APPENDIX 11 
355 
to that at Bulhar, but rising above high-water mark. It starts from the 
native town and runs west for two miles till well beyond the official town. 
Inside this spit large steamers are well protected. On the shore, nearly 
three miles west of the new town, is a lighthouse, built by the Egyptians 
before the British Government took over the north Somali coast. Clearing 
the point of the sand spit, it marks the entrance to the harbour. The 
water-supply is obtained from a spring near the old Egyptian fort of 
Dubar, eight miles inland under the Maritime Ranges, the water being 
brought over the Maritime Plain in pipes. 
The plain immediately round Berbera is covered wdth white pebbles 
and devoid of bushes ; a mile or two inland, it becomes sandy and covered 
with a flat-topped mimosa ( khansa ), growing to a height of about three 
feet. There are also scattered thorn-bushes about twelve feet high. The 
plain round Berbera has been greatly denuded of bush for firewood since 
1885. I have watched this denudation gradually going on year after year, 
and have attributed it to the increased traffic since the British have been 
at Berbera, and to the fact that the town is now well populated all the 
year round, giving the bush no chance of recovering after the trade season 
is over. In the Maritime Ranges there are gaps, through which can be 
seen the towering blue line of Golis. At a distance of about twenty miles 
east and west of Berbera the Maritime Ranges come down to within a 
mile or two of the sea, receding again at Bulbar to form a semicircle of 
hills with a radius of fourteen miles ; then towards Zeila the Maritime 
Plain widens to thirty or forty miles. 
Zeila is one hundred and seventy miles north-west of Berbera by the 
coast caravan-track, anti consists of one compact town of mat-huts, with 
about fifty substantial Arab buildings. There is, strictly speaking, no 
harbour, but vessels lying off the place are protected by small islands to 
the north and west. The site of Zeila is low, and at high spring- tides 
it is almost an island. Water for the use of the town is carried in goat- 
skins from Tukusha, three miles to the west. 
For a mile or two inland the Zeila Maritime Plain is a desert of smooth 
sand, then there is a strip of low evergreen bush, and behind this a great 
open grass plain or ban, intersected by many dry river-beds, fringed with 
tamarisks and acacias. Travelling across this plain in 1890, my brother 
described it in his Journal as follows: “ Except one or two low hills 
there is nothing to break the broad sheet of dull yellow, merging into 
blue haze on the horizon, here and there divided into light and dark 
patches by the shadows of the drifting clouds.” 
This prairie rises to Eilo and Bur-ad Ranges to the south, thirty -five 
or forty miles inland, and stretches away to the north- west along the 
foot of the Tajurra Mountains nearly to the French settlement of Obok. 
Between Obok and Zeila is another settlement created by the French, 
called Jibuti, which within the last three or four years has risen into 
notice. The site is a promontory of coral-rock, and there is a good 
harbour and a pier. The French are working hard to develop the place, 
in order if possible to make it compete with Zeila as a trade-port. 
At Bulhar, forty-two miles west of Berbera by the coast-track, the 
Ayyal Yunis sub-tribe of the Habr Awal settle during the trading 
season, from November to April. At this time both Berbera and 
Bulhar are surrounded by the karias, or temporary kraals of the halted 
trading caravans, and these karias stretch far out into the Maritime 
