24 A SPORTING TRIP THROUGH ABYSSINIA chap. 



important as the station where caravans from the coast 

 change their transport from SomaH camels to Harrar 

 donkeys, while those from the interior make the opposite 

 exchange. Nearly all the inhabitants of the place are 

 Somalis, dressed in the usual dirty white sheet or tobe ; 

 the married women with their hair done up in a dark- 

 blue cotton bag, the girls with theirs arranged in hun- 

 dreds of little plaits, which stand out like a string-mop. 

 We purchased four donkeys as bait for lion, and five 

 goats to supply us with milk for porridge and tea. Our 

 collection of skins was being so much damaged by con- 

 stant tying and untying, that I spent a morning in 

 making a couple of large boxes for them with material 

 1 picked out of a pile of hundreds of rifle-cases lying 

 in the custom-house courtyard. These, I found, had 

 held Gras rifles, sent up from Jibuti by the French 

 Government for Menelik, but, being too large and heavy 

 to be carried by donkeys, had to be unpacked here. 

 While I was working at these, the camp was besieged 

 by owners anxious to sell us their donkeys. The 

 Shum, who came to bid us farewell and to get a final 

 drink and a testimonial we had promised him, gave us 

 an escort of a couple of soldiers, as an indication that 

 we were travelling with the Emperor's sanction. 



At 1.40 the caravan started, and we followed at 3. 

 After two and a-half hours' march we reached Odah, and 

 found our camp on a pretty stretch of green grass by 

 a running stream. The country here was broken up 

 into small wooded hills, intersected by clear rippling 

 brooks, that often fell in miniature cascades and rapids 

 between banks clothed in vivid green. Next morning, 



