VI 
A VISIT TO RAS MAKUNAN OF HARAR , 1893 165 
covered with jowari cultivation and clusters of substantial 
villages. Beyond, to the south- w r est, rose ridge upon ridge 
of blue hills and deep valleys, among which, some forty miles 
away, lay the city of Harar. To the right towered the 
tremendous mass of Kondurd, (or Kondudo) to about ten 
thousand feet, and beyond Harar a similar mass, called Gara 
Mulhta, shut out the view to the west. 
At this season we found the signs of cultivation to consist 
only of old stubble ; the land was being ploughed up to receive 
the new seed, the dry season being nearly at an end and the 
monsoon rains expected shortly . 1 Everywhere, in pairs or 
singly, oxen were drawing the primitive Bertiri plough, and the 
country had a peaceful look after the thorn-forests and open 
grass -plains of the nomad Somalis, where sheep and camel 
paths and zerfbas were almost the only evidences of human 
occupation. 
The Shum kindly lent me his house, a substantial dwelling 
fifteen feet high and eighteen feet in diameter, made in a 
circular form, of stout saplings and jowari stalks, with a 
beehive-shaped roof of the same material, covered by ten inches 
of neat layers of thatched grass ; and altogether forming as 
clean, well-built, and comfortable a dwelling, for the climate, as 
one could wish. As we got intensely cold night-winds at this 
elevation (5500 feet), I was glad indeed to exchange my Cabul 
tent for Abadigal’s hut. The state of the thermometer, which 
sometimes goes down to 49° and 50° Fahr. in the early mornings, 
does not accurately describe the cutting nature of a Somhli night- 
wind, the more keenly felt when one has been travelling all day 
under a burning Jildl sun. 
An Abyssinian soldier brought me a present of fifteen fresh 
hen’s eggs ; I offered payment, but he refused, saying that eggs 
were of no value, and many were daily thrown away as refuse. 
Somhlis do not keep fowls, so I was delighted at the change of 
food. 
Mahomed Ahmed, the Gerad of the Bertiri tribe, visited me 
at Abadigal’s hut, with the same old story ; he said that the 
Bertiri wished for the arrival of anybody in European shape 
who would administer the country and save them from the 
Abyssinians. He said, as an inducement, that any Europeans 
taking over the country would make plenty of money ; he added 
that ever since I had come to Jig-Jiga he had been kept on the 
1 The Gu or spring rains ; due about the middle of April. 
