298 
THROUGH SOMALILAND AND ABYSSINIA chap. 
Berbera, where they hide in the latches of durr grass. They are 
common in the southern parts of the Haud ; but I never found 
any signs of them during many expeditions in the Habr Awal, 
Esa, and Gadabursi countries. They are most common in the 
valleys of the Tug Jerer and Tug Fafan, and thence southward 
as far as the Webbe; and they are also plentiful beyond the 
Webbe in Gallaland. Bhinoceroses are said to exist to the 
south-east of Berbera, but in our trip to the Dolbahanta country 
we never saw traces of them. 
We found them to be the most stupid game animals we 
encountered, and easily approached if the wind w r as right. 
They were not very prone to charge, and in their blind, head- 
long rush seemed to see nothing, so that by stepping to one 
side and standing perfectly still a man would probably be safe. 
The transparent and thorny nature of the billeil bush, which 
is always their last sanctuary, renders a man rather helpless, 
and if seen and charged, and unable to find elbow-room owing 
to the walls of impenetrable thorns, he would probably be killed. 
Ehinoceros-shooting is very exciting, but it is chiefly the nature 
of the jungle which makes it so. I have never seen more than 
three of these brutes together. The ground they usually prefer 
is a network of stony, broken hills, covered with galol or billeil 
jungle, and having some river-bed not too many miles distant, 
where they can go at night to drink and bathe. They travel 
considerable distances to the river, and wander all night up and 
down the channel looking for a convenient pool, and making a 
maze of tracks in the soft sand. The Abbasgul, Malingiir, and 
Rer Amaden tribes eat their flesh when hungry ; and I found 
it good, and once lived for a week on little else. 
We could usually cut from fifteen to thirty fighting shields 
from each rhinoceros, three-quarters of an inch thick and from 
fifteen to eighteen inches in diameter, worth about a dollar 
apiece at the coast. Everywhere in Central Ogaden the 
caravan-tracks are furrow r ed in grooves a yard or more long 
and six inches deep, which look like the work of a plough. 
This is done by the rhinoceros as he walks along. A good pair 
of bull’s horns measure nineteen inches for the front and five 
inches for the back one. 
