PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION vii 
These far-interior tribes had no treaties with us, so we were 
not bound to them in any way, except in so far as they chose 
to consider our having occupied the coast a moral obligation to 
let arms come in. . 
So the equilibrium became unstable. The Somalis — who 
with equally good weapons would, in the lower desert country 
to which they are accustomed, have been able to cope with the 
Abyssinian mountaineers—were over-awed by the latter, and 
lost a great deal of their live stock in one way and another. 
It is well known that Great Britain was on friendly terms 
with Abyssinia, and it was unreasonable for the Somalis to 
expect such leadership from us. 
The mullahs began to supply that leadership, and later on 
the “Mad Mullah,” by interfering with our protected tribes, 
drove us to side against him with Abyssinia, thus rendering the 
struggle doubly holy by arraying a Mahommedan Power against 
two Christian ones. During part of the time, in the last three 
years, Abyssinian armies have been co-operating with an expedi- 
tion, and one or two British officers have accompanied these 
forces. 
To go back to 1897. The Abyssinian fortified posts at 
Gildessa, Biyo-Kabdéba, and Jig-Jiga had been allowed to remain 
for six or seven years planted on the territory of Somali tribes, 
but not necessarily British territory; for that had not been 
delimited, although a previous delimitation had assigned to 
Italy those very tribes south of Milmil which used to complain 
to the British about the Abyssinian foraging parties. 
But Italy, after the Adowa reverse, while retaining this 
nominal sphere of influence, had not found it necessary to 
effectively occupy it. So that we find, in the treaty published 
after the Rennell Rodd: Mission, this territory left outside the 
British Protectorate, yet effectively occupied by no one, and 
subject to incursions by the Abyssinians or the mullahs. Also 
the territory round the three Abyssinian forts already named 
was left outside the British Protectorate, and fell to Abyssinia. 
Now we come down to 1900. 
In 1898 or thereabouts the British Foreign Office took over 
the administration of British Somaliland from the Government 
of India, and in 1900 we find our administration made difficult 
by one Mahommed Abdulla called the “ Mad Mullah.” 
He was born at Kirrit in the Dolbahanta country, and is 
therefore presumably a pure Somali. He seems to have drawn 
