250 THROUGH SOMALILAND AND ABYSSINIA — CHAP. 
The Gilimiss guide whom we had taken from Karanleh told 
me that we should be attacked by the Aulihdn if we followed 
the river down as far as Burka, and represented the Aulihan to 
be dangerous people. But I found, upon questioning my own 
men, that the guide had lately been concerned in the killing of 
an Aulihén, and that tribe naturally wanted his blood; so, to 
avoid trouble, I dismissed him and went on without a guide. 
This was not difficult, because a good native path followed the 
course of the river, and we were never so far from the bends 
that we could not bring from them, in our casks, the water for 
camp use. On 5th September we arrived at a low precipitous 
hill called Burka, shooting a bull beisa on the way. We met 
some of the Aulihdn watering their flocks, and on 6th September 
followed them to their karias, some distance inland. The name 
of this sub-tribe was Rer Afgab, Aulihin. They gave us milk 
and a display on horseback ; and they asked us to go to their 
country to shoot, stating they would barter cattle in exchange 
for cloth, and that if I took the cattle afterwards to the Gallas 
in the Wéb country I should get plenty of ivory. 
On 7th September, finding that the giraffe-ground was at 
least four days to the south of Burka, we marched back towards 
Karanleh, to be ready to meet Dubbi Harré on the day appointed. 
We made a long march to our old camp at Ellan, where I had 
lost the horse, and thence went to Yahia’s village. Dubbi 
Harré had not yet arrived, so we retraced our steps down the 
river to shoot for a few days, halting at a place called Shendil. 
Our camp was pitched on open ground outside a belt of forest 
some four miles long by one mile deep, fringing the Webbe. 
On the northern bank, opposite to Shendil, was Sen Morettu, 
where we struck the river a fortnight before. To the south of 
us lay an even plain gradually rising towards the Galla mount- 
ains, being covered in alternate patches of thick thorn-bush and 
glades of long, coarse buffalo grass. 
On the 12th I went out shooting on a wide open plain 
which had been cleared by fire, only the leafless trees with 
charred stems being left standing above the black ground; 
young grass, always very attractive to game, had begun to 
spring up, and here I shot two waterbuck carrying good heads. 
Tn the evening, going into the high forest by the river to look 
for the dél, or bushbuck, to our astonishment we came to some 
large tracks, which my guide, a Gilimiss, pronounced to be 
those of wild buffalo. There were two old bulls. We followed 
