APPENDIX II 
359 
falling gently towards the interior, the cedar- forests ceasing at a distance 
of about six miles inside the crest, and opening out into grassy downs 
or thorn-covered wilderness. Soon, as we pass through Ogo, the Haud 
waterless country, from one hundred to two hundred and fifty miles 
across, is reached ; and on its farther edge the ground again drops 
slightly, as at Milmil, into Ogaden, the broad broken surface of Ogaden 
finally sloping into the valley of the Webbe Shabeleh or Leopard Liver, 
beyond which is the Juba. Where the Haud Plateau drops at Milmil 
the limestone surface, which is covered with red soil, breaks up into 
flat-topped hills, which continue the level of the Haud, but cease a little 
farther south. They are covered with high durr grass, and form some 
of the most favourite retreats for lions. Thus the Golis Range and its 
prolongations east and west are the most prominent natural feature in 
Northern Somaliland, forming the watershed between Ogo, the high 
cool country, and Guban, the arid coast belt. Guban is drained by 
sand-rivers and ravines, which, starting at Golis, pass through the interior 
plains and cut through the Maritime Ranges, the water being eventually 
lost under the Maritime Plain, to reappear near the surface behind the 
sea-shore. I consider the whole of the Guban country to be almost 
valueless, except as a pasture for sheep and goats, as it is only upon 
reaching the high country that the soil is found to be fertile. 
The Haud is the great elevated wilderness which separates Ogaden and 
Harar from Ogo, Guban, and the coast. The Somali word haud is used 
to describe a peculiar kind of country, consisting of thick and sometimes 
impenetrable tliorn-jungle, broken up by shallow watercourses, and 
generally having an undergrowth of liig or ddr aloes. The great water- 
less plateau generally called the Haud is really a district, and besides the 
variety of ground properly called haud, includes large strips of open, 
rolling grass plains called ban, or, to the south-east, semi-desert country 
called aror. Ban is the Somali term for an open plain absolutely or 
nearly devoid of bushes. 
In the wooded parts of the Haud dense thorn-jungles alternate with 
small glades of durr grass six feet high, luxuriating in beautiful feathery 
clumps, with a level red soil ; ant-hills crop up at about every hundred 
yards, their pinnacles often rising to twenty-five feet. Some of the dead 
thorn -trees are lialf-eaten by white ants, and the debris of fallen ones 
is scattered about half-buried in the soil, where it has been swept along 
by sheets of water during the last rains. The remains of galdl bushes 
attain an almost iron hardness, and many a wound have I and my 
followers received at night by stumbling against a gori , or jagged stump, 
half-hidden in the high grass. There is excellent pasture in the glades 
and between the bushes, the Haud pastures being considered better than 
those of Ogo or Guban. Extensive tracts of fertile soil, of good depth, 
are to be found at about five thousand feet elevation ; and although, 
except at one or two mullah villages, none of them are under cultivation, 
owing to the nomadic life of the people, they may yet in the distant 
future become very valuable. The rainfall in the higher parts of the 
country is ample, and the water would only require to be stored in tanks 
to ensure a supply all the year round. Of course for three months in 
the dry season the whole of the soil is baked hard by the sun, but the 
same thing occurs in India. In June, when there is a hot wind at the 
coast, cool breezes blow over the elevated Haud, making it possible to 
