Sun, Sand and Somals Leaves from the note-book of a District Commissioner in British Somaliland

Orders to proceed to Hargeisa, hurrah! The work entailed in preparing for the journey is a pleasure to perform. We are to cross overland by camel transport. Boxes are overhauled...

The Mullah's deeds--Supply and transport--Arrival of No. 2 Unit, R.A.F., at Berbera--Details and arrangements--Mullah miracles--Aeroplane scouting--Friendlies--R.A.F. reports--P...

"A sergeant of the water police, two boatmen, your orderly, your cook, your servant, and the Arab Syyed. I am sending the riding camels to El Kori to-night and they will await y...

It is more than twelve years ago now since I first met him at Adas-Ababa. I wanted a servant, a strong fellow. Mahomed Fara, Somal, was nineteen years of age, tall and slender;...

It is June, the season of the "Kharif"; the Kharif that has three elements--wind, dust, and heat. Zeila sky reminds me, this morning, of a Sheffield sky, covered at dawn with a...

Zeila is a port on the British Somaliland coast. It lies some twenty-eight miles South of the French port of Djibouti, and is one hundred and seventy miles North-East of the Aby...

Adan Abdallah was born somewhere in the Soudan, and belongs to the class formed from mixed tribes belonging to that country, and known in North and East Africa as Soudanese. Thi...

The staff at Zeila consists of the District Commissioner, the District Clerk--an Indian gentleman--his Indian assistant, an Arab clerk and petition writer, an Indian sub-assista...

Mahomed is the court interpreter, a personage of considerable importance and would-be dignity. In spite of a decidedly perverse sense of proportion, leading him at times to conf...

The first day of the Mahomedan New Year is nearing its close without anything unusual having occurred, for which let us touch wood and be duly thankful. At four o'clock this mor...

The élite of our town is composed almost entirely of Arabs, Indians, and Jews, who mix little with the Somals. Of course, money talks, and Haji Abdi Kheiri, the rich Somal trade...

This is a truthful record of a scene that occurred in my court to-day. If some of the expressions used are rather indelicate I can only excuse myself for repeating them on the p...

Pearling dhows look romantic enough in all conscience--from a distance--but at close quarters the smell--ugh! They are of all sizes, and the ordinary Zeila pearler may ship a cr...

As I enter the office there is a slight commotion: Buralli, Mahomed the interpreter, and Mahomed Auwit have already arrived, and hurry from the desk of the last named to bid me...

I call this chapter commerce. Not the commerce so dryly described in the mass of Zeila tabulated customs' returns that lie before me on the desk as I write. Into these figures,...

From Egypt to the Juba River the whole north-east African coast is held by three powers, Italy, France, and England. The Italian colony, now known as Eritrea, grew from a small...

Before the war I lived in Southern Somaliland, where the "Sab," or outcast tribes of Northern Somaliland, are seldom met with, and it so happened that the first representative o...

Mrs Kar Krishna is the wife of a Hindu gentleman, and Mrs Krishna, who is a very nice woman, may be seen by common or garden Christians. She is very ill, and at times is in such...

There is no good timber on the Somaliland coast. The wood from which our dhows are built is imported. By far the best comes from the famous forests of Witu and Malindi on the Br...

But though dhow captains and ex-slaves keep their mouths shut, the old records, fortunately, tell us something concerning the slave trade, which, thirty odd years ago, the Briti...

The Mullah's deeds--Supply and transport--Arrival of No. 2 Unit, R.A.F., at Berbera--Details and arrangements--Mullah miracles--Aeroplane scouting--Friendlies--R.A.F. reports--P...