The Juba river dis­trict reaches from the junc­tion of the Juba and the Daua rivers to Yonti. The right bank is un­der British rule; the left is in Ital­ian ter­ri­tory. From the vil­lage of Dolo, where the Daua and Juba unite, as far down the river as Seren­leh (a British mil­i­tary post), the dis­trict is wild and un­cul­ti­vated. From Seren­leh to Mfudu the bank im­me­di­ate to the river is cov­ered by a dense for­est. The tim­ber, how­ever, is not of a valu­able kind, though here and there rub­ber-vine may be found. From Mfudu to Yonti the bank is un­der cul­ti­va­tion by the Wa-Gosha tribes. The pro­duc­tions are maize and sim­sim. In this neigh­bour­hood the Gov­ern­ment have es­tab­lished an ex­per­i­men­tal farm. The Juba river dis­trict, with its richly fer­tile soil, should have a great fu­ture as a cot­ton-grow­ing coun­try.

The Wa-Gosha are a con­fed­er­acy of sev­eral tribes bound to­gether for mu­tual pro­tec­tion against the So­mali. The most im­por­tant of the tribes are Wa-Zu­goa, Yao, Wa-Swa­heli, Wa-Gendu, and Mushun­guli. All these tribes con­sist of fugi­tive slaves from the So­mali, and they have taken refuge from their mas­ters in the thick bush on the river-bank. Here at first they lived among the Boni tribe, to whom they gave pre­sents as a kind of trib­ute. When the Wa-Gosha be­came more in num­ber this trib­ute was re­fused and a fight en­sued, in which the Boni were beaten and their chief killed. The Wa-Gosha then set­tled down, in spite of con­stant war­fare with the So­mali. This dis­trict un­der Eng­lish su­per­vi­sion has an in­creas­ing pop­u­la­tion of agri­cul­tural peo­ple. They are Mo­hammedans. They do not at­tempt to keep any stock ex­cept a few goats; this is ow­ing to the large num­ber of tsetse fly in the bush around the swamps which are formed when the river rises in flood.

The dis­trict of Af­madu, some­times called Bhoji, lies to the north-west of Kismayu at a dis­tance of about 100 miles. It is a plain hav­ing thick­ets of bush sep­a­rat­ing grassy park-like spaces. The only per­ma­nent wa­ter-sup­ply is at the So­mali set­tle­ment of Af­madu, where there are 114 wells, many of which are now dis­used. The wells are in the dry river-bed of the Lak Dera, but by whom they were con­structed can­not be de­ter­mined. Cer­tainly they were not made by the So­mali who now use them. The heavy rains flood the coun­try dur­ing Oc­to­ber and No­vem­ber, leav­ing nu­mer­ous small swamps, and thus a greater part of the dis­trict, where it is not cov­ered with bush, is able to sup­port vast herds of cat­tle even dur­ing the two dry sea­sons. This tract of coun­try is the head-quar­ters of the pow­er­ful Ogaden So­mali, many of whose chief­tains are wealthy in cat­tle and camels. Ox-skins are the prin­ci­pal trade, and are sent to Kismayu for ship­ment.

The dis­trict of Eil Wak and of Wa­jheir have been lately de­scribed by Lieut. Aylmer. They lie on the north­ern bound­ary of Juba­land. Eil Wak (De­mon Well or Well of Wak) is oc­cu­pied by the Tufi Bo­rana. Wa­jheir has nu­mer­ous wells, and is peo­pled by a mix­ture of Bo­rana, Gur­reh [Garre], and So­mali. Car­a­vans of camels from Kismayu pass through these dis­tricts on their way to the Abyssin­ian bor­der. It is from these car­a­vans, re­turn­ing from Abyssinia, that the So­mali ob­tain mod­ern ri­fles and am­mu­ni­tion. As in the Af­madu dis­trict, so in the Wa­jheir dis­trict, there are imi­nense herds of cat­tle.