V 
RECONNAISSANCE OF ABYSSINIAN BORDER 123 
reputation for piety, and being intelligent, even among mullahs, 
can often read and write Arabic, although he is generally as 
black or brown in skin as any other Somdli. 
The horsemen of the Eer Ali came down in scores, attired in 
all their finery of red-tasselled saddlery and red and blue khaili 
tobes, to go through the usual dibaltig before the great man, 
whose name is Au Mahomed Sufi. They formed a large crowd 
on the sand of the river-bed below our tent, which was pitched 
under some large trees overhanging the Milmil nala. The 
sheikh’s own bivouac was on the same bank of the river, about 
five hundred yards to the north of us. I joined the crowd of 
onlookers with my brother, and Au Mahomed Sufi, the recipient 
of the honours of the day, came forward and shook hands with 
us, and gave us a place by his side. 
This man was travelling through OgMen, and was, I after- 
wards learnt, part of an organised plot for rousing the Somali 
tribes to combine against the Abyssinians. After the dibaltig 
he lifted his spear and addressed the assembled people, beginning 
by himself singing what appeared to be a composition of his 
own. 
In the evening, taking my hunters, I followed the tracks of a 
lion which had stolen a sheep from the Eer Ali flocks in broad 
daylight. Getting into broken country at the base of one of the 
bluffs, we put up two lions. We could not see them, although 
we heard them roar significantly, as though they had seen us. 
We found their lair, and part of the carcase of the sheep, close 
by, and within a yard of it was a dead vulture, which the lions 
had just killed, no doubt, by springing out of the ambush from 
which they had kept watch over the meat. Several vultures 
were perched on the branches of the trees around, looking wist- 
fully down, but not daring to come to the feast. The lions 
eventually got on to stony ground and we lost them. 
Next day a large number of horsemen came to welcome us 
at our own camp, and said they had come to dibaltig to us as 
representatives of the English Government. We appointed mid- 
day for this ceremony. 
Meanwhile I went after a lion, climbing one of the bluffs, 
which are two or three hundred feet high ; and after hunting 
through thick high grass for some time, sat down to rest below 
the edge of a bluff. While my men were wandering about, the 
lion got up with a low grunt, a few yards above the rock on 
which I sat, and made off into the grass. Following, I found 
