Somaliland

“ We have made a brief survey of British Somaliland, and though much is not yet explored, yet it is not likely to differ greatly from the part which we have seen. There will be the same red dust and monotonous stony plain with its thorn bushes and dry stream-beds. In some parts, by way of variety, the thorn will grow so dense as to be impenetrable; in others it will disappear, and we shall find pure desert. Only a Somali or a camel could live and thrive in such a country. ”

“ The British Somaliland protectorate extends along the Gulf of Aden for about 400 m. from the Lahadu Wells, near Jibuti, in the west, to Bandar Ziyada in 49° E., 180 m. W. of Cape Guardafui, and stretches from the coast inland for a breadth varying from 80 to 220 m. The protectorate is bounded W. by French Somaliland, S.W. by Abyssinian territory, and S.E. and E. by Italian Somaliland. About 50,000 persons are settled in the coast towns; the rest are nomads. ”

“ My uncle had warned me I should find all Somalis frightful liars, and to be prepared for it. Personally, I always like to assume that every man is a Washington until I have proved him to be an Ananias.
We saw—in the distance—numerous aoul, Soemmering’s Gazelle, and the exquisitely graceful koodoo, the most beautiful animal, to my thinking, that lives in Somaliland. The horns are magnificent, with the most artistic of curves. The females are hornless in this species also. ”

“ As regards your question about Somaliland: any one of the three Somalilands may be chosen as a goal territory.
In this connection, he feels that Persian pioneers should be accepted for any and all territories; they are arising in large numbers to offer their services, and it is a great pity that these dedicated and eager friends are so restricted as regards settlement. Your Assembly should do all in its power to facilitate placing them. ”

“ I do not like to imagine the condition of any poor sheep in the Somali sun with a coat on like unto the ones grown by our animals at home. The number of sheep in Somaliland is as the sands of the sea. Such vast flocks would be large even in an avowedly sheep-producing country where the rearing of them is reduced to a fine art. The Somali animals thrive and multiply with hardly any attention. They never grow horns, and have the most extraordinary tails, huge lumps of fat, which wax all very fine and large if the pasturage is good, and dwindle at once if the herbage is scanty. ”

“ Somaliland is a poor field for missionary enterprise, owing to the sparse, semi-nomadic population and the difficulties of getting about. In the French sphere there is connection by rail between Jibuti on the coast and Dera Dowa near the Abyssinian border; travelling musicians of the café chantant type used to use it a good deal before the War, but there was not much doing in the missionary line. Italian Somaliland, east of the British sphere to Cape Guardafui, is left to look after itself, except for the occasional visit of an Italian man-of-war ”

“ Considering that you are a novice, and quite unused to these natives, you showed no end of pluck. I admit that it was not without some misgivings that I allowed you to accompany me into the bazaar, for, you see, I hadn't an idea how you would behave. But I felt sure that the fellow who could come out here, and quietly make his preparations to face the dangers of an expedition into the heart of Somaliland, must be someone quite out of the ordinary. ”

“ Somaliland, with its insignificant caravan trade, its wide, waterless tracts and its sparse population of shiftless, unproductive semi-nomads, is a bad business proposition, and no Government can be blamed for hesitating to spend money on it; but if half the expenditure had been concentrated on one scheme at one time instead of being frittered away on several divergent schemes over a lengthy period the Mullah would have been brought to book and the resources of the country developed considerably. ”

“ There is no part of Somaliland that I have visited where they are not common. In 1897 I saw some within five miles of Berbera, in 1896 and 1897 in the maritime plains, in the Golis, on the Haud, in distant Ogaden, and far Bourha, but nowhere more numerous than in the Godabürsi country. They are easily killed by anyone who can shoot standing up, as the long-line shot at the perpendicular, even when as narrow as that of a Gerenuk’s chest and neck, is a comparatively easy one, and no very nice judgment of range is necessary. ”

“ Somaliland, French, English, and Italian, is peopled by a race possessed of such peculiar and contradictory temperamental characteristics, that, were the accident or influence of environment entirely ignored, and this people judged by purely European standards, it might well be classed as a race of maniacs. To bear out the truth of this statement is Burton's description of the Somals who live in the vicinity of Zeila. ”

“ The East African Protectorate possesses not only enormous coast-lands of great value, but noble plateaux where the air is as cool as an English spring. But 210 we already spend on East Africa—and upon the needs of its expensive white settlers—more than the whole revenue of Uganda; and yet the promise is not so bright. Northern Somaliland is a desert of rocks and thorn bushes peopled by rifle-armed fanatics, on which we spend nearly half as much as the whole annual grant-in-aid of Uganda. ”

“ They have lips and noses almost Grecian in character, but woolly hair like the negro.
The Galla tribes occupy the immense tract of country, [Pg 410] nine hundred miles from north to south, lying south of Abyssinia in the maritime region of East Africa. Somaliland is the eastern limit. Lake Rudolph is probably its western limit, though it may have an extension to the northwest.
The country is, for the most part, unexplored. It consist of a moderately elevated plateau, dotted with isolated mountain groups and affords ample pasturage for cattle, camels, and horses. ”

“ So at the end of March 190-we planned a sporting trip to Somaliland—very secretly and to ourselves, for women hate being laughed at quite as much as men do, and that is very much indeed.
My cousin is a wonderful shot, and I am by no means a duffer with a rifle. As to our courage—well, we could only trust we had sufficient to carry us through. We felt we had, and with a woman intuition is everything. If she feels she is not going to fail, you may take it from me she won’t. Certainly it is one thing to look a lion in the face from England to gazing at him in Somaliland. ”

“ I called it luck, but Clarence attributed it to the will of Allah.
I got a fine bustard for the pot. A beautiful bird with a dark brown crest, and a coat, like Joseph’s, of many colours. I saved some of the feathers, they were so iridescent and beautiful. The bustard tribe in Somaliland appears to be a large one. I noticed three or four distinctly different species, with dissimilar markings. The Ogaden bustard had the prize, I think, in glory of plumage. Even his beak was painted green, his legs yellow, and all else of him shone resplendent. ”

“ South of Somaliland in British, and what was once German, East Africa the missionary has comparative freedom of movement, whereas in Somaliland no white man has ever been allowed to travel without the sanction of the local authorities. He, however, complains that he is not encouraged by the Administration in either colony, and certainly makes no headway against Islam, which has a very strong hold, especially in British East Africa, with the Swahilis. ”

“ I am speaking of the Red Sea and Somali coast. Before the French began to make their presence felt in what is now French Somaliland, and whilst that territory was still a sort of no man's land between British territory on the south and Italian territory on the north, the principal port for the exportation of slaves was at Tajura on the gulf of that name, a small Danakil native town north-west of Djibouti. Danakil territory extends far north of Tajura along the coast into Italian territory, past Asab, another small port on the Red Sea. ”

“ These men are Mahomedans with an eye to business, religious, influential, knowing the value of education, and are often quite learned. We marched into the vicinity of some hundreds of huts, and sent Clarence on ahead to present our compliments to the Mullah and express our desire to call on him. We also sent along a consignment of gifts likely to appeal to a learned man—a Koran, a tusba, and a couple of tobes, for even a Mullah has to have clothes, anyway, in Somaliland. ”

“ Because Mahomed, the interpreter, and my boy arranged that I should lunch with the four Sahibs who are not here.
We are now on a high plateau. The country is undulating, the soil fair and the grazing good. There are many patches of cultivation, the first I have seen in Somaliland. Ughaz Elmi Warfa (Ughaz is a title) , the head of the Gadabursi tribe, came to see me. He was accompanied by a party of horse and foot men. The Ughaz, a tall, crafty-looking old man, sat beside me on a deck chair, produced by the Somal jemadar in charge of the police post ”

“ So are we called to glory within the British Empire. There, if tropical areas are to be brought under cultivation, it shall be our function to furnish cheap indentured labour, it shall be our right to supply funds for expeditions against poor, inoffensive Tibet, and if there be a rising of the oppressed in Somaliland, it shall be our privilege to die in its suppression. ”

“ It is hoped that in time the entire 3000 will have died unnatural deaths. In hundreds of instances their own wives and children deserted them and would not allow them to come near them. Many of them wanted to go to Somaliland and help the English fight the Mad Mullah and his negroes, but the English Government felt that they could not be trusted. They are now ignored and despised both by the English and the Boers, and the most commendable act they could do would be for each to cut his own throat and thus earn the thanks and approval of present and coming generations. ”

“ With a little patience and endurance Somaliland might yet be comparatively peaceful. The policy, therefore, was to go no farther than Burao and wait for the death of the Mullah. The Dervish reply to it was an attack in March on Berbera itself, a body of horsemen dashing to within firing distance of the town and making good their escape. In July there were disturbing reports of Dervish activity and it was telegraphed from Aden that more troops had been requisitioned. ”

“ Many of them were grown up, and not a few were old maids, the result of the tribe's isolation; for here, as in Somaliland generally, the union of cousins is abhorred. The ground of the valley is a stiff clay, sprinkled with pebbles of primitive formation: the hills are mere rocks, and the torrent banks with strata of small stones, showed a watermark varying from ten to fifteen feet in height: in these Fiumaras we saw frequent traces of the Edler-game, deer and hog. At 1 P.M. our camels and mules were watered at wells in a broad wady called Jannah-Gaban or the Little Garden ”

“ And so the host of warriors marching beneath the banner of the Mullah has steadily and rapidly increased, so much so that they have become a menace to us, and forced us to take action.
"The Foreign Office, which governs this Protectorate, gave orders that a field force should be prepared for service in Somaliland. In January, 1901, the force did not exist, but, by dint of superhuman exertions, fifteen hundred natives were got ready for the fray at the end of May. ”

“ Yet the pursuit of our trade is not without adventure; often adventure of the good old-fashioned kind—well spiced with danger. But the main, and practically the only, industry of Somaliland is cattle raising, unless one includes the pursuit of war as an industry. If so it is a dying one. With the proceeds of the sale of his surplus cattle the Somal buys goods from all parts of the world. Cloth from America, Europe, Arabia, and India; bowls and other knick-knacks from Japan; the bulk, or all, of which comes to him through the great clearing house of the near east, Aden. ”

“ Encourages the international community to provide, as part of the continuing support to Somalia, further support to peacebuilding, capacity-building and good governance efforts in areas of relative stability within Somalia, including but not limited to, Somaliland and Puntland ”

“ South of the highest ranges of Somaliland, and at a distance of about 100 miles from the coast, are open plains some four or five thousand feet above the sea-level, alternating with broken ground covered with thorn-jungle, with an undergrowth of aloes growing sometimes to a height of six feet. ”

“ The natives of Somaliland are very different in race from the African people who live further south. Here 22 is a group of men, posed for the camera, with their little round shields and long, broad-bladed spears ”

“ Hubbard, pacing restlessly up and down the room. "There must be no delay in setting out to rescue my brother, and as we in England can do little, seeing that we are so far from Somaliland, I advise that you at once take ship for Aden. It happens that my firm have business relations with a man living there. He exports camels to that part of Africa ruled over by the Italians, and gathers in his warehouses every description of merchandise which comes from the interior of the country. If anyone can help you he is the man. ”

“ Following upon their defeat at the hands of Captain McNeill and his tiny garrison, the Mullah's horde was split into pieces and scattered in all directions by the larger half.
But in Somaliland a holy man has enormous powers of persuasion, and the reader has already learned that the Mullah rapidly gathered his following together again. Then came the action with Colonel Swayne at Erego, where the Somali soldiers, who were enlisted by the "Sirkal," turned tail and bolted, leaving their comrades to their fate. ”