TWO DIANAS IN SOMALILAND 31 
Rice for the men’s rations we bought in sacks of 
some 160 pounds, and two bags could be carried by 
one camel. Dates, also an indispensable article of 
diet, are put up in native baskets of sorts, and bought 
by the gosra , about 130 pounds, and two gosra can 
be apportioned to a camel. Ghee , the native butter, is 
a compound of cow’s milk, largely used by the Somalis 
to mix with the rice portion, a large quantity of fat 
being needful ere the wheels go round smoothly. It 
is bought in a bag made of a whole goat skin, with an 
ingenious cork of wood and clay. Each bag, if my 
memory serves me rightly, holds somewhere about 
20 pounds, and every man expects two ounces daily 
unless he is on a meat diet, when it is possible to 
economise the rice and dates and ghee. 
The camel mats, or herios, are plaited by the women 
of Somaliland, and are made from the chewed bark of 
a tree called Golol. The hams for water are also made 
from plaited bark, in different sizes, and when near a 
karia , it is quite usual to see old women and small 
children carrying on their backs the heaviest filled 
hams , whilst the men sit about and watch operations. 
The hams , which hold about six gallons of water, 
are — from the camel’s point of view anyway — the 
best for transport purposes. Six can be carried at once, 
but a tremendous amount of leakage goes on, and this 
is very irritating, upsetting calculations so. The water- 
casks were really better, because they were padlocked, 
and could also be cleaned out at intervals. But of 
these only two can go on a camel at one time. 
Our own kit was mostly in tin uniform cases, these 
