114 Z-r BUFFALOES ON THE MAREB, stones to see if we could drive the brute out. A native who was with us declared he could see the animal's head, which he pointed out to my brother. He fired : result, a movement, and another groan. It proved to be a huge bull that had been badly wounded four days previously, and had retreated to the high grass, where he was lying in a sort of hole. He had only one horn, the other having been either worn off, or possibly lost in fighting ; oddly enough, too, he was possessed of only one eye.

These were the last buffaloes we shot on either the Mareb or Ma Ambasah, although we saw a good many, and fired one or two unsuccessful shots at them. Rhinoceros marks were getting quite common. These animals appeared to keep to thick covert during the day, and at night to go down to the kJior to drink. Unfortunately there was no moon at the time, so that it was useless to watch for them at any of these drinking-places.

Beside the grass there were numbers of ncbbtik-hw\i growing so thickly that it was often impossible to penetrate them.

I have no doubt we often passed close by rhinoceri without being aware of their proximity.

One day two of our party went several miles farther up the Mareb, in the direction of Abyssinia, where they ascended a hill, from whence they obtained a good bird's-eye view of the country for some miles round. They reported that the mountains came down to the river's bed, which was fringed with dhoum-'2\m but that the high grass decreased very much in quantity farther up the Mareb. They saw very little game, but came across a great many Base.

The natives told us that the Basd villages extended about a day's or a day and a half's journey in that direction, from the junction of the two kJwrs, and then came Abyssinia. Probably their villages ceased about ten or fifteen miles off, and between these villages and Abyssinia lay a neutral piece of