IV GOVERNMENT EXPLORATIONS 97 
away. The same goat was killed by another panther springing 
into camp a few nights later. 
We separated our caravans on 14th June, meeting again at 
Ujawaji on the 17th, among the karias of the Rer Yunis Jibril, 
Jibril Abokr. The great subject of conversation among the 
natives here was the expected approach of an Abyssinian force, 
mounted scouts having been thrown out by the tribes, and news 
coming in daily. 
Near Ujawaji the country gradually became more grassy 
and open, the thorn-bushes being only thinly scattered about 
the plain. We passed a tree called ‘‘Mattan,” which was a 
conspicuous landmark, and two miles beyond a long hazy yellow 
line marked the commencement of the ban or open grass plain, 
called the Marar prairie. It was first crossed by Burton, and is 
mentioned in First Footsteps in Hast Africa. A conspicuous 
rock, called “Moga Medir,” or “ Jifa Medir” (Moga’s eye-tooth 
of Burton), lay ten miles to the west of us on the edge of the 
bush. On the evening of our arrival at Ujawaji we went out to 
shoot hartebeests to provide meat for the men. As we left camp 
the bushes gave place to low scrub, and this soon ended also. Then 
a curious scene presented itself. As far as the eye could reach 
was an unbroken plain of rolling yellow grass, rising gradually 
toward the north, and bounded twenty miles off in that direction 
by a waving blue line of hills running along the horizon, and 
here and there disappearing below it. 
The plains were covered with the camels and ponies of the 
Rer Dollol and Rer Yunis Jibril sub-tribes, the number of animals 
giving one the idea of a swarm of locusts moving over the 
ground. Everything showed up dark against the background of 
yellow grass, and single bull hartebeests, knee-deep in grass, 
were wandering between the droves of camels, looking like 
black dots in the distance. Beyond the masses of domestic 
animals we could see, far out on the plains, long dark lines, 
which, by using the glasses, we made out to be vast herds of 
hartebeests, beisa, and Scemmerring’s gazelles. The rich soil, 
of a reddish brown colour, is here and there undermined by 
burrowing animals and caved in, making galloping dangerous. 
The white ants had built up the earth into ant-hills, whose spires, 
from ten to twenty feet high, were dotted over the plain. We 
shot two hartebeests, both good bulls, and returned to camp with 
the meat and trophies, being caught by a heavy downpour of 
rain on the way. 
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