water on the way beyond the first ten miles from the foot of the
hills. To go to Berbera, then, I must perforce pass through the
territories of the northern Dulbahantas; and this was fixed upon. But
hearing of some "ancient Christian ruins" (left by Sultan Kin) only a
day's march to the south-eastward, I resolved to see them first, and
on the 7th made a move five miles in that direction to a kraal, called
Karrah, where we found a deep pool of stagnant water.

8th.--My kit was now so much diminished that we all marched together
down a broad shallow valley south-eastward, in which meandered a
nullah, called Rhut Tug, the first wadi I came upon in Nogal. The
distance accomplished was eight miles when we put up in the Kraal of
Rhut; for, as I have said before, there were no villages or permanent
habitations in the interior of the Nogal country. All the little
wooding there is, is found in depressions like this, near the base of
hill-ranges, where water is moderately near the surface, and the trees
are sheltered from the winds that blow over the higher grounds of the
general plateau. Rhut is the most favoured spot in the Warsingali
dominions, and had been loudly lauded by my followers; but all I could
find were a few trees larger than the ordinary acacias, a symptom of
grass having grown there in more favoured times when rain had fallen,
a few puddles of water in the bed of the nullah, and one flock of
sheep to keep the place alive. Gazelles were numerous, and many small
birds in gaudy plumage flitted about the trees, amongst which the most
beautiful was the _Lamprotornis superba_, a kind of Maina, called by
the Somali Lhimber-load (the cowbird), because it follows after cows
to feed.

9th.--Halt. Kin's City, or rather the ruins of it, I was told, lay to
the northward of my camp, in the direction of the hills, at a distance