78 
THROUGH SOMALILAND AND ABYSSINIA chap. 
shook hands. I asked him after his sick father, and with a bland 
smile he said he had got well again, and was going to fight the 
Ba-Gadabursi. 
We rode on, and crossed a bare undulating plain, which in the 
evenings is sometimes covered with sand-grouse, and where I had 
often hunted aoul , and a mile beyond the Boho came upon 
the Ba-Gadabursi, advancing in line to the attack ! 
It was a stirring scene. About two hundred horsemen and 
three hundred spearmen on foot were advancing in a long line 
facing to the east, coming to meet us. The horsemen formed 
the left wing, marching along the flat sandy plain stretching 
down to the raised sea-shore on our right, which, though we 
could hear their roar, hid from our view the white breakers 
of the Gulf of Aden. On our left the plain rose to low sand 
hillocks covered with grass and scrub, and along these came 
the right wing on foot, the men extended at about a pace 
apart, keeping a good line, each man carrying his spears and 
shield and wearing his white tobe wound round his waist. 
Most of the horsemen wore the Jchaili , or red and blue tobe. 
The plain over which we had ridden stretched between us and 
Bulhar, which lay four miles behind us. 
Our little party of four cantered to meet this array. Now 
and then a horseman darted out from the line, and galloping 
round in a circle, threw his spear, and picked it up again while 
at full speed. As we approached they set up a song, but 
stopped when M rode up to one of the aukdl , or elders, 
and demanded a parley. There was a good deal of angry 
shouting at first, and the horsemen pressed round us in a dense 
mass, so that we could only extricate ourselves by drawing our 
revolvers. Seeing we really had serious business on hand, one 
or two of the leading Ba-Gadabursi elders, prominent among 
whom was a well-known firebrand called Warsama Dugal, 
entreated the horsemen to wait and hear what “the Govern- 
ment” had to say. M , by the aid of his interpreter. 
quietly explained that if they would only put off the attack 
for a day he would try and settle the feud satisfactorily to 
both parties. While the interpreter was explaining this, M 
asked me to try and bring out the thirty sappers, to be ready 
on hand if required. I told Khoda Bux in Hindustani, and, 
like the sporting Panjabi that he was, he was delighted with 
the errand, and kicking up his mule, started off at a gallop. 
A Shirdone galloped in pursuit, shouting and brandishing his 
