Abdul Káder and Jáma Deria were both particularly glad to help me on to Imé, because for some months past the Amáden had been at war with the Adone or negroes at Imé; and Jáma Deria thought this would be a good opportunity of reopening negotiations. The country between the Sheikh’s karia and Imé was uninhabited for seventy-five miles, and the people told us that while passing over this tract we would be exposed to the risk of meeting Arussi Gálla wandering bands. It appeared that Jáma Deria and Abdul Káder, though jealous of one another, had settled their differences for the time being in order to assist me, and we arranged that Jáma and his son, and Abdul Káder’s son and another Amáden, should guide me to Imé on the 5th of May.
There being very little of my leave remaining, I decided that there would not be time to take the slowly-travelling caravan so far, and that it would be better to leave it, under command of a good camelman, encamped at Abdul Káder’s karias at Dambaswerer, while with my interpreter, two hunters, and four of the Amáden, I should ride to Imé and back. The distance would be about one hundred and fifty miles, according to the natives, and with the help of my mule and two Arab camels and five Amáden ponies, without any camp equipage, we hoped to accomplish a short stay at Imé and to be back again at Dambaswerer within six days. A glance at the map will show the confidence we felt in the friendship of the natives of Ogádén, to be able to cut ourselves adrift from the caravan in unexplored country so far in the interior. Imé is four hundred miles from the coast, and Dambaswerer is seventy-five miles short of Imé. In 1884, at the time of Mr. F. L. James’s journey to the Shabéleh district to the south-east, such a ride would have been very hazardous; but since then things have been changing for the better every day.
Our cavalcade thus consisted of seven mounted Somális and myself, four of us having rifles, the other four only shields and spears. In the saddle-bags on the two Arab camels Abokr and I carried a few blankets and necessaries, and a bag of coffee, and for meat we depended on the game we expected to fall in with. We rode during the whole of 5th May, with a short interval to rest and cast loose the camels at noon; and at 5 P.M. we halted by the side of a pool of rain-water, hobbled the animals, lit a fire, and threw ourselves down in a circle round it to sleep, one man keeping watch over the animals. At 3 A.M. we were again on the move, and began to descend a long slope cut up by deep ravines, which falls to the Webbe Shabéleh river. We lost ourselves among impassable, precipitous watercourses several times; the guides, however, always managed, after much difficulty, to regain the path, which had been grown over with grass, and, because of the Amáden raids, had been unused for a year. We reached the Webbe Shabéleh at Imé at 1.30 P.M., having done the seventy-five miles in thirty-two hours at a moderate pace without a change of animals.