2 12 BASE VILLAGES, either close to the river, or at a very short distance back from it. They always build their villages on hills ; and the country above Khor Meheteb is suitable for them in this respect, as there are hills on both banks of the river, generally close to it, besides hills standing back at some distance. It is not at all unlikely, however, that the Abyssinians have forced them to abandon some of their villages, as, we were told, had lately been the case. In answer to my numerous inquiries, I was told that Toansar and Beergayla were both on the river. There is no doubt that there are such places, and that they are Base villages. One man declared that the former was two days' journey from Lacatecourah ; another, five.

There was a path running into ours, on our way from Khor Meheteb, which one authority said led into Abyssinia, and was used by the Abyssinians when they organised raids against Lacatecourah ; another stated that it merely led to another Base village, now deserted, and that the inhabitants had fled to Lacatecourah, on account of the too close proximity of Abyssinia being disagreeable for them.

I told Suleiman to be on the look-out for ''information " about the Base for me ; and at Abou Sellal he informed me that a man had arrived on the scene from this very debatable " Base Settite." He had a long yarn to spin, and was most communicative. His story (which, in part, we had heard before) was to the effect that some Sogada people had stolen five women from a Base village called Dabergoum.

In these countries, the fair — or what I should perhaps term the dusky — sex are regarded as property, and are looked upon in much the same light as so many head of cattle or sheep.

Dabergoum he described as on the Settite, the nearest Base village up the river above Khor Meheteb. He told us that his father came from Haikota, but that his mother was a Sogada