166 
THROUGH SOMALILAND AND ABYSSINIA chap. 
run, carrying messages to various villages many miles away, or 
looking for cattle, because the Abyssinians wanted to prevent his 
coming to me. He had crept to my hut stealthily by night ; 
and of course I warned him of the danger to which he exposed 
himself. He said that my arrival threw the Jig-Jiga garrison 
into a great state of alarm. My friends the Bertiri, I found, 
loving to make mischief, had magnified my difficulties with 
Banaguse into a great British victory over the Abyssinians ! I 
believe that half the Abyssinian suspicion of English designs on 
the frontier is due to Somali gossip. 
We set out from H4do at daylight, and leaving cultivation 
after an hour, descended by a road, bad for camels, into the 
beautiful valley of Helmok, camping by the margin of a running 
stream. This valley, which leads into the Tug Eafan to the 
south-east, is covered with forest and dense undergrowth, where 
the latter has not been burnt off by jungle-fires. It has been a 
favourite resort of elephants and rhinoceroses, but since the 
Abyssinians came to Harar their numbers have diminished, and 
we only saw the track of one bull rhinoceros, which had come to 
drink at the stream two nights before. 
Marching from Helmok in the afternoon, we arrived at the 
village of the Kanyasmatch Basha-Basha, which lies on the saddle 
between two very remarkable hills called Eilalami, the village 
itself being called Bakaka. To the west of the Eilalami ridge is 
Eeyambiro, and to the east Bursum. 
The country between Hehnbk stream and the Eilalami ridge 
is a beautiful, well -watered valley, covered with forest, un- 
cultivated and used as pasture by the Geri and Bertiri flocks 
at the proper season. The ascent to the saddle on which Bakaka 
village stood was steep for camels, and we wound through this 
large village after dark, threading our way through a crowd of 
Abyssinian, Galla, and Harari villagers, and yelping pariah dogs, 
till we reached Basha-Basha’s house. 
The rank of Kanyasmatch may be described as that of 
General commanding the right wing of an Abyssinian army. 
Fi Taurari Banaguse and Kanyasmatch Basha-Basha are the 
two commanders who respectively lead the Abyssinian advance 
into the Bertiri and Habr Awal countries to the north, and the 
Og&den to the east. 
I was led into a large stockaded enclosure behind Basha- 
Basha’s house, where a tent had been prepared for me. This 
w T as fourteen feet in diameter across the floor and of bell shape, 
