Crossword Genius

African cartographers going up country there (6)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

somali

I'm a little stuck... Click here to teach me more about this clue!

'african' is the definition.
(Somali is an example)

'cartographers going up country there' is the wordplay.
'cartographers' becomes 'os' (I've seen this in other clues).
'going up' says the letters should be written backwards (in a down clue, the letters are written upwards).
'country there' becomes 'mali' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'os' back-to-front is 'so'.
'so'+'mali'='SOMALI'

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for somali that I've seen before include "So Liam could be a man from NE Africa" , "East African national" , "Native of East African state" , "From a country in the Horn of Africa" , "Eg, native of Mogadishu" .)

I've seen this clue in The Independent.
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