As East Africa's neighbor, the Wasangali Sultanate lay along the Makoshil coast on the Gulf of Aden. Compared with its eastern neighbor, the Majerteen Sultanate, the Wasangali Sultanate had been relatively fortunate.
To safeguard so-called national defense security, East Africa had incorporated part of the Majerteen Sultanate's southern territory in 1869. The Wasangali Sultanate had escaped disaster because its territory was too small; if East Africa had truly set its sights on it, that would have been a war of annihilation, not a territorial cession. At present, East Africa had no urgent need for the Gulf of Aden.
As for the Majerteen Sultanate, whose territory had been seized, it could only swallow bitter herbs in silence, suffering unspeakably.
For East Africa, occupying the Gulf of Aden coast would only make it stand out conspicuously in the region; in reality, there would be no gain at all.
The Geleidi Sultanate at least had the oases along the Shebelle River and Juba River to develop, while neither the Wasangali Sultanate nor the Majerteen Sultanate possessed any worthwhile land.
Moreover, the Majerteen Sultanate was, after all, nominally a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire. Thus, keeping it around still had some use for East Africa, as one important link in maintaining East Africa's trade system with the Middle Eastern region.
The border between East Africa and the Wasangali Sultanate.
Tens of thousands of locusts were multiplying at a furious pace. Beginning in April, the Somali Desert had received an unusually rare rainfall. The rain had brought an uncommon stretch of green to the Somali Desert, but it had also become a breeding ground for desert locusts.
Unlike other locusts, every major outbreak of desert locusts was almost always accompanied by abnormal rainfall in desert regions, whereas locusts in other regions tended to emerge