XI 
WITH BRITISH MISSION TO KING MENELIK 291 
country probably are the upper classes in greater contrast to 
the masses. No doubt, also, much of the reputation for 
courage of the Abyssinian army is due to the charges of 
spearmen belonging to outlying or subject races who are 
probably not Abyssinians at all. 
The long Abyssinian frontier which recent treaties have 
given us is in some respects similar to our Indian frontier, 
but in others dissimilar. The African mountain frontier is 
more fertile, not quite so impracticable, and much safer ; for 
under the present strong government of Menelik and Has 
Makunan the frontier officers may be trusted to leave our 
Protectorate alone. We are in many ways dealing with a 
more civilised system. But the Abyssinians are more numerous 
than our Indian trans-frontier neighbours ; they have greater 
powers of organisation and concentration, possessing an abund- 
ance of supplies and of gold ; and they are also better armed, 
and have organised artillery. It is doubtful, however, if they 
are anything like so formidable as the Asiatics for guerilla 
warfare ; and possibly their high organisation, and the con- 
fidence of their leaders which makes them court decisive action, 
are sources of weakness rather than strength. On the other 
hand, their individual qualities are scarcely hard and manly 
enough for the Asiatic methods of fighting. 
If possible, I should have liked to have closed this account 
of the doings of the Mission with a narrative of sport. But of 
this there was practically none, as we travelled too fast, and 
were constantly in a beaten track among a people well supplied 
with firearms. Some of us, indeed, got a little feathered game ; 
but to the powerful armament I took up, there fell only a single 
klipspringer near Laga Hardim ; and two beisa oryx and a brace 
of Soemmerring’s gazelles on the Zeila plains. I obtained one 
shot at ostriches in the bush between Fantalle and the banks 
of the Ha wash gorge, and near the same spot saw numerous 
tracks of hartebeests, with a glimpse of the animals themselves, 
which were probably Bubalis cohei , or some allied species. 
At Tadechamalca, where there is a cjudd thorn -forest over- 
shadowing the banks of the Kassan river, I tried for big game, 
but failed to score ; there being none at the time in this part 
of the Hawash Valley. The reeds and jungle looked, however, 
very likely ground for buffalo, elephant, and rhinoceros ; and 
the country was very like some of the gullies of the Jibril Abokr 
district in Somaliland where elephants abounded a few years ago. 
