The capture of Harar by the Abyssinians in January 1887 was an important event to the Somális, because, under the Emir Abdillahi, Harar had hitherto been a very effective little “buffer state” against Abyssinian encroachments. When the British Government first took over the Somáli coast in 1884 there was no Abyssinian question, and the authorities had only to deal with the Somáli tribes, which, although turbulent, were in fair equilibrium as regards power. Of late years, however, the Abyssinian question has risen into some importance, as will be seen by the narrative of later trips. The Abyssinians import large quantities of breech-loading small-arms from ports west of Zeila and outside the British Protectorate, while the Somáli tribes are only armed with spears or bows and arrows, and are not allowed to import firearms, of any sort whatever, from their own coast, which is administered by the British. Hence the equilibrium of power is affected, the Abyssinians help themselves to Somáli cattle when they like, and the owners, who are all Mahomedans, turn their eyes towards us for protection against their natural enemies. They place the most implicit faith in the British, and are quite persuaded in their own minds that our Government will never stand by and see them seriously pushed by the Abyssinians without giving them, at any rate, moral help of some sort. They turn to us as their natural protectors, as they would have turned to the Egyptians had that Government continued to hold the coast.
As related in the last chapter, we received the first news of Abyssinian interference with the Jibril Abokr when surveying in June ’91. A chief named Banagúsé had demanded tribute in cattle, and had also sent out marauding parties from Jig-Jiga, the fortified post which had been pushed out by the Abyssinians into the Marar Prairie, to lift cattle from the Jibril Abokr. This tribe, which is really a sub-tribe of the Habr Awal, who are under British protection, appealed to us for help from Aden, at a meeting of the elders held by me at Ujawáji, June ’91, in front of my tent. The elders there told us that the principal authors of the trouble were Banagúsé and Basha-Basha, two Abyssinian generals, the former being the responsible person at Jig-Jiga and the latter in western Ogádén.