"THE POOL OF BIRDS" 



a francolin and a duck, which I was very glad to have 

 secured for my dinner. The name of this place is 

 Shimbirleh ("the pool of birds"), and here it may be 

 explained that Guranlagga or the Lak Guran means, 

 freely translated, a "jungle stream." Either name 

 is correct, for Lak is a Galla word for a river that 

 runs only after the rains, and is universally used in 

 Jubaland by the natives to distinguish such streams 

 from the permanent rivers, for which the Somali word 

 is Webbe. When the word Lak is put after the 

 name of a river, its form is changed into -lagga, 

 although the meaning is preserved. Guran is a 

 native word for a thornless acacia ; hence the literal 

 meaning of Guranlagga is "the stream where the 

 Guran bushes grow." 



Its creneral direction at Shimbirleh is from west 

 to east, and a month later I discovered that its source 

 was due west of that place. On previous maps it 

 was shown to run from north to south, and its name 

 was o-iven as " Lak Guranluoo;a," which shows how 

 easily confusion is brought into geographical nomen- 

 clature by people who do not carefully question the 

 natives as regards the meaninij of local names. 



As a long and waterless march of 58 miles 

 lay between this place and the districts of Joreh, I 

 decided to spend a few days here and give the camels 

 a rest before undertaking it. I spent much of my 

 time in exploring the river, as far as it was possible 

 to do so, both east and west. At intervals I did 

 a little hunting ; the game was scarce and I was only 

 able to add birds to my collection. However, one day 

 while I was out in the jungle that fills the river-bed, 

 I heard a tremendous rustling of branches, as though 

 some large beast was making its way through the 



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