Ir was in the year 1849, at the expiration of the Punjaub campaign, under Lord Gough, where I had been actively engaged as a subaltern officer in the (so-called) fighting brigade of General Sir Colin Campbell's division of the army, adding my mite to the four successive victorious actions Ramnugger, Sadoolapore, Chillianwallah, and Guzerat-that I first conceived the idea of exploring Central, Equatorial Africa. My plan was made with a view of collecting the fauna of those regions, to complete and fully develop a museum in my father's house, a nucleus of which I had already formed from the rich menageries of India, the Himalaya Mountains, and Tibet; my idea in selecting that field for my future researches being that I should find within it various orders and species of animals hitherto unknown. Although Major Cornwallis Harris, Ruppell, and others had by this time well-nigh exhausted, by their assiduous investigations, all discoveries in animal life, both in the northern and southern extremities of Africa, in the lowlands of Kaffraria in the south, and the highlands of Ethiopia in the north, no one as yet had penetrated to the centre in the low latitudes near the equator; and by latitudinal differences I thought I should obtain new descriptions and varieties of animals.

The time I proposed to myself for carrying this scheme into operation was my furlough-a lease of three years' leave of absence from India, which I should become entitled to at the expiration of ten years' service in India; but I would not leave the reader to infer that I intended devot

J. H. SPEKE.

ing the whole of my furlough to this one pursuit alone. Two of the three years were to be occupied in collecting animals, and descending by the valley of the Nile to Egypt and England, whilst the third year was to be spent in indulgent recreations at home after my labours should be over.

I had now served five years in the Indian army, and five years were left to serve ere I should become entitled to take my furlough. During this time I had to consider two important questions: How I should be able, out of my very limited pay as a subaltern officer, to meet the heavy expenditure which such a vast undertaking would necessarily involve? and how, before leaving India, I might best employ any local leave I could obtain, in completing my already commenced collections of the fauna of that country and its adjacent hill-ranges?*

Previous experience had taught me the most economical mode of living was to be obtained in the prosecution of my chief hobby. In the backwoods and jungles no ceremony or etiquette provokes unnecessary expenditure; whilst the fewer men and material I took with me on my sporting excursions the better sport I always got, and the freer and more independent I was to carry on the chase. I need now only say I acted on this conviction, and I think, I may add, I managed it successfully. For there are now but few animals to be found in either India, Tibet, or the Himalaya Mountains, specimens of which have not fallen victims to my gun. Of this the paternal hall is an existing testimony.+

Jordans, near Ilminster.

The 3d September 1854 completed my tenth year's servitude in India, and on the succeeding day, the 4th, I embarked on board one of the P. and O. Company's steamers at Calcutta, and left the Indian shore for Aden; but previously to departure I purchased various cheap articles of barter, all as tempting and seductive as I could find for the simpleminded negroes of Africa. These consisted principally of cheap guns, revolving pistols, swords, cheap cutlery of all sorts, beads, cotton stuffs of variety, and sewing material, &c., &c., &c., to the amount of £390 sterling Arrived at Aden, my first step was to visit Colonel Outram, the brigadier in command of the station, to open my views to him with regard to penetrating Africa, and to solicit his assistance to my doing so, by granting introductory letters to the native chiefs on the coast, and in any other manner that he could. But to my utter astonishment and discomfiture, with the frank and characteristic ardour which has marked him through life, he at once said he would not only withhold his influence, but would prohibit my going there at all, as the countries opposite to Aden were so extremely dangerous for any foreigners to travel in, that he considered it his duty as a Christian to prevent, as far as he was able, anybody from hazarding his life there. This opposition, fortunately, only lasted for a time. After repeated supplications on my part, the generous kind nature of the Colonel overcame him, and he thought of a pretext by which, should anything serious happen to me, there would not remain any onus on his conscience.*

The Bombay Government at that time had been induced to order an expedition to be organised for the purpose of investigating the Somali country (a large tract of land lying due south of Aden, and separated only from the Arabian coast by the Gulf of Aden), and had appointed three officers, Lieutenant Burton to command, and Lieutenants Stroyan

and Herne to assist in its conduct. To this project Colonel Outram had ever been adverse, and had remonstrated with the Government about it, declaring, as his opinion, the scheme to be quite unfeasible. The Somal, he said, were the most savage of all African savages, and were of such a wild and inhospitable nature that no stranger could possibly live amongst them. The Government, however, relying on the ability of one who so successfully made the pilgrimage of Mecca, in opposition to all preconceived notions of its impossibility, were bent at least in giving the Lieutenant a chance of showing what he could do in this even darker land, and he then was occupied in Aden maturing his plans of procedure.

This, then, was the opportunity the Colonel took advantage of, advising me to ask Lieutenant Burton to incorporate me in his expedition, at the same time saying that, if it was found to be agreeable to Lieutenant Burton, he would back my application to the Indian Government, obtain a cancel of my furlough, and get me put on service-duty as a member of the expedition.

Nothing could have suited me better. Lieutenant Burton was agreeable, and I was at once installed in the expedition. My travelling, mapping, and collecting propensities, it was thought would be of service to the ends of the expedition; and by my being incorporated in it, there would be no chance of my running counter to it, by travelling on its line of march, and possibly giving rise to disturbances with the natives.

Before proceeding further in the narrative of events as they occurred, it would be as well, perhaps, to anticipate a little, and give a general impression of the geography, ethnology, history, and other characteristics of the country under investigation---the Somali land-and the way in which those investigations, it was intended, should be carried out. As will appear by the following pages, my experi

ences were mostly confined to the north central parts, in the highlands of the Warsingali and Dulbahanta tribes. The rest of my information is derived from conversations with the natives, or what I have read in some very interesting pages in vol. xix. of the Royal Geographical Society, written by Lieut. Cruttenden.

The Somali country is an elbow of land lying between the equator and the 11th degree of north latitude, which, from its peculiar form, might well be designated the Eastern Horn of Africa. The land is high in the north, and has a general declination, as may be seen by the river system, to the south and eastward, but with less easting as we come westward.

It is separated from the main body of Africa by the river Jub, a large and fertilising stream, which, rising in the mountains of southern Abyssinia, passes between the territories of the Gallas on the west and the Somalis on the east, and debouches in the Indian Ocean at the northern extremity of the Zanzibar coast. According to Lieut. Cruttenden's map, there are only two other rivers besides this of any consequence in the land, the Webbe Shebéli, or Haines River, which is of considerable importance, having a large flow of water, trending down a cultivable district of rich red soil, and another less important to the eastward of these two, called very unfortunately by him the Wady Nogal. The proper specific name for this river has never, to my knowledge, been given. It rises in some small hills close overhanging the north coast, and runs south-easterly into the Indian Ocean, dividing two large territories, called Ugahden, or Haud, on the west, and Nogal on the east. Ugahden is said to be a flat grassy country, of red soil, almost stoneless, and having water everywhere near the surface. It is considered by the pastoral Somal a famous place for keeping cattle, of which by report they possess a great abundance, such as camels, ponies, cows, and Dumba sheep-a fat-tailed animal, like the Persian breed. Game also abounds in this country, of which the gazelles and antelopes, I was as

*

sured, roamed about in vast herds like sheep. The Nogal country is the opposite of this, containing nothing of any material value in it. The rock-formation is all lime, very pure and white like marble, which consequently makes the soil white, and, being very stony, is almost barren. The Somal keep cattle here, but with much apparent difficulty, being, from the scarcity of springs and want of water, obliged to march about, following the last falls of rain, to obtain fresh herbage for their cattle. My first and greater journey gave me an insight into this portion of the interior of the country south of Bunder Goree. It was very interesting, though not profitable, from its never having been visited by any Europeans before. I observed here two distinct leading features in its physical geography. The first is a narrow hillrange, about 180 miles long, and 20 or more broad, which is occupied by two large tribes-the Warsingali on the east, and a branch of the Habr Gerhajis on the west. It is situated at an average distance of from 200 yards to 3 or 4 miles from the seashore, separated from it by a sandy flat or maritime plain, and, like the line of coast, extends from east to west. Immediately due south of Bunder Goree, the sea-face, or northern slopes of this range, are very steep and irregular, being trenched down by deep ravines, which, during the rainy season, shed their water across the maritime plain into the Gulf of Aden. The lower folds on this side of the range are composed of brown rocks and earth, having little or no vegetation upon them, and are just as uninviting in appearance as the lightbrown hills which fringe the coast of Arabia, as seen by voyagers on the Red Sea. Further up the hill, in the central folds of the range, this great sterility changes for a warm rich clothing of bush-jungle and a little grass. Gum-trees, myrrh, and some varieties of the frankincense are found in great profusion, as well as a variety of the aloe plant, from which the Somalis manufacture good strong cordage. The upper part of the range is very steep and precipitous, and on

this face is well clad with trees and bush-jungle. The southern side of the range is exactly the opposite, in all its characteristics, of the northern. Instead of having a steep drop of from 6000 to 7000 feet, it falls by gentle slopes to successive terraces, like a giant staircase, to scarcely half that depth, where it rests at the head of the high plateau land of Nogal, and is almost barren. Nogal, as I have said before, is also very barren, only producing trees, such as the hardy acacia and jujube, in sheltered places, in the valleys or watercourses which drain that land to the south-east. I had no means of determining it, but should judge this second great geographical feature, the plateau of Nogal, by the directions its streams lie in, to have a gradual decreasing declination, like all the rest of the interior, from the north, where it averages from an altitude of 3000 to 4000 feet to the level of the sea on south and by east.

By histories furnished me by the natives who accompanied me on the journeys I undertook, it appears the present Somalis are of rather recent origin, not more than four and a-half centuries old. About the year 1413, an Arab chieftain, Darud-bin-Ismail, who had been disputing with an elder brother for certain territorial rights at Mecca, was overpowered and driven from the Mussulman Holy Land, and marched southwards, accompanied by a large number of faithful followers, amongst whom was an Asyri damsel, of gentle blood and interesting beauty, whom he subsequently married, to Makallah, on the southern shores of Arabia. Once arrived there, this band of vanquished fugitives hired vessels, and, crossing the Gulf of Aden, came to Bunder Goree. Here they were hospitably received by the then governing people, who, for the most part, were Christians-probably Gallas and Abyssinians-who, judging from the few archæological remains they subsequently left behind them, must have lived in a far more advanced state of

civilisation than the present Somali now enjoy. Those Christian people were governed by one man, Sultan Kin, who had a deputy called Wurrah, renowned alike for his ferocity of character and his ability to go

vern.

For some years Darud and his Arab followers led a quiet, peaceable life, gaining the confidence of his host, and inspiring Kin's subjects with a reverence for their superior talents. In process of time, by intermarriage and proselytising, these Mussulmans increased in number, and gained such strength, that they began to covet, and finally determined to take the country from the race that had preceded them. This project, by various intrigues and machinations, was easily effected; and Kin, with all his Christians, was driven back to his native highlands in Ethiopia. Darud now was paramount in all this land, and reigned until he died, when an only son by his Asyri wife succeeded to him. This man's name was Kabl Ullah, who had a son called Harti. On succeeding his father, Harti had three sons, called respectively, in order of birth, Warsingali, Dulbahanta, and Mijjerthaine. Amongst these three he divided his kingdom, which to this day retains the names. The Mijjerthaine dispersed over the eastern portions of the land, the Warsingali held the central, and the Dulbahantas the western territories.*

Subsequently to this period, an Arab called Isaakh came across from Southern Arabia and established himself forcibly at Meyet, and founded the three different nations who now occupy all the coast-line from Ras Galwénee on the eastward to Zeyleh on the extreme west of the Somali country. Isaakh, it appears, had three wives, who gave in issue three sons, and among these three men was divided the whole country which he subdued.

Forming themselves into tribes, the senior or Habr Gerhajis, by constant feuds and other causes, are much