THROUGH SOMALILAND AND ABYSSINIA chap. 
134 
and the Abyssinians were encamped some miles off in the Gureis 
Hills, coming to Jig-Jiga every morning to water cattle and 
horses, and returning to their villages at night. The scouts 
reported that they met some Midg4ns near the water, and that 
these men ran at them and would have attacked them, but were 
afraid of the two rifles. It afterwards transpired that my men 
had been telling a lie ; they had really met a large crowd of 
Bertiri, who had run at them, thinking they were robbers ; and 
my two scouts, in their fright, had fired a round of buckshot 
into their faces. They afterwards confessed to having knocked 
down a woman with a pellet in the lip. On my instituting an 
inquiry among the Bertiri next day, the elders said, “It is so, 
and she is dead ; she is only a Midgdn woman, and has no 
relations, so it doesn’t matter.” Asking them to show me the 
grave, they said it didn’t matter, and that the Abyssinians 
would have killed fifty instead of one, and that the English 
were good people ! Failing to get any sensible answers to my 
questions, I explained the heinous nature of the offence, and 
advised them to complain at the Besident’s Court at Berbera. 
But no complaint was ever made, so I think that though a woman 
was really knocked down by a spent pellet, she was not killed ; 
and that the elders reported her death in the hope of a present. 
On 2nd September we marched over rolling and open ban to 
the Jig-Jiga Valley, and camped at the water within three 
hundred yards of the ill-famed Abyssinian stockaded fort, which 
had been such a thorn in the side of the Jibril Abokr tribe. 
We found it untenanted ; and as the Bertiri made no objection, 
we went over it and took some photographs. 
The Jig-Jiga post is a work pushed out by the Abyssinians 
into the Bertiri part of the Marar Prairie, and commands the 
route from Berbera to Harar. It is a strong redoubt surmounted 
by a rough stockade, the thin tops of the interlaced branches 
being about thirteen feet from the ground outside. The earth- 
work is a banquette four or five yards wide, rising in two steps 
to seven feet above the ground. The banquette and stockade 
are continuous round the enclosed space, which is a circle of 
about one hundred yards in diameter. It is strong enough 
against attacks by spearmen, but would give imperfect cover 
against musketry fire. On the outside the small branches of the 
stockade are bent outwards to form very flimsy chevaux de frise. 
There is one doorway, with a platform above on which a sentry 
