This pony of Hassan's was the best I ever saw in Somaliland. He would not put a price on it because, he said, he could make quite a respectable income by going on looting expeditions on its back , as it was so fast nobody could catch him.
A years after this I met Hassan again and asked him how his pony was. He said it was very well, but he had nearly lost it a short time before. He had been down in the waterless plain on a looting expedition with some other Eidegalla warriors. After a successful raid they spilt up to avoid pursuit, and Hassan was on his way home driving some of the looted camels in front of him. It was a very dry year, and although it was in the rainy season he had been unable to find any water in the pools to give to his pony. The result was that having been riden hard for tow or three days with little or no water to drink, the pony got beat, and at last lay down about twenty miles from the wells they were making for.
No amount of stick would get it on its legs again, and Hassan was in despair. He knew that there were no villages at the wells where he could possibly get a vessel to carry water back for the pony, and it seemed as if nothing be done to save it.
At last he thought of a plan. Driving the camels at top speed to the wells, he gave them as much as water as they could drink and then hurried them back again. He found the pony where he had left it, in a very bad way, but immediately proceeding to kill and cut open the camels, he took the water out of their stomachs and gave it to the pony, which revived sufficiently to struggle on to the wells. After a few days rest, it completely recovred. Hassan added that he could very soon get some more camels and that he would rather have cut the throats of a hundred than have lost his pony.
Lord Delamere 1891.
source
White Man's Country Pg 20-22.
