there was little scope for agriculture and most of the 320,000 inhabitants lived off livestock herding. [[berbera]], the biggest town and port, was ringed by desert and scrubland; in the cold season it had a population of about 30,000, falling to around 15,000 in the summer months. the port was a first class anchorage and was the principal [[entrepôt]] of the colony, despite having no port installations making it unsuitable for an expeditionary force, since ships had to be unloaded by lighter, a method that took ten days to empty a 3,000 [[gross register tonnage|grt]] ship. loading and unloading was impossible during the period from july to august, when the "kharif" a strong and hot wind blew.