I 
SOMALI ETHNOLOGY 
21 
These raids were occurring at Karanleh on the Webbe when I 
went there in 1893, and put me to much inconvenience; and in 
1889, when I visited a mission station called Golbdnti on the 
Tana River, not far from Lamu on the east coast, I found a 
Somdli encroachment taking place. 
The GMlas at this place a few years before my visit numbered 
between one and two thousand souls ; they are rich in cattle, but 
latterly had been annually raided by the Masai from the south 
and the Somdlis from the north, till the village of Golb&nti had 
dwindled down to about one hundred and fifty inhabitants, and 
had only been kept going by the exertions of, and protection 
afforded by, the representative of the United Methodist Mission 
stationed there. Three years before my visit the former 
missionary and his wife, an English lady, had been murdered by 
the Masai, and less than two years later the German station of 
Ngai, a few miles up-stream, was burnt by a party of over a 
thousand Somdlis, who came to within a short distance of 
Golbdnti, but were unprepared to attack the stockade and house 
built by the missionaries, the upper verandah having been 
thoughtfully lined with a few rifles. 1 The German missionaries 
from Ngai had taken refuge in the Golbdnti house, and saw the 
flare of their own mission burning a few miles away. The Gdllas 
at Golbdnti said they feared the Somalis even more than the Masai, 
as the former being good swimmers, the Tana River was no 
obstacle to them. 
The southern Somdli tribes, who are very bold, are said to 
raid cattle from the Gdllas and take them to the mixed Gdlla 
and Arab town of Lamu, on the east coast, to sell again. As 
they have horsemen, they are said to be able to cope with the 
Masai, whom they sometimes meet when raiding the Gdllas near 
the Tana. I saw a few of the southern Somdlis walking about 
Lamu. They appear to be rougher, more savage, and finer men 
than the northern Somdlis. 
The Gdllas of Golbdnti are well-featured men, quiet in manner, 
brown in colour, with thin lips, and slightly built. The Somalis 
are like them, but rather bigger and better built ; the only differ- 
ence that I could observe was that there appeared to be some 
Arab blood in the SomMis. The little I saw of the nomad GMlas 
at Ime and Karanleh on the Webbe tended to strengthen me in 
1 A few years later (Christmas 1894) another Somali raid against the Gallas 
of the Tana has resulted in the total defeat of the Somalis at Kulessa by a 
handful of white men and natives. 
