260 
THROUGH SOMALILAND AND ABYSSINLA chap. 
recently, the pan was dry, but a deep well sunk through its bed 
contained plenty of water. The pan at Aw4re is an isolated 
depression far out on the Hand Plateau, which contains rain- 
water for several weeks at a time. It is three marches to the 
north of Milmil, the last Ogaden watering-place on the southern 
edge of the Hand ; and when the pan, or the well which the 
natives sink through its bed, contains water, the flocks and 
camels of the Per Ali and Per Harun are brought to Awdre to 
take advantage of the rich Hand pastures, which have better 
fattening qualities than those of Milmil. 
The Haud in this locality is one mass of unbroken thorn- 
forest, sometimes light and open, sometimes very dense, with 
high durr grass. Pound the Aw&re pan the forest is composed 
of very fine guda thorn-trees, which grow for about fifteen feet 
without branches, and then shoot up and outwards in a fan- 
shape to a height of from thirty to forty feet. The bark is 
black, and the foliage is made up of small star-shaped leaves, 
massed together and very green. It is the most picturesque 
tree in the Haud forest, and nothing can be prettier than the 
Aware pan when the margin of open, flat meadow -land is 
covered with a carpet of fresh turf, and the trees are in foliage. 
On arriving at Aw&re we pitched camp under a large guda tree 
at the north-west corner of the pan, and I made my bed on the 
flat top of another on the eastern side, and tied up a donkey 
below. Lions roared in the forest a mile or two away, but did 
not come near the camp. 
Next morning, without waiting for coffee, I got down from 
the tree and made straight for where we had heard the lions. 
About three miles from our tree we came on the fresh tracks 
of a large lion and lioness, and followed them. The bush was 
rather open, and the lioness must have been doing sentry and 
have seen us, for we could hear her roaring in the jungle some 
distance ahead of us as she roused her mate ; and running on in 
the direction of the noise, we were just in time to see a black- 
maned lion bound out of a thicket and make off, followed by a 
lioness. The grass was rather long, only showing their heads, 
and owing to intervening thorn-trees and the distance I could 
not get a chance to shoot. We tracked these lions until a heavy 
shower of rain came on and lost us the tracks in the afternoon. 
I lay at night on the top of the guda tree near camp, but 
did not get a shot. A lion roared several times, early in the 
night, in the distance, but a shower of rain coming on before 
