66 THE BENI-AMER TRIBE.

The chief and, in fact, only wealth of these Beni-Amer Arabs consists of flocks and herds, of which they possess vast numbers. \Mien the pasturage is exhausted in one part of the country, Haikota shifts its quarters, and moves, huts and all, to another.

Our first visitor was the Sheik El-belad, or head man of the village, a fine-looking old gentleman, with an immense head of grey woolly hair. We informed him of our wish to shoot in the Base country; to which he raised no objection whatever, and seemed to regard it as a mere promenade. Later on, the sheik of the whole of that part of the country— a far more important personage — arrived. The German had informed us that he had had a good many dealings with him ; that he was by far the most jowerful man in the country, much looked up to and implicitly obeyed by his people. His name was Achmed Ageer ; and he was said to be the second or third sheik in importance of the Beni-Amer tribe, one of the largest and most powerful in Eastern Africa. A tall, lithe, wiry, well-built man of about fifty, he was in appearance a perfect specimen of his class, and was quite the best-mannered, most plausible Arab sheik I had ever met. From first to last, we had a great deal to do with this man ; and, although at the outset he enabled us to do what we had set our minds on, he eventually jlaycd us false. When we first disclosed our wishes to him, he endeavoured to throw obstacles in the way of their attainment. He told us that no Englishman had ever travelled or shot in the Base country before, with the exception of a Mr. Powell, who with his wife and child had been murdered by them some years before ; that, the previous winter, two Austrians had arrived in his country, to whom he had given guides to go some thirty miles up the Gash, but no farther. He suggested our writing to the governor of Cassala,