36 THROUGH SOMALILAND AND ABYSSINIA  CHapP. 
(2) Gu—May, June—the heavier rains (little felt on the 
coast). 
(3) Haga—July, August, September—the hot weather. The 
karif wind, or south-west monsoon, blows furiously. It is hot 
in Guban, with sand-storms, but cold on the Hand and other 
parts of the high interior. 
(4) Dair—October, November, December—the lighter rains. 
Heavy on the coast. 
(5) At the end of Jzdl is a short season of greatest heat just 
before Gu, called Kalil. 
Of these seasons the Haga is the most unpleasant on the 
coast, the karif, a strong south-west gale, sweeping along with 
great fury, blowing the dust and stones in the face of any caravan 
so unfortunate as to have to march against it, and making it 
impossible to keep a tent up. The wind generally commences 
at midnight and blows till 2 p.m. the next day ; the remainder 
of the twenty-four hours, from 2 p.m. till midnight, being a time 
of great heat, which is even more unpleasant than the wind, 
unless tempered by a slight north-east breeze, coming as a re- 
action after the fourteen hours’ gale. My usual plan was to 
make the longest marches in the mornings, in spite of the wind, 
and on halting, to camp under the shade of a tree till the wind 
should have stopped sufficiently for us to pitch tents. Then at 
night a bivouac was made by piling all the baggage and camel- 
mats into a steep wall, all of us sleeping under the lee of it in the 
open, by which means one could get a comfortable sleep till 
morning ; but I never kept up a tent during the wind-storm. 
At this season coast communication by dhow is very un- 
certain ; dhows cannot beat against the kari, but while sailing 
before it they make about eleven knots an hour. Dhows for 
Aden cannot leave the Berbera harbour during the Haga season 
until evening, when the lull occurs, and then they sail out to 
near the lighthouse, three miles west of the town, waiting till 
midnight to cross towards Aden; on getting thirty-five miles 
out to sea they are usually clear of the karif. This wind seems 
to cease above the level of Guban, and above Golis the heat of 
July is mitigated by cool south-west breezes which are not very 
violent. As one descends again to the Webbe Shabéleh valley 
in the far interior, one comes into the karéf again ; it is much 
worse at Bulhar, Berbera, and Karam than it is on the Zeila side. 
In the Kalil season, the intense heat just before the rains, 
I have registered 118° Fahrenheit under the shade of a double 
