard 

 which attempts a midnight raid. 



From Bihen we made a short march to Gelloker (''place 

 of the Little Bustard'^), the country becoming more and 

 more interesting as we approached the Goolis Mountains, 

 the tops of which (curiously enough for this time of 

 year) had been veiled in mist ever since we started. Tall 



SER. VII. VOL. II. Y 



