VIII 
JOURNEY TO WEB BE SHABELEH RIVER 
203 
been before the Sheikh in welcoming me to the country. He is 
a rival of the Sheikh, and has sometimes been his open enemy, 
having killed several of Abdul KAder’s relations ; he keeps all 
the neighbouring tribes in a constant state of alarm, being a 
regular firebrand and loving a quarrel for its own sake. As we 
advanced in the fresh morning air, the old man, in high spirits, 
would dash past me at full gallop, to display to the Englishman 
the quality of his pony and the red tassels on his saddle and 
bridle, returning after each circle to cry “Mot!” A Somali, 
poising his spear before throwing it, does it by a sudden jerk 
against the palm of his hand, causing the shaft to quiver ; and 
he claims that this keeps it straight in the air, the effect being 
somewhat like that of the feathers on an arrow, or the twist 
caused by the rifling on a bullet. 
As we got into a bit of open grass I shot a Soemm erring’s 
gazelle. The buck dropped in his tracks, and old Jama, hastily 
dismounting and handing his mare to his son, paused an instant 
to whirl the free end of his tobe from his shoulder and coil it 
round his waist, leaving the chest bare ; and then running like 
a two-year-old, he raced the gazelle to perform the haled - — that 
is, to sever the jugular veins with his short sword, without which 
operation all meat is haram , or unlawful, to a Mussulman. 
The youth who brought up the horses could not induce them 
to come near to the dead gazelle ; so J&ma, mounting his beauti- 
ful young mare, which he said was “ blood -shy” and required 
teaching, by voice and heel coaxed her up to the meat till she 
brought her dilated nostrils close to it. He made her jump over 
the buck several times before he was satisfied. The Amdden, 
who had perhaps never seen game shot before, examined the 
hole in the buck with great interest, Jdma remarking that the 
Abyssinians could not do that nearly so well, and that the English 
were good people. He said that I was to be his Englishman, 
and while in the country shoot him lots of zebra, as all the 
Am4den liked the meat. 
During our evening march we were overtaken by a violent 
storm, the burst of the monsoon, which occurs very locally and 
at different dates in different places. We could not advance or 
retire, the camels having to stand loaded for over an hour up to 
their fetlocks in running water, with an impassable torrent a 
little distance off on either side, where all had been lately dry 
land ; my cook Suleiman was caught by one of these streams 
while following the caravan, and was turned over and over, and 
