observed in Northern Somali-land. 67 



worse, and I spent the rest of the afternoon in my dark- 

 ened tent bathing it ; however, towards sundown the pain 

 lessened, and the next morning my eye was quite well again. 

 Dr. Giinther, to whom I subsequently showed the specimen, 

 pronounced it to be a cobra, and said that had I had any 

 abrasion of the skin, which would have allowed the poison to 

 enter the system, the result might have been fatal. I feel that 

 I have the greatest reason to be thankful for my escape, the 

 more so as a few weeks later an old man came and begged 

 for some medicine that would restore the sight to one of his 

 eyes, and when I asked him how he had lost it, he replied, 

 " Ten years ago a snake spit into my eye.^' While at 

 Hammar, Gunnis brought in a little baboon; it was a poor 

 weakly little thing that had not had strength enough to hold 

 on to its mother's back while she bounded over the rocks. We 

 hardly thought it would live, but the ladies tended it with 

 the greatest care, with the result that it is now, together 

 with a little female that we obtained later, a most popular 

 show at the Zoological Society's Gardens. 



Leaving Hammar, we ascended the pass by a beautiful 

 new road lately engineered since the British occupation, 

 such a contrast to the old rocky " staircase '•* existing for- 

 merly, when on two occasions it took from sunrise to 

 sunset to get our caravan up it. Now all is plain sailing, 

 and in about three hours from starting the camels emerged 

 on to the level plain at the top, which forms one of the 

 upper ledges of the Goolis range, 4000 feet above the sea. 

 The view was magnificent, whichever way we looked. Away 

 to the north lay Berbera, with its shipping and minaret 

 just discernible through the shimmering tropical haze, while 

 long Avhite lines of surf divided the faint yellow of the 

 maritime plain from the even paler blue of the sea. The 

 intervening country, with its gleaming dry watercourses 

 accentuated by the green of the trees along their banks, and 

 the small round-topped hills, reminds one forcibly of a raised 

 map. To the west, as far as the eye can reach, stretch the 

 precipitous bluffs of the upper Goolis, while to the east 

 Wagga Mountain, over 7000 ft. in height, looms faintly in the 



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