126 
THROUGH SOMALILAND AND ABYSSINIA chap. 
Harun horsemen arrived and asked to be allowed to repeat the 
show, we found ourselves obliged to decline the honour, and 
continued our survey westward towards the Abyssinian border. 
Our men, on the night of the Her Ali dibaltig , went to the 
karias and danced till nearly daylight, the women clapping 
their hands and jumping up and down, keeping up a monotonous 
refrain. Next day half our men were ill, having gorged them- 
selves upon the mutton and camel-meat generously provided by 
the Her Ali. 
We passed the deserted village of Dagahbur and reached a 
rounded grassy hill called Tuli, and it was while encamped here 
that we shot the first Somali rhinoceros, an animal which for 
many years we had expected to come upon, but which up till 
then had never been seen or shot by a European. We found 
plenty of game at Tuli, and as I rode up to the rounded hill to 
choose a site for my camp, a troop of ostriches went racing 
away into the sea of bush and grass to the north-west. 
To the west of Gumbur Tuli lay a valley covered with 
dense dark mimosa forest, called Dih Wiyileh, or Rhinoceros 
Valley. Between Dagahbur and Waror, an interval of fifty 
miles, the country was waterless at this season, and hearing 
that Waror was occupied by Abyssinian soldiers, I deemed it 
advisable to arrive there with a supply of water on the camels ; 
so finding the hdns rather low, I had to wait at Tuli a couple of 
days while we sent back to Dagahbur for more water. 
The time had come when I hoped to make the acquaintance 
of the long -sought rhinoceroses ; and I left camp in the early 
morning with my two gunbearers Geli and Hassan, and another 
man called Au Ismail, who led our one camel and acted as 
guide. Taking a line to the south-west across the Dih Wiyileh 
from Tuli Hill, we presently came on fresh rhinoceros-signs. 
These we took up till nearly mid-day, the two beasts we were 
following having made a maze of tracks there while feeding 
in the morning. At last Geli pointed to our game — two 
rhinoceroses standing, apparently asleep, under a shady thorn 
bush. I advanced to forty yards, and opened fire with the four- 
bore, putting a four- ounce bullet into the shoulder of each with 
a right and left, making them tear away at a gallop through 
the jungle. I followed at best pace, putting in two more 
cartridges as I ran, and so finishing one of the rhinos. Passing 
this one, I found the other standing in thick bush broadside-on, 
listening and looking for its fellow. Feeling for cartridges, I 
