Vill JOURNEY TO WEBBE SHABELEH RIVER 207 
of a pool of rain-water, hobbled the animals, lit a fire, and threw 
ourselves down in a circle round it to sleep, one man keeping 
watch over the animals. At 3 A.M. we were again on the move, 
and began to descend a long slope cut up by deep ravines, which 
falls to the Webbe Shabéleh river. We lost ourselves among 
impassable, precipitous watercourses several times; the guides, 
however, always managed, after much difficulty, to regain the 
path, which had been grown over with grass, and, because of 
the Amaden raids, had been unused for a year. We reached 
the Webbe Shabéleh at Imé at 1.30 p.m., having done the 
seventy-five miles in thirty-two hours at a moderate pace without 
a change of animals. 
As we neared Imé the view became very fine. The Shabéleh 
or Haines river lay before us, flowing in a tortuous course from 
north-east to south-west, its banks marked by a line of tall 
trees, with dense undergrowth of many varieties of evergreen 
bush of great size and beauty. The lines of high trees, following 
the winding river-banks, and covering the long narrow islands, 
reminded me of the banks of the Seine at Rouen, the trees 
growing in the shape of a poplar. The tall tops of these trees 
are constantly waving when there is any breeze, the gray-green 
foliage reflecting the light and giving a peculiarly lively character 
to the landscape. On the southern side were two low rocky 
hills, rising from the alluvial plain, wooded round their base ; 
and in these woods, which were crowned by tall graceful “toddy” 
palms like those of India, lay the large cluster of beehive villages 
of the Adone, collectively called Imé. 
Most of the open flats near the river-banks are cultivated by 
these negroes, or are left as pasture-land, to be grazed over by 
the Adone cattle and the herds of water-buck and Scmmer- 
ring’s gazelles. Behind the broad river valley, some fifteen 
miles to the south, rose a wall of lofty blue mountains, piled in 
picturesque confusion of peak and plateau to a height which I 
judged to be not less than eight or nine thousand feet above 
sea-level. The long slope of broken ground rising from the 
river to the base of the mountains was covered over its entire 
surface with monotonous thorn-jungle. The Arussi Gallas, who 
are camel-owning nomads like the Somalis, occupy these mount- 
ainous districts. These highlands are mysterious and attractive 
to the traveller, for the reason that no European penetrated them 
until the entry of the two well-armed expeditions of Captain 
Bottiga and Prince Ruspoli, which, so far as I could ascertain 
