VII 
JOURNEY TO WEB BE SHABELEH RIVER 
185 
to get round unobserved in his rear, and creeping behind the 
stems of the bush, to drive my knife mercifully into his ribs. 
At about three o’clock on the afternoon of this day, 20th 
March, my camp being still at Kuredelli, a large force, consisting 
of two or three hundred men, mostly naked, and all armed with 
shield and spear, or bow and quiver, issued from the bush north 
of camp and came running past, going due south. As they 
passed the camp they scarcely answered our hurried questions, 
but my men gathered that they were Abbasgiil SomMis belonging 
to some karias a few miles to the north, and that their cattle 
had just been raided by the Habr Awal and driven south through 
the bush of the Haud. My men laughed at them for going 
naked, but they said they had no time to bother about their 
tobes ; they had come light for running, and only wanted their 
cattle back. Party after party passed us, and men singly and 
in couples, all in the same state of nakedness and excitement. 
I sat up, as on the four previous nights, in my favourite 
bower, and at about 1 a.m. these people returned with a large 
mob of cattle which they had recovered and were bringing home. 
They were talking excitedly as they approached the pool. We 
heard one man ask, “Where were you wounded?” and another 
answer, “ Oh, in the leg, but it isn’t bad.” 
The cattle were driven past with clouds of dust and a clamour 
of excited voices, and then they all disappeared in the distance, 
and I heard my sentry challenge them as they drew up at my 
camp half a mile away, and after another half-hour of chatter 
they gradually settled down to rest. I had never met this clan 
of the Abbasgul before. The men flocked to camp next day 
from their karias in great numbers, and seeing the trophies of 
the lioness and rhinoceros lying on the grass outside my tent 
door, they said, “ The Abyssinians can’t do that ; their guns are 
small, and are only good for killing women and children and 
old men with : you English are our friends, and all the Og&den 
tribes look to you, our masters, for protection against Abyssinia.” 
On 31st March we made two marches to Grirbi, seventeen 
miles eastward along the Jerer Valley, and the next day we 
made a short march in a heavy storm of rain, the burst of the 
south-west monsoon ; and the red clay became so sticky that 
we were obliged to halt in the thick bush. When things were 
a little dry again, I went out towards sunset into the level 
thorn-forest to look for beisa. We had gone about a mile from 
camp when we saw a large bull rhinoceros trotting along under 
