After some lengthy discussions with Sir Sidney Barton and Dr Martin, the Governor of Chercher province, Dr Martin allowed Thesiger to resume his expedition. In return for fifteen armed soldiers as escort, he wrote a letter to Dr Martin absolving the Abyssinian government of all responsibility for his safety. (Dr Martin’s officials lost the original letter soon afterwards, and Martin wrote to Thesiger in February 1934 asking him for a copy of it.)
Thesiger’s caravan already numbered forty men, most of whom had been armed with rifles. He wrote: ‘They have increased my escort somewhat. I deliberately prevented them doing so too much, however, as that only adds [to] instead of lessening the risk. If you went down to the Hawash with 100 soldiers you would certainly have fighting. Such a number would frighten the Dankalis who are a jumpy people, and they would probably attack you as a means of protecting themselves against the supposed danger of your presence. The number I have got, about 40 rifles, is just right. Too strong to be an irresistible temptation and yet too few for them to be made nervous.’28
As Thesiger’s caravan was leaving Bahdu in December, Umr had brought over the adopted son and nephew of Miriam Muhammad, an important chief and hangadaala, or spiritual leader, of the Bahdu Danakil. Miriam Muhammad and his nephew, Ali Wali, had been imprisoned at Asba Tafari as hostages for the Asaimara Danakil’s good behaviour. When Miriam Muhammad refused to guarantee Thesiger’s safety among the Asaimara at Bahdu, Thesiger had been recalled to Addis Ababa. From Afdam in January, at Ali Wali’s suggestion, Thesiger telephoned Dr Martin and secured his uncle’s release. Ali Wali and another Danakil chief, Ahamado, were ordered to accompany the caravan as far as Aussa. Meanwhile Miriam Muhammad’s presence ensured the safety of Thesiger’s party when they returned to Bahdu.
Thesiger wrote to Kathleen: ‘I have also got permission from both the Abyssinians and the French to cross the frontier and go to Jibuti…it will be interesting going across that country, and will save my having to go back on my tracks which is always a pity…I expect to arrive at Jibuti at the very beginning of May. I might then…take a dhow from Jibuti to Port Sudan. It would be most interesting to see that coast from the sea, and also the Arabian barrier reefs. This was David’s idea and I have stolen it. I think it would be cheap and only take a short time. Have you read de Monfreid’s books? They are in French. They would make anyone anxious to see a bit of that coast.’29
Though Umr was effectively responsible for the caravan, Thesiger not only shared, but took, decisions day by day. He devoted time to photographing the country and the people, mapped the course of the river, wrote a diary, recorded detailed descriptions of Danakil customs, shot meat to feed himself and his party, and collected specimens of birds, plants, animals and insects – tasks which absorbed and occupied him from daybreak until nightfall. He wrote: ‘I always fortify the camp with a defence made of flour sacks and chop boxes…We always refer to Olive’s gun case [and its gun lent by Lady Archer] as the machine-gun and wave it about when there is an opportunity. [The Danakil] certainly think it contains one. The search lights too give a great sense of security at night.’ Again he underlined his motive for this journey: ‘without a risk the game would lose its fascination, and it has an enormous fascination, nor would it be worth doing…It makes you do all in your power continuously. You cannot be slack and slovenly here, and there is a satisfaction in being pitted against a difficulty. How sententious!’30 He acknowledged the danger to his caravan: ‘There unquestionably is a great risk for any of my men who straggle or get separated from camp, but I have warned them repeatedly about this, and we are careful always to march in a solid body. If a camel needs reloading we all stop, and I have elaborate advance guards and rear guards.’31
Collecting bird specimens proved fascinating, but very time-consuming, work. He wrote from Afdam on 5 February:
Yusuf the bird man bolted and left 2 months wages behind, rather than go down the Dankali country again. I always said he was a rotter, and should have parted with him long ago but for David’s entreaties. I have had a busy time trying to train someone to take his place. The cook’s boy and head camelman both show promise32…I have got over 100 birds since I have been here, and there are about 50 different specimens [he presumably meant species], and I have nothing like got them all. This is arid desert without a drop of water except at the bottom of deep wells. You can imagine the numbers [of birds] in the forest along the river. It gives me a lot to do. I can only trust the men to skin, and have to sex, stuff, pack and label each specimen myself. But it is great fun and I have them all out in my spare moments to admire them. I now have four men who can skin, and so we can get through a lot in a day. But a large part of the day has to be spent collecting them especially when you already have the common ones. Some are very lovely.33
Thesiger kept a running total of the birds in his expedition diary, which filled almost two large notebooks. By the end of the journey he had collected no fewer than 872 specimens, comprising 192 species or sub-species. Three new sub-species – an Aussa rock chat, a Danakil rock sparrow and a Danakil house bunting – had Thesiger’s and the ornithologist Mark Meynell’s names attached to them, acknowledging Thesiger, their ‘discoverer’, and Meynell, who worked out the collection in England.
Thesiger’s earliest photographs did little more than visually record the Danakil and their forbidding landscapes. He scribbled impatiently: ‘I am anxious to hear what my photos were like. I do hope there were some successes. [He had sent some of his exposed film to England with Haig-Thomas.] I am taking a lot here, and think that the light is easier. It varies very little. The big camera [his father’s Kodak] certainly is a lovely one to use.’34
Apart from meeting the Sultan of Aussa, Thesiger’s most treasured memories of the Awash expedition included an encounter with a young Danakil named Hamdo Ouga, or Ahamdo Ugo, chief of the Badogale, son of the last Sheikh of Bahdu. Hamdo Ouga, who was related to the Sultan of Aussa, had ‘much power in the land’.35 When Thesiger first met him he had returned from the Issa frontier, having killed three men. Hamdo Ouga was killed soon afterwards by raiding Adoimara. He was ‘a most attractive boy’, Thesiger recalled.36 ‘He looked about eighteen, with a ready, friendly smile and considerable charm…He struck me as the Danakil equivalent of a nice, rather self-conscious Etonian who had just won his school colours for cricket.’37 This description invariably amused and delighted audiences at the talks Thesiger gave in his later years at the Royal Geographical Society. The double-focus image of a teenage Danakil chief who had killed three men had a vulnerable charm that revived Thesiger’s idealised memories of Eton, and appealed widely to less critical admirers. Aged six, Wilfred had envied and identified with a boy soldier who fought at Sagale in Ras Tafari’s victorious army. At twenty-three, he again identified himself with a warrior role model, one from ‘a strange people’ whose ‘main object in life [was] to kill and mutilate someone else’. He wrote to George Gordon, the President of Magdalen College: ‘I met one youth of about 12 years old who had just killed, followed round by a crowd of admiring children. It is these enterprising young men who are a menace to our stragglers.’38
In contrast to the ferocity of the Asaimara Danakil, the game in their ‘gaunt and desolate’39 country seemed excessively tame. Thesiger wrote to Brian from Afdam: ‘I did not do very much shooting in the Danakil country partly as in places it is too risky, and also chiefly because the animals are so tame it is but little sport. I have seen oryx feeding