NOTES TO APPENDIX III. 



515 



is justly represented as desert and barren. In passing along 

 it some natives were seen tending a few cattle on the shore, 

 but there is reason to believe, from the apparent extreme 

 infertility of the sand, that the number of inhabitants can be 

 but very small ; ^ even the sea-shore, where the abundance of 

 fish would render the means of subsistence so easy to be 

 attained, seemed totally neglected ; not a hut or boat of any 

 kind was to be seen throughout its whole extent — a strong 

 proof of the thinness of the population, and of the country 

 near the coast being destitute of the material requisite for 

 constructing these necessaries. The few inhabitants probably 

 belong to the Saumalie tribe, whose limits of residence are said 

 to extend to the line. We did not remark any inlets or traces 

 of rivers on this coast. 



Xote 3 (p. 467). A little north of Cape Bassas is a hill, or 

 long ridge, of an uncommon red colour, and along the land from 

 it to the Cape itself are a number of white sand hillocks which 

 form excellent marks to vessels approaching it from the north- 

 ward and eastward. 



Note 4 (p. 468). From the information afterwards 

 received the Doara seems to be an inconsiderable stream. 



Note 5 (p. 470). We afterwards discovered these to be 

 really islands, and the commencement of the chain which 

 extends beyond Patta. 



Note 6 (p. 471). The opinion upon which the existence of 

 this supposed river rests is founded on certain accounts 

 transmitted some time ago to the Governor of Bombay by the 

 late Captain David Seton, the Company's resident at Muscat. 



* The inhabitants hide themselves from strangers. In the interior 

 they are tolerably numerous. Being Somal, they will not eat tish or fowl, 

 as 1 have explained in my First Footsteps in East Africa. 



2 It is the ' Nile of Makdishu,' supposed to issue from the lake Kaura. 

 Of late years it has been called Webbe River) Gamana or Webbe 

 Giredi, aud by Lieut. Christopher, the ' Haines River.' According to 

 others, it rises about N. lat. i)" to 10° at a place called Deuok, wheuce 

 also one of its multitudinous names. 



