362 
THROUGH SOMALILAND AND ABYSSINIA 
great variety of flowers, and the grass is excellent in this valley, which 
stretches away several days’ journey into the Esa country. 
It can be well understood in a country of such an extended area, and 
varying so much in elevation, that a large variety of plants and trees 
exists ; and in addition to the vegetation already noticed there are many 
bushes and trees which one learns to recognise. in- the course of a journey. 
It is of course impossible to mention all, but the following are a few of 
the most conspicuous : — 
The most thorny of all the bushes I consider to be the billeil. This 
horrible bush grows to a height of about ten feet, and is covered with 
small curved hooks of great strength which cannot be disregarded. The 
soclcso, adad , galol, khansa are other more or less thorny bushes which are 
met with everywhere. The adad produces the best gum-arabic ( hdbag ), 
large transparent knobs the size of a pigeon’s egg being visible in the 
joints of the branches. The galol is a twisted, straggling, and untidy- 
looking thorn-tree, growing to a height of fifteen to twenty-five feet, the 
root being used for hardening and making watertight the bark hdns or 
water-vessels used by Somali caravans. The branches have very little 
strength, and are useless for building platforms in when watching for 
game. There are thorns over an inch long, each springing from a white 
bulb. 
The jungles in Ogaden chiefly consist of the galol and the khansa. 
The giant euphorbia called hassadan grows in the hills and in the Haud, 
seldom, much above or below five thousand feet. The derkein is a tree 
allied to the hassadan , but is found at a lower elevation, and is very 
common in the Dolbahanta country, growing in thick compact groves, 
and within these groves it is the custom of the natives to bury their dead. 
Two large thorn-trees of great beauty are the gudd and the wadi. The 
gudd has a dark stem and grows to a height of from thirty to fifty feet, 
spreading out to an umbrella-top and giving excellent shade. The wadi 
has a whitish stem and spreads out like the gudd , but more symmetrically, 
and is ornamented with white thorns about five inches long. The kedi 
and the megag are conspicuous trees. The kedi grows without a branch 
for about eight feet, and then breaks out into a compact rounded mass of 
long, green, soft thorns, growing one out of the other, in the same way 
as a prickly pear. The megag is much the same in shape, but there are 
no thorns, and it breaks out into small twisted branches, matted together, 
with tiny blue-gray leaves. Another tree is the garas, having leaves like 
a laurel, while the roots and bifurcations of the stems contain deep recesses 
which often hold drinking-water after rain. The wabe, or dark green 
poison-tree, is very common in the mountains, a concoction of arrow- 
poison being made from the roots. The athei is a small bush with gray 
leaves, the twigs of which form the native substitute for a toothbrush in 
Somaliland. Ergin is a slender, green, grass-like bush of the cactus kind, 
with a milky sap, which forms dense cover and is often the resort of 
leopards. Ddr and hig , the latter of which produces excellent rope-fibre, 
are apparently varieties of the aloe, and cover enormous areas. There is 
no ground more favoured by the lesser koodoo. 
Of the larger trees the most conspicuous are the Jim, a fig-tree, and 
the gob , a very large thorny tree growing on the banks of river-beds, 
with edible berries of an orange colour, the size of a cherry, and containing 
a large stone. In taste they resemble apples, and are delicious eating. 
