IN SOMALILAND.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 7504, 6 July 1903, Page 4

IN SOMALILAND.

" An officer who lived in Somaliland" writes to an English military journal as follows : —lt may perhaps interest some of your readers at the present time to have a few rambling remarks about Somaliland from one who has spent many happy days in that country before theso " Mad Mullah " times. If I mistake not, this troublesome personage was one of my followers when I first visited the country, and he was by no means mad in those days. Tho secret of his acquiring such a large following appears to be a widespread discontent in the Somaliland Hinterland, duo to tho heavy duty imposed on cattle, sheep, and goats exported to Aden, and frequent orders suspending the trade altogether on account of riderpest. This state of things means ruin to the Somalis. They are a purely nomadic race, wandering from pasture to pasture with their herds, according to the season of the year, and coming into tho coast towns of: Berbera, Bulhar and Zaih from time to time to sell their stock and skins, and buy rice, dates, clothing, spears, etc. Some of these tribes, particularly those owning only cattle, appear to have been brought to a state of starvation, and took to looting their weaker neighbours!. These latter, seeing they could expect help neither from their lato protecting Power, Great BritaiD, nor from their nominal present protectors, tho Italians, were driven into tho arms of tho Mullah, and thus his following has rolled up like a snowball. On looking at any map of Somaliland many names will be found that will lead one to expect to meet villages through the country. This is not the case. They aro merely the watering-places where the Somali pitches his moving camp and protects himself from the predations of man and beast by a high thorn zariba. At the coast towns there aro permanent buildings, for the most part erected when the Soudan was under Egyptian rule. On the outskirts of these the Somali lives in camp, coming and going, so that the population of Berbera fluctuates from 10,000 to 30,000.