248 
SOMALILAND 
been two months ago. By going out of our road at Gal ad i 
we had wasted nine days 1 The place was so altered I did 
not know it. I remembered it as a barren plain, with 
several deep wells in the centre. Now all the bushes and 
trees were of every possible shade of brilliant green. On 
arrival here, I procured a guide, killed one of the camels 
I had bought for the men, filled all the water-pots with 
water, mended all my torn clothes, washed my dirty ones, 
overhauled my collections of beasts, birds, butterflies, and 
beetles, doctored the men and animals, and prepared to 
march northwards to Berbera, which I hoped to reach in a 
fortnight or a little over. 
Everything went well with these preparations, until at 
1 p.m. one of the camels was found to be missing, so I sent 
men in every direction to look for it, suspecting it had been 
looted. During the day I shot a marabou stork, the first I 
had seen during this expedition, though I often saw them 
in my last in the Boorgha country. This specimen was by 
far the largest I have ever seen, and measured no less than 
6 feet 14 inches from tip of beak to tip of toe, and 9 feet 
from tip to tip of wings ! I saw several other birds here, 
such as the red- vented thrush, the superb glossy starling, 
and the hoopoe. About midnight two of my men came in 
with the lost camel, saying they had found it sitting in a 
thick bush. 
Next morning we marched at 3.30. Thunder and 
lightning were heard and seen round us all the morning, 
but not a drop of rain fell upon us. After passing through 
burnt-up country, we reached at daybreak green trees and 
bushes with the rain of the night before still wet upon 
the leaves. 
It was all a toss-up how much water we found until 
reaching Edegan Wells, which are distant from Well Wall 
about nine days. So that, unless there had been plenty of 
rain further north, I feared we might again experience a 
march like the one across the Marehan desert. 
I had tried hard at Well Wall to hire some camels and 
