MY SOMALI BOOK 75 



game in it — a few dhero, occasional gerenuJc, once the 

 track of a lesser kudu. We came across one big 

 wart-hog, which Abdilleh wanted me to shoot. Of 

 course he would not have laid finger on the unclean 

 beast and I should have had to skin and remove the 

 head unassisted. But it would bring luck with the 

 lions ! However, Piggy was on sacred ground and 

 was permitted to go his way. 



Seeing that the time before me was so much shorter 

 than I had originally intended, I rather grudged these 

 few da^ys in the Reserve, while the heat was decidedly 

 greater than it would be on the plateaux we were 

 eventually bound for, and which might have been 

 reached more quickly via the Jerato Pass. Other- 

 wise it was perhaps no bad thing to be able to get 

 more or less into training before the real work began. 

 And those first hours of the march, tramping ahead 

 of the caravan in the fresh morning air when the day 

 had scarce begun, brushing the dew from grass and 

 bush as we passed ! It was good just to be alive and 

 rejoice with the birds, whose presence, except on 

 some occasional barren stretch, was rarely lacking. 



On the 29th July we arrived at Hargeisa. This 

 is the only permanent village that I came across in 

 the interior. It is primarily a tariga, or settlement, of 

 priests, the head of which was an influential Mullah 

 named Sheikh Matar. It contains a village of mat 

 huts with a population of about a thousand, and, 

 there being a good water supply, possesses, what is 

 rare in Somaliland, an area of perhaps two thousand 

 acres under cultivation {joivari). It was at this time 

 the headquarters of the Western District of the 



