APPENDIX III 
Fitting out an Expedition for Abyssinia 
It will give some insight into the requirements of travel in Abyssinia if 
we assume that it is intended to go by Zeila to Harar and perhaps on to 
visit Addis- Abbaba, the capital of the Negus, and then by permission to 
start for the almost unknown shooting-grounds in the interior and on the 
inland south-west borders of the country. 
Under the new order of things, now that there is a British Resident 
who goes to Addis- Abbaba periodically, the preliminaries for the journey 
of a British subject would naturally require his concurrence ; and no 
attempt to carry out such a journey would be successful without the 
permission of the Negus. 
Different travellers suit their taste in the composition of their caravans, 
and whether they took Abyssinians, Soudanese blacks, Arabs, or Somalis 
for their personal servants would depend on the point at which it was 
proposed to enter the country, and on the races the traveller’s own local 
experience has made him most familiar with. 
If I were going in from Zeila I should take a small self-contained 
caravan of Somali servants, rationed for the trip, who would understand 
me and who could be depended upon to obey orders whatever the emer- 
gency. Whether they would be armed or not would depend on the Abys- 
sinian authorities ; but if the necessary permission could be obtained they 
would be trusted with rifles ; and in any case spare sporting rifles would 
always be present in the baggage or in their hands to meet extraordinary 
emergencies. Even if the servants were allowed to be armed, the am- 
munition should be locked up at ordinary times when marching through 
friendly country. Travelling in an organised country like Abyssinia is 
totally different from going among nomad tribes under a merely patriarchal 
system ; yet it must be remembered the people themselves are armed, and 
local insurrections and civil wars are always possible. 
I am strongly in favour of taking a few of these dependable coast-men, 
for otherwise the traveller, once in Abyssinia, is absolutely in the hands 
of the headman told off to assist him by the authorities of the Negus, or 
by one of the Rases. Not one of the Abyssinians will obey a single order 
given by any but his feudal superior, and even that functionary’s orders 
are seldom paid careful attention to ; generally, before the humblest 
muleteer will notice an order given by a white man, even, for example, 
if it is only to pick up a bucket or to disentangle a mule’s foot from a coil 
of rope, it may be necessary to hunt up the headman ; and the headman, 
