ch. v RECONNAISSANCE OF ABYSSINIAN BORDER 115 
equilibrium of power is affected, the Abyssinians help themselves 
to Somfili cattle when they like, and the owners, who are all 
Mahomedans, turn their eyes towards us for protection against 
their natural enemies. They place the most implicit faith in 
the British, and are persuaded that our Government will never 
stand by and see them seriously pushed by the Abyssinians 
without giving them, at any rate, moral help of some sort. 
They turn to us as their natural protectors, as they would have 
turned to the Egyptians had that Government continued to hold 
the coast. 
As related in the last chapter, we received the first news of 
Abyssinian interference with the Jibril Abokr when surveying in 
June ’91. A chief named Banaguse had demanded tribute in 
cattle, and had also sent out marauding parties from Jig-Jiga, 
the fortified post which had been pushed out by the Abyssinians 
into the Marar Prairie, to lift cattle from the Jibril Abokr. 
This tribe, which is really a sub-tribe of the Habr Awal, who are 
under British protection, appealed to us for help from Aden, at a 
meeting of the elders held by me at Ujawaji, June ’91, in front 
of my tent. The elders there told us that the principal authors 
of the trouble were Banaguse and Basha-Basha, two Abyssinian 
generals, the former being the responsible person at Jig-Jiga and 
the latter in western OgMen. 
It appears that these two chiefs had been using the Bertiri 
tribe, who live in the Harar highlands, as a “cat’s paw” in 
making requisitions for cattle on the Habr Awal and Og&den 
tribes. The tribute of cattle was always collected at Jig-Jiga 
and then sent up in a great mob to Harar, where the people 
were reported to be starving, and where the large number of 
Abyssinian soldiers occupying the place required to be rationed. 
The fortified post of Jig-Jiga was also a constant menace 
to the large village of Hargeisa, within the British Protectorate, 
and the elders said that every year the trouble between the 
outlying Abyssinian chiefs and the nomad Som&li tribes near 
the coast would increase, unless something could be done to 
make the former cease their buccaneering raids. 
The substance of the statement made by the spokesman at 
the meeting in my camp was as follows : — 
“The Bertiri come from Jig-Jiga armed with rifles and 
demand tribute of cattle from us, and in certain cases have 
looted our live stock when out grazing. We cannot make 
reprisals on the Bertiri, as they are protected by the Abyssinians. 
