156 THROUGH SOMALILAND AND ABYSSINIA  cHAP. 
and took it away from under my very nose, but the light was 
too bad for me to fire, and I returned much disgusted to camp, 
picking my way home in the dark. 
At midnight my caravan leader, Adan Yusuf, woke me up 
to say that he had received news that Banagtisé was coming to- 
morrow with two hundred soldiers, and had sent for a rein- 
forcement of two hundred more; and that Banagusé had said 
to his people that he would arrest me, whoever I was, and find 
out the reason of my coming afterwards. 
Accordingly, next morning Banagusé marched into the Jig- 
HARTEBEEST (Bubalis swaynei). 
Jiga Valley with the large escort of nearly four hundred horse and 
foot, armed chiefly with Remington rifles. The force was one 
of organised troops, so far as the Abyssinian military system 
goes, and the rifles were superior to the Snider carbines of my 
escort. I watched them for many miles as they advanced over 
the plain, by the aid of a large astronomical telescope, which we 
set up on a tripod in camp. The force halted outside the 
Abyssinian zeriba, eight hundred yards from my camp, a dip of 
open grass-land, forming the Jig-Jiga Valley, lying between us. 
Banagusé went into the zeriba, the bulk of the soldiers squat- 
ting down outside, gossiping and holding the horses of those 
Abyssinian chiefs who had been mounted. 
Soon Banagtsé’s headman or Shem, Abadigal, came spurring 
across the valley to my camp, mounted on a beautiful gray 
