110 
THROUGH SOMALILAND AND ABYSSINIA ch. iv 
utmost, we could see nothing. At last we moved away from 
the uncanny spot, and as no further incident happened, we 
concluded the elephant which last trumpeted must have been 
covering the retreat of the herd, and have stolen away silently 
after the others. 
Next day my brother went after these elephants, and 
stalked in amongst them by creeping through a high grass 
glabe, but finding they were all cows and young ones he did 
not molest them. Meanwhile half a dozen sword-hunters, of 
mixed tribes, came to our camp. One of these was a Gadabursi, 
another a Habr Awal, and the rest Og4den. Their ponies 
were excellent, and better than any we had yet seen among the 
Gadabursi. They were after the elephants which my brother 
had been stalking ; and while in our camp they described their 
method of working. Like the Hamran Arabs described by 
Sir Samuel Baker in his Nile Tributaries , they ride after the 
elephant and hamstring him with a sword, one man keeping in 
front on a white horse to attract the elephant’s attention. I 
believe the SomMis use the sword while at full gallop, without 
springing to the ground, but of this I am not certain. The 
sabres we saw seemed to be light single-handed ones, an old 
Egyptian blade being strapped to a bone handle by means of 
raw hide. These men said they had killed twelve elephants 
during the last two months, — eleven bulls and one cow, — and 
that since their party began hunting the year before, two men 
had been killed by the elephants. 
We continued our journey from Hem&l to Ali Maan, where 
I shot a fine koodoo bull. At Ali Maan we separated into two 
parties. I marched to Bulhar by Kebri Bahr, while my brother 
marched to Zeila, reaching that port on 19th October. At 
Buk Gego he bagged, with one shot, a bull elephant, a fine 
tusker. 
The record of these Government explorations undertaken 
between 1885 and 1891 shows how steadily British influence 
has been advancing. At the time of my first visits to the coast 
none of the routes in Guban was safe to travel on without a 
powerful escort, except the track along the sea-shore from Bulhar 
to Berbera. All this is changed now, for such is the confidence 
which Sonkdis have in our countrymen, that Englishmen explor- 
ing in the interior make small payments for sheep, milk, or 
other supplies, by writing on scraps of paper, to be afterwards 
presented at the coast ; and these “ chits ” have all the value 
