86 
NOTES ON SOMALILAND. 
By Caprain P, Z, Cox. 
Part, I, 
(Read before the Bombay Natural History Society on 16th January, 1900.) 
“ On y revient toujours ! We come with hearts grown fouder, 
‘¢ Back to the life which each of us loves best,” 
Thus did the students in ‘“ The Artist’s Model” apostrophize their old 
Studio in the Quartier Latin ; and it was with sentiments very much akin 
to theirs that I contemplated the pleasant prospect of returning to Somali- 
land once more. 
It is difficult to say exactly what there is about “ The Horn of Africa,’ 
as it has been sometimes called, which seems to endow it with such a 
peculiar charm for all who have once made its intimate acquaintance, In 
the first place, no doubt, a man is generally attracted thither by the glowing 
reports of some friend of the Big Game shooting to be had there, but the 
mere acquisition of duplicate shikar-trophies is hardly sufficient to account 
for sportsmen returning there time after time when they might be equally 
well exploring fresh fields. It is not, I think, that Somaliland possesses any 
one particalar attribute unshared by other localities ; more probably it is the 
sum-total of its qualities as a country to sojourn in, which makes it so attrac- 
tive--its perfect climate, once the traveller is quit of the arid maritime plain ; 
the undeniable comforts of camel transport ;the cheery character of the 
native ; and last but not least, the infinite variety of animal life and scenery 
which is ever present to the vision, Kashmir and the Himalayas generally, 
T always used to think, were hard to beat ; there you have the scenery and 
the climate, but the eyes may have to rest content with scenery un- 
adulterated for days together ; animal life is not in evidence to the same 
extent and in the same variety as it isin Somaliland. 
‘he Natural History of the country was,I imagine, originally held to 
lie within the “‘ sphere of influence ” of this Journal, partly because, as an 
offshoot of the Aden Agency, the Protectorate appertained to the Bombay 
Presidency for administrative purposes, and partly no doubt, as being a 
favourite hunting resort for sportsmen from India—many of them members 
2 
of our Society. é 
The first of these reasons cannot be said to exist any longer, for the 
Bombay Presidency and the Somali Protectorate have recently severed 
their anomalous official connection, and the political infant, somewhat forlorn 
and badly nourished hitherto—the natural result, perhaps, of being put out 
to nurse at birth, has now thrown off the cloak of her Cinderella childhood 
and has been called upon by the maternal Government in London to figure 
among her sister Protectorates of the African Continent as a self-supporting 
term in our vast Imperial system. 
