CHAPTER I

       THE PHYSICAL AND SOCIAL SETTING

       The Land

      WITH A POPULATION numbering perhaps four and a half million, the Somali-speaking people can scarcely be regarded as a large nation. Yet they form one of the largest single ethnic blocks in Africa, and though sparsely distributed on the ground, live in continuous occupation of a great expanse of territory covering almost 400,000 square miles in the north-east corner, or ‘Horn’, of the continent facing Arabia. From the region of the Awash Valley in the north-west, this often arid territory occupied by the Somali stretches round the periphery of the Ethiopian highlands and along the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean coasts down to the Tana River in northern Kenya. This region forms a well-defined geographical and ethnic unit which Somalis see as a natural base for a sovereign state, although today it is split up into four separate parts. In the ex-French Republic of Jibuti, which became independent in 1977, Somalis make up about half the local population (c. 200,000 in 350,000); in the adjoining country of Ethiopia (mainly in Harar and Bale Provinces) they number probably almost one million; in the Somali Republic itself their strength is approximately 3, 250, 000;¹ and finally, in the North-Eastern Region of Kenya,² they number about 250,000. Outside this region, other Somali are settled as traders and merchants in many of the towns and ports of East Africa (e.g. in Nairobi); in Aden, in whose history they played an important role; and throughout Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States. Farther afield, the roving existence which life at sea affords has led to the establishment of small and fluctuating immigrant Somali communities in such diverse European ports as Marseilles, Naples, London, and Cardiff.

      In their dry savanna homeland, the Somali are essentially a nation of pastoral nomads, forced by the exigencies of their demanding climate and environment to move with their flocks of sheep and goats and herds of camels and cattle in an endless quest for water and pasturage. The northern coastal plains (Guban, from gub to burn) which extend from the lava-strewn deserts of the Republic of Jibuti along the Gulf of Aden shore to Cape Guardafui are especially arid. Here the annual rainfall rarely exceeds three inches and is concentrated in the comparatively cool months from October to January. In the hot months between June and September, the Guban fully lives up to its name; and except for the urban populations of such ports as Jibuti (pop. 180,000), capital of this territory, and Berbera (pop. 60,000) in the Somali Republic, at this season is generally deserted by the nomadic tribesmen for the cooler and greener hills which rise behind it. Despite its often torrid heat and low rainfall, however, the run-off from the mountains behind ensures that water is usually easily obtainable only a few feet below the Guban’s characteristically sandy soil. With these water resources, and the sometimes surprisingly generous pastures which spring up after the autumn rains, this region provides the winter quarters for the most northerly Somali clans.

      The Golis and Ogo mountains, with their magnificent and often dangerously precipitous escarpments, which rise behind the coast dominate the whole physical structure of the region. This range achieves a height of almost 8,006 feet at points to the east; and, in the west where it joins the Ethiopian Highlands, rises as high as 9,000 feet near the ancient Muslim city of Harar (pop. 60,000). To the south, the mountains descend into a great tilting plateau which has an average elevation of 3,000 feet in the centre, and embraces most of the Somali hinterland. On the hills and in the north of the plateau, which includes the important centre of Hargeisa (pop. 60,000), capital of the former British Somaliland Protectorate, the rainfall is sometimes as high as twenty inches, especially in the northwest where, between Hargeisa and Harar, sorghum is cultivated. Here water is generally abundant, and the perennial wells excavated often at great depth in the dry waddies provide the winter watering-places of many of the central clans of the north. To the south of Hargeisa, the northern plateau opens into that vast wilderness of thorn-bush and tall grasses known as the Haud. In northern Somali the name ‘Haud’ means simply ‘south’; and the region, which contains no permanent water, is of indeterminate extent. The northern and eastern tips lie within the Somali Republic, while the western and southern portions (the latter merging with the Ogaden plains) form part of Harar Province of Ethiopia.

      To the south of the Haud, the plateau inclines gradually from the west as it reaches out towards the south-eastern coast of the Indian Ocean. Here it is intersected by low-lying plains and valleys, lined with welcome vegetation, which are more widely spaced than in the precipitate north. The most important of these southerly valleys are those traversed by the Shebelle and Juba Rivers as they flow from their sources in the Ethiopian Highlands towards the coast. Both rivers contain water in all seasons and together make up the main river system of the whole Somali area north of the Tana.

      The Shebelle or ‘Leopard’ River extends for some 1,250 miles but does not enter the sea; after crossing the southern part of the Ogaden it flows eastwards as far as Balad, twenty miles from the Indian Ocean coast, where it veers to the south to cover a further 170 miles before disappearing in a series of marshes and sand-flats close to Jelib on the Juba. Only with exceptionally heavy rains does the river join the Juba and thus succeed in reaching the sea. To the south of the Shebelle, the Juba River descends much more directly from the Ethiopian Highlands to the sea which it enters as a strong stream some 250 yards wide near the port of Kismayu (pop. 60,000). It is navigable by shallow draft vessels from its mouth to the rapids a few miles beyond Bardera, in which the German explorer von der Decken’s steamship Welf perished in 1865. In contrast to the wide belts of scrub-bush and grassy plains, interspersed with lonely tall acacias, which cover so much of the country, these two rivers are lined in places by narrow lanes of attractive high forest. Here elephant and hippopotamus replace the multitude of antelope species and smaller game which are so abundant elsewhere.

      In comparison with the north, the southern part of the Somali Republic between the Shebelle and Juba Rivers is relatively well-watered: and,