Somaliland (1913)

A part of East Africa jutting into the Indian Ocean. From Cape Guardafui the coast extends westward for 600 m. to the Strait of Bab-el-I Mandeb, and south and south-west for about 1,000 m. to the mouth of the Juba River. It extends over 345,000 sq. m. (not including the 100,000 sq. m. of South Somaliland, with a population of 250,000, attached to British East Africa), and is divided into British (68,000 sq. m.), French (7,000 sq. m.), Italian (140,000 sq. m.), and Abyssinian (130,000 sq. m.). It is an undulating plateau of moderate elevation. Only one river, the Juba, in the south, reaches the sea.

The country is barren, covered with scant herbage of scrub and herbaceous grasses. The trade is in myrrh, hides, ostrich feathers, coffee, and, most of all, salt. The population, perhaps 1,000,000, is mostly composed of nomadic Somalis. In 1884 Britain seized the more mountainous part of the Somali coast opposite Aden. The population of British Somaliland is about 300,000, nearly all Mohammedans. The imports (1910-11) were £267,183; the exports, £247,33 (chiefly butter, hides, ostrich feathers, gum, cattle, and sheep). These figures include specie.

There were several expeditions against the ‘Mad Mullah,’ a hostile Somali leader, between 1901 and 1905. In 1908 and 1909 the Mullah caused fresh trouble, and in January 1909 he was denounced at Mecca as an impostor. In 1910 the British government, considering that further expeditions against him would be useless, on the ground that his influence was declining, and that the friendly tribes, if assisted with arms could defend themselves, withdrew British posts from the interior. Administration is now confined to the coastal region. The capital is Berbera.

French Somaliland, also on the Gulf of Aden, was acquired in 1855 by the purchase from Turkey of the port of Obok. The population is about 210,000. Jibuti is the new capital. Imports (1910) valued at £840,920; exports at £1,342,640.

Italian Somaliland has a population of 400,000. Italy in 1889 declared a protectorate over Abyssinia and Somaliland, but it was repudiated in 1893 by the former country. Italian Somaliland now comprises – (1) The Benadir Coast Colony, which extends from 4º 30’ N, lat. to the mouth of the Juba, Italy acquiring sovereign rights over this country in 1905 by paying £144,000 to the sultan of Zanzibar, while Great Britain leased five acres of land at Kismayu, with a frontage on the shore to facilitate communication with Benadir; (2) the sultanate of Osman Mahamud (cap. Bandar Alula); (3) the territory of the Nogal; and (4) the sultanate of Obbia. In 1907 an agreement was concluded for the regulation of Anglo-Italian relations in Somaliland, and a treaty of 1908 between Italy and Abyssinia determines the inland boundaries of Italian Somaliland. The total annual trade is valued at about £150,000. The largest town is Mogdishu.

See also Wolverton’s Sport in Somaliland (1894), Peel’s Somaliland (1900), Pease’s Somaliland (1902), McNeill’s In Pursuit of the ‘Mad’ Mullah (1902), Swayne’s Somaliland (1903), Eyre’s Despatches (1904), Brochetti’s Somalia e Benadir (1899), Jennings and Addison’s With the Abyssinians in Somaliland (1905), and Angus Hamilton’s Somaliland (1911).