The Billings gazette. [volume] (Billings, Mont.) 1896-1919, 1902-11-07
soMALILAND AND ITS PEOPLE
DESCRIBED.
DISPUTES BRI1AIN'S RULES
PecuIiarities of Country Where Null
Iah Carries the Prophets
Banner.

Recent dispatches from Egypt sup
piled brief depression from routine
affairs by recounting the operations
of another wild man, not from Borneo,
but Somaliland, widely known as the
Mad Mullah. In former times he
achieved some distinction as the False
Prophet. That was before Tommy At.
kins took a fall out of him. But he
failed to prophet by the experience
and is still carrying the prophets
of Africa. Mr.. Mullah is a mar of
nerve, else he would not dispute John
Bulls right to rule Somaliland and
the adjoining countries. He also pos
sesses the faculty of humor, though
he may not know it. Both nerve and
huInor were conspicuous during his
recent busy days when, with banner
aloft and bayonet fixed, he chased a
bunch of Tommies off the c~onsecrated
ground Of the prophet. That incident
aroused the gayety of nations and
proved that Mr.. Mullah is not suffer-
ing for a nerve tonic.
Oscar T. Crosby, an African travel
er who has tramped around and
through the territory of the Mad Null
lab, gives an account of the country
on1 hour - &c o1 IN q 1offo,r f0
the New York Sun. when I travers-
ed Somaliland, a little more than two
years ago." he writes, there were
just three Britishers in the whole
protectOrate-one at each of the three
coast towns. Once-a-week communi-
cation by sea had been established
between these towns for some time,
a little steamer touching at these
Somali ports and at Alden. Commun-
ication by land is difficult, the whole
country being of desert characters
tic. The regular routes
trend toward the interior. Through
leila Zone of the three towns in ques-
tion) most of the commerce with
Abyssinia passes from aravan to
boat, and vice versa. Besides the
three British officers on duty, there
were no white men whatever save
perhaps half a dozen Greek mer-
chants-those true cosmopolitans of
everywhere.
"As a military force, I saw at leila,
about forty East India soldiers, who
were soon to be returned to India,
a Somali police force having mean
while put in training. To my sur
prised inquiry as to why this risk
should be run, Captain Harold, the
devoted officer then stationed at
leila, replied that it would be cheap
er thus-cheaper for the small Somali
budget, whose income he did not want
to increase by unusual taxation, and
whose outgo he did not want to in
crease by providing himself with the
necessary help and protection. Even
at that time the Mad Mullah was dis
turbing the hinterland, and while in
Abyssinia l saw many of Menelik's
soldiers tramping toward the frontier,
where ever since they and the Brit
ish, making common cause against
the rebel, have met varying fortunes
of war. With British rule-even
with Abyssinian rule-go law and
order, yet one who knows the sincere
Somali Mohammedan must sympa-
thize with these wild chaps who fight
for something that is dear to them.
Almost without firearms, they wage
war against British and Abyssinian
rifles. Doubtless they have now, af-
ter years of slow infiltration, a little
"a very little-in the way of rifle
and cartridge supply. At leila, the
watch over this traffic is very strict.
But in Djibouti, capital of French
Somaliland, l saw many caravan loads
of 'cartouches' starting for the in
terror. They are meant for Menelik,
yet Somali eagerness and desert soil
tude must sometimes combine to
cause a change of destination.
III the Soudan, on the upper Blue
Nile, | saw the same poverty of white
force in black land. CHANGING to
be the first white man to descend
the Blue Nile from Abyssinia to the
Soudan, l came first upon the farth-
est east post, commanded by a Sudan
csc officer. Then, seventy miles fur
Their down, in command of the from
tier district, a single white officer,
with no white troops. Then, $50
miles further down stream, two more
British officers were foundyEand at
Khartoum-barely six months after
he death of the calipha-only forty
our Britishers, all told. Even the
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