214 
THROUGH SOMALILAND AND ABYSSINIA chap. 
numbers of dead. Contrary to my expectation they thoroughly 
understood all the pictures, liking, of course, the coloured ones 
the best. The snow upon the ground was the hardest thing to 
explain, but I had men among my escort who had been to 
London and Marseilles, as firemen on steamers, and I left it to 
them. Some of the people said, “It is all very wonderful ; 
why are we not like the English, who have so big a name? 
Why has Allah given us nothing and you everything ? ” 
Jama’s people told me the Abyssinians were sending a strong 
expedition into the Arussi G&lla country shortly. They said 
also that last year the Arussi Celias came from the direction of 
Daghatto in the north-west, and destroyed ten karias of the 
Amdden in a single night. A nephew of Jama Deria, an 
actively-built, tall young man, came to me saying he heard all 
white men were doctors, and would I examine him ? and throw- 
ing the loose end of his tobe from his shoulder he exposed a 
ghastly wound. A small throwing spear had entered a few 
inches below the left nipple, and passing through his body, had 
protruded at the back between the shoulder-blades. The wound 
at the back had healed, but the larger wound in the breast, 
nearly an inch wide, was open and discharging freely. Asking 
when the wound had been received, I was astonished to learn 
that it had been in a fight with some Galla robbers in the 
previous Gu, or heavy rains, at least ten months before. The 
man had lived, and had latterly been going about his business, 
with the wound unhealed. He seemed thin, but otherwise not 
much the worse. I made him a big poultice, and advised him 
to take care of himself and not catch cold, and he and his 
relations went away, believing in my treatment. I was glad to 
hear from Jama Deria, on coming this way four months later, 
that the man was still alive, and getting well ; and I feel certain 
that the healthy, dry air of this elevated country, combined with 
total abstinence from liquor, and diet consisting almost entirely 
of camel- milk, gives a wound a much better chance than it 
would have under other circumstances. 
Jama Deria begged for everything in my tent on the even- 
ing on my arrival ; he very much wanted a coloured plaid, and 
I found out privately that he had forbidden Gabba Oboho to 
ask for it when I left Ime, saying I had promised it to himself. 
He never, however, succeeded in making me part with it. He 
begged hard for my revolver, and I let him fire at an ant-hill. 
His women-folk and all his relations begged me not to give it 
