The Ogaden So­mali are split up into five im­por­tant sub-tr/​p/​p/​p/​spap­nibes, the Mo­hamed Zubeir, the Auli­han, the Abd Wak, the Ab­dul­lah, and the Maghar­bul. Two other sub-tribes are of less im­por­tance, namely, the Her Mo­hamed and the Habr Suli­man. It is re­mark­able that the so-called Mad Mul­lah, Mo­hamed Ab­dul­lah Has­san, be­longs to the very unim­por­tant tribe of the Habr Suli­man. Of the Ogaden in Juba­land the Mo­hamed Zubeir are the most in­flu­en­tial and nu­mer­ous. They oc­cupy the Af­madu dis­trict as far south as the Deshek Wama, and own im­mense quan­ti­ties of cat­tle. The Auli­han tribe fre­quent the dis­trict to the west and south of Seren­leh. They are rich in camels as well as cat­tle, and the Juba river is their main wa­ter-sup­ply.

The Abd Wak and the Ab­dul­lah tribes oc­cupy the dis­tricts of Rauia-adi and Lo­rian. The lat­ter of these tribes wan­der as far as the Tana river seek­ing for wa­ter in the dry sea­son. The Abd Wak are the more nu­mer­ous, and might be able to put 1000 spear­men and ri­fle­men in the field. Be­tween these two above-men­tioned tribes and the Mo­hamed Zubeir tribe there is a con­stant feud which some­times leads to a fight. The Maghaabul sub-tribe oc­cu­pies the sub-dis­trict to the east of Rama-adi, known as Joreh. Though they are not strong nu­mer­i­cally, yet they are rich in cat­tle.

It is, per­haps, nec­es­sary to re­peat that only Darud [Da­rood] So­mali are to be found in Juba­land, while the Ishaak So­mali have re­mained east of the Juba, and that the Haweyah, the Dirr, and some other tribes are not re­ally So­mali, but are dis­owned as in­fe­rior races by the So­mali. 

The true So­mali is an ex­tremely lazy per­son, for his dig­nity does not per­mit him to do man­ual work; he gen­er­ally em­ploys him­self in watch­ing his flocks, or he will lie for hours un­der a shady tree, his pray­ing-mat and wa­ter-bot­tle be­side him, while he drones, to a sort of chant, songs about his for­mer fights and about the stock he has looted. The man­ual work, mean­while, is left to the women and the de­pen­dants. The So­mali is a Mus­sul­man of the Shu­jai sect and is very re­li­gious in his own fash­ion. In ap­pear­ance the So­mali is an Arab, and some­times a hand-some Arab. Treat him with con­fi­dence and con­sid­er­a­tion, he is cheer­ful, in­tel­li­gent, will­ing to learn, and true to his code of hon­esty. Treat him harshly or un­justly, he be­comes sulky, ob­sti­nate, muti­nous, and dan­ger­ous. He is an ex­cel­lent scout, a won­der­ful marcher, and very proud if con­fi­dence is shown in him. It would be fa­tal to the peace of the coun­try if the So­mali should be treated with that con­tempt which is of­ten shown to the black races by Eu­ro­peans.

Juba­land is fast fill­ing with the So­mali, who are in­creas­ing in num­bers by leaps and bounds. Their camels, herds, and flocks are also mul­ti­ply­ing in num­ber. Ex­cept along the bank of the Juba, it can never be an agri­cul­tural coun­try, lack of rain for­bids it, but there is no rea­son why the trade of the coun­try should not vastly im­prove if roads were made, and es­pe­cially if a light rail­way were con­structed from Kismayu north­ward through Af­madu to the Abyssin­ian fron­tier.