The Geographical Journal (Journal of the Royal Geographical Society): Volume XVI, No. 6 [‎338r] (28/232)

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AN EXPEDITION BETWEEN LAKE RUDOLF AND THE NILE.
601
Sheneli, I increased my following to forty-eight men. Near Milmil a
small caravan of camels and women which was following us was
attacked by three highwaymen. One of the robbers was captured by
my boys and brought before me. He was a lad of eighteen, with wiry
limbs and an intelligent expression, and struck me as a likely recruit,
and a better brigand than the majority of my men. So I contented
myself by maldng him march handcuffed for a day, and then enlisted
the homeless fellow as a camel-man. He became known as Ali Hatbury,
or “ Ali of the handcuffs,” and proved one of my best boys.
My surveys began immediately upon leaving Sesebane. Although
I had with me all the most recent maps, the “ tug ” Fafan had been
given no resting-place by cartographers. All the way to the Juba
river we had work to do filling in what had been to all intents and
purposes a blank upon the maps, except where I came upon my old
line of march in 1895 at Turr. Sportsmen had knocked about the
country in places, but they evidently never thought that Longfellow’s
idea of a brook applied to a tug or wady from the different positions
the poor sandy river-beds were made to assume.
At the end of our march on September 8, we reached the Shebeli
river at a spot called Godi, over 400 miles from Berbera by road, and
crossed without unloading the camels. It contained only from 2 to 3
feet of water in its deepest part. So dry was the country about the
river that I pitched my camp in a dark grove of immense cedar trees
within a few yards of the stream, not having to fear malarial poisoning.
Not a single mosquito disturbed our rest at night. On September 11
we started west again across a rich river-made plain, passing numerous
villages of Aulihan and Dagodi to the foot of the highlands, which
intervene between the river Web and the Shebeli. We followed up a
tug to its sources in these highlands, and found many pools of water in
it. Considering the extreme dryness of the season, I believe this tug
must be usually a flowing river. The natives would sell us nothing at
any price, although they were rich in live stock. For the next few
days we experienced a delightful change from the trying heat of the
low plains, where the mean temperature for the twenty T -four hours was
over 90° Fahr. The plateau was only 2500 feet above the sea, but that
was a sufficient elevation to give a slight tonic effect to the atmosphere.
The land was only suitable for grazing purposes to a limited extent,
since the granite and iron ore, of which the hills were composed, was
bare, or else covered with a thin layer of sub-soil, which supplied
nourishment to a tangled mass of mimosa and acacia trees and bushes.
Inhabitants were consequently very few, and giraffes very plentiful.
Water is to be obtained in holes in the rock.
Near some villages called Mucha, which we reached on September 14,
there were some remarkable deep rock wells. Two days after leaving
these we descended from the plateau and reached my old line of march
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