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Updated: May 11, 2025
At last arose a violent altercation. All the Warsingali and Dulbahanta servants were taken away, water was stopped, the cattle were cast loose, and the traveller was told to arm and defend himself and his two men: they would all be slain that night and the Abban would abandon them to the consequences of their obstinacy.
All the people would flock in, demanding at least what the Warsingali had received; otherwise they threatened the traveller's life. On the 26th of December Lieutenant Speke moved three miles up the valley to some distance from water, the crowd being troublesome, and preventing his servants eating.
The sheep and goats are small, and their coats, as usual in these hot countries, remain short. Lieutenant Speke was informed that, owing to want of rain, and it being the breeding season, the inland and Nomad Warsingali live entirely on flesh, one meal serving for three days.
Lieutenant Speke visited the spring, which is of extraordinary sweetness for the Warsingali country: it flows from a cleft in the rock broad enough to admit a man's body, and about 60 feet deep. 23rd January. Lieutenant Speke was about to set out under the guidance of Awado, the Abban's mother, when her graceless son reappeared.
This formed a natural boundary-line, separating the Warsingali from the northern Dulbahanta frontiers. Where we first came upon the nullah it was deep and broad, with such steep perpendicular sides that camels could not cross it. We therefore turned suddenly northward, and followed up its left bank till we turned its head, which begins abruptly, and marched five miles to the Yubbe Kraals.
"Nogal" appears, according to Lieutenant Speke, to be the name of a tract of land occupied by the Warsingali, the Mijjarthayn, and the northern clan of the Dulbahantas, as Bohodlay in Haud is inhabited by the southern. Nogal is a sterile table- land, here and there thinly grown with thorns, perfectly useless for agriculture, and, unless it possess some mineral wealth, valueless.
The poor wretches pretended to show fight, and asked if they were considered a nation of women, that their country was to be entered without permission. Next morning they volunteered to act as escort. 25th January. Loading was forbidden by the valiant sons of Habr Gerhajis; but as they were few in number, and the Warsingali clan was near, it went on without interruption.
The Warsingali, seeing this, mustered their forces and repelled the enemy; but would not follow them up, preferring rather to tease them into submission than to engender a bloody contest.
I was to proceed to Bunder Gori, on the Warsingali frontier, to penetrate the country southwards as far as possible, passing over the maritime hill-range, and, turning thence westwards, was to inspect the Wadi Nogal, and march direct on Berbera, to meet Stroyan and Herne, at a date not later than the 15th January 1855.
Moreover Lieutenant Speke's Journal does not impress the reader highly with their honesty. And lastly, I have found the Habr Awal at Berberah, on the whole, a more respectable race than the Warsingali. Lieutenant Speke's delay at Kurayat was caused by want of carriage.
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