x THROUGH SOMALILAND AND ABYSSINIA 
kingdom, isolated for centuries, again into a restless military 
empire. 
There is no doubt that North-East Africa of to-day is still a 
good field for the shikdri, as are Ladak and the ranges near 
Kashmir, and parts of India; but much of the romance has 
gone as country after country has been opened up. The writer 
considers it a great privilege to have known what may be called 
the Africa of yesterday ; to have been able to take into the 
interior books like those of Gordon-Cumming and others, and to 
have read them while leading the life their authors led. It isa 
privilege also to have seen the Abyssinian army while still re- 
taining its picturesque splendour of gold and silver and colour, 
and its ancient organisation, unspoilt by any attempts to mas- 
querade in European uniforms. 
As regards the Somaliland hunting-grounds, prices have 
risen, lions have been reduced in number, and elephants have 
been driven away. The shooting has been doubly curtailed, 
most of Guban, the coast country, including the Habr Awal and 
Gadabursi countries, being now reserved for the sport of officers 
stationed at Aden; while the treaty with King Menelik in 1897 
has left many of the old shooting-grounds, including the whole 
of Ogddén and the Webbe, out of the British Protectorate. 
This loss of sport is perhaps less to be regretted than the 
exigencies of State, which have obliged us to disappoint a vast 
number of tribes in the Hinterland who had always hoped to be 
included within the British sphere of influence. 
THE AUTHOR. 
