XII 
THE FA UNA OF SOMALILAND 
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antelopes. The largest herd I have seen must have contained a 
thousand individuals, packed closely together, and looking like 
a regiment of cavalry, the whole plain round being dotted with 
single bulls. 
From their living so much in the open plains the hartebeests 
must subsist entirely on grass, for there is nothing else to eat ; 
and they must be able to exist for several days without water. 
They are the favourite food of lions, and once, when out with 
my brother, I found a troop of three lions sitting out on the 
open plains, ten miles from the nearest bush ; they had evidently 
been out all night among the herds, and on their becoming 
gorged, the rising sun had found them disinclined to move. 
The hartebeest is about as large as a donkey. The horns 
vary greatly in shape and size ; there are the short massive 
horns and the long pointed ones, and all variations between. 
Some curve forward, with the points thrown back ; others 
curve outwards in the same plane with the forehead, the 
points turning inward. [ never heard of hartebeests in the 
whole of Guban or anywhere in the parts of Ogaden which I 
have visited ; I have seen them on open plains in the Haud and 
Ogo, and nowhere else. 
Wateebuck ( Cobus ellipsiprymnus) 
Native name, Balanka, among the Aclone (Webbe negroes) ; corrupted to 
Balango by the Somalis 
I believe there are no waterbuck to be found in Somaliland 
except on the banks of theWebbe Shabeleh, and perhaps the Lower 
Nogal, near the east coast. There are none on the Tug Fafan, 
at any of the points where I have crossed it. They are said to 
be numerous all along the Webbe Ganana (Juba), the course of 
which lies chiefly through Gallaland. 
The first important collections of the waterbuck were, I 
think, made by Colonel Arthur Paget and myself on two 
independent but simultaneous expeditions to the Webbe. I 
found these antelopes plentiful all along both banks of the 
river, from Ime down to Burka in the Aulilian tribe, which was 
as far as I followed the stream. They lie up in the dense forest 
which clothes both banks of the river for some two hundred 
yards from the water’s edge ; and feed in the open grass flats 
outside the belts of forest. They go in small herds of about 
