XI 
WITH BRITISH MISSION TO KING MENELIK 287 
Meanwhile, Abyssinian dreams of extension gradually gained 
strength till the ruler of Harar had come to regard Hargeisa 
and all Somaliland, except a narrow strip of coast -line, as 
Abyssinian territory. Eventually the Biyo-Kaboba and Jig-Jiga 
forts together with the strip of territory appertaining to them, 
were allowed to be retained by Abyssinia in permanence, the 
British sphere — practically that defined by the Protocol with 
Italy in 1894 — in other respects remaining intact. 
A great safeguard to Somali interests has been secured by 
the accrediting of a British Resident at the court of Menelik. 
Since Harar became Abyssinian the Somalis had been the victims 
of Abyssinian foraging expeditions, and had always put forward 
their grievances by saying, that as the British had taken the 
coast over from Egypt in 1884, they should either have pro- 
tected the hinterland tribes, or at least have allowed the importa- 
tion of firearms so that they could protect themselves. While 
the Somalis could not get even a single Tower musket through 
our ports, their neighbours the Abyssinians were freely import- 
ing breech -loading rifles in a constant stream through the 
French port of Jibuti. Protection will now be secured, at 
least for the tribes of the British sphere, by the newly-arisen 
friendly understanding and the more direct dealings with 
Abyssinia. 
The far hinterland beyond Milmil, including the routes 
towards the Juba and Lake Rudolf (which being camel tracks 
might perhaps have become good alternative routes to Uganda), 
were given up to Italy by the Protocol of 1894 ; the relinquish- 
ment of that great tract dating from that time, and not from 
the visit of the Mission to Menelik in 1897. 
It has, however, transpired that the Italian disasters have 
prevented the hinterland in question, though nominally remaining 
in the Italian sphere of influence, from being actually occupied 
by Italy ; and it still remains a sort of “no man’s land,” open 
more than ever to the cattle-requisitions of frontier generals. 
But perhaps the matter will eventually settle itself by there 
being no more cattle to requisition ! The Abyssinians are in 
the habit of looking upon the SomMis and Gallas as the heathen 
custodians, for a season, of Christian cattle, allowed by Providence 
to be tended out in the desert till wanted — a convenient 
political theory, based on the former territorial expansions of 
ancient Ethiopia ! 
The astonishing reawakening of Ethiopia is due to protracted 
