There followed a unique period in Wärqenäh's life, which happened quite by chance. After Emperor Menilek stopped paying his salary, he packed up to return to Burma. Ras Mäkonnen, the emperor's cousin and ruler of the rich eastern Ethiopian province of Harar, raised the possibility of his staying and working in his province, but after Wärqenäh arrived in Harar that prospect slowly faded. Then fortuitously, he was asked to treat a sick Englishman recently arrived in Harar, a Major A. Hanbury-Tracy. Hanbury-Tracy shortly thereafter asked him to join a joint British-Ethiopian military expedition against Sayyid Muhammad Abdille Hasan, known incorrectly to the British as ‘the Mad Mullah’ (while Sayyid is an honorific title for a descendent of the Prophet Muhammad). Wärqenäh promptly agreed to serve as a medical doctor with the expedition, once he had been assured that he would be officially seconded from his position in Burma and paid an equivalent salary. Wärqenäh always tried to be very careful when it came to his salary and future pension. Before describing his participation in the First Expedition against Muhammad Abdille Hasan in 1901, it would perhaps, be useful to give some background on Ethiopian involvement in Harar and the Ogaden, Ethiopia's easternmost provinces and the frontier with the Somalis of the Horn of Africa.