88 THROUGH SOMALILAND AND ABYSSINIA CHAP. 
less plains, crossing the Habr Toljaala boundary soon after leav- 
ing Dubbur, and always holding south-east. On the east a long 
low range of hills shut in the view, but west and south of us 
was one immense forest of small thorn-trees, except on the 
margin of the sand-rivers, where some of the gudd thorn-trees- 
reached a height of fifty or sixty feet. In a river-bed, called 
Goité, horsemen of the Habr Gerhajis, from Bur’o, came to hold 
a mounted parade in our honour. 
On 27th February we reached Yirrowa, and chose another 
theodolite station. There were several curious flat hillocks and 
cairns of stones, called Taalla Galla, perched about the corners 
of the Yirrowa Hill, and here we got an azimuth on.to Bur Dab 
Range, still blue in the distance. 
At a thickly-wooded pasture called Bér, five miles farther, in 
the valley of Tug Dér, we found water at a depth of ten feet in 
twelve wells. Very heavy floods sometimes come down this 
valley, as can be seen by the large trunks of trees everywhere 
stranded along the cut banks of the watercourse, which is at 
places one hundred and fifty yards broad. The Tug Dér 
freshets, coming from Bur’o, pass east into the Nogal Valley, and 
so to the Indian Ocean. 
We were told that there were always from fifty to five 
hundred robbers in the Bur Dab Range, and passing caravans 
were often looted. It has been the custom of these robbers, who 
belong to the Mahamud Gerdd, Saad Yunis, and Musa Abokr 
tribes living near the coast farther east, to loot across this Bér 
Plain every year, going right up to Guldu Hamed. When 
raiding they only water their ponies once in three or four days. 
Near Bér we found tracks of forty horsemen, and ascertained 
that they were those of a Dolbahanta force, which a month 
before had gone to loot the Habr Gerhajis pastures at Bur’o, but 
had been driven back, losing three ponies. 
Several ragged-looking Somalis, with the usual spears and 
shield, came into camp and insisted on being fed ; they had 
gone to Bur Dab to recover some camels looted from them three 
days before, but on reaching the mountain they had first seen 
vultures hovering about, and had then discovered the robbers in 
great force sitting over a feast of the carcases of the stolen 
camels ; and being afraid to attack, they had returned dis- 
heartened, hungry, thirsty, and tired. They told us that 
Colonel Paget and his brother had their camp near Wadama-go, 
ahead of us, where they were shooting lions. The Pagets had 
