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TWO DIANAS IN SOMALILAND

By Agnes Herbert

The Record of a Shooting Trip

With Twenty-Five Illustrations Reproduced from Photographs

London: John Lane

MCMVIII


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TO

THE LEADER OF

THE OPPOSITION SHOOT

SOLDIER, SHIKARI, AND SOMETIME

MISOGYNIST





TWO DIANAS IN SOMALILAND




CHAPTER I--WE SET OUT FOR SOMALILAND


```_This weaves itself perforce into my business_

`````King Lear=


|It is not that I imagine the world is panting for another tale about a
shoot. I am aware that of the making of sporting books there is no end.
Simply--I want to write. And in this unassuming record of a big shoot,
engineered and successfully carried through by two women, there may be
something of interest; it is surely worth more than a slight
endeavour to engage the even passing interest of one person of average
intelligence in these days of universal boredom.

I don’t know whether the idea of our big shoot first emanated from my
cousin or myself. I was not exactly a tenderfoot, neither was she. We
had both been an expedition to the Rockies at a time when big game there
was not so hard to find, but yet less easy to get at. We did not go to
the Rockies with the idea of shooting, our sole _raison d’être_ being to
show the heathen Chinee how not to cook; but incidentally the charm of
the chase captured us, and we exchanged the gridiron for the gun. So
at the end of March 190-we planned a sporting trip to Somaliland--very
secretly and to ourselves, for women hate being laughed at quite as much
as men do, and that is very much indeed.

My cousin is a wonderful shot, and I am by no means a duffer with a
rifle. As to our courage--well, we could only trust we had sufficient
to carry us through. We felt we had, and with a woman intuition is
everything. If she feels she is not going to fail, you may take it from
me she won’t. Certainly it is one thing to look a lion in the face
from England to gazing at him in Somaliland. But we meant to meet him
somehow.

Gradually and very carefully we amassed our stores, and arranged for
their meeting us in due course. We collected our kit, medicines, and
a thousand and one needful things, and at last felt we had almost
everything, and yet as little as possible. Even the little seemed too
much as we reflected on the transport difficulty. We sorted our things
most carefully--I longed for the floor-space of a cathedral to use as
a spreading-out ground--and glued a list of the contents of each
packing-case into each lid.

To real sportsmen I shall seem to be leaving the most important point
to the last--the rifles, guns, and ammunition. But, you see, I am only a
sportswoman by chance, not habit. I know it is the custom with your born
sportsman to place his weapons first, minor details last. “Nice customs
curtsey to great kings,” they say, and so it must be here. For King
Circumstance has made us the possessors of such wondrous modern rifles,
&c., as to leave us no reason to think of endeavouring to supply
ourselves with better. We, fortunately, have an uncle who is one of the
greatest shikaris of his day, and his day has only just passed, his sun
but newly set. A terribly bad mauling from a lion set up troubles in
his thigh, and blood poisoning finally ended his active career. He will
never hunt again, but he placed at our disposal every beautiful and
costly weapon he owned, together with his boundless knowledge. He
insisted on our taking many things that would otherwise have been left
behind, and his great trust in our powers inspired us with confidence.
It is to his help we owe the entire success of our expedition.

It would be an impertinence for a tyro like myself to offer any remarks
on the merits or demerits of any rifle. Not only do the fashions change
almost as quickly as in millinery, not only do great shikaris advise,
advertise, and adventure with any weapon that could possibly be of
service to anyone, but my knowledge, even after the experience gained
in our long shoot, is confined to the very few firearms we had with us.
They might not have met with unqualified approval from all men; they
certainly served us well. After all, that is the main point.

Our battery consisted of:

Three 12-bore rifles.

Two double-barrelled hammerless ejecting .500 Expresses.

One .35 Winchester.

Two small .22 Winchesters.

One single-barrel .350.

One 410 bore collector’s gun.

A regular _olla podrida_ in rifles.

My uncle selected these from his armoury as being the ones of all others
he would feel safest in sending us out with. There may, in the opinion
of many, be much more suitable ones for women to use, but, speaking as
one who had the using of them, I must say I think the old shikari did
the right thing, and if I went again the same rifles would accompany me.

My uncle is a small man, with a shortish arm, and therefore his reach
about equalled ours, and his rifles might have been made for us.

We also towed about with us two immensely heavy shot guns. They were a
great nuisance, merely adding to the baggage, and we never used them as
far as I remember.

As we meant frequently to go about unescorted, a revolver or pistol
seemed indispensable in the belt, and under any conditions such a
weapon would be handy and give one a sense of security. On the advice of
another great sportsman we equipped ourselves with a good shikar pistol
apiece, 12-bore; and I used mine on one occasion very effectively at
close quarters with an ard-wolf, so can speak to the usefulness and
efficiency of the weapon.

It was the “cutting the ivy” season in Suburbia when we drove through it
early one afternoon, and in front of every pill-box villa the suburban
husband stood on a swaying ladder as he snipped away, all ora ora
unmindful of the rampant domesticity of the sparrows. The fourteenth of
February had long passed, and the fourteenth is to the birds what Easter
Monday is to the lower orders, a general day for getting married.

A few days in town amid the guilty splendour of one of the caravan-serais
in Northumberland Avenue were mostly spent in imbibing knowledge. My
uncle never wearied of his subject, and it was to our interest to listen
carefully. Occasionally he would wax pessimist, and express his doubts
of our ability to see the trip through; but he was kind enough to say
he knows no safer shot than myself. “Praise from Cæsar.” Though I draw
attention to it that shouldn’t! The fragility of my physique bothered
him no end. I assured him over and over that my appearance is nothing to
go by, and that I am, as a matter of fact, a most wiry person.

This shoot of ours was no hurried affair. We had been meditating it for
months, and had, to some extent, arranged all the difficult parts a long
time before we got to the actual purchases of stores, and simple things
of the kind. We had to obtain special permits to penetrate the Ogaden
country and beyond to the Marehan and the Haweea, if we desired to go so
far. Since the Treaty with King Menelik in 1897 the Ogaden and onwards
is out of the British sphere of influence.

How our permits were obtained I am not at liberty to say; but without
them we should have been forced to prance about on the outskirts of
every part where game is abundant. By the fairy aid of these open
sesames we were enabled to traverse the country in almost any part, and
would have been passed from Mullah to Sheik, from Sheik to Mullah, had
we not taken excellent care to avoid, as far as we could, the settled
districts where these gentry reside. At one time all the parts we shot
over were free areas, and open to any sportsman who cared to take on the
possible dangers of penetrating the far interior of Somaliland, but
now the hunting is very limited and prescribed. We were singularly
fortunate, and owe our surprising good luck to that much maligned,
useful, impossible to do without passport to everything worth having
known as “influence.”

The tents we meant to use on the shoot were made for us to a pattern
supplied. They were fitted with poles of bamboo, of which we had one to
spare in case of emergencies. The ropes, by particular request, were of
cotton, in contradistinction to hemp, which stretches so abominably.

Two skinning knives were provided, and some little whet-stones, an axe,
a bill-hook, two hammers, a screwdriver--my _vade mecum_--nails, and
many other needful articles. We trusted to getting a good many things at
Berbera, but did not like to leave everything to the last. Our “canned
goods” and all necessaries in the food line we got at the Army and Navy
Stores. Field-glasses, compasses, and a good telescope our generous
relative contributed.

They say that the best leather never leaves London, that there only can
the best boots be had. This is as may be. Anyway the shooting boots made
for us did us well, and withstood prodigious wear and tear.

The night before our departure we had a “Goodbye” dinner and, as a great
treat, were taken to a music-hall. Of course it was not my first visit,
but really, if I have any say in the matter again, it will be the last.
Some genius--a man, of course--says, somewhere or other, women have
no sense of humour--I wonder if he ever saw a crowd of holiday-making
trippers exchanging hats--and I am willing to concede he must be right.
I watched that show unmoved the while the vast audience rocked with
laughter.

The _pièce-de-résistance_ of the evening was provided by a “comic”
 singer, got up like a very-much-the-worse-for-wear curate, who sang to
us about a girl with whom he had once been in love. Matters apparently
went smoothly enough until one fateful day he discovered his inamorata’s
nose was false, and, what seemed to trouble him more than all, was stuck
on with cement. It came off at some awkward moment. This was meant to be
funny. If such an uncommon thing happened that a woman had no nose, and
more uncommon still, got so good an imitation as to deceive him as to
its genuineness in the first place, it would not be affixed with
cement. But allowing such improbabilities to pass in the sacred cause
of providing amusement, surely the woman’s point of view would give us
pause. It would be so awful for her in every way that it would quite
swamp any discomfort the man would have to undergo. I felt far more
inclined to cry than laugh, and the transcendent vulgarity of it all
made one ashamed of being there.

The next item on the programme was a Human Snake, who promised us
faithfully that he would dislocate his neck. He marched on to a gaudy
dais, and after tying himself in sundry knots and things, suddenly
jerked, and his neck elongated, swinging loosely from his body. It was
a very horrid sight. An attendant stepped forward and told us the Human
Snake had kept his promise. The neck was dislocated. My only feeling in
the matter was a regret he had not gone a step farther and broken it.
All this was because I have no sense of humour. I don’t like music-hall
entertainments. I would put up with being smoked into a kipper if the
performance rewarded one at all. It is so automatic, so sad. There is
no joy, or freshness, or life about it. ’Tis a squalid way of earning
money.

At last every arrangement was arranged, our clothes for the trip duly
packed. Being women, we had naturally given much thought to this part of
the affair. We said “Adieu” to our wondering and amazed relatives, who,
with many injunctions to us to “write every day,” and requests that we
should at all times abjure damp beds, saw us off _en route_ for Berbera,
_via_ Aden, by a P. and O. liner.

I think steamer-travelling is most enjoyable--that is, unless one
happens to be married, in which case there is no pleasure in it, or
in much else for the matter of that. I have always noticed that the
selfishness which dominates every man more or less, usually more,
develops on board ship to an abnormal extent. They invariably contrive
to get toothache or lumbago just as they cross the gangway to go aboard.
This is all preliminary to securing the lower berth with some appearance
of equity. What does it matter that the wife detests top berths, not
to speak of the loss of dignity she must endure at the idea even of
clambering up? Of course the husband does not ask her to take the
top berth. No husband can _ask_ his wife to make herself genuinely
uncomfortable to oblige him. He has to hint. He hints in all kinds of
ways--throws things about the cabin, and ejaculates parenthetically,
“How am I to climb up there with a tooth aching like mine?” or “I shall
be lamed for life with my lumbago if I have to get up to that height.”

Having placed the wife in the position of being an unfeeling brute if
she insists on taking the lower berth for herself, there is nothing for
it but to go on as though the top berth were the be-all of the voyage
and her existence.

“Let me have the top berth, Percy,” she pleads; “you know how I love
mountaineering.”

“Oh, very well. You may have it. Don’t take it if you don’t want it, or
if you’d rather not. I should hate to seem selfish.”

And so it goes on. Then in the morning, in spite of comic papers to the
contrary, the husband has to have first go-in at the looking-glass
and the washing apparatus, which makes the wife late for breakfast and
everything is cold.

Cecily and I shared a most comfortable cabin amidships, together with a
Christian Science lady who lay in her berth most days crooning hymns
to herself in between violent paroxysms of _mal-de-mer_. I always
understood that in Christian Science you do not have to be ill if you do
not want to. This follower of the faith was very bad indeed, and
didn’t seem to like the condition of things much. We rather thought
of questioning her on the apparent discrepancy, but judged it wiser to
leave the matter alone. It is as well to keep on good terms with one’s
cabin mate.

Nothing really exciting occurred on the voyage, but one of the
passengers provided a little amusement by her management, or rather
mismanagement, of an awkward affair. Almost as soon as we started
I noticed we had an unusually pretty stewardess, and that a warrior
returning to India appeared to agree with me. He waylaid her at every
opportunity, and I often came on them whispering in corners of passages
o’ nights. Of course it had nothing to do with me what the stewardess
did, for I am thankful to say I did not require her tender ministrations
on the voyage at all. Well, in the next cabin to ours was a silly little
woman--I had known her for years--going out to join her husband, a
colonel of Indian Lancers. She made the most never-ending fuss about the
noise made by a small baby in the adjoining cabin. One night, very late,
Mrs. R. could not, or would not, endure the din any longer, so decided
to oust the stewardess from her berth in the ladies’ cabin, the
stewardess to come to the vacated one next the wailing baby. All this
was duly carried into effect, and the whole ship was in complete silence
when the most awful shrieks rent the air. Most of the inhabitants of my
corridor turned out, and all made their way to the ladies’ cabin, which
seemed the centre of the noise. There we found the ridiculous Mrs. R.
alone, and in hysterics. After a little, we could see for ourselves
there was nothing much the matter. She gasped out that she had evicted
the stewardess, and was just falling off to sleep when a tall figure
appeared by the berth, clad in pale blue pyjamas--it seemed to vex her
so that it was pale blue, and for the life of me I could not see why
they were any worse than dark red--and calling her “Mabel, darling!”
 embraced her rapturously.

“And you know,” said Mrs. R. plaintively, “my name is _not_ Mabel! It is
Maud.”

In the uproar the intruder had of course escaped, but Mrs. R.
unhesitatingly proclaimed him to be Captain H., the officer whom I had
noticed at first. We discovered the stewardess sleeping peacefully, or
making a very good imitation of it, and she was wakened up and again
dislodged, whilst Mrs. R. prepared to put up with the wailing baby for
the remains of the night.

Next morning the captain of the ship interviewed the warrior, who
absolutely denied having been anywhere near the ladies’ cabin at the
time mentioned, and aided by a youthful subaltern, who perjured himself
like a man, proved a most convincing _alibi_. Matters went on until
one day on deck Captain H. walked up to Mrs. R. and reproached her for
saying he was the man who rudely disturbed her slumbers in the wee sma’
hours. She, like the inane creature she is, went straight to the skipper
and reported that Captain H. was terrorising her. I heard that evening,
as a great secret, that the warrior had been requested to leave the ship
at Aden. Where the secret came in I don’t quite know, for the whole lot
of us knew of it soon after.=

````Secret de deux,

````Secret des dieux;

````Secret de trois,

````Secret de tous.=

Do you know that?

I was not surprised to hear Captain H. casually remark at breakfast next
morning that he thought of stopping off at Aden, as he had never been
ashore there, and had ideas of exploring the Hinterland some time, and
besides it was really almost foolish to pass a place so often and yet
know it not at all. I went to his rescue, and said it was a most sound
idea. I had always understood it was the proper thing to see Aden once
and never again. He looked at me most gratefully, and afterwards showed
us much kindness in many small ways.

Mrs. R. preened herself mightily on having unmasked a villain. She
assured me the warrior’s reputation was damaged for all time. The silly
little woman did not seem to grasp the fact that a man’s reputation is
like a lobster’s claw: a new one can be grown every time the old one is
smashed. In fact we had a lobster at home in the aquarium, and it hadn’t
even gone to the trouble of dropping _one_ reputation--I mean claw--but
had three at once!

It was one of the quaintest things imaginable to watch the attitude of
the various passengers towards the cause of all the trouble. A community
of people shut up together on board ship become quite like a small
town, of the variety where every one knows everyone else, _and_ their
business. Previous to the semi-subdued scandal Captain H. had been in
great request. He was a fine-looking man, and a long way more versatile
than most. Now many of the people who had painstakingly scraped
acquaintance with him felt it necessary to look the other way as he
passed. Others again--women, of course--tried to secure an introduction
from sheer inquisitiveness.

The sole arbiter of what is what, a _multum in parvo_ of the correct
thing to do, we discovered in a young bride, a perfect tome of
learning. I think--I thought so before I met this walking ethic of
propriety--there is no doubt Mrs. Grundy is not the old woman she is
represented to be, with cap and spectacles, though for years we have
pictured her thus. It is all erroneous. Mrs. Grundy is a newly married
youthful British matron of the middle class. There is no greater
stickler for the proprieties living. Having possessed herself of a
certificate that certifies respectability, she likes to know everyone
else is hall-marked and not pinchbeck. She proposed to bring the romance
of the stewardess and the officer before the notice of the directors
of the company, and had every confidence in getting one or two people
dismissed over it. All hail for the proprieties! This good lady markedly
and ostentatiously cut the disgraced warrior, who was her _vis-à-vis_ at
table, and when I asked her why she considered a man guilty of anything
until he had been proved beyond doubt to merit cutting, she looked at me
with a supercilious eyebrow raised, and a world of pity for my ignorance
in her tone as she answered firmly: “I must have the moral courage
necessary to cut an acquaintance lacking principle.”

“Wouldn’t it be infinitely more courageous to stick to one?” I said, and
left her.

We had a very narrow little padre on board too, going out to take on
some church billet Mussoorie way. He was bent on collecting, from all of
us who were powerless to evade him, enough money to set up a screen
of sorts in his new tabernacle. Although he did not approve of the
sweepstakes on the day’s run, he sacrificed his feeling sufficiently to
accept a free share, and would ask us for subscriptions besides, as we
lounged about the deck individually or in small groups, always opening
the ball by asking our valueless opinions as to the most suitable
subject--biblical, of course--for illustration. He came to me one day
and asked me what I thought about the matter. Did I think Moses with his
mother would make a good picture for a screen? I had no views at all,
so had to speedily manufacture some. I gave it as my opinion that if
a screen picture were a necessity Moses would certainly do as well as
anybody else--in fact better. For, after all, Moses was the greatest
leader of men the world has ever known. He engineered an expedition to
freedom, and no man can do more than that.

But I begged the padre to give Moses his rightful mother at last. For
the mother of Moses was not she who took all the credit for it. The
mother of Moses was undoubtedly the Princess, his father some handsome
Israelite, and that is why Moses was for ever in heart hankering after
his own people, the Israelites. The Princess arranged the little drama
of the bullrushes, most sweetly pathetic and tender of stories, arranged
too that the baby should be found at the crucial moment, and then gave
the little poem to the world to sing through the centuries.

I shocked the parson profoundly, and he never asked me to subscribe
again. He was a narrow, bigoted little creature, and I should think has
the church and the screen very much to himself by now. I went to hear
him take service in the saloon on Sunday. He was quite the sort of padre
that makes one feel farther off from heaven than when one was a boy.

I often wonder why so clever a man as Omar asked: “Why nods the drowsy
worshipper outside?” He must have known the inevitable result had the
drowsy worshipper gone in.

I fell asleep during the sermon, and only wakened up as it was about
ending, just as the padre closed an impassioned harangue with “May we
all have new hearts, may we all have pure hearts, may we all have good
hearts, may we all have sweet hearts,” and the graceless Cecily says
that my “Amen” shook the ship, which was, I need hardly tell you, “a
most unmitigated misstatement.”

Aden was reached at last--“The coal hole of the East.” As a
health resort, I cannot conscientiously recommend it. The heat was
overwhelming, and the local Hotel Ritz sadly wanting in some things and
overdone in others. We found it necessary to spend some days there and
many sleepless nights, pursuing during the latter the big game in our
bedrooms. “Keatings” was of no use. I believe the local insects were
case-hardened veterans, and rather liked the powder than otherwise. What
nights we had! But every one was in like case, for from all over the
house came the sound of slippers banging and much scuffling, and from
the room opposite to mine language consigning all insects, the Aden
variety in particular, to some even warmer place.

In some ways the hotel was more than up to date. Nothing so ordinary
as a mere common or garden bell in one’s room. Instead, a sort of dial,
like the face of a clock, with every conceivable want written round it,
from a great desire to meet the manager to a wish to call out the
local Fire Brigade. You turned on a small steel finger to point at your
particular requirement, rang a bell--_et voilà!_ It seems mere carping
to state that the matter ended with _voilà_. The dials were there, you
might ring if you liked--what more do you want? Some day some one will
answer. Meanwhile, one can always shout.

We met two other shooting parties at our _auberge_. The first comprised
a man and his elderly wife who were not immediately starting, some of
their kit having gone astray. He was a noted shot, and Madam had been
some minor trip with him and meant to accompany another. She was an
intensely cross-grained person, quite the last woman I should yearn to
be cooped up in a tent with for long at a time. Cecily’s idea of it was
that the shikari husband meant, sooner or later, to put into practice
the words of that beautiful song, “Why don’t you take her out and lose
her?” and stuck to it that we should one day come on head-lines in the
_Somaliland Daily Wail_ reading something like this:=

````GREAT SHIKARI IN TEARS.

````LOOKING FOR THE LOST ONE.

````SOME LIONS BOLT THEIR FOOD.=

The good lady regarded us with manifest disapproval. She considered us
as two lunatics, bound to meet with disaster and misfortune. Being women
alone, we were foredoomed to failure and the most awful things. Our
caravan would murder or abandon us. That much was certain. But she would
not care to say which. Anyway we should not accomplish anything.
She pointed out that a trip of the kind could not by any chance be
manoeuvred to a successful issue without the guidance of a husband. A
husband is an absolute necessity.

I had to confess, shamefacedly enough, that we had not got a husband,
not even one husband, to say nothing of one each, and husbands being so
scarce these days, and so hard to come by, we should really have to try
and manage without. Having by some means or other contrived to annex a
husband for herself, she evinced a true British matron-like contempt for
every other woman not so supremely fortunate.

She talked a great deal about “the haven of a good man’s love.” One
might sail the seas a long time, I think, before one made such a port.
Meanwhile the good lady’s _own_ haven, the elderly shikari, was flirting
with the big drum of the celebrated ladies’ orchestra at the Aden
tea-house.

“All human beans,” for this is what our friend got the word to, as she
was right in the forefront of the g-dropping craze, “should marry. It is
too lonely to live by oneself.”

Until one has been married long enough to appreciate the delight
and blessedness of solitude this may be true, but wise people don’t
dogmatise on so big a subject. Even Socrates told us that whether a
man marries or whether he doesn’t he regrets it. And so it would almost
follow that if one never jumped the precipice matrimonial one would
always have the lurking haunting fear of having been done out of
something good. It may be as well, therefore, to take the header in
quite youthful days and--get it over. But as the wise Cecily pertinently
remarks, you must first catch your hare!

The other shooting party was that of two officers from India, one of
them a distant cousin of mine, who was as much surprised to see me as
I was to see him. They were setting off to Berbera as soon as humanly
possible, like ourselves.

The younger man, my kinsman, took a great fancy to Cecily. At least I
suppose he did, in spite of her assertions to the contrary, for he stuck
to us like a burr. He was really by way of being a nuisance, as we had
a great deal to do in the way of satisfying the excise people, procuring
permits and myriad other things.

One evening I heard the two warriors talking and the elder said, not
dreaming that his voice would carry so clearly: “Look here, if you are
not careful, we shall have those two girls trying to tack on to our
show. And I won’t have it, for they’ll be duffers, of course.”

I laughed to myself, even though I was annoyed. Men are conceited ever,
but this was too much! To imagine we had gone to all the initial expense
and trouble only to join two sportsmen who, true to their masculine
nature, would on all occasions take the best of everything and leave us
to be contented with any small game we could find!

It is true that being called a girl softened my wrath somewhat. One
can’t be called a girl at thirty without feeling a glow of pleasure. I
am thirty. So is Cecily.

I expect you are smiling? I know a woman never passes thirty. It is her
Rubicon, and she cannot cross it.

My uncle had written ahead for us to Berbera to engage, if possible,
his old shikari and head-man, and in addition had sent on copious
instructions as to our needs generally. Our trip was supposed to be a
secret in Aden, but we were inundated with applications from would-be
servants of all kinds. I afterwards discovered that a Somali knows
your business almost before you know it yourself, and in this
second-sight-like faculty is only exceeded in cleverness by the
inhabitants of a little island set in the Irish Sea and sacred to Hall
Caine.




CHAPTER II--IN BERBERA


`````All is uneven,

```And everything left at six and seven

`````Richard II=


|By this time the weekly steamer had sailed to Berbera, across the
Gulf, but we arranged to paddle our own canoes, so to speak, and the
two sportsmen, still, I suppose, in fear and trembling lest we should
clamour to form a part of their caravan, went shares with us in hiring
at an altogether ridiculous sum, almost enough to have purchased a ship
of our own, a small steamer to transport us and our numerous belongings
across the Gulf.

Here I may as well say that it is possible for two women to successfully
carry out a big shoot, for we proved it ourselves, but I do not believe
it possible for them to do it _cheaply_. I never felt the entire truth
of the well-known axiom, “The woman pays,” so completely as on this
trip. The women paid with a vengeance--twice as much as a man would have
done.

The getting of our things aboard was a scene of panic I shall never
forget. It was, of anything I have ever had to do with, the quaintest
and most amusing of sights. Each distinct package seemed to fall to the
ground at least twice before it was considered to have earned the right
to a passage at all. The men engaged by us to do the transporting of our
goods were twins to the porters engaged by our friends, the opposition
shoot. They did not appear to reason out that as the mountain of
packages had to be got aboard before we could sail, it did not matter
whose porter carried which box or kit. No, each porter must stick to
the belongings of the individual who hired him to do the job. Naturally,
this caused the wildest confusion, and I sat down on a packing case that
nobody seemed to care much about and laughed and laughed at the idiocy
of it. To see the leader of the opposition shoot gravely detach from my
porter a bale of goods to which their label was attached, substituting
for it a parcel from our special heap, was to see man at the zenith in
the way of management.

It was very early, indeed, when we began operations, but not so early
by the time we sailed, accompanied by a rabble of Somalis bent on
negotiating the voyage at our expense. It was useless to say they could
not come aboard, because come they would, and the villainous-looking
skipper seemed to think the more the merrier. Our warrior friends were
all for turning off the unpaying guests, but I begged that there should
be no more delay, and so, when we were loaded up, like a cheap tripping
steamer to Hampton Court, we sailed. It was a truly odious voyage. The
wretched little craft rolled and tossed to such an extent I thought she
really must founder. I remember devoutly wishing she would.

The leader brought out sketching materials, and proceeded to make a
water-colour sketch of the sea.

It was just the same as any other sea, only nastier and more bumpy. We
imagined--Cecily and myself--that the boat would do the trip in about
sixteen hours. She floundered during twenty-four, and I spent most of
the time on a deck-chair, “the world forgetting.” At intervals Somalis
would come up from the depths somewhere, cross their hands and pray. I
joined them every time in spirit. Cecily told me that the little cabin
was too smelly for words, but in an evil minute I consented to be
escorted thither for a meal.

“She’s not exactly a Cunarder,” sang out the younger officer, my
kinsman, from the bottom of the companion, “but anyway they’ve got us
something to eat.”

They had. Half-a-dozen different smells pervaded the horrid little
cabin, green cabbage in the ascendant. The place was full of our kit,
which seemed to have been fired in anyhow from the fo’castle end. With
a silly desire to suppress the evidence of my obvious discomfort, I
attacked an overloaded plate of underdone mutton and cabbage. I tried to
keep my eyes off it as far as possible; sometimes it seemed multiplied
by two, but the greasy gravy had a fatal fascination for me, and at last
proved my undoing. The elder warrior supplied a so-called comfort, in
the shape of a preventative against sea-sickness, concocted, he said, by
his mother, which accelerated matters; and they all kindly dragged me on
deck again and left me to myself in my misery. All through the night I
stayed on my seat on deck, not daring to face the cabin and that awful
smell, which Cecily told me was bilge water.

It was intensely cold, but, fortunately, I had a lot of wraps. The
others lent me theirs too, telling me I should come below, as it was
going to be “a dirty night,” whatever that might mean. It seemed a
never-ending one, and my thankfulness cannot be described when, as
the dawn broke, I saw land--Somaliland. We made the coast miles below
Berbera, which is really what one might have expected. However, it was
a matter of such moment to me that we made it at last that I was not
disposed to quibble we had not arrived somewhere else.

I managed to pull myself together sufficiently to see the Golis Range.
The others negotiated breakfast. They brought me some tea, made of some
of the bilge water I think, and I did not fancy it. Then came Berbera
Harbour, with a lighthouse to mark the entrance; next Berbera itself,
which was a place I was as intensely glad to be in as I afterwards was
to leave it. I should never have believed there were so many flies in
the whole world had I not seen them with mine own eyes. In fact, my
first impression of Berbera may be summed up in the word “flies.” The
town seemed to be in two sections, native and European, the former
composed of typical Arab houses and numerous huts of primitive and
poverty-stricken appearance. The European quarter has large well-built
one-storied houses, flat-roofed; and the harbour looked imposing, and
accommodates quite large ships.

Submerged in the shimmering ether we could discern, through the
parting of the ways of the Maritime Range, the magnificent Golis, about
thirty-five miles inland from Berbera as the crow flies.

The same pandemonium attended our disembarking. All our fellow voyagers
seemed to have accompanied the trip for no other reason than to act
as porters. There were now more porters than packages, and so the men
fought for the mastery to the imminent danger of our goods and chattels.
Order was restored by our soldier friends, who at last displayed a
little talent for administration; and sorting out the porters into some
sort of system, soon had them running away, like loaded-up ants, with
our packages and kit to the travellers’ bungalow in the European square,
whither we speedily followed them, and established ourselves. It
was quite a comfortable _auberge_, and seemed like heaven after that
abominable toy steamer, and we christened it the “Cecil” at once.

Cecily began to sort our things into some degree of sequence. I could
not help her. I was all at sea still, and felt every toss of the voyage
over. These sort of battles fought o’er again are, to say the least, not
pleasant.

We had not arrived so very long before our master of the ceremonies
came to discover us, with my uncle’s letter clasped in his brown hand.
I shall never forget the amazement on the man’s face as we introduced
ourselves. I could not at first make out what on earth could be the
matter, but at last the truth dawned on me. He had not expected to find
us of the feminine persuasion.

Our would-be henchman’s name was unpronounceable, and sounded more like
“Clarence” than anything, so Clarence he remained to the end--a really
fine, handsome fellow, not very dark, about the Arab colour, with a mop
of dark hair turning slightly grey. His features were of the Arab type,
and I should say a strong Arab strain ran in his family, stronger even
than in most Somali tribes. I think the Arab tinge exists more or less
in every one of them. Anyhow, they are not of negritic descent.

[Illustration: 0043]

Our man used the Somali “Nabad” as a salutation, instead of the “Salaam
aleikum” of the Arabs. The last is the most generally used. We heard
it almost invariably in the Ogaden and Marehan countries. Clarence had
donned resplendent garb in which to give us greeting, and discarding the
ordinary everyday white tobe had dressed himself in the khaili, a tobe
dyed in shades of the tricolour, fringed with orange. We never saw
him again tricked out like this; evidently the get-up must have been
borrowed for the occasion. He wore a _tusba_, or prayer chaplet, round
his neck, and the beads were made from some wood that had a pleasant
aroma. A business-like dagger was at the waist; Peace and War were
united.

I noticed what long tapering fingers the Somali had, and quite
aristocratic hands, though so brown. He had a very graceful way of
standing too. In fact all his movements were lithe and lissome, telling
us he was a jungle man. I liked him the instant I set eyes on him, and
we were friends from the day we met to the day we parted. Had we been
unable to secure his services I do not know where we should have ended,
or what the trip might have cost. Everyone in Berbera seemed bent
on making us pay for things twice over, and three times if possible.
Clarence’s demands were reasonable enough, and he fell in with our
wishes most graciously.

I gave instructions for the purchase of camels, fifty at least, for the
caravan was a large one. There were not so many animals in the place for
sale at once, and of course our soldier friends were on the look out for
likely animals also.

During the next few days we busied ourselves in engaging the necessary
servants. My uncle had impressed on me the necessity of seeing that the
caravan was peopled with men from many tribes, as friction is better
than a sort of trust among themselves. Clarence appeared to have no wish
to take his own relatives along, as is so often the case, and we had no
bother in the matter. But we were dreadfully ‘had’ over six rough ponies
we bought. We gave one hundred and fifty rupees each for them and they
were dear at forty. However, much wiser people than Cecily and myself
go wrong in buying horses! Later in the trip we acquired a better pony
apiece and so pulled through all right.

My cousin has a very excellent appetite, and is rather fond of the
flesh-pots generally, and gave as much attention to the engaging of
a suitable cook as I did to the purchase of the camels. No lady ever
emerged more triumphantly from the local Servants’ Registry Office after
securing the latest thing in cooks than did Cecily on rushing out of the
bungalow at express speed to tell me she had engaged a regular Monsieur
Escoffier to accompany us.

What he could not cook was not worth cooking. Altogether we seemed in
for a good time as far as meals were concerned.

Meanwhile Clarence had produced from somewhere about forty-five camels,
and I judged it about time to launch a little of the knowledge I was
supposed to have gathered from my shikâri uncle. I told Clarence I would
personally see and pass every camel we bought for the trip, and
prepared for an inspection in the Square. I suffered the most frightful
discomfort, in the most appalling heat, but I did not regret it, as I
really do think my action prevented our having any amount of useless
camels being thrust upon us.

Assume a virtue if you have it not. The pretence at knowledge took in
the Somalis, and I went up some miles in their estimation.

As I say, some of the camels offered were palpably useless, and were
very antediluvian indeed. I refused any camel with a sore back, or with
any tendency that way, and I watched with what looked like the most
critical and knowing interest the manner of kneeling. The animal must
kneel with fore and hind legs together, or there is something wrong.
I can’t tell you what. My uncle merely said, darkly, “something.” Of
course I found out age by the teeth, an operation attended with much
snapping and Somali cuss-words. The directions about teeth had grown
very confused in my mind, and all I stuck to was the pith of the
narrative, namely, that a camel at eight years old has molars and
canines. I forget the earlier ages with attendant incisors. Then another
condition plain to be seen was the hump. Even a tyro like myself could
see the immense difference between the round, full hump of a camel in
fine condition and that of the poor over-worked creature. As I knew we
were paying far too much for the beasts anyway I saw no reason why we
should be content to take the lowest for the highest.

Finally I stood possessed of forty-nine camels, try as I would I could
not find a fiftieth. I was told this number was amply sufficient to
carry our entire outfit, but how they were to do so I really could not
conceive. Viewed casually, our possessions now assumed the dimensions
of a mountain, and we had to pitch tents in the Square in order to store
the goods safely. This necessitated a constant guard.

Everything we brought with us was in apple-pie order owing to the lists
so carefully placed in the lid of each box, and gave us no trouble in
the dividing up into the usual camel loads. It was our myriad purchases
in Berbera that caused the chaos. They were here, there and everywhere,
and all concerning them was at six and seven. I detailed some camels to
carry our personal kit, food supplies, &c., exclusively; the same men
to be always responsible for their safety, and that there should be
no mistake about it I took down the branding marks on apiece of paper.
Camels seem to be branded on the neck, and most of the marks are
different, for I suppose every tribe has its own hallmark.

Some of the camels brought into Berbera for sale are not intended to be
draught animals, being merely for food, and with so much care and extra
attention get very fine and well-developed generally. Camel-meat is to
the Somali what we are given to understand turtle soup is to the London
alderman. Next in favour comes mutton, but no flesh comes up to camel.
The Somali camel-man is exceedingly attentive to his charges, giving
them names, and rarely, if ever, ill treating them. As a result the
animals are fairly even tempered, for camels, and one may go amongst
them with more or less assurance of emerging unbitten. When loading up
the man sings away, and the camel must get familiar with the song. It
seems to be interminably the same, and goes on and on in dreary monotone
until the job is over. I would I knew what it was all about.

Of course it is a fact that a camel can take in a month’s supply of
water, but it very much depends on the nature of the month how the
animal gets on. If he is on pasture, green and succulent, he can go on
much longer than a month, but if working hard, continuously, and much
loaded, once a week is none too often to water him. They are not
strong animals; far from it, and they have a great many complaints and
annoyances to contend with in a strenuous life. The most awful, to my
mind, is sore back and its consequences. This trouble comes from bad
and uneven lading, damp mats, &c., and more often than not the sore is
scratched until it gets into a shocking condition. Flies come next, and
maggots follow, and then a ghastly Nemesis in the form of the rhinoceros
bird which comes for a meal, and with its sharp pointed beak picks up
maggots and flesh together. When out at pasture these birds never leave
the browsing camels alone, clinging on to shoulders, haunch, and side,
in threes and fours.

We had now in our caravan, not counting Clarence and the cook, two boys
(men of at least forty, who always referred to themselves as “boys”)
to assist the cook, one “makadam,” or head camel-man, twenty-four camel
men, four syces, and six hunters, to say nothing of a couple of men of
all work, who appeared to be going with us for reasons only known to
themselves.

In most caravans the head-man and head shikari are separate individuals,
but in our show Clarence was to double the parts. It seemed to us the
wisest arrangement. He was so excellent a manager, and we knew him to be
a mighty hunter.

The chaos of purchases included rice, _harns_ or native water-casks,
ordinary water barrels calculated to hold about twelve gallons apiece,
blankets for the men, _herios_, or camel mats, potatoes, _ghee_, leather
loading ropes, numerous native axes, onions, many white tobes for gifts
up country, and some _Merikani_ tobes (American made cloth) also for
presents, or exchange. Tent-pegs, cooking utensils, and crowds of little
things which added to the confusion. A big day’s work, however, set
things right, and meanwhile Cecily had discovered a treasure in the way
of a butler. He had lived in the service of a white family at Aden, and
so would know our ways.

We had taken out a saddle apiece, as the double-peaked affair used by the
Somalis is a very uncomfortable thing indeed.

[Illustration: 0051]

Rice for the men’s rations we bought in sacks of some 160 pounds, and
two bags could be carried by one camel. Dates, also an indispensable
article of diet, are put up in native baskets of sorts, and bought by
the _gosra_, about 130 pounds, and two _gosra_ can be apportioned to a
camel. _Ghee_, the native butter, is a compound of cow’s milk, largely
used by the Somalis to mix with the rice portion, a large quantity of
fat being needful ere the wheels go round smoothly. It is bought in a
bag made of a whole goat skin, with an ingenious cork of wood and clay.
Each bag, if my memory serves me rightly, holds somewhere about 20
pounds, and every man expects two ounces daily unless he is on a meat
diet, when it is possible to economise the rice and dates and _ghee_.

The camel mats, or _herios_, are plaited by the women of Somaliland, and
are made from the chewed bark of a tree called Galol. The _harns_ for
water are also made from plaited bark, in different sizes, and when
near a _karia_, it is quite usual to see old women and small children
carrying on their backs the heaviest filled _harns_, whilst the men sit
about and watch operations. The _harns_, which hold about six gallons
of water, are--from the camels’ point of view anyway--the best for
transport purposes. Six can be carried at once, but a tremendous amount
of leakage goes on, and this is very irritating, upsetting calculations
so. The water-casks were really better, because they were padlocked, and
could also be cleaned out at intervals. But of these only two can go on
a camel at one time.

Our own kit was mostly in tin uniform cases, these being better than
wooden boxes on account of damp and rainy weather. Leather, besides
being heavy, is so attractive to ants. Our rifles, in flat cases,
specially made, were compact and not cumbersome, at least not untowardly
cumbersome. Our food stores were in the usual cases, padlocked, and a
little of everything was in each box, so that we did not need to raid
another before the last opened was half emptied. The ammunition was
carried in specially made haversacks, each haversack being marked for
its particular rifle, and more spare ammunition was packed away in a
convenient box, along with cleaning materials, &c. We made our coats
into small pantechnicons, and the pockets held no end of useful small
articles and useful contraptions. My two coats, one warm khaki serge,
one thin drill, were both made with recoil pads as fixtures, and this
was an excellent idea, as they saved my shoulder many hard knocks.

We heard of a man who was anxious to go out as skinner, but the
Opposition, for we had by now christened the rival camp so, snapped
him up before we had an opportunity to engage him. On learning of our
disappointment they nobly volunteered to waive their claim, but when I
saw the trophy in discussion I would not take him into our little lot at
any price. A more crafty, murderous-looking individual it would be hard
to find.

The Opposition watched us do some of the packing, and were green with
envy as they handled our rifles. The elder tried to induce me to sell
him my double-barrelled hammerless ejecting .500 Express. I don’t know
how I was meant to be able to get along without it, but I suppose he
didn’t think that mattered.

It was then that Clarence, who had, I believe, been yearning to ask
all along, wanted to know if I was any good with a rifle, and the other
Mem-sahib could she shoot, and if so how had we learned, for the
Somalis are nothing if not direct. They rather remind me of English
North-country people with their outspoken inquisitiveness, which is at
home always regarded as such charming straightforwardness of character.

I was as modest as I could be under the circumstances, but I had to
allay any fears the man might be harbouring. Besides, it is not well to
under-estimate oneself, especially to a Somali. Nowadays everywhere it
is the thing to remove the bushel from one’s light and to make it
glare in all men’s eyes. My advice to any one who wants to be heard
of is--Advertise, advertise, advertise. If you begin by having a great
opinion of yourself and talk about it long enough, you generally end by
being great in the opinion of everyone else. I told our shikari I had
the use of my uncle’s fine range at home, and the advantage of what
sport there was to be had in England and Scotland. Also that this was
not our first expedition. The knowledge of all this and my unbounded
confidence, not to say cheek, set all doubts at rest.

Every night I was rendered desperate by the scratching in my room of
some little rodent which thundered about the floor as though his feet
were shod with iron.

Hurrah! At last I had him! He stole my biscuits set for my “chota
hazari,” and sometimes left me stranded. They resided in a tin by my
bedside. Kismet overtook him, and his nose was in the jaws of a gin. He
was killed _instanter_, and the cat dropped in to breakfast.

I helped her to him.

She commenced on his head, and finished with his tail, a sort of cheese
straw. This is curious, because a lion, which is also a cat, begins at
the other end. Domesticity reverses the order of a good many things.

He left no trace behind him. Unknown (except to me) he lived, and
uncoffined (unless a cat may be called a coffin) he died. By the way,
_he_ was a rat.

One afternoon Cecily and I walked along the sea coast at Berbera, and
came on the most remarkable fish, jumping into the sea from the sandy
shore. I asked a resident about this, and he said the fish is called
“mud-skipper”--a name that seems to have more point about it than most.

So, at last, we reached the day fixed for the starting of the great
trek.




CHAPTER III--THE STARTING OF THE GREAT TREK


````My necessaries are embark’d

`````Hamlet=


```Occasion smiles upon a second leave

`````Hamlet=


|At three o’clock in the morning we joined our caravan, all in
readiness, in the Square. It was still dark, but we could see the
outline of the waiting camels loaded up like pantechnicon vans, and our
ponies saddled in expectation of our coming. The Opposition, who had
mapped out a different route, beginning by skirting the borders of the
now barred reserve for game in the Hargaisa, got up to see us start and
wish us “Good hunting.” What our men thought of us and the expedition
generally I cannot conjecture. Outwardly at least they gave no sign of
astonishment. Clarence gave the word to march, and we set out, leaving
Berbera behind us, and very glad we were to see the suburbs a thing of
the past. The flies and the sand storms there are most hard to bear, and
a little longer sojourn would have seen both of us in bad tempers.

We made up our minds from the first to have tents pitched every night
under any circumstances, and never do any of that sleeping on the ground
business which seems to be an indispensable part of the fun of big game
shooting. We also resolved to share a tent for safety’s sake, but after
a little, when we had begun to understand there was nothing on earth to
be afraid of, we “chucked” this uncomfortable plan and sported a tent
apiece.

On clear nights I always left the flap of the tent open.

I loved to see the wonderful blue of the sky, so reminiscent of the
chromo-lithograph pictures admired so greatly in childhood’s days. And
I would try and count the myriad stars, and trace a path down the Milky
Way. How glorious it was, that first waking in the early, early morning
with dark shadows lurking around, the embers of the fires glowing dully,
and--just here--a faint breeze blowing in with messages from the distant
sea.

The long string of grunting camels ahead looked like some pantomime
snake of colossal proportions as it wriggled its way through the low
thorn bushes which, here and there, grew stunted and forlorn; camels
move with such an undulating gait, and the loads I had trembled about
seemed to be a mere bagatelle.

All too soon came the day, and, with the day, the sun in fiery
splendour, which speedily reduced us both to the condition of Mr.
Mantalini’s expressive description of “demn’d, damp, unpleasant bodies.”
 The glitter from the sand made us blink at first, but, like everything
else, we got perfectly inured to it, and dark days or wet seemed the
darker for its loss.

Jerk! And all the camels stopped and bumped into each other, like a
train of loaded trucks after a push from an engine. The front camel
decided he would rest and meditate awhile, so sat down. He had to be
taught the error of such ways, and in a volley of furious undertones
from his driver be persuaded to rise.

We passed numerous camels grazing, or trying to, in charge of poor
looking, half-fed Somali youths. There is no grazing very near into
Berbera, very little outside either unless the animals are taken far
afield. Here they were simply spending their energy on trying to pick
a bit from an attenuated burnt-up patch of grass that would have been
starvation to the average rabbit.

The camel men in charge came over to exchange salaams with ours, and
proffer camels’ milk, in the filthiest of _harns_, to the “sahibs.” We
couldn’t help laughing. But for our hair we looked undersized sahibs
all right, I suppose, but we couldn’t face the milk. It would have been
almost as disagreeable as that bilge water tea.

We each rode one of our expensive steeds, and I had certainly never
ridden worse. I called mine “Sceptre,” and “Sceptre” would not answer to
the rein at all. I think his jaw was paralysed. He would play follow the
leader, so I rode behind Cecily.

The cook of cooks made us some tea, but I don’t think the kettle had
boiled. Cecily said perhaps it wasn’t meant to in Somaliland. I asked
her to see that we set the fashion.

We rested during the hottest hours, and then trekked again for a little
in the evening. There was no need to form a thorn zareba the first night
out, as we were practically still in Berbera--at least I felt so when I
knew we had covered but some fifteen miles since dawn. Perhaps it will
be as well here to describe our clothes for the trip. We wore useful
khaki jackets, with many capacious pockets, knickerbockers, gaiters,
and good shooting boots. At first we elected to don a silly little skirt
that came to the knee, rather like the ones you see on bathing suits,
but we soon left the things off, or rather they left us, torn to pieces
by the thorns.

Mosquitoes do not like me at all in any country, but we had curtains
of course, and they served, very badly, to keep out the insects that
swarmed all over one.

Next day as we progressed, we saw numerous dik-dik, popping up as
suddenly as the gophers do in Canada. They are the tiniest little
things, weighing only about four pounds, and are the smallest variety
of buck known. The back is much arched, grey brown in colour, with much
rufous red on the side. The muzzle is singularly pointed. The little
horns measure usually about two and a half inches, but the females are
hornless.

The ground we went over was very barren and sandy, rather ugly than
otherwise, and there was no cover of any kind. Any thought of stalking
the small numbers of gazelle we saw was out of the question. Besides,
our main object was to push on as fast as possible to the back of
beyond.

In the evenings we always did a few miles, and camped where any wells
were to be found. The water was full of leeches, but we carefully boiled
all the drinking water for our personal use. The Somalis seem to thrive
on the filthiest liquid.

The cook got a leech of the most tenacious principles on to his wrist,
and made the most consummate fuss. A bite from a venomous snake
could hardly have occasioned more commotion. I can’t imagine what the
condition of the man would have been had the leech stayed as long as it
intended. I put a little salt on its tail, and settled the matter. By
the end of the next short trek we reached the Golis Range, taking them
at their narrowest part. The whole place had changed for the better.
Clear pools of water glistened bright among a riot of aloes and thorns,
and there was also a very feathery looking plant, of which I do not know
the name.

For the first time we said to each other, “Let us go out and kill
something, or try to.” There was always the dread of returning to camp
unblooded, so to speak, when Clarence might, or would, or should, or
could regard us as two amiable lunatics not fit to be trusted with
firearms. This is a woman all over. Try as she will she cannot rise
superior to Public Opinion--even the opinion of a crowd of ignorant
Somalis! After all, what is it? “The views of the incapable Many as
opposed to the discerning Few.”

We agreed to separate, tossing up for the privilege of taking Clarence.
To my infinite regret I drew him. As a rule when we tossed up we did it
again and again until the one who had a preference got what she wanted.
Women always toss up like that. Why bother to toss at all? Ah, now
you’ve asked a poser.

But I couldn’t get Cecily to try our luck again. She said she was suited
all right. The fact being that neither of us yearned to make a possible
exhibition before our shikari. There was nothing for it. I took my .500
Express, and with Clarence behind me flung myself into the wilderness in
as nonchalant a manner as I could assume. I was really very excited in
a quiet sort of way, “for now sits Expectation in the air.” It got a
trifle dashed after an hour of creeping about with no sort of reward
save the frightened rush of the ubiquitous dik-dik.

“Mem-sahib! Mem-sahib!” from the shikari, in excited undertone.

He gripped my arm in silent indication.

“Mem-sahib!” in tones of anguished reproach. “Gerenük!”

We were always Mems to Clarence, who perhaps felt, like the lady at
Aden, that if we weren’t we ought to be.

I looked straight ahead, and from my crouching position could make out
nothing alive. I gazed intently again. And, yes, of course, all that I
looked at was gerenük, two, three, four of them. In that moment of huge
surprise I couldn’t even count properly. The intervening bushes screened
them more or less, but what a comical appearance they had! how quaintly
set their heads! how long their necks! how like giraffes! They moved on,
slowly tearing down the thorns as they fed. I commenced to stalk. There
was a fine buck with a good head. It was not difficult to distinguish
him, as his harem carried no horns.

For twenty minutes or more I crawled along, hoping on, hoping ever, that
some chance bit of luck would bring me in fairly clear range, or that
the antelope would pause again. Clearly they had not winded me; clearly
I was not doing so very badly to be still in their vicinity at all. Now
came a bare patch of country to be got over, and I signed to Clarence to
remain behind. I was flat on my face, wriggling along the sand. If
the antelope were only in the open, and I in the spot where they were
screened! The smallest movement now, and... I got to within 120 yards
of them when something snapped. The herd gathered together and silently
trotted off, making a way through the density with surprising ease
considering its thick nature. I got up and ran some way to try and cut
them off, dropping again instantly as I saw a gap ahead through which
it seemed likely their rush would carry them. It was an uncertain and
somewhat long shot, but the chances were I should never see the animals
again if I did not take even the small opportunity that seemed about
to present itself. I had long ago forgotten the very existence of
my shikari. The world might have been empty save for myself and four
gerenük. Nervousness had left me, doubts of all kinds; nothing remained
save the wonder and the interest and the scheming.

It really was more good luck than good management. I afterwards
discovered that the gerenük, or Waller’s gazelle, is the most difficult
antelope to shoot in all Somaliland, mostly from their habit of
frequenting the thickest country.

This is where the ignoramus scores. It is well known that the tyro at
first is often more successful in his stalks, and kills too, for the
matter of that, than your experienced shikari with years of practice
and a mine of knowledge to draw on. Fools rush in where angels fear to
tread--and win too sometimes.

The herd passed the gap, and, as they did so, slowed up a bit to crush
through. The buck presented more than a sporting shot, his lighter side
showing up clear against his dark red back. I fired. I heard the “phut”
 of the bullet, and knew I had not missed. I began to tremble with the
after excitements, and rated myself soundly for it. I dashed to the gap.
The buck--oh, where was he? Gone on, following his companions, and all
were out of sight. He was seriously wounded, there was no doubt, for the
blood trail was plain to be seen. Clarence joined me, and off we went
hot on the track. After a long chase we came on a thickish bunch of
thorns, and my quarry, obviously hard hit, bounded out, and was off
again like the wind before I had an opportunity to bring up my rifle. It
was a long time before he gave me another, when, catching him in fairly
open ground, I dropped him with a successful shot at some 140 yards, and
the buck fell as my first prize of the trip.

Clarence’s pleasure in my success was really genuine, and I gave him
directions to reserve the head and skin, royally presenting him with all
the meat. I could not at first make out why he so vigorously refused it.
I made up my mind he had some prejudice against this particular variety
of antelope. I afterwards found that no Jew is more particular how
his meat is killed than is the Somali. The system of “hallal” is very
strictly respected, and it was only occasionally, when I meant the men
to have meat, that I was able to stock their larder.

I tasted some of this gerenük, and cooked it myself, Our cook was,
indeed, a failure. He was one of the talk-about-himself variety, and
from constant assertions that he could cook anything passing well, had
come to believe himself a culinary artist.

I roasted a part of the leg of my gerenük, and did it in a way we used
to adopt in the wilds of Vancouver Island. A hole is made in the ground
and filled with small timber and pieces of wood. This is fired, and
then, when the embers are glowing, the meat being ready in a deep tin
with a tight-fitting lid, you place it on the hot red ashes, and cover
the whole with more burning faggots, which are piled on until the meat
is considered to be ready. If the Somalis have a quantity of meat
to cook, they make a large trench, fill it with firewood, and make a
network of stout faggots, on which the meat is placed. It is a sort of
grilling process, and very effective. If kept constantly turned, the
result is usually quite appetising.

Cecily came into camp with a Speke buck. I examined it with the greatest
interest. The coat feels very soft to the touch, and has almost the
appearance of having been oiled. Speke’s Gazelle are very numerous in
the Golis, and are dark in colour, with a tiny black tail. They have
a very strange protuberance of skin on the nose, of which I have never
discovered the use. Every extraordinary feature of wild life seems to
me to be there for some reason of protection, or escape, or well being.
Dear Nature arranges things so to balance accounts a little ’twixt all
the jungle folk. In the Speke fraternity there is more equality of the
sexes. The does as well as the bucks carry horns. At first I pretended
to Cecily that my expedition had been an humiliating and embarrassing
failure, that I had signally missed a shot at a gerenük that would have
delighted the heart of a baby in arms. But she caught sight of my trophy
impaled on a thorn bush, and dashed over to see it _instanter_.

About this time we were very much amused to discover we had among our
shikaris a veritable Baron Munchausen. Of whatever he told us, the
contrary was the fact. If he brought news of splendid “khubbah,” there
was no game for miles. If we went spooring, he spoored to the extent of
romancing about beasts that could not possibly frequent the region we
were in at all. I do not mind a few fibs; in fact, I rather like them.=

````“A taste exact for faultless fact

````Amounts to a disease,”=

and argues such a hopeless want of imagination. But this man was too
much altogether. Of course he may have had a somewhat perverted sense of
humour.

My uncle had warned me I should find all Somalis frightful liars, and to
be prepared for it. Personally, I always like to assume that every man
is a Washington until I have proved him to be an Ananias.

We saw--in the distance--numerous aoul, Soemmering’s Gazelle, and the
exquisitely graceful koodoo, the most beautiful animal, to my thinking,
that lives in Somaliland. The horns are magnificent, with the most
artistic of curves. The females are hornless in this species also. When
come upon suddenly, or when frightened, this animal “barks” exactly as
our own red deer are wont to do. In colour they are of a greyish hue,
and their sides are striped in lines of white.

It was not our intention to stay and stalk the quantities of game about
us. Our desire was all to push on to the kingdom of His Majesty King
Leo. So for days we went on, halting o’ nights now in glorious scenery,
and everywhere the game tracks were plentiful. The other side of the
Golis we thought really lovely, the trees were so lofty and the jungle
so thick. The atmosphere was much damper, and it was not long before we
felt the difference in our tents. However, there was one consolation,
water was plentiful, and we were so soon to leave that most necessary of
all things.

The birds were beautiful, and as tame as the sparrows in Kensington
Gardens. One afternoon I walked into a small nullah, where, to my joy,
I found some ferns, on which some of the most lovely weaver-finches had
built their nests. The small birds are, to my mind, the sweetest in the
world. Some were crimson, some were golden, and the metallic lustre of
their plumage made them glitter in the sun. There was also a variety
of the long-tailed whydah bird, some honey-suckers, and a number of
exquisite purple martins. Two of the last flew just behind me, snapping
up the insects I stirred up with my feet. I watched one with a fly in
its beak, which it released again and again, always swooping after it
and recapturing it, just like a cruel otter with its fish.

I tried to find some of the nests of the little sun-birds. I believe
they dome them, but no one quite knows why. It was once thought that it
was done to hide the brilliant colours of some feminines from birds
of prey, but it is done by some plain ones as well. Some birds lock up
their wives in the nests; they must be a frivolous species!

Many of the honey-suckers are quite gorgeous when looked at
closely--especially the green malachite ones, which have a bright
metallic appearance. I also watched some little russet finches
performing those evolutions associated with the nesting season only.
They rose clapping their wings together above them, producing a noise
somewhat similar to our own hands being clapped, and when at the top
of their ascent they uttered a single note and then shut up as if shot,
descending rapidly until close to the ground, when they open their wings
again and alight most gently. The single note is the love song, and
the other extraordinary performance is the love dance. It must be
attractive, as it is done by the male only, and only in the breeding
season.

Farther on I got into a perfect little covey of sun-birds flying about
and enjoying themselves. Every now and again one would settle on a
flowering shrub with crimson blossoms, and dip its curved long beak into
the cup and suck out the honey. The male of this species is ornamented
with a long tail, the female being much plainer. In the brute creation
it is always so; the male tries to captivate by ornaments and
brilliant colours. We human beings have grown out of that and try other
blandishments. But it is curious that the male has still to ask and the
female to accept. We haven’t changed that. We fight just as bucks and
tigers do, and the winner isn’t always chosen; there may be reasons
against it. There is just that little uncertainty, that little
hardness to please which gives such joy to the pursuit. Well, there are
exceptions, for the ladies of the bustard persuasion fight for their
lords.

On my way back to camp I saw a buck and Mrs. Buck of the Speke genus.
The former stood broadside on, and almost stared me out of countenance
at fifty paces. He evidently knew I was unarmed. Why do they always
stand broadside on? I’ve never seen it explained. I suppose it is partly
because he is in a better position for flight.

At this camp we were caught in a continuous downpour which lasted
twenty-four hours, intermixed with furious thunderstorms. Cecily’s tent
(fortunately she was in mine at the time) was struck, producing some
curious results. The lightning split the bamboo tent-pole into shreds
and threw splinters about that, when collected, made quite a big bundle.
The hats and clothes which were hanging on to the pole were found flung
in all directions, but nothing was burnt. The lightning disappeared into
the loose soil, without appreciably disturbing it.

Then we had a glorious day sandwiched in, but returned again to the
winter of our discontent and Atlantic thunderstorms. It was rather
unfortunate to emerge from one rain to enter another. We took the
precaution this time to entrench ourselves so that the tents were not
flooded, but the poor camels must have had a bad time.

The sun reappeared at last, after a long seclusion, and all our clothes,
beds, and chattels had to be dried. Never has old Sol had a warmer
welcome. All nature aired itself.

We moved on and now found it needful to form a zareba at night. Into
this citadel of thorns and cut bushes the camels were driven and our
tents set up. At intervals of a few yards fires blazed, and a steady
watch was kept.

We camped in one place for two days in order to fill up every water
cask, and here Cecily and I, going out together one morning quite early,
had the luck to come on a whole sounder of wart hog. I shall never
forget the weird and extraordinary spectacle they presented. A big boar,
rather to the front, with gleaming tushes, stepping so proudly and
ever and again shaking his weighty head. They all appeared to move with
clockwork precision and to move slowly, whereas, as a matter of fact,
they were going at a good pace. We dropped, and I took a shot at the
coveted prize, and missed! The whole sounder fled in panic, with tails
held erect, a very comical sight. We doubled after them through the
bush, and bang! I had another try. They were gone, and the whole jungle
astir.

I bagged a very fine Speke’s Gazelle here, but am ashamed to say it was
a doe. It is very hard sometimes to differentiate between the sexes in
this species.

[Illustration: 0071]

I was very much looking forward to the opportunity of bagging an oryx, I
admire the horns of this antelope so greatly, though I suppose they are
not really to be compared in the same breath with those of the koodoo.
The oryx is very powerfully made, about the size of a pony, and the
horns are long and tapering. They remind me of a vast pair of screws,
the “thread” starting from the base and winding round to a few inches
off the top when the horn is plain. They are the greatest fighters of
all the genus buck, and the bulls are provided by nature, who orders all
things well, with almost impenetrable protective horn-proof shields of
immensely thick skin which covers the withers. These are much valued by
the Somalis for many purposes, notably for the shields carried by them
when in full dress. Set up as trophies they take a high polish and come
up like tortoise-shell. One or two of mine I had mounted as trays, with
protective glass, others as tables. All were exceedingly effective.

By this time we had got to and set out upon, not without some qualms,
the waterless Haud, starting for the first march at cock-crow. In
some parts it attains a width of over two hundred miles across. It all
depends on where you strike it. We did the crossing in ten marches,
taking five days over it. All that time we had to rely solely on the
supply of water we carried with us, which was an anxious piece of work.
I do not think we ever did so little washing in our lives before; water
was too precious to juggle with then.

Haud is a Somali word signifying the kind of country so named, and
may mean jungly ground or prairie-like plains. We crossed a part which
reminded us both of the Canadian prairies, dried-up grass as far as
the eye could reach. The waterless tract most crossed by travellers and
trading caravans is arid and barren, and the paths are not discernible
owing to the springy nature of the ground. Parts of the Haud are quite
luxuriant, and provide grazing for countless thousands of camels, sheep,
and goats. Our route lay over a flat, ugly, and uninteresting expanse.
It was no use looking for signs of game. The new grass had not as yet
appeared. Even the easily contented camels had to make believe a lot at
meal-times.

We were marvellously lucky in our getting over this daunting place. At
no time were we overwhelmed with the heat. A quite refreshing breeze
blew over us most days, and at night we found it too cold to be
pleasant. I called it luck, but Clarence attributed it to the will of
Allah.

I got a fine bustard for the pot. A beautiful bird with a dark brown
crest, and a coat, like Joseph’s, of many colours. I saved some of the
feathers, they were so iridescent and beautiful. The bustard tribe in
Somaliland appears to be a large one. I noticed three or four distinctly
different species, with dissimilar markings. The Ogaden bustard had the
prize, I think, in glory of plumage. Even his beak was painted green,
his legs yellow, and all else of him shone resplendent. The cook made a
bustard stew, and very good it tasted. We did not need to feel selfish,
feasting so royally, for birds are not looked on with any favour by
Somalis, though they do not refuse to eat them. I think it is because no
bird, even an ostrich, can grow big enough to make the meal seem really
worth while to a people who, though willing enough to go on short
commons if occasion forces, enjoy nothing less than a leg of mutton per
man.

Cecily, lucky person, shot a wart-hog, coming on him just as he was
backing in to the little _pied-à-terre_ they make for themselves. She
did deserve her luck, for as I was out, and not able to help her, she
had to dissect her prize alone. Pig is unclean to the Somali. Even the
cook, who claimed to be “all same English,” was not English enough
for this. We kept the tushes, and ate the rest. The meat was the most
palatable of any we had tasted so far.

I bagged a wandering aoul, not at all a sporting shot. I got the buck
in the near fore, and but for its terrible lameness I should never have
come up with it at all. His wound, like Mercutio’s, sufficed. One might
as well try to win the Derby on a cab-horse as come up with even a
wounded buck on any of the steeds we possessed. I ambled along, and so
slowly that the buck was outstripping the pony. I slipped off then, and
running speedily, came within excellent range and put the poor thing out
of his pain. His head was the finest of his kind we obtained.

The horns differ considerably, and I have in my collection backward and
outward turning ones. Aoul is a very common gazelle in all parts of open
country, barring South-East Somaliland, and travels about in vast herds.
Its extraordinary inquisitiveness makes it fall a very easy victim.

Clarence went out with us in turn. His alternative was a fine upstanding
fellow, but after three or four expeditions with him as guide I deposed
him from the position of second hunter. He was slow, and lost his
presence of mind on the smallest provocation, both of them fatal defects
in a big game hunter, where quickness of brain and readiness of resource
is a _sine qua non._




CHAPTER IV--WE MEET KING LEO


````My hour is almost come

`````Hamlet=


``A lion among ladies is a most dreadful thing, for there is not

``a more fearful wild fowl than your lion living

`````Midsummer Night’s Dream=


|Very shortly after this we came to a Somali _karia_, or encampment. Its
inhabitants were a nomadic crowd, and very friendly, rather too much so,
and I had to order Clarence to set a guard over all our things.

Their own tents were poor, made of camel mats that had seen better days.
The Somali women were immensely taken with our fair hair, and still more
with our hair-pins. Contrary to the accepted custom of lady travellers,
we did not suffer the discomfort of wearing our hair in a plait down our
backs. We “did” our hair--mysterious rite--as usual. By the time I had
finished my call at the camp my golden hair was hanging down my back. I
had given every single hair-pin to the Somali ladies, who received them
with as much delight as we should a diamond tiara.

Married women in Somaliland wear their hair encased in a bag
arrangement. Girls plait theirs. The little ones’ heads are shaven, and
so, apparently, were the scalps of the very old men. Clarence’s hair was
about two inches long when we started, and he had a way of cleaning it
reminiscent of a bird taking a sand bath. He rubbed his head with wet
ashes, which speedily dried in the sun, and allowed him to shake the
dust out--a _nettoyage à sec_ process, and very effective. As a rule he
wore no head-covering in the hottest sun.

Even the heads of the Somali babies are exposed in all their baldness. I
suppose God tempers the rays to the shorn lambs.

The huts are made of a frame of bent poles, over which camel mats and
odds and ends in the way of blankets are thrown. The nomadic tribes in
their treks follow the grass, and occupy the same zarebas year after
year. These they make of thick thorn brushwood, immensely high, two
circles, one inside the other. Between the two fences the cattle are
penned sometimes, but at night the middle encampment receives most
of them, and fires are lighted. All the work of erecting the huts and
tending the animals is done by women, and very often the oldest women
and the smallest of the children have this office thrust upon them.

You can imagine that a Somali _baria_ is rather of the nature of
Barnum’s, minus the auctioneering and the shouting and bustle--countless
people, ground all ploughed with the _sturm und drang_ of the restless
feet, and smell---!

It is a wonderful thing that human beings can thrive in the condition
of dirt and squalor in which these wandering Somalis live. They do, and
some of them are very fine-looking men indeed.

The majority of the tribes are nomadic. There are some settled, some
traders pure and simple, and some outcaste people, of whom the Midgans
seem the most romantic--probably because he still uses bow and arrow,
lives a hand to mouth existence, calls no _karia_ home, and makes his
bed in the open.

Most Somalis wear the long tobe in various degrees of cleanliness. The
real dandy affects a garment of dazzling whiteness. Less particular
people carry on until the tobe is filthy. I imagine the cloth hails from
Manchester. It is cotton sheeting, several feet in length, and put on
according to the taste and fancy, artistic, original, or otherwise, of
the wearer. It is a graceful costume, Cæsar-like and imposing. At night
it is not removed, and seen by the light of the fire each sleeping
Somali looks like nothing so much as some great cocoon.

A praying carpet is considered an indispensable part of the Somali
equipment. It isn’t really a carpet at all, being nothing in the wide
world but a piece of tanned hide or skin. Some of our men spent a good
deal of time on the mat, prostrating themselves at the most untoward
moments. Others again did not seem to have got religion, and never
called the thing into use at all. But to every one of them Allah was a
something impossible to get along without entirely. If there had been no
Allah or Kismet to put all the blame on to when everything went wrong,
we should have been in an awkward place indeed.

It was at this encampment I purchased two more ponies, not beautiful to
look at but beggars to go.

We tried them first, fearing to be done again, and they seemed willing
little fellows, and full of life. Most of the tribes breed ponies on a
small or large scale, and as they are never groomed or tidied up at all
they cannot help a somewhat unkempt appearance. We bought a few sheep
for food, and were presented with a dirty harn full of camels’ milk,
horrid tasting stuff, which we handed over to the men, and so didn’t
desert our “Nestlé” for it. Going among the squalid tents in the _karia_
we found a woman in a sad state of collapse, although nobody seemed to
mind it save ourselves. More of the Kismet business. She had a wee baby,
a few hours old, lying on the _herio_ beside her. The whole scene was
primitive and pathetic to a degree. I am glad to say we improved matters
considerably.

Although water was very scarce, we spared enough from our store to tub
the quaint little baby, going first back to our tents to procure soap
and a few other things. We dressed the mite in a white vest, in which
it was completely lost, to the interest and astonishment of a jury of
matrons who stood around us, ever and again feeling some part of our
clothing, tying and untying our boot laces, and even going the length
of putting inquisitive hands into our pockets. For the mother of His
Majesty the Baby we opened our first bottle of emergency champagne. A
right thinking Somali is dead against strong drink of any kind, spirits
being entirely taboo, so we thought it safer and more diplomatic to
refer to the champagne as medicine. The bang it opened with astonished
the listless crowds, and the effect as the good wine did its work
astonished them still more.

We presented the headman with a tobe, and then took ourselves back to
camp, accompanied by a rabble of Somalis who infested our zareba until
we struck tents that evening. I had as much of a bath as it was possible
to get in a tea-cupful of water. But a visit to a Somali encampment
makes you feel a trifle dirty.

Our water supply was on the verge of becoming a worry, so we had to make
a detour towards a place where rain was reported to have fallen and the
pools could be counted on. Clarence knew all this part of the country
well, and was a most reliable guide as well as everything else.
His duties were multitudinous, and it was marvellous how deftly he
discharged them. He always saw to the lading and unloading, chose the
spot for camp, placed the watch o’ nights, gave out the stores, and kept
his temper through it all. He was a born leader of men, amiable, quick
and never sulked; an admirable thing. Sulkiness is rather a big trait in
the Somali character; it usually springs from wounded vanity.

At the water holes we fell in with some more Somalis, who gave the Baron
Munchausen news of lions in the vicinity. By the time our henchman had
elaborated the story the lions were practically in our zareba, and we
were much discouraged, feeling that, in all human probability, judging
by previous results, we were as far off lions as ever.

That night, after a somewhat longer, more tiring trek than usual, for
the first time in my life I heard a lion roar. I say for the first time,
because in my superiority I tell you that the grunting, short, peevish
crying heard in the great cat house at the Zoo at feeding-time cannot be
called roaring, after one has heard the wonderful sound of His Majesty
hunting. My heart seemed to stand still with awe as I listened to that
never-to-be-forgotten sound. Terrific and majestic, it reverberated
through the silence of the night, and seemed to repeat itself in echoes
when all was really still.

The dawn is the time when lions roar most. They occasionally give tongue
when actually hunting, often after feeding. The sound varies with the
age and lung power of the animal, and has many gradations, sometimes
sounding as though the pain of doing it at all hurt the throat,
sometimes the sound comes in great abrupt coughs, and again one hears
even triumphant roars.

We rose early. Indeed, I do not think we slept again after hearing the
longed-for serenade, and arranging for all the hunters to accompany us,
set off on our new steeds to spoor for lion. After about six miles of
roughish going we struck the tracks. We examined them with the greatest
interest, and Clarence demonstrated to us the evidence that the spoor
was very new indeed, that the lions were two in number and going at
a walking pace. I soon learnt when a lion was walking and when he
commenced to run. The lion, being a cat, has retractile claws, and
therefore when he walks the pugs are even and rounded. The instant he
alters the pace and runs, the nail-marks are plain, and the sand is
usually slightly furred up by the pad.

High above us, sailing round and round majestically, were many vultures.
Sometimes one would swoop low, to rise again. It was plain from
the screaming of the birds a kill was at hand. We pushed on, an
indescribable excitement gripping me. I regarded every bush furtively.
What secrets might it not hold? Abreast of it, passed it. Nothing!

I had a taut feeling of strained relief; I glanced at Cecily, but you
could not guess her feeling from her face. I felt I should like to walk,
to feel _terra firma_ beneath my feet, and grasp my rifle instead of
reins; but Clarence had said nothing, and plodded along by my side. He
was walking, but four hunters were mounted.

In a slightly open space--the whole of the sandy waste was dotted here
with bushes taller than a man--we came on what had once been a graceful
aoul, mangled and torn. The lions had dined, and that heavily, only the
shoulders of the gazelle being left. The sand was tossed up and ploughed
into furrows in the death struggle, and from the scene of the last
phase wound a lion track going towards a thick bunch of thorn. It seemed
likely the lions were lying up in the immediate vicinity. The lion
feeds in a very businesslike manner, and after a kill gorges himself to
repletion, then, not to put too fine a point on it, goes a little way
off, is violently and disgustingly sick, after which he returns and
gorges some more. Then he sleeps, off and on, for perhaps three days,
when he hunts again. When hunting, immense distances are covered, and
though he hunts alone, his mate comes up with him eventually to share
the spoil. They seem to have some way of communicating their whereabouts
that is quite as effective as our telegraphic system.

I felt it was quite time to quit my saddle, and be clear of the pony, so
dismounted and prepared for action, taking my rifle and looking to it.
It was only just in time for my peace of mind. In one tense second I
realised I had seen two monstrous moving beasts, yellowish and majestic.
They were very close, and moved at a slow pace from the bush ahead into
a patch of still thicker cover to the left. I remember that though the
great moment for which we had planned and longed and striven was really
at hand, all my excitement left me, and there was nothing but a cold
tingling sensation running about my veins. Clarence in a moment showed
the excellent stage-management for which he was famous, and I heard
as in a dream the word of command that sent our hunters, the Baron
included, dashing after our quarry shouting and yelling and waving
spears. Again I caught a glimpse of the now hurrying beasts. How mighty
they looked! In form as unlike a prisoned lion as can well be imagined.
They hardly seemed related to their cousins at the Zoo. The mane of the
wild lion is very much shorter. No wild lion acquires that wealth of
hair we admire so much. The strenuous life acts as hair-cutter. And yet
the wild beast is much the most beautiful in his virile strength and
suggestion of enormous power.

The lions being located, we crept on warily towards the bush, a citadel
of khansa and mimosa scrub, a typical bit of jungle cover. The lions
sought it so readily, as they had dined so heavily that they were
feeling overdone. The men went around the lair and shouted and beat at
the back. Whether the cats were driven forward or not with the din,
or whether they had not penetrated far within the retreat at first,
I cannot, of course, tell, but I saw from thirty-five yards off, as I
stood with my finger on the trigger, ferocious gleaming eyes, and heard
ugly short snarls, breaking into throaty suppressed roars every two
or three seconds. The jungle cover parted, and with lithe stretched
shoulders a lioness shook herself half free of the density, then
crouched low again. Down, down, until only the flat of her skull showed,
and her small twitching ears. In one more moment she would be on us. I
heard Cecily say something. I think it may have been “Fire!” Sighting
for as low as I could see on that half arc of yellow I pulled the
trigger, and Cecily’s rifle cracked simultaneously. The head of the
lioness pressed lower, and nothing showed above the ridge of grass and
thorn. The lioness must be dead. And yet, could one kill so great a
foe so simply? We stood transfixed. The sun blared down, a butterfly
flickered across the sand, a cricket chirruped in long-drawn, twisting
notes. These trifles stamped themselves on my memory as belonging for
ever to the scene, and now I cannot see a butterfly or hear a cricket’s
roundelay without going back to that day of days and wonder unsurpassed.

Then I did an inanely stupid thing. It was my first lion shoot, and my
ignorance and enthusiasm carried me away. I ran forward to investigate,
with my rifle at the trail. I don’t excuse such folly, and I got my
deserts. Worse remains behind. It was my rule to reload the right barrel
immediately after firing, and the left I called my emergency supply.
My rule I say, and yet in this most important shoot of all it was so
in theory only! I had forgotten everything but the dead lioness. I had
forgotten the bush contained another enemy.

A snarling quick roar, and almost before I could do anything but bring
up my rifle and fire without the sights, a lion broke from the side
of the brake. I heard an exclamation behind me, and my cousin’s rifle
spoke. The bullet grazed the lion’s shoulder only, and lashed him to
fury. All I can recollect is seeing the animal’s muscles contract as
he gathered himself for a springing charge, and instinct told me the
precise minute he would take off. My nerves seemed to relax, and I tried
to hurl myself to one side. There was no power of hurling left in me,
and I simply fell, not backwards nor forwards, but sideways, and that
accident or piece of luck saved me. For the great cat had calculated his
distance, and had to spring straight forward. He had not bargained for a
victim slightly to the right or left. His weight fell on my legs merely,
and his claws struck in. Before he had time to turn and rend me, almost
instantaneously my cousin fired. I did not know until later that she did
so from a distance of some six yards only, having run right up to the
scene in her resolve to succour me. The top of the lion’s head was blown
to smithereens, and the heavy body sank. I felt a greater weight;
the blood poured from his mouth on to the sand, the jaws yet working
convulsively. The whole world seemed to me to be bounded north, south,
east, and west by Lion. The carcase rolled a little and then was still.
Pinned by the massive haunches I lay in the sand.

Clarence, Cecily, and all the hunters stood around. I noticed how pale
she was. Even the tan of her sunburnt face could not conceal the ravages
of the last five minutes. The men pulled the heavy carcase away, taking
him by the fore-paws, his tail trailing, and exquisite head all so
hideously damaged. Only his skin would be available now, still----

I sat up in a minute, feeling indescribably shaky, and measured the lion
with my eye. He could be gloriously mounted, and “He will just do for
that space in the billiard room,” my voice tailed off. I don’t remember
anything else until I found myself in my tent with my cousin rendering
first aid, washing the wounds and dressing them with iodoform. Only one
gash was of any moment. It was in the fleshy part of the thigh. We had
not sufficient medical skill to play any pranks, so kept to such simple
rules as extreme cleanliness, antiseptic treatment, and nourishing food.
Indeed, our cook did well for me those days, and made me at intervals
the most excellent mutton broth, which he insisted on bringing to me
himself, in spite of the obvious annoyance of the butler, who had lived
in the service of an English family and so knew what was what.

The days and nights were very long just then.

Clarence came to see me often. His occupation was gone. Cecily did
not leave me at all at first. I believe our good fellow wondered if
we should ever require him to hunt again. He did not know the proverb,
“Once bitten, twice shy,” but you could see he felt it.

One evening, when I was convalescent, Clarence brought one of the men to
us with inquiries as to the best way to cure him.

“What is the matter?” was naturally the first question, as we were not
the human Homoceas our men seemed to take us for.

Our servant had been chewing--must have been--a piece of thorn, and a
particularly spiky insidious bit had stuck itself well in the back of
his throat, near the left tonsil. It would seem an easy enough thing to
pull out, but it was the most difficult of operations. We could not make
any very prolonged attempt at dislodgment because every time we tried to
touch the bit of thorn the man either shut his mouth with a snap and bit
us, or pretended he must be sick forthwith. It was very laughable, but a
little worrying. We tried nippers, a vast pair, that filled the mouth
to overflowing and hid the offending thorn from sight, We tried blunt
scissors, which Cecily said would not cut because they could not, and
might be relied on to act the part of nippers. Of course they did
cut, when they weren’t needed to, the roof of the patient’s mouth, and
matters grew worse than ever. The light was wholly insufficient, and
we could hardly see at all. The candle lamp never shone in the right
direction, and we laughed so--the two Somalis were in such deadly
earnest. I do not think any harm would have resulted if the thorn had
been left where it stuck until the morning. But no! The men said if the
thorn were left the throat would swell, and if the throat swelled
the patient would choke, and if he choked he would be dead. The cook
produced some of the doughy bread he was past-master in concocting, a
sticky mass to act as panacea, and our thorn-stuck henchman swallowed
a lot to the detriment of his digestion. No use. The thorn would not be
levered out. Then--brilliant idea--try a hairpin! Comic papers have
it that a woman can go through the world with a hairpin as a tool for
everything, and come out victorious. I have never seen one put in the
list of a hunter’s requirements--a great oversight. Take my word for it,
a hair-pin does the work of ten ordinary implements. The rounded end
of one hooked round the offending thorn ejected the cause of all the
trouble, and peace reigned in the camp.

[Illustration: 0089]




CHAPTER V--MORE LIONS


``Much better than I was. I can stand and walk. I will

``even pace slowly to my kinsman’s

`````A Winter’s Tale=


|My leg, with the extra big gash, was a frightful nuisance. It was not
much, but was just enough to prevent my going out hunting for some time.
I could not run at all; and if you would hunt buck or beast, you must
run like Atalanta. From point to point you scamper on occasion, and it
is all as glorious as it sounds.

During the period of my rest I prevailed on Cecily to go out as of old,
and try her luck. I occupied myself in caring for the trophies we had
by now acquired. All the skulls were carefully buried near the largest
ant-hill in the vicinity, and were dug up every time we struck camp. The
earlier trophies were by now picked almost clean. The masks and skins
generally were rubbed with alum, taxidermine, and wood ashes. I was very
careful to smooth out any creases, and gave particular attention to the
magnificent coat from mine enemy. Even with occasional drenchings the
trophies suffered no harm, and we generally in rainy times tried to
spare them a covering of waterproof sheeting. In those days of idleness
the bored-looking camels had been two short expeditions for water
supplies. Cecily did wonders, bagging a fine oryx after an exciting
stalk, a lesser koodoo--a most beautiful creature--and a jackal. It was
of the black-backed variety, with silver hairs and flaming yellow sides,
and I admired him immensely. He was a monster too, and measured four
feet as he lay.

The men were revelling in any amount of meat of my cousin’s providing. I
think we were more generous in this direction than are many hunters. The
caravan is expected to rely on the usual ration of rice and dates--the
latter a gummed together mass of fruit, which is eaten by the Somalis in
handfuls. They were quite good, for I tasted them frequently.

We bought sheep throughout the trip, either by exchange or for cash;
and, as I say, there was a plentiful supply of venison.

As soon as I could ride we marched, and very glad we were to leave the
place where circumstances had enforced so long a stay. The camp began
to take on the slovenly, dirty ways of the average Somali _karia_ The
spirit of idleness sits ill on these natives. They like doing nothing,
but doing nothing does not like them, and very speedily they get
slothful.

The procedure of our camping arrangements varied but little when things
were normal and going smoothly. On selecting the right spot to halt,
every man went to his own work, and our tents were up almost as soon
as they were taken off the kneeling camels, who flopped down, joyfully
obedient at the first sign of a rest, and, being relieved of the loads,
were allowed to graze at once. Our butler put out everything we needed,
set up the beds, placed our goods and chattels to hand, and prepared a
bath each for us if we happened to be in a place where a bath was not
too great a luxury, and a mere sponge if water was absent.

Meanwhile the cook had a fire going, or theoretically he had, though
very often it was a long time before it got started. The camel men
hacked down thorn bushes, using native axes, and _hangols_, or wooden
crooks, for pulling the wood about with. The chant that accompanies all
Somali occupations was loud and helpful. Sometimes we took a hand at
this zareba building, using an English axe or a bill-hook, and the men
would laugh in surprise, and hold the boughs in readiness for us to
chop. They liked the English axes. “Best axe I see,” the camel-man in
chief said. But we would not lend them permanently, because they would
have been broken at once. Every mortal thing goes to pieces in the hands
of these Somalis; most extraordinary. Only tough native implements could
stand against such treatment. Buck were carried slung on Sniders, and
bent the weapon into graceful curves. The sights and even the triggers
were knocked off. The Somali boys broke all the handles off the pans,
and seemed incapable of taking care of anything. Many of the native
_harns_ gave out at the different wells because of the smashing about
they received, and meant our buying more from passing tribes.

At night my shikar pistol, loaded, lay to my hand on a box at my
bedside, for what I don’t quite know, as I should have disliked
immensely to use it. But it seemed the correct thing; the butler
expected it. He always asked me to give him the weapon from my belt
about supper time, and I next saw it in readiness for midnight affrays.
“Chota-hazari” was served us by the butler calling loudly outside our
tents, or by delicately tapping two stones together as an intimation
that a cup of tea stood on the ground at the entrance, when it meant
making a long arm to reach it. The teacups were not Dresden; they were
of thick enamel--we only had one each and two over in case of accidents
or visitors--and to appreciate them at their true value we would have
needed the mouths of flukes.

Sometimes a case of necessaries required for breakfast would be in our
tents doing duty as furniture, and then it was very funny indeed. The
cook would come and chant outside that unless he could have the box
Mem-sahib no breakfast would see, and if Mem-sahib no breakfast saw she
would upbraid the chef because he had not got the box. All this would
be woven into a little tune in a mixture of Somali, Hindostanee, and
so-called English. Mem-sahib would chant back to the effect that the
necessaries would appear all in good time. The cook would retire to stir
up the fire and cuff his assistant, a tow-headed “youth,” whose _raison
d’etre_ appeared to be the cleaning, or making worse dirty, of the pans,
and preparing things for the culinary artist. The tow-headed one was a
mere dauber; at least our cook told us so in effect, with great disdain,
when I suggested the assistant should be allowed to try his ’prentice
hand. That was one day when I got worried about my digestion holding out
against the insidious attacks made on it by the high-class cookery we
were supposed to be having.

It was a long time before I got used to the hot nauseating smell of the
camels. It was ever present in camp, and when the wind blew into one’s
tent the indescribable aroma transcended all others. Barring the horrid
odour, we had nothing else to complain of in our patient dumb servants.
The camels were good tempered beasts, taking them all round; very
different to Indian camels, among whom it would have been impossible to
wander so nonchalantly o’ nights. All our camels, save one, were of the
white variety usually to be found in Berbera. The one exception was
a trojan creature, dark and swarthy looking, who hailed from distant
Zeila. He was a splendid worker, untiring and ungrumbling, never roaring
at loading-up time. But the Gel Ad, or Berbera, camel is considered by
experts to be the better animal. We preferred “Zeila” to any animal we
had; we christened him after his home. It is very odd, and may be will
be found difficult to understand, as to explain, but in some of the
camels’ faces we traced the most speaking likenesses to friends and
relatives, either through expression, form, or fancy. Anyway, they
were like many of our acquaintances; and so, to Cecily and myself, the
different camels were thoroughly described and known as “Uncle Robert,”
 “Aunt Helena,” or “Mrs. Stacy,” and so on and so forth. One haughty
white camel, with a lofty sneer of disdain and arrogance about it, was
so very like a human beauty of our acquaintance that we smiled every
time we looked at the animal. Our caravan on the march straggled like a
flock of geese. Some two or three of the camel-men had to lead the van;
the others lagged behind in a bunch. The hunters took it in turns to
ride the spare ponies, and Cecily and I rode the steeds we had purchased
at the first Somali _karia_ we came upon.

I often wondered what our followers thought of two women being in the
position to command attention, deference, and work--the Somali feminine
is such a very crushed down creature, and takes a back seat at all
times. Even if a superabundance of meat is on hand she is not spared a
tit-bit, but is presented with fearsome scraps and entrails, the while
the masculine element gorges on the choicest morsels. This is
rather different to our home system. I remember an Englishman of my
acquaintance telling me once, with no acrimony of tone, nothing but calm
acceptance of the inevitable, that he had never tasted the breast of
chicken since his marriage five years before! What a glimpse into a
household!

My first excursion was after that oryx I had so set my heart upon, and
Clarence, to his joy, accompanied me.

“Much better than I was,” but still not quite fit even yet. I carefully
stalked a small herd of oryx, four to be precise, crawling about on
hands and knees for upwards of an hour, and when my chance came at last,
and a bull (not anything very wonderful I am glad to remember) passed
broadside on, well within range, I fired--and missed! At the very
instant a violent stab agony in my damaged leg made me cringe
involuntarily. The oryx was gone!

I sat down, and but for the presence of my shikari I am sure I should
have cried.

Game was now most plentiful, gerenük, oryx, and aoul being more often
in sight than not. Thunderstorms became more frequent, and rain more
insistent. Since leaving the place where we sojourned so long we had
not known one day in which rain did not fall some time during the
twenty-four hours. We had managed fairly well by going out “between
whiles,” but now there weren’t any, and there came a time of no half
measures. Steady downpours bothered us no end. I am very used to water,
because my habitat in England is in that delectable spot where of all
other places nobody dreams of going out minus an umbrella. And I have
seen rain in many corners of the world, but never rain like the Somali
variety. It is for all the world like holding on to the string of a
shower bath--it pours and pours. Of course whilst the rain is on there
is no use in endeavouring to spoor, for all traces of game are simply
wiped out by the floods of water as a sponge cleans a slate. We could do
nothing save remain in our soaked tents and fume. Things were very bad
and uncomfortable at this time. For a whole week we never knew what
it was to be dry. Every mortal thing we had was drenched, and the
poor tents were no more use than brown paper in face of the continued
avalanches of water. We used to wring our blankets each night, and
but for copious doses of quinine I don’t know how I should have pulled
through. Cecily pinned her faith on weak whisky-and-water, of which
latter commodity there was now no scarcity, and both our schemes worked
admirably, and bar a little rheumatism in my left shoulder I carried on
all right. At last--“a fine day; let us go out and kill something” came
and, the conditions being splendid for spooring, we went off bent on an
execution--of anything.

Running in and out among some rocks were the quaintest little rabbits,
without tails, Manx rabbits, odd stumpy greyish bodies, and an engaging
air of indifference to passers-by.

A great yellow-beaked hornbill sat on a tree and made his own peculiar
croaking noise. Most wise he looked as he put his grey head to one side
and investigated us. Yet his looks bewrayed him; for when I threw some
dates at him to see if he knew how to catch them in his beak, he let
them pass him all unheeded. His cousin at the Zoo could teach many
things.

After a long ride we left our ponies to be led along behind by a syce,
and spoored on foot. Clarence and the two hunters were still riding. We
nearly went off our heads with joy and excitement when we suddenly came
on a neat little path made by lion. The print was perfect. The most
perfect I have ever seen. The soft earth had taken the mould like dough.
There were the fore indents, there the cushions of the pad. We knelt
down in our eagerness to realise how really soaked everything was. The
ground was sodden, and every step oozed water.

We ran on, Clarence and the hunters keeping pace easily with us. There
were scrubby bushes all about, but the pugs threaded in and out,
and held plainly on, until they ended in a vast pile of stones and
brushwood. An ideal lair. Clearly our quarry was run to earth. With a
“whuff” two mighty animals leapt up, over the stones and away, just for
all the world like a couple of agile common or garden cats. Cecily and
I flew after them. I don’t think I ever ran so hard in my life before.
I might have been the pursued rather than the pursuer. The ground opened
up to great plateau country, and the lion and lioness were cantering
close together, almost touching shoulders. Making a detour Clarence and
the hunters rounded the great cats up. For a moment it almost seemed
that they pulled up dead as the gallant little ponies dashed by them,
but a man is fairly safe on a galloping pony. I laid this flattering
well-known unction to my soul as I saw the lion go for “The Baron,”
 whilst the lioness simply broke away, and vanished in that marvellous
manner of disappearing which lions know the secret of.

With quivering tail extended, and most horrible coughing snarls the lion
seemed about to disprove the idea that he was no match for a mounted
horseman. But away and away dashed the sporting little pony, and
His Majesty turned his terrific attentions to us, and in a whirl of
tossed-up mud came to within forty yards of the place where Cecily and
I stood in the open, rigid and awaiting the onslaught. Then we let him
have it. I saw his tremendous head over my sights as in short bounds he
cleared the distance that separated us. I fired simultaneously with my
cousin.

I was using the heavy 12-bore, but I kept my fingers on the rear trigger
as we advanced cautiously to the dropped lion. He crumpled up like a toy
with the mainspring broken, and sank as he finished his last spring with
his massive head between his paws--a majestic and magnificent sight.

[Illustration: 0101]

I measured him previous to the skinning operation and, stretched out,
from his nose to the end of his tail he touched seven feet ten and a
half inches. Of course this was before _rigor-mortis_ had set in, and
he may have stretched a little. His mane was shorter than our other
damaged lion trophy, and entirely clear from the patches of mange we
found on one or two other lions we bagged. But he was infested with
ticks. I should think life must have been an irritating affair for him.

We were immensely set up, and only regretted that the lioness had made
good her escape. One of the most extraordinary features about lions
to me is the way so large an animal can obliterate itself; they simply
blend into the landscape. Their brownish-yellow skins, so similar in
colour to the burnt grass, and their agile bodies, which can crouch and
wriggle like any lizard, play parts in the scheme for invisibility. On
one occasion Cecily and I surprised a lion in a small nullah. (We were
a trifle astonished ourselves, too, but that is a detail.) We ran in
pursuit, being out of range, and though we kept our eyes fixed on him,
or thought we did, that lion seemed to disappear as suddenly as though
the earth had swallowed him up. Then Clarence pointed out to us a patch
of brown grass, taller than the rest--any amateur like myself would have
sworn it was grass. “Libbah,” our man said impressively. And “libbah” it
was. We approached and the “grass” with a bound was off! We bagged him
in the end, and he was a very old creature indeed. Alone, and almost
toothless, his day was almost spent, and he died more royally at our
hands than ending as the ignominious prey of some hyæna. He put me
in mind of a wonderful lion picture I saw once at the Academy, which
portrayed an old, old lion, at twilight, in his own beloved haunts, weak
and doddering, yet still a king--too strong even yet to be pulled down
by the lurking forms, which with lurid eyes watched the dying lion from
the dark thorn background. I think the picture was called “Old Age.”

The strange inborn dread all wild creatures have of man, unknown man,
makes even the mightiest lion try for safety. There is, of course, no
sort of cowardice in him. In open country he knows the man has all the
advantage, but even then he faces the music grandly when cornered.
In cover, instinct tells him most of the game lies with himself. The
Somalis have a way--I am afraid this is a bit of a chestnut--of riding
down lion that is really a clever performance If some venturesome beast
makes a habit of helping himself to a baby camel or two from the _karia_
at night, he is a marked beast, and a small army of Somalis prepare to
give battle. Riding their quick little tats, and all armed with spears,
they drive the lion, with prodigious shouting and yelling, into the
open. Here they close around him and harry him hither and thither,
dazing the mazed creature with their cries and hurry. In the end the
monarch always abdicates, and some Somali, quicker than his fellows,
finishes the business with a drive of his spear. It is not unlike the
principle of bull-fighting, except that in the case of the Somalis
self-preservation originates the necessity for the battle.

In the lion-world I noticed that the rule of _Place aux dames_ did not
apply. The male invariably tried to take the shortest route to safety,
and madam had to look after herself.

Buck of every variety forms the staple food of lions. I have heard that
they have been known to kill wart-hog, but never myself came on any
proof of this.

A large trading caravan passed us here _en route_ to Berbera. They were
taking a heterogeneous collection for sale at the coast town, ostrich
feathers, _ghee_, gum-arabic, prayer-mats and skins of all varieties.
They sold us some _ghee_, which we were glad to get, as our supply was
running low. Their huts were standing when we came on the caravan, and
on the march were carried on camels as our tents were. Like turtles,
we carried our houses with us wherever we went. We wrote two or three
letters, enclosing them in an outer envelope asking that they should be
posted. Then we gave them to the head-man of the trading party with a
request that he should hand them to the first sahib he saw in Berbera.
The letters eventually turned up at their destinations, so some good
Samaritan posted them.

That same evening, as Cecily was riding alongside me, a group of some
twenty Somali horsemen rode up to us, and every one of them closed tight
around us until all the ponies were wedged like sardines. The whole
crowd wished to shake hands and welcome us. The Somali handshake is
not a shake strictly speaking. It is a mere pressing of hands and is
prefaced usually by the salutation “Aleikum salaam,” which you reply
to by reversing the order of it, “Salaam aleikum.” Then generally the
interview, if lagging a little, is materially assisted by “Mot! Mot!
io Mot!” (Hail! Hail! Again Hail!) This is a great feature of the
conversation, and, shouted as only a Somali can shout it, is a rousing
welcome indeed.

These friends of ours were the outposts of a vast horde of Somalis, for
at some wells we saw multitudes of camels standing in a sort of lake,
quite a good-sized piece of water, in a grilling sun. The water was
turgid and foul, or I should have schemed for a bath out of it. Every
one came to call, and to inquire what we were doing. They crowded round
the trophies drying, putting their fingers on the skins and then tasting
the fingers to see what the result was like. They were a great nuisance,
and we had to trek on again to get away from their unwelcome attentions.
One of our camels fought another as we loaded up. Never did I see such
viciousness. The fur flew, and bites were many, and at last the victor
drove the vanquished roaring before it. The camel-man who valeted the
conquering hero seemed quite charmed, but as the beaten animal had
some nasty bites in the neck, the performance did not seem to us so
meritorious. In a day or two the bites had developed into really open
wounds and the men treated them in cruel-to-be-kind fashion by applying
red-hot stones, tying this drastic treatment firmly over the sore.
Burning seemed to be an all-curing cure, and during most of the weeks a
spear was heated with which to raise blisters on one camel or another.




CHAPTER VI--BENIGHTED IN THE JUNGLE


``Mercy o’ me, what a multitude are here! They grow still,

``too; from all sides they are coming

`````King Henry VIII=


```O, I have passed a miserable night,

```So full of ugly sights, of ghostly dreams

`````King Richard III=


|One of our hunters, a melancholy visaged individual, was a very amusing
personage to go out with alone. He always acted like the guide of a
Cook’s personally conducted tour. Not a tree, or twig, or water-hole was
left to be seen or not seen by us. All must be brought to the notice of
the Mem-sahibs. It reduced the tracking of game to a delicious farce. If
we sighted an antelope he would first point it out to me most carefully,
telling me about the distance the creature was from us, perhaps saying
commandingly, “You shoot um,” handing me my own rifle as though he were
giving me a valuable present.

Sometimes he even went the length of putting it to my shoulder and
cocking it for me, and was a grandmotherly hunter indeed! He spoiled a
glorious chance for me one day with his chaperoning me through tactics,
actually telling me the precise moment to fire, and when I did, at my
own moment, and--through his rattling me so--missed ignominiously, he
whispered to himself, with a whole world of resignation in his tone,
“Mem-sahib no shoot, Mem-sahib no shoot!”

Mem-sahib turned round and gave the idiot a bit of her mind. I had had
enough of being hurried and flurried by his ways. I learned early on to
take no notice of my shikari. Clarence never made the egregious mistake
of obtruding himself. Some of the others were not so cautious, and were
very quick with their ideas and remarks. It is very easy to rattle a
person after a tiring crawl, and throw the whole scheme out of gear to
fall about your ears like an evanescent card-house. One asks time to
recover breath and balance, taking one’s own way. Then on occasion it is
necessary to shoot from all sorts of positions, and it is disconcerting
to have any one commenting. I prefer to be able to sit down fair and
square so that both knees may be elbow rests; but, alas, not often the
opportunity is given in big game shooting to choose your position. You
seize the moment, and the moment may find you placed very awkwardly.

We were now again in the most wonderful region for game that the heart
of the most grasping sportsman could desire. Herds of buck were met
with on every march we made, and galloping forms were outlined on every
horizon. If there were more aoul to be seen in the early days of the
discovery of Somaliland as a Land of Promise for the hunter, I do not
know how the ground supported them. If the larger and more dangerous
fauna has been thinned almost to extinction, it would seem that the
lesser has thriven. Fewer lions to find food means more buck to live.

You never find aoul in jungle country, and consequently they are of
gazelle the most easily seen. Frequenting the grass plateaus and flat
sandy wastes, as they do, whereon a few straggling bushes try to grow,
the white hindquarters stand out clear and distinct as a target. When
going off, startled, they stretch out, seeming to gain many inches in
length, and when wounded an aoul never creeps off to die in impenetrable
bush where the hunter has a difficulty in locating the hiding creature.
Sensibly he selects the open “bun,” and there is despatched the quicker.

On coming to one open space of country I rubbed my eyes to see if I were
awake or dreaming. The place swarmed with aoul. It was like some field
at home, full of cows before milking time, except that these were very
animated creatures, fighting battles together, and making the history
for buckland. I lay down in a tuft of grass for an hour or more,
watching the pantomime. The aoul were in two great herds, separate and
distinct. Each was in the charge of a war-like old buck who had drilled
his does into fine order, and vigilantly saw that they kept a fair
distance from the rival herd. Sometimes a doe of frivolous propensities
would essay to seek fresh fields and pastures new, edging away in the
direction of the other harem. Nemesis was after her on the instant, in
the person of her outraged lord, who gave chase, and cuffing her about
most vigorously, soon showed her the error of such ways, restoring
her to his charmed circle again. On the outskirts of both well guarded
harems there were many likely looking young bucks, who were kept at a
respectful distance from the does they admired so much by the flying
charges and battering onslaughts of each boss buck. To say their lives
were strenuous is to convey nothing. They had no time to eat, or rest,
or sleep.

Then, by a hideous mischance the two parties of aoul converged, and
the strain was at breaking-point. For the system of all things was
disturbed, and worse than all, the two old bucks met face to face. Now
fight they must for the mastery, or be shamed for ever in the soft eyes
of all their feminine kind. At it they went, hammer and tongs, clawing
with razor hoofs, circling round each other, clashing, crashing.
Meanwhile--but we all know what the mice do when the cat’s away! And
this golden moment was the young bucks’ opportunity. Every Jack found
a Jill, and some fortunate ones many Jills, and ran off promptly with
their loot. Then when the old bucks had fought till they were dripping
with foam and blood-flecked muzzles, the one slightly the stronger
would end the fray with a terrific drive, and send his vanquished foe
bellowing back to--nothing. The harem had all eloped.

One might lie and watch a herd of aoul for hours, really in full view,
and not cause them any great anxiety. We never talked save in whispers,
and it was really amazing to see how very indifferent the creatures grew
to our presence. If they did take it into their heads to feign alarm,
remaining quite still seemed to restore confidence in us. The old bucks
and does were the most suspicious; the young were far more trusting.
Just as it is with we human things. Illusions are smashed in buck land
as in England.

The ridiculous inquisitiveness of the aoul makes him easy to stalk. The
glinting of a rifle barrel seems to charm him rather than frighten him,
as it would one of our Scotch deer. Sense of smell in the buck of the
wild is even more marvellously marked than in the case of our home deer,
and it must be so when we consider the added dangers. Death lurks
on every side, but for one gerunük that falls a victim to King Leo’s
appetite, I should imagine five aoul run into his very jaws in mistaken
endeavour to see how many teeth in working order the fearsome enemy has.
Never did I see such an inquisitive genus!

I found one or two newly born kids by watching the mother’s movements. I
would mark the place in my mind to which she kept trotting away, then go
later. It needed so careful a hunt before one would come on the little
kid, covered up so ingeniously, in its cradle in a thorn brake. In a
very short time though the babies get their jungle legs and can follow
the mother at her own pace. I don’t know of any very much prettier sight
than an aoul nursery full of kids playing. They are such sportive little
creatures, just like lambs at home--jumping imaginary obstacles, running
races, mimicking their elders in childish battle. Any little alarm,
crack of twig, or fearsome rustle sends them all, on the instant,
dashing back to the realm of safety by the side of the watchful parent.

As I have said elsewhere, the horns of the aoul differ considerably, and
some otherwise well fitted out bucks have no horns at all. These
bucks are often as well able to hold their own as their more perfectly
equipped (so-called) betters, frequently bossing a herd. Others again
have but one horn, and that deformed.

It was near this place of the aoul that a most amusing thing happened.
Clarence and I got benighted in the jungle, and didn’t get home until
morning. I know that this sounds just like the plot for a fashionable
problem novel, but there wasn’t much problem about it really; it all
came about as a very natural consequence, and happened mostly through my
enthusiasm over another splendid oryx. I stalked this one for hours and
hours, and the mosquitoes and heat seemed but to sting him into keener
alertness. I _could_ not get within range. I tried on foot, I tried
squirming along the ground flat, and then, when there was nothing else
for it, I’d mount my little pony once again and furiously dash off in
pursuit. When within range I only got the oryx in the leg, a slight
wound merely, and I had to try and ride the wounded buck down. A
desperate business in this case, for he was not hard hit. I did not like
the idea of leaving a hurt creature to die miserably after prolonged
torture, so we let him lead us on and on, and it was very nearly dark
before I gave that animal the _coup-de-grâce_. By the time we had
secured his head, a fine one indeed, his shield and skin, it _was_
dark. Night had descended upon the jungle. We fired three times in quick
succession, a signal agreed on in case we ever got bushed, but we knew
the wind was blowing away from the very distant camp.

I told Clarence we would get away as far as possible from the dead oryx,
or we should find ourselves in for a livelier night than we bargained
for, and have a regular at-home day of most unwelcome callers. We led
our ponies and pushed and scrubbed our way through dense undergrowth,
ominous rents in my poor coat greeting me as the vicious wait-a-bit
thorn held me back. We found the darkness impenetrable in parts, and
then in kind of drifts it would lighten a little. At last we made out a
small patch of clearing, and decided on camping. The first thing to do
was to collect wood for a fire, and as this was a difficult job on so
dark an evening, Clarence just grabbed what sticks he could, lighted
them, and the welcome glare enabled us to amass a great supply of
firewood. I worked hard at this, for I had no mind to be among the
jungle folk in darkness. We tethered the ponies as near the fire as
possible, where we could see them, and I took the precaution to move the
oryx head, &c., from my steed, and place them where I could carefully
guard them. I did not want to run the risk of losing the trophies.
Besides, it was rather rough on the pony to leave him all baited as it
were to attract some hungry beast.

I should, I think, have preferred to lose the pony rather than the oryx,
but wanted, if possible, to keep both.

Next came our little supper, and this was quite excellently managed.
I always carried an enamel cup and many of Lazenby’s soup squares,
together with a supply of biscuits. We had water too in a bottle on
Clarence’s saddle, so, filling the cup carefully, I stuck it into the
glowing embers. When it boiled in went my compressed tablet of ox-tail,
and, after stirring it all with a stick, I had a supper fit for a queen.
I made Clarence a brew of mock-turtle next. He said it was very good,
and finished off all the biscuit. He then suggested he should keep guard
and I might try to sleep. I said we would divide the night, he playing
guardian angel the first half and I taking duty for the rest. I showed
him my Waterbury, and explained that when the hands stood both together
at twelve he was to call me. He seemed to understand. Then I laid me
down, but not to rest. I could not help the fear haunting me that my
shikari might nod, and in that moment of unconsciousness what awful
thing might not happen! Such strange imaginings trouble a semisleeping
mind at night that with daylight would cause us no concern at all. I
lay and gazed at the stars. Sirius was shining away, and Venus was as
beautiful a fraud as ever. I dozed awhile, I suppose, but the strange
sounds around me kept my senses more or less awake. The jungle at night!
The most eerie thing in the world, with strange short rustlings in the
undergrowth, the furtive pad, pad, pad of some soft-footed creature,
and ever and again a sound as though some man passed by, laggingly, and
dwelling on his steps.

The jungle at night is a world unknown to most shikaris. Even Clarence
was not familiar here.

At twelve he called me, furtively pulling my coat sleeve, and saying,
“Wake! wake! wake!” I “awakened,” and took the watch. My rifle lay
beside me on my right, the oryx trophies on my left. The fire was piled
up, shedding shafts of light into the fearsome darkness. The ponies
stood dejectedly. This tense silent watching is more of a trial than
playacting sleep. I fixed my eyes on the inky blackness ahead, and it
was not long before my fancy peopled the shadows with lurking forms. I
chid myself. Suddenly I could make out two blazing lights, gleaming
like little lamps. The eyes of some preying animal. I sidled over to the
sleeping Clarence, and pushed him. He wakened instantly. I told him of
the eyes. “Shebel,” he said. A leopard! This was nice, but why bother
us when the remains of a whole oryx was so close to hand. We sat and
waited. The eyes again--sometimes at a lower level than others, as
though the beast crouched as he gazed. “Let us fire together,” I said.

At my soft “One, two, three,” we blazed away at the twin specks of
light. A scuffle, then a hideous screaming cry, that echoed again in
the stillness. Worse remains behind. The ponies thoroughly upset by the
unusual sounds of the jungle at night, and not expecting the enormous
report, simply stampeded before we had time to get to them. They made
off in mad terror, and there we were in a worse hole than ever. Sleep
was out of the question. We made some more soup to pass the hours,
julienne and mulligatawny this time, and after that I fell to talking to
Clarence about England. He asked many questions that he evidently
badly wanted answered. One was to know if these trophies had some great
intrinsic value there that so many people come at such trouble and
danger to themselves to get them? He evidently was much puzzled.

At last the dawn came, and at the first hint of it we prepared to move.
The scene was of rare beauty. In the dense undergrowth that hid the
trees to the height of several feet was a wonder world of mystery. Webs
of Arachne’s weaving made bars of silver gossamer from bush to bough.
’Twas like a scene from Shakespeare’s woodlands. The same thrill and
marvel, joy, happiness and pain. For life is not all a song. Fierce
burning strife comes oft to mar the stillness, death, too, in crudest
form. In the jungle all is one long struggle for survival; no excuses
are made, none wanted, they kill to live, just as we human things kill
each other every day; only in civilisation it is done more delicately.

First we investigated the place of the eyes, and there, sure enough,
was a blood trail. We followed but a few yards to find a large striped
hyæna--a magnificent beast, yellow gray, with black stripes on his
shoulders, and beautiful mane and bushy gray tail. He measured from nose
to tail four feet eight inches. We skinned and decapitated him, a long
and horrid business, and then took up our none too pleasant loads and
departed. We passed the remains of the dead oryx, but there was little
left of him. The hyænas had been feasting all the night, and now the
vultures were picking his bones. It was still darkish as we took our
way campwards, the mad rush of the ponies being clearly visible to us.
Through bushes, anyhow, helter skelter they had pelted.

I had to stop and rest frequently, as my load was more than a little
heavy, though Clarence carried as much, and more, than he ought. The
rifles alone were no light weight, and when it came to the slain animals
as well we found them all a bit of a trial.

In some thick grass a great wart-hog rose up before me, and after giving
me a look from his tiny fierce eyes, lost himself again. I flung my load
down, all but the very necessary rifle, and went after him. He made some
ugly rushes in the long grass, but I dodged and chased him to clearer
country, until I could get in a shot which, raking him, ended his career
as a perfect king of his kind. I did not want to take his tusks merely,
as I desired his head to be a complete trophy. But when Clarence
strenuously refused to touch the creature I knew I could not then, tired
as I was, play butcher myself. So I had to be contented with digging out
his huge tushes. And a very messy job it was too.

We took up our loads again, and went back over the ground over which we
had chased the oryx the evening before. I was progressing wearily enough
when I almost stepped on a yellow snake, with a dark head, lying near
a thorn bush. It was only about eighteen inches long, but quite long
enough to make me jump some feet, all encumbered as I was. Clarence
looked genuinely surprised.

“You not afraid of aliphint,” he said, a thing we had about as much
chance of meeting as the man in the moon; “what for you ’fraid now?”

I told him women have a long-standing quarrel with serpents: that a
serpent once spoiled the happiness of a woman and turned her out of a
garden where she fain would be.

“She cousin of yours?” he asked, with true Somali inquisitiveness.

“Very distant,” I answered.

Cecily and a couple of hunters met us quarter way. She told us the
ponies rushed into camp in the early morning, as I had thought they
would. She had not been unduly anxious about me, knowing I was with
Clarence, and guessing we were bushed. They never heard the shots at
all.

I did enjoy my breakfast, and never had a cup of tea that tasted half so
good.

The thought of all that pork wasting in the near vicinity bothered us
no end. Very greedy, I know. But, you see, dainties were not often to be
had. We ordered out a couple of ponies, and rode back to the scene of
my early morning encounter with the wart-hog to find him, marvel of
marvels, intact. Though a thwarted looking vulture of business-like
appearance flapped off and sat down in stone’s throw. They have a mighty
contempt for man, these birds, or else it is they recognise they aren’t
worth powder and shot.

Cecily evolved the idea of converting half the wart-hog into bacon,
putting it into pickle, and promising it would equal the finest home
cured. The ham was to be a treat to which we should look forward for
weeks.

We pickled it all right, or what seemed like all right to us, rubbing it
daily with handfuls of salt as we had seen ham cured at home. And then
one day, when a meal was badly wanted, and the larder was empty of all
else, we essayed to cut the treasured ham and fry it in slices. Cecily
inserted a knife. The resultant odour was appalling. So were the awful
little maggots that rose in hundreds. Clearly we didn’t know how to
pickle ham, or else the ham of wart-hog would not take salt as our pig
at home does. We could see the line to where the pickle had penetrated.
Below chaos! Ruefully we had a funeral of our looked-for supper, and
fell back on the never-failing “Elizabeth Lazenby.”




CHAPTER VII--ANOTHER UNCOMFORTABLE NIGHT


``I see a man’s life is a tedious one. I have tired myself; and

``for two nights together have made the ground my bed

`````Cymbeline=


|You can imagine with what joy I looked forward to a good night’s rest
after the previous twelve hours’ vigil, and therefore it is the more
amusing to remember that, as Fate would have it, I had an even more
occupied time during the midnight hours than ever. We had started to
march, after returning to camp with the wart-hog, as we had news of
splendid “khubbah” some miles off, given to us by a Somali who came in
riding his unkempt pony. The Somali ponies, by the way, are never shod.

The ground was very bad going, and over one bit of sandy waste I thought
we never should get. The camels sank in up to their knees at every
forward move, then deeper, and at last so deep--it was almost like an
American mud-hole--I began to fear consequences. The absurd creatures
made no attempt to extricate themselves, but simply, when they found the
place a perfect quagmire, settled down like squashed jellies.

It was too ridiculous for words, and I laughed and laughed. Everybody
talked at once, and nobody did anything. At last we all, even the Somali
who brought us the news of the distant game, and who seemed to like us
very much, for we never got rid of him again lent a hand, and began to
unload the laden camels, carrying the goods to _terra-firma_. some sixty
yards away.

The moment the camels considered their loads lightened they condescended
to heave themselves up a little. After loading up again we proceeded
but a little way, indeed but a few hundred yards, when the whole thing
repeated itself. The camels were embedded once more. Cecily and I
decided to go on and leave them all to it, and try and get any sport
that might be had, ordering the men to release the camels from this new
quagmire of theirs, and to afterwards form zareba close to the place,
I was really glad to ride away from the whole thing, confusion and
everything. The disorganised, unsettled feeling I got reminded me of
that which comes to one at home during the annual upheaval known as the
spring-cleaning. The green grass was springing up with the recent rains,
and our little ponies made light of the muddy going. The spoor of all
sorts of game was everywhere apparent, and we were most interested to
see traces of ostrich, although we did not that day come across any,
indeed they are rather difficult creatures to see.

We separated, as was our wont, Cecily taking Clarence, and I the Baron,
whom we had now, in spite of his romancing propensities, promoted to
second in command. He had great acumen when he chose to display it, and
was no sort of a coward. But then, in spite of what some travellers say,
the average Somali rarely is. They are frightful “buck-sticks,” but I
never saw any cowardice to disprove their boasting stories.

After leaving the ponies with two syces we went off at right angles, and
after a long and heavy walk I came on a bunch of aoul, who winded me and
darted away like lightning. Their flight started a great prize, whom I
had not noticed before, so much the colour of the reddish-brown earth
was he. A dibatag buck. He fled too a little way, but then halted,
appearing to think the sudden fright of the aoul unnecessary. I was
crouching low behind a small bush, and took most careful aim. Off went
the long-necked creature again, its quite lengthy tail held erect. He
stood and faced me. He apparently mistrusted the bush, but had some
weakness for the spot. It was a very long shot, but I tried it. The
bullet found a billet, for I heard it tell, but the buck sprang feet
into the air and was off in a moment. I took to my heels and ran like
mad. I don’t know how I ever imagined I was to overtake the antelope.
The Baron tore along behind me. I ran until I was completely winded, but
I could see a strong blood-trail, so knew the antelope was hard hit. I
ran on again, and we were now in very boggy ground, or rather surrounded
by many oozy-looking water holes. It was a very shaky shot I got in next
time. The dibatag dashed on for a few paces, and then took a crashing
header into--of course--the largest pool in the vicinity. The Baron and
I danced about on the edge in great vexation, but I did not mean to lose
my splendid prize even if I had to go in after him myself. Satisfying
myself that the water was not deep, I bribed the avaricious Somali to go
in and help lift the animal whilst I rendered active assistance on dry
land, and this was done. The Baron went in with a very bad grace, at
which one cannot be surprised, and after prodigious splashing and any
amount of exertion, for the buck was an immense weight, I held the
dibatag out of the water whilst the Baron extricated himself, together
with many leeches, from the pool. Then we both heaved together, and the
buck was mine. The Baron now began to make such a fuss about his loss of
blood caused by the leeches who would not let go I told him to go home
to camp and put salt on them and then recover, and ordered him meanwhile
to send the syce back to me with my pony.

I sat down and admired my dibatag, and was mightily pleased with my
luck. For this antelope is very shy and difficult to stalk as a rule.
Dibatag is, of course, the native name, but somehow the one most
commonly used everywhere. The correct name is Clark’s Gazelle. The
tail is really quite lengthy, and the one sported by my prize
measured twelve-and-a-half inches. His horns were good and touched
nine-and-three-quarter inches. Only the bucks carry horns.

The dibatag was so large we had the greatest difficulty in packing him
on to the pony as I wanted to do, so we finally skinned him, keeping his
head and the feet, which I afterwards had mounted as bell-pulls.

Going back to camp I came on Cecily, who recounted her adventures--not
a quarter so interesting as mine, though, for she had drawn blank. It
would be boring for any one to have to wade through stories of stalks
that came to nothing.

“What’s hit is history, but what’s missed is mystery,” though, of
course, each several excursion teemed with myriad interests for us on
the spot.

[Illustration: 0125]

Sometimes I spoored for hours without getting a shot, involving a great
knowledge of the habits of animals, keen eyes and judgment, all of which
Clarence possessed in a high degree. Then his ability to speak English,
even imperfectly, was such an advantage, and we beguiled many an hour in
conversation.

I wonder if we human beings will ever be able to hunt for its own sake,
without the desire for its cruel consummation. Much though I love the
old primitive instinct of pursuing, I am not able to forgo the shot, and
particularly when I want a lovely pair of horns. I suppose we keep the
balance, and if we did not kill the lions and leopards would get the
upper hand. But often I wished when I was flushed with success, and I
saw my beast lying dead, that I had not done it. It seemed so cruel, and
all antelope are so very beautiful. Of course, we had to kill for food
as well as sport, and I think we spared generously on the whole, for we
could have trebled the bag.

I began to feel tired of the actual killing as soon as I had perfect
specimens of each sort, and always preferred the nobler sport of more
dangerous game. I think if I went again I could in most instances deny
myself the shot, and content myself with watching and photographing.
As it was, I often lay for an hour and watched game, after crawling to
within fifty yards. On one occasion an aoul and I eyed each other at
twenty paces, and so motionless was I he could neither make head nor
tail of me.

The camp was in a turmoil and every camel-man shouting at the top of
his voice--the one thing I do object to in Somalis. Their very whispers
almost break your ear-drum, and I suppose a loud voice is the result of
many centuries of calling over vast spaces.

Three of the camels, heavily laden, had turned aggressive, bitten
several men, and shaken the dust of the place off their feet. Of course,
the levanting camels proved to be the ones loaded up with our tents
and bedding. They had a very excellent start before anyone thought it
necessary to go in pursuit. It was all gross carelessness, as a loaded
camel is easy enough to stop if the stopping is done by its own driver.

There was nothing for us to do in the matter, and supper seemed the main
object just then. The cook served us up some soup and broiled chops, and
we topped up with some delicious jam out of the useful little pots
from the A. and N. Stores, holding enough for a not very greedy person.
Cecily voted for blackberry, and I sampled the raspberry.

Night fell, and still no returning camels. I rode out a little way, but
the going was too impossible in the dark. My pony was a gallant little
beast, a bit of a stargazer, but I prefer a horse with his heart in the
right place, wherever his looks may be.

I was by this time aching all over, and there was nothing to do but
make provision for as comfortable a night as might be. We collected what
spare blankets we could, and lay down near one of the fires. Though so
weary I could not sleep, and the camp was never silent for a moment.
The fires were kept high, and shots fired at intervals to guide the
wandering camel-men.

[Illustration: 0129]

The men lay about or sat about the watch-fires, and in the middle of
the night two of them began to fight. In the lurid light the scene was
sufficiently realistic to be unpleasant. They began with loud words,
progressed to blows, and then advanced to spears. Thinking that rifles
would probably be the next resource, I got up and called on the men to
desist. They took no more notice of me, naturally, than if I had never
spoken. And as the now thoroughly awakened camp appeared to be going to
take sides in the business, I got my “express” and shrieked out loudly
that I then and there meant to make an end of both the combatants.
Although they were not supposed to understand English, they translated
enough from my resolute manner and threatening gestures to know that
I would put up with no nonsense. They ceased the combat as suddenly as
they began it, but not before camel-man No. 1 had jabbed camel-man No. 2
in the fleshy part of his thigh.

I told Clarence to hold No. 1 in durance vile whilst No. 2 had to be
attended to with as much care as if we really sympathised with him. All
my desire was to be able to shoot both of them on sight. I was so tired
I could hardly see, and too aching to do more than drag myself around.
We had to dress the man’s wound for fear of consequences, and went on
messing away with him until the first signs of dawn saw the return of
the prodigals, travel-stained and weary. The camels promptly sank down
and began chewing the cud composedly. Really the camel is the most
philosophical of all living things!

Next morning I held a court-martial of sorts on the offenders, and
threatened them both with the loss of the promised bonus to be given at
the end of the trip provided all things pleased us. I also docked them
of some pay. This had the desired effect, and battles, except wordy
ones, were “off” henceforward.

The wound by rights ought to have been stitched, but we rather shied
off doing it. The dressing was pantomime enough; I nearly lost my
temper many times. An expedition like ours is a grand field on which
to practise repression, and I was for ever trying conclusions with my
capabilities in that direction.

Out early near here one morning we came on an astonishing sight--an oryx
lying down in a thorn patch, and all around him, like familiars of a
witch, crouched jackals, the length of one of their kind apart, watching
with never flinching stare the centre of attraction. We cantered up, and
the jackals reluctantly made off. One big fellow struck me as unlike his
brethren, and a bit of a prize. So, reining in the pony, I jumped to
the ground, losing a lot of time in the process, and fired with rather
a shaky hand. The result was I hit the loping animal in the leg only,
laming it, causing it to howl terribly, and causing me much shame for my
unskilled aim.

I pursued my quarry, because I could not leave it out wounded,
and overtook it just as it fled into a lair of thick adad bushes.
Dismounting, I let the pony stand, and going to the bushes I stooped
down to peer in, laying my rifle on the sand. A flare of green eyes and
snarling teeth, a flat yellow head shot out as a snake strikes. My coat
sleeve was gripped in a gin of white fangs, but only the incisors cut
into my flesh--caught by the left arm in a flash. Before worse could
happen I pulled my shikar pistol from my belt, and in the tussle--for
we neither of us took things lying down--the weapon went off anyhow.
My enemy sank inert, still gripping my sleeve. He was hit mortally, and
died in a moment or two. My arm began to smart a trifle, and I had some
difficulty in dragging the wolf-creature from its deep-in lair. It was a
wolf, not large--no bigger than a jackal, and much smaller than a hyæna.
Its coat was marked with brown, and right down the middle of the back
was a fine upstanding length of hair that formed a black-tipped mane
or ridge. The tail was long and thick, very black on the lower part and
very yellow at the upper. The fore feet were five-toed; I counted them
carefully.

It was a bit of a struggle to lift the carcase across the pony, and I
had to walk, holding it on, to the place where I left Cecily. She was
watching over the departed oryx, and vultures sat around her wistfully
regarding the feast that might have been. In the side of the dead
antelope an arrow still stabbed, and marks of a whole flight were in
evidence all over the glossy coat. Some Midgans hunting without dogs
had missed their quarry somehow. Cecily had put the big bull out of his
pain, and there we were with an _embarras de richesse_ miles from camp
and alone. The oryx had very finely turned horns, and it seemed a sin to
waste them. We set off to decapitate him with the only implement we had,
a very small shikar knife. It took a long time in the doing, and we were
so hot and tired and sick by the end of the performance, I thought we
must be struck with the sun. The water in our bottles was quite hot.

The instant we left the carcase of the oryx the vultures came from all
sides, hanging over it with legs poised to alight, screaming as they
flapped along the ground and settled on the bushes around. We took it
in turns to ride the spare pony; the other was a beast of burden for our
spoils. A flock of quail ran ahead and disappeared beneath the khansa.
The walking one walked, and the riding one rode, and at last we had to
take our coats off. The heat grew insufferable, the sun blazed a-shimmer
through the purple-blue coverlet of the sky. Even the sun loving
sun-birds kept in the shade of the bushes. My rifle--best of
playthings--took on a pound or two in weight.

Cecily wears perpetually a single-stone diamond ring, given her by a
friend now in Purgatory, if everyone gets their deserts, as we are told
is the invariable rule. The sun danced on the exquisite stone, and as
she moved her hand a glinting light flickered from it on the sand here
and there, like a will-o’-the wisp.

Our pony shied--actually pretending to possess nerves--at a porcupine,
who suddenly rustled his quills like the upsetting of a box of pens. The
oryx head fell off, and the mettlesome steed backed on to it, damaging
the horn near the tip against a sharp stone. A small kink, but a pity.
Cecily made the pony walk up to our friend of the quills, but as it
seemed likely to result in the wolf being chucked off also, we abandoned
horse-training notions for the present.

Getting back to camp, we found the men lining up for their devotions, so
waited patiently until they were over. Everybody’s creed, or form of
it, should be respected, because each separate religion, multitudinous
though they are, is but one religion, and a part of the vast whole. The
seeming difference in all sects are merely the individual temperamental
superstitions. It does not matter, therefore, if we worship Allah or
Joss, Buddha or Mrs. Eddy. “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
by any other name would smell as sweet.” To certain people certain names
for religion are necessary--to others the “Religion Universal” serves.
Now, our chef belonged to--I am sure--the Peculiar People, and didn’t
know it, and called himself a Mussulman of the Shafai sect. He must have
been peculiar to think he deceived us into believing he was a cook, ever
had been, or ever would be. Some people are born cooks, some achieve
cooking, and some have cooking thrust upon them. Our satellite was of
the latter kind.

We bought a couple of sheep that night from a passing caravan, but told
the men they would be the last we should provide if the animals could
not be despatched in a quicker, more humane manner. The “hallal” slash
across the throat seems only to be really efficacious if the animal
to be killed is in full possession of its senses. They might easily
be stunned first. When we killed antelope for meat the shikari always
satisfied himself first that the animal was alive before he bothered to
give the “hallal.” This seems rather an Irishism, but you understand how
I mean.

Somali sheep are never shorn, for their wool attains no length. This is
another of dear Nature’s wise arrangements. I do not like to imagine the
condition of any poor sheep in the Somali sun with a coat on like unto
the ones grown by our animals at home. The number of sheep in Somaliland
is as the sands of the sea. Such vast flocks would be large even in an
avowedly sheep-producing country where the rearing of them is reduced
to a fine art. The Somali animals thrive and multiply with hardly any
attention. They never grow horns, and have the most extraordinary tails,
huge lumps of fat, which wax all very fine and large if the pasturage is
good, and dwindle at once if the herbage is scanty. Carefully fostered,
the sheep raising industry could support the country. The export at
present is as nothing to what it might be engineered into.




CHAPTER VIII--A BATTLE ROYAL


````Take that to end thy agony

`````Henry V=


````Our happiness is at the height

`````Richard III=


|The Somalis, as I have explained before, are almost entirely a nation
of nomads, and the only settled villages or townships are those run by
Sheiks or Mullahs, or whatever name they elect to be known by. These men
are Mahomedans with an eye to business, religious, influential, knowing
the value of education, and are often quite learned. We marched into the
vicinity of some hundreds of huts, and sent Clarence on ahead to present
our compliments to the Mullah and express our desire to call on him.
We also sent along a consignment of gifts likely to appeal to a learned
man--a Koran, a _tusba_, and a couple of tobes, for even a Mullah has
to have clothes, anyway, in Somaliland. I don’t know whether our sending
presents first was correct, or whether we should have waited for the
Mullah to weigh in. We debated the point, and decided any one with an
extra sensible mind would think a bird in the hand worth two in the bush
any day of the week. This village, if our men’s talk was to be believed,
was full of Mullahs, not one Mullah. We concluded that all the wise and
religious-minded men must have banded together to live as monks do, save
that celibacy was not the fashion.

The Mullah lost no time in sending us return offerings in the shape of
three sheep, and _harns_ and _harns_ of milk. He also asked us to go and
see him in his _karta_, as owing to some infirmity he could not wait on
us. All this was very correct and nice. I should think this Mullah had
been trained in the way he should go.

We put in an appearance that same afternoon, hardly able to push
through the crowds that lined up in readiness for our advent. The Mullah
received us at the door of his hut, a smiling, urbane personage. I saw
no sign of infirmity, but of course I couldn’t ask what it was. The
Mullah would be about fifty years old, so far as I can judge, and he had
the tiniest hands and feet. His face was full of intelligence, his eyes
deep set and alert. In colour he was of the Arab shade, and some
Somalis are almost black. He was exceedingly gracious, and received our
credentials, or passport so to speak, with serene smiles. He barely read
them. I suppose he could. All the Mullahs can read Arabic.

Myriads of children--our hosts we concluded--sat and squatted and lay
about the earth-floor, two circles of them. Cecily says they went three
times round, but no, _two_ large circles.

The Mullah asked a great many questions about England--who we were when
we were at home? how it was two women could come so far to shoot
lion, and why we wanted to?--to all of which we replied as clearly
and comprehensively as we could through Clarence. Then more personal
questions were asked. Were we married? “Say no, Clarence.”

“No,” said the stolid shikâri.

The Mullah reflected a little. Didn’t we think we ought to be? A
dreadful flick on the raw this. If we married how many husbands are we
allowed? I instructed Clarence to say that is not so much how many you
are allowed as how many you can get. Cecily broke in and said that it
was enough to puzzle any Mullah, and that Clarence must explain that one
husband at a time is what English women are permitted, but it is very
difficult in the present overcrowded state of the marriage market
to obtain even one’s rightful allowance, hence our lonely forlorn
condition. The Mullah looked really sorry for us. He said he would like
to give us another sheep, and that he did not think he would care to
live in England, but he approved of the English he had seen. “Best
people I see.” We thanked him, salaamed, and left. We were then followed
by a pattering crowd who dodged in front of us, peering into our faces,
and when we smiled, smiled back crying “Mot! Mot! io Mot!” over and
over. It was quite a triumphal progress.

At our own camp we found the place invaded by every invalid of the
Mullah settlement waiting in serried rows for us to cure them. Why
every English person, or European rather, is supposed to possess
this marvellous in-born skill in medicine I cannot tell. Some of the
complaints presented I had never heard of, much less seen, and even
our learned tome of a medical work failed to identify many. It was very
pathetic, as we were so helpless. The poor things regarded the book as
some saviour come to succour them.

There was enough occupation before us to keep a doctor busy for
weeks, that much we could see. We only dared venture on the simplest
plain-sailing cases, and even if we had used up our entire stock of
medicine and remedies required for our own use it would have been a
drop in the ocean of trouble here. We gave presents as a consoler to the
worst of the invalids, and then, lest they should all return again on
the morrow, we folded our tents like the Arabs and silently stole away.

One of our own men required our attention after this. He showed all the
symptoms of ptomaine poisoning, and ferreting into the matter I found
that--well fed as he was--he had gone after the contents of a tin of
beef I had my doubts of, and which I threw away over the zareba fence,
and had consumed the stuff. I was exceedingly vexed, because I had told
all the men standing about at the time that the tin was bad and would
poison any one. Is it not odd that people--especially men--always want
and like that which is denied them? If we could only get at the truth
of it, I expect we should find that in taking the forbidden fruit in
the Garden of Eden Eve did it at the express wish of Adam who wanted it
badly, and had not the moral courage to take it for himself. By the way,
it may not be generally known that quite a lot of learned people claim
that Eden existed in Somaliland.

To return to the subject in hand again. Just imagine a well-looked-after
camel-man deliberately going and making a meal of doubtful meat just
because it was forbidden him. Ah, well! is it not said that “the dearest
pleasure of the delicately nurtured is a furtive meal of tripe and
onions”? Perhaps our follower took the beef as a surreptitious dish of
that kind. The analogy may seem a little “out,” but it is there if you
look for it.

One day, somewhere about this time, I was fortunate enough to witness a
great and splendid sight, a battle to the death between two bull oryx.
I had been lunching on sandwiches of their kind--alas! their poor
brother!--and was resting awhile on the verge of a thick bit of country,
a natural clearing with thick thorn cover around. I kept very silent--I
was in fact very sleepy--when I heard the war challenge of some genus
buck, imperious and ringing, and not far away. It was replied to
instantly. Again it sounded louder and nearer. I raised myself and
looked about. From out the dense brushwood, but a few hundred yards
away, and from opposite sides, sprang a fine up-standing oryx. Crash!
And the great bulls were at each other. Clawing with hoofs and teeth and
rapier horns. Then backwards they would sidle, and each taking a flying
start would come together with a sickening crash, and all the while each
tried every possible tactic to drive the merciless horns home. I held my
breath with excitement, as in theirs I was permitted to creep almost up
to the panting, foam-flecked warriors. I could have shot both, but as I
was strong so was I merciful. It was a great and glorious struggle,
and the laurels should be to the victor. For quite a long time it was
impossible to tell which was the stronger, but at last the right-hand
buck--for, oddly enough, though they circled round each other
each always charged from the side from which he commenced to give
battle--began to show signs of tremendous stress, and the telling blows
of his opponent wore him down more and more. No longer was he able
to parry the lunges of his infuriated foe, who, like lightning, took
instant advantage of the on-coming weakness of the stricken buck, and
rushing in on a flying charge like a whirlwind, inserted his rapier-like
horns into his enemy’s side and gored him unmercifully.

This is where I came in. I would not shoot the victor, for he had won
his battle in fair fight. It was the survival of the fittest. As he
shook his dripping horns and looked at me with blood-shot eyes and
frothing muzzle, I saw he was a youngster in the height of his prime,
and that the stricken buck was old. The victor and I looked at one
another, and I threw my rifle up. A charge from a maddened oryx would be
no simple thing. But I did not want to take his life unless compelled. A
soft, low whinnying noise in the bush: he was off, and I was forgotten.
_Cherchez la femme_, even in oryx land! I walked up to the dying buck,
and Clarence, who had seen the whole thing also, hurried up and asked me
if he might “hallal” quickly and save the meat. A Somali could not
be expected to appreciate sentimental reasons, so I did not urge mercy
towards the utterly vanquished, mostly because the kindest course was to
put the beast out of pain. His horns were the horns of a mighty fighter,
and his shield bore the cuts and indents of many battles. But his day
was over, and his harem passed to a new lord.

The ground was all ploughed up with the scuffle.

The head of the dead oryx was poor. It looked old, and was moreover the
worse for strenuous living, being in parts hairless. As I now had better
heads, I took his shield merely, as a souvenir of the great fight. It is
now a little tea-tray from which I peacefully drink tea.

[Illustration: 0143]

We struck camp next day, and trekked along the borders of the Ogaden
country. That night we had a camel looted. A camel seems a bit of an
undertaking to run off with, as more often than not he won’t move when
you want him to. I suspect there was some collusion on the part of the
camel-man in charge, but I never could bring it home to one of them.

Our clothes were now in a shocking state of repair, or disrepair. What
with wait-a-bit thorns, drenching rain, torrid sun, wriggling on the
ground, kneeling and grovelling about, we were the most awful scarecrows
you ever saw. But we were intensely happy. That is the wonder of
the wild. One forgets clothes--and that is much for a woman to
say--newspapers and letters. What was going on in the world we knew not,
nor did we care. I cannot conceive the heart of man desiring more than
was ours just then. The glories of the jungle were all for us; every
dawn brought something new, and everywhere we could trace the wonders of
the world in which we lived: each morning come on romance in footprints,
tragedy in massed spoor, “sermons in stones, and good in everything.”

It is not to be thought that all things went smoothly. In a big caravan
of the kind such an idyllic condition of things would be well-nigh
impossible. There were the most awkward disagreeablenesses and
unpleasantnesses of all sorts to bother us. I hate sporting books full
of grumbling and tales of discomforts. Nobody asked the sportsman to
undertake the job, and nobody cares if he “chucks” it. Therefore why
write reams about miseries when there are so many things to make up for
them? No life is all _couleur de rose_; but we can make light of the
darkness, “walk in its gardens, and forget the rain.”

Ostrich spoor was now all about, but they are the most difficult of all
things to come on at close quarters. I stalked odd birds, birds in twos,
birds in trios for hours, but never came within any sort of range.

All the natural history as told to me in childish days about the ostrich
burying its head in the sand and imagining itself hidden I found very
much of a nursery romance. The ostrich takes no chances, and, so far
from burying its head, has to thank the length of its neck for much of
its safety.

After days of wriggling about on the flanks of ostrich, in the front and
in the rear, I confided my chagrin to Clarence. He said he had _a Plan_.
I told him I was delighted to know that, and would he unfold it at once?
It seems very ridiculous, but just because I could not bag an ostrich
the bird seemed to me the be-all and end-all of the trip. I am a woman
all over, it seems.

Well, Clarence’s idea was this: Ostrich never eat at night; therefore,
if you persistently chase the _same_ ostrich for two or three days
consecutively it follows, of course, that the bird must give in sooner
or later--sooner, Clarence hoped--from want of food and exhaustion.
Or, if a hen ostrich could only be procured--just as though I was not
prepared to welcome her--it would not be long before I should have a
near view of a cock bird, who would come along with a view to a possible
introduction to Miss Ostrich. She was to be tied to a thorn bush behind
which I should be ensconced. It did not seem at all a sporting thing to
do. Love’s young dream should not be made a potent factor in a deadly
business of the kind. Love spells life, not death.

The other idea did not commend itself to me either with any gusto. I
had no mind myself to go riding after ostrich as though it were a trophy
beyond price. Neither did I want to detail any of the men for the job.
It was just as well we did not trouble for--such are the chances of
hunting, when the position of things may change from success to failure,
from failure to success in the blinking of an eyelid--I suddenly came
on two birds--two grey hens--one afternoon as I was returning from a
fruitless expedition after a lion that must have left the neighbourhood
a week before. One hen was picking the new grass that was everywhere
springing up, the other was playing sentry. And very well she did it
too, marching up and down with head erect and alert eyes. They had
not winded us. We were covered by fairly dense wait-a-bit. The birds,
however, were entirely out of range. I was now on foot, and flung myself
down, as had Clarence. We then raised ourselves sufficiently to cut as
silently as we could a bunch of the awful prickly grass, all mixed with
thorn spikes, and though it scratched me like fun, and I heard my poor
garments ripping away, I took the screen from Clarence and holding it
well in front of me wriggled to the edge of the open country in front
of me. I did feel absurd, and how was I to get within range of those
knowing birds, all encumbered as I was too, with my weapon and my
wait-a-bit? It _was_ wait-a-bit! I took half an hour to crawl a few
yards. But the birds still went on picking the grass in the peculiar way
they have, taking turns at sentry-go. They had great doubts about this
small tuft that had grown up in a day, mushroom-like, and it was only
when sentry turned and paced the other way I could progress at all. The
bird who was doing the eating did not trouble itself so much. At last,
wonderful to relate, I really got within range, and then it was a
toss up which bird to choose. I really considered it an _embarras de
richesse_, and told myself that both belonged to me! Sentry presented
the best mark, and as she turned and came towards me I drew a bead on
her breast and fired. She fell--plop! But her companion simply took a
sort of flying run, very quaint to watch, and vanished in the instant
on the horizon. This is, I know, a prodigious fuss about shooting an
ostrich; but I found them harder to come on and account for than
the king of beasts himself. Some of my ostrich found its way to the
stock-pot, and a portion was roasted. We were quite unable to get
our teeth through it. Cecily said I had undoubtedly shot the oldest
inhabitant. The stewed ostrich, after being done to rags, was eatable,
but no great treat.

The next day I was taking a breathing space in between moments of
stalking an aoul with peculiarly turned horns, a regular freak amongst
aoul, when I suddenly heard that weirdest of sounds, the hunting call
of a hyæna when the sun is high. I got up and gazed about, and at some
distance there flashed into my vision a disabled buck, I could not then
tell of what variety, haltingly cantering and lurching along. The hyæna
was on his track, running low, but covering the distance between them
magically quickly. In shorter time than I can write it the hyæna sprang
on to the haunches of the spent buck, and down, down it sank, with head
thrown back, into a pitiful heap, the fierce wolf-like creature worrying
it at once. I threw up my rifle, in the excitement I had been allowed to
approach very near, and the hyæna paid toll. He was a mangy brute of the
spotted variety, but the strength of his teeth was amazing. He hung on
to a piece of the aoul long after death. I kept his head, but the skin
was useless. The buck was an old aoul, evidently in shocking condition
and run down generally. He was dead, or I would have put him out of his
misery. I took the head for the sake of the horns. These measured on the
curves seventeen and a half inches.

Just here Clarence when out spooring, came on an ostrich nest just about
to hatch out, and nothing would do but we must go then and there to see
it. We penetrated some wait-a-bit and then came on the nest with seven
eggs therein. Next we hid ourselves, waited awhile, and had the pleasure
of seeing the father ostrich return to the domicile. I don’t know where
the mother could be. We never sighted her. Perhaps she was an ostrich
suffragette and had to attend a meeting. We did not want to go too
near the nest, or go too often, but we could not help being very much
interested. Our consideration was quite unnecessary. The eggs hatched
out, the broken eggs told the tale, but some prowling jackal or hungry
hyæna had called when the parents were away and annexed the entire
seven. Housekeeping in the jungle has its drawbacks. It must be really
difficult to raise a family.

It was quite strange that Clarence, who was a born shikari, versed in
the ways of the wild, and master of the jungle folk, was not at all what
I call a safe shot. I never felt that I could depend on his rifle if
we got into a tight hole. My uncle says times must have changed, for in
their days together Clarence was very reliable with a rifle. But I
don’t see why a man, so often out in the jungle, should go off as a
shot--rather, one would think, would he improve, like grouse, with
keeping.

We did a most amusing stalk one day here. On a Sunday--I know it was a
Sunday, because ever since we lost the only almanac we had with us we
notched a stick, Crusoe fashion--Cecily and I decided to part company
and go our ways alone, and taking our ponies rode off in opposite
directions. After some time I tethered my steed and left him for the
syce to attend to, and then I mooned along slowly until I must have
traversed a mile or so. I lay down awhile, and then a bunch of aoul
crossed my front, a Speke’s Gazelle with them but not of them, for he
held himself well aloof, and seemed by his very bearing to say he was
only with them by accident. The aoul moved on, but the Speke began to
feed, and I realised then he carried a head worth having, and I must
take it an’ I could. I was out of range, and it meant a careful stalk.
I hoped he would not notice me if I wriggled to the next clump of
wait-a-bit, which showed the crassness of my ignorance! Of course, he
knew something was afoot, and I had to lie still for ages ere I deceived
him into passivity again. The ground was like a razor’s edge; small
stones and sharp-edged flints cut into my poor knees, but I crept nearer
by twenty paces. The sunlight danced again on his shining coat, and all
his thoughts were hemmed in now by a little patch of green grass he had
come on. He consumed this while I squirmed from point to point, and then
with a whisk of his tail he was off again. A brisk run brought him in
view once more, and all this time my presence had never really irked
him. Aha! I pretty well had him. A few paces more when, wonder of
wonders, he saw some danger signal in quite another quarter and dashed
away, this time with no halting. He was gone for ever. I rose and
stretched myself, when a distant bush of wait-a-bit yielded up another
figure, doing the same thing. It was Cecily. And we had both been
stalking the self-same buck for hours--spoiling the other’s chances
every time. We laughed and laughed, for who could help it?

On our walk back to camp we found the vacated hole of a wart-hog. They
dig these entrenchments for themselves, and back into them so that they
face any danger that may come--a most wise and sound policy. The hole
only just admits piggy; there is not one inch to spare. Living as they
do on roots, it can well be understood that the flesh is really much
more appetising than that of the home-grown porker. Their only drawback
as a welcome addition to our larder was this refusal of the Somalis to
have anything to do with pig. I am quite sure they ran this phase of
Mahomedanism for all it was worth, thereby saving themselves labour, for
I never could see any very strong leanings towards any other teachings
of their religion.




CHAPTER IX--DEATH OF “THE BARON”


```My very friend has got his mortal hurt

```In my behalf, my reputation stain’d

`````Romeo and Juliet=


```A piteous corse, a bloody piteous corse,

```Pale, pale as ashes, all bedaubed in blood,

```All in gore blood

`````Romeo and Juliet=


|Very often we made detours from the main caravan, rejoining it at
a given spot, and this spirit of “wanderlust” brought us into a nice
quandary one fine day. Going by the map and guided by the compass,
Clarence was to arrive with the whole outfit at a precise place by
nightfall, and we two, tired of the two-and-a-half miles an hour
pace, did an excursion on sport intent, taking our own way to meet the
caravan. We, with three hunters on the ever-willing ponies, left camp
early, and going easily soon put a good distance between ourselves and
the slow-coach camels. Dik-dik popped up everywhere, but ’twas no
use disturbing the jungle for such small game. Water-holes next loomed
ahead, and into the mud the Somalis precipitated themselves to drink and
dabble. It was really not fit to swallow, and sudden death would seem to
be the probable result. Not at all! It gave a sudden impetus to our men,
who grew quite lively, game for anything, as they chanted invitations to
imaginary animals to come and be shot. All the song was of the “Dilly,
Dilly, come and get killed” pattern, and was for the most part addressed
to a rhinoceros who lived in fancy. “Wiyil, Wiyil, Mem-sahib calls
you,” was the bed-rock of the anthem, and like our home-made variety one
sentence had to go a long way.

We found a track made by tortoises innumerable who evidently marched in
solid phalanx to the water-holes. We followed the trail for a long
way, but it seemed to be taking us to a Never-never land, so we turned,
giving up the idea of discovering the source of the path. But in a
tiny lake, as big as a bath and as shallow, we came on three tortoises
swimming. They drew in their ugly snake-like heads with a sideway motion
beneath their armour-plate residence, and there was nothing left to see
but a flat, dirty, yellow carapace. They were quite small, and we pulled
one out with a deft noose thrown by the second hunter. Each man took off
his turned-up sandals and rested one bare foot at a time on the shelly
back, “to make strong the feet.” They did this very solemnly, and, of
course, in turns, mounting their ponies when the superstitious rite was
well over.

We saw a very immature gerenük standing on his hind legs to feed on the
young tops of a thorn bush. It went off at a crouching trot, stopping
after a short run to turn and stare. It even returned a few paces, with
unparalleled impudence, to gaze. It was a youngster of last season.
The gerenük mother is not the highest type of jungle matron, frequently
abandoning a little one to fend for itself weeks before it has been
taught the ways of the jungle. And so it is that gerenük fawns are a
great mainstay in the lion dietary.

We let our youthful friend investigate us to his liking, after which he
trotted off. Gerenük seldom or never gallop, and get up nothing like the
speed of an oryx for instance.

[Illustration: 0155]

We paused for lunch, and some surprised Midgans were located beneath a
guda tree. Round about them were many fierce and vengeful-looking dogs.
They had a fire over which they were roasting bits of flesh. A few dogs
fought and wrangled over mangled remnants of bone, skin, and entrails.
The horns and shield of an oryx hung on a khansa bush. The horns
were not large, and were those of a cow oryx, killed to make a Midgan
holiday, by the aid of the trained dogs, and with a _coup-de-grâce_
of arrows. I have never seen the actual hunting, but I understand that
these pariah dogs are bred by the Midgans to hunt the oryx, and going
out in a pack make straight for the prey on being shown the antelope.

The music of the chase is noteless. The dogs hunt in silence, until they
bring the antelope to his last stand, when they give tongue, guiding the
tracking Midgans, who steal up, as concealed as may be, and let fly a
flight of arrows which either settles the oryx there and then, or paves
the way for an easy pull down later. Very often the antelope makes such
a glorious stand that a couple of dogs are left on the field of battle
for the hyænas. Though the dogs fasten on to their prey and are fierce
beyond relief an oryx at bay is something to be afraid of. His swift
forward rush, head down, with horns just fixed at the right angle for
impaling an enemy, and sideway strike render him a formidable foe at
close quarters.

The Midgans were very friendly. They were very ragged, and the quivers
full of poisoned arrows hung on quite bare shoulders. They kindly showed
us a track to our betterment, for the going now was stony and difficult.
In and out among rocky nullahs were week-old pugs of lion, and farther,
where rain had fallen, well defined spoor of more lion, together with
massed tracks of oryx and aoul. The spoor of the former is broad in the
forefoot, somewhat resembling two pears set together, and the hind foot
makes a much longer, narrower impress. We followed the rough track for
a mile or more being led to an open “bun,” not extensive, where some few
bunches of aoul grazed and an odd bull oryx also. We got off our ponies,
and making the hunters into _syces pro tem._ did a stalk on all fours.
Cover there was not, and the centre of the “bun” was the centre of
attraction to all the buck, the best grass probably growing there. It
was completely out of reasonable range. A crackle, a rustle, or possibly
a vision gave the alarm, and away went the oryx, out of sight instantly.
The aoul fled affrightedly for a hundred yards or so, then brought up in
a thick bunch to stare. One, inquisitive beyond belief, trotted towards
us, advancing in short bounds in his anxiety to solve the mystery of
these new squirming creatures. Head on, the aoul presented the position
for the most reliable shot possible. A child would have brought it off.
Cecily dropped the inquirer dead in his tracks.

We were very glad of the meat, and the horns were not amiss. The men
would not be able to look forward to a resulting feast, as the “hallal”
 was left out. However, they had any amount of sun-dried meat to go
on with. One pony had to carry the buck, which, after being cleaned,
probably weighed less than the Somali who had occupied the saddle
previously. Then we made tracks for the rendezvous. Looking behind us we
saw a large jackal making off with the left-behind bits of aoul. Another
and another came up, and then a set-to fight began as to who should eat
the spoils. Whilst the battle raged with fang and claw a tiny jackal
stealing up made off at best pace with most of the bone of contention.

At the arranged place of meeting we found no hospitably waiting tents,
no cook trying to cook, no camels, no anything, but an arid waste of
sand, sparsely dotted with adad bushes and a couple of very stunted guda
trees. From the adad comes the gum arabic of Somali trading, a useless
commodity to us. But we could see it for ourselves in amber lumps, in
the crannies of the thorn.

Half an hour passed. The ponies nibbled the occasional brown spears
that masqueraded as grass, and we sat down, and said things. One of
the hunters got up a guda tree to help investigations, and we played:
“Sister Ann, Sister Ann, do you see anybody coming?” until we were tired
of it, and the man not being particularly agile missed his footing and
fell with a plop to the ground. After he realised he still lived we had
to listen to his complaints, which embraced everything from petitions to
Allah, allusions to Kismet, to ordinary swear words consigning the tree
and the bruises to altogether impossible places. It grew bitterly cold.
A breeze sprang up and dashed the sand in little sprays about us. Then
it got colder still, and darker; presently night would fall and find us
unprepared. We guarded the ponies, and the men with nothing but a couple
of shikar knives, cut thorn hurriedly, and we could not cry, “Hold,
enough!” until a goodly pile had been collected. We started a fire then
and sat about it holding the ponies by us. A comical group. The fire
warmed us in front, but oh, the cold where the fire was not. I kept
turning round and round like a meat-jack. We sat on like this in great
discomfort until twelve o’clock. We had on drill jackets, so were very
coldly clad. Then--a shot on the silence, cracking suddenly like ice
splitting on a frozen lake. Crack again. We replied; and after a waste
of cartridges on either side a dark mass loomed on our limited horizon,
and the camel-men called words of endearment to the lost hunters. We
were huffy enough to have dismissed the whole caravan and left ourselves
stranded, but feigned to be propitiated by stories of how they lost
their way and the compass, for a Somali will lose, as he can break,
anything. The sight of our tents being erected and the prospect of bed
and warmth mollified us as nothing else could have done, and we turned
in as soon as the cook produced some soup. The men had to collect
wood in the dark--a thing they hate. It was all a gross piece of bad
management on the part of Clarence. Even Homer nods.

As a result of the exposure Cecily contracted rheumatism of some
inflammatory description. We called it rheumatism for want of a better
name, but her illness most coincided with something discussed in our
medical work--our _vade mecum_--and most unfortunately the page was lost
and the name of the complaint, as luck would have it, was on it.

We decided it must be rheumatism and treated it accordingly. The right
arm was rendered quite useless, and it was agony for the poor girl to do
more than crawl about. It was a most irritating affair for her and ever
so disappointing. The best sport of the trip was now at hand. We were
in the rhino country, and at breakfast next morning a Somali hunter rode
in--it is marvellous the way in which these people track caravans and
then seem to drop in from nowhere--and he brought news, great news for
us. Clarence introduced the man, a fine upstanding Berserk, who gazed in
bewilderment at the new type of sporting sahib. A rhinoceros was in the
vicinity, that much we elicited, that much, and enough too. A flowing
tobe was the reward for these tidings of great joy.

Leaving Clarence to glean all particulars, I rushed to Cecily’s tent to
see if she would require me to remain in camp with her. She said, nobly,
“Of course not.” Truth to tell, I don’t think I could have done it had
she asked me to.

I was so overjoyed and excited that I saw to the condition of my rifle
ten times over.

The only animal a Somali really fears is the rhinoceros. His charge,
though so blundering, is so terrific; and though he has not the cunning
of the elephant, in fact hardly any finesse at all, the native mind
knows it is safer to take no chances. I learnt by after experience that
a rhinoceros is, indeed, a very big thing to tackle; that his immense
bulk is no deterrent to nimbleness, that his lumbering, bull-like charge
is not the most he can do, for if needs be he can turn and double with
agility.

As soon as possible after hearing the great news we prepared to try our
luck. The country here was of the densest description, and Clarence’s
idea was to make a detour south, by way of some water-holes, where we
might come on tracks of more rhino. He said the one we had heard of
would probably by now be far away, and, as we were right in the Ogaden,
there was every possibility of our picking up fresh rhino spoor for
ourselves almost immediately. We got ready quite a little expedition,
and I detailed a camel to carry my requirements in case we thought it
better to stay out all night, and with Clarence, the Baron, a syce,
and two camel men my retinue was sufficiently imposing. Danger from the
Ogaden Somalis never presented itself to me as a very real thing,
in spite of certain lurid tales we had heard and read. Although we
penetrated the country from end to end, the few tribes we met gave us
no anxiety save that of the off-chance that we might catch some disease
from them. They are very prone to small-pox, and go on walking about
with it, giving it to all and sundry, when most people would be
isolated.

But to return to that joint of mutton we sat down to. I took a whole
armoury along with me, but had quite selected my 12-bore as the rifle
for the job. I said good-bye to poor disappointed Cecily, thinking
how lucky I was to be well and able to set off on this the greatest
adventure of all my life. I little thought I was nearing one of its
tragedies. As I rode along I felt light-hearted enough to sing. Even
the woeful going and the consequent delays did not seriously vex me. The
sandy plateaus presently changed to the most impossible thorn, and
it became apparent we could get the encumbered camel no farther. The
creature could not struggle on through such dense jungle, neither could
the ponies. I would hear of no going back, and there was no going round,
so I instructed the small caravan to await my reappearance under pain of
all sorts of penalties whilst “the Baron,” myself, and Clarence pushed
and crawled our way in a direction where we confidently hoped to come on
rhino.

I simply held my breath, took a header into the sea of bush before us,
and with the ubiquitous Clarence ever and anon carving out a rough path
for me with his hunting knife, held on the way.

The heat was appalling. I can truthfully say I never was so hot in
all my life. After about an hour of this, we all suddenly came upon a
distinct passage through the jungle, running at right angles, a passage
that could hardly be called one, still the way was easier, and it was
apparent that, though the brushwood had closed together again more or
less, some mighty creatures had passed along. But which way? Spooring
was impossible, the broken thorns could not solve the puzzle. We must
chance it. Clarence was for the left. I advocated the right. Something
made me choose so; but oh, how devoutly afterwards I wished I had taken
the man’s way and not mine own. It was not easy going now, but child’s
play to what we endured at first. On and on, very, very slowly; and
at last the heavy country broke up somewhat and we could see the
sandy ground in patches once more. A space and then--rhino spoor! New,
never-to-be-forgotten, I stooped down and examined it carefully. It was
very distinct considering the dry nature of the ground. I ascribed this
to his immense weight. I measured the imprint, and found it came out at
nine and three-quarters long by eight and three-quarter inches broad. A
rhino causes no havoc to the thorn bushes as he travels bar the injury
of his passage. Unlike the elephant, he does not stop and eat all along
the way. He waits until settled in some cherished feeding ground.

By the time we had done another hour, the spoor still holding on, the
country was comparatively clear. I was so fatigued and winded I lay down
and hardly knew what to do with myself. I sent Clarence and the Baron
on a bit to prospect, and had really nearly forgotten their existence
in exhausted sleep when they appeared again all tingling with excitement
and eagerness, and with many signs and mysterious facial contortions
explained the rhino was not far off. A wave of the hand to a far away
fastness of thicket showed me its lair, and as we crept closer a pensive
munching sound betrayed the occupation of our prey.

Aching all over, I silently crept on. In the stillness I could more
plainly hear the crunching of the thorns as they made a meal for the
great pachyderm. But I _saw_ nothing, and how I was to penetrate the
wait-a-bit with any degree of safety I could not see. Few people would
care to meet a rhinoceros at such disadvantage, and I had to add to
other drawbacks the fact that I had for safety’s sake to let the hammers
of my rifle down ere negotiating such dense undergrowth. It would be
highly dangerous to proceed with the rifle cocked, but I wanted it very
much cocked indeed on my first introduction to so vast and important an
animal. The thing was to circumvent the wood--if I may call the place
by so home-like a word--and on reaching one spot where the thorn grew
sparser, I decided to penetrate here. I could not bear to leave it
longer, and could not wait all day; besides, I prefer to meet a rhino
in some place where there is a pretence at cover anyway to trying
conclusions with him in a patch of conspicuously open ground.

My men showed no sign of fear, and following me came on as carefully and
steadily as ever. Both were armed, inadequately it is to be feared, but
the onus of the business was to fall, presumably, on me. At last! In one
dazzling minute of surprise I saw the huge lumbering bulk we know as
the rhinoceros. I have a bowing acquaintance with his relatives in
many zoos, yet he seemed to me a stranger. Surely they never were so
colossal, so mighty, so altogether awe-inspiring.

My hands trembled violently. I was for the moment unsteady. It all
seemed so impossible I could kill the wondrous brute.

The cocking of the hammers seemed to echo through the jungle. To let
him hear us now would present difficulties unthinkable. Beads of
perspiration rolled down my forehead, and my heart beat so loudly that I
wondered if Clarence heard it. This would never do, so rating myself
to myself--a method that never fails to pull me together--I took long,
steady, and careful aim at the pachyderm’s shoulder. The frontal shot is
never of the slightest use, and I could not get in a heart one. I know
now I had no business to fire at all, but my keenness was great, my
ignorance greater, and Clarence had not protested once.

I fired! Instantly a noise like the letting off steam of a C.P.R.
engine, twice as noisy as any other. The rhino sniffed the air with
his huge muzzle, and I could clearly see his prehensile upper lip. In a
moment he seemed on us--through us; we scattered as he came. Then I saw
what a truly awful business we were in for, and, recognising there
must be no delay in getting the sights on him again, I dashed after the
animal, who was now about to double on his tracks, and I crawled into
the insignificant shelter of a thorn bush to await developments.

The rhino had not as yet realised what was the matter, or quite gathered
who his foes were. I fired again, another shoulder shot. This bullet
“told” heavily, and the maddened creature, smarting and furious, passed
me like the wind and charged like a Juggernaut right over the Baron,
who, in meaning to evade the rush, fell into it through the unexpected
agility of the brute. A most awful stifled shriek arose as my poor
fellow went down. Frightened as I was, I felt I should be everlastingly
branded to myself as a coward if I made no attempt to save the man,
although I understood how altogether impossible salvation was just then.
The pachyderm was giving the prostrate body a number of vicious rams
with his horn. I advanced quite close, and the rhino, seeing me,
blunderingly charged, passing so near I got the very breath from his
nostrils. I luckily managed to get in a heart shot, and yet another. The
animal lurched on, and then fell, as a loaded furniture van might, with
a terrific crash. But it was not entirely accounted for even yet, and
continued to emit little squeals and plough the ground up all about it.
Still, I knew it would rise no more, and I gave my rifle to Clarence
with a sign to him to do the happy despatch. I went to the fallen Baron,
and even now cannot write of the dreadful nature of his wounds without
a shudder at the manner of so hideous a death. I was overwhelmed, but
Clarence was still imperturbable as he looked back from the great mass
that now lay as inert as my poor follower.

There was no use trying anything; the Baron was dead. I did my best to
hide my stress of mind from the calm shikari, and endeavoured to think
what it was best to do. I wanted to have the body taken back to camp and
bury it decently, but, after all, it was a silly idea enough, and a mere
relic of home associations. The man had to _be_ buried, so why not do it
where he fell? Then the rhinoceros, with all its value in hide and horn,
lay there to be dealt with. The only way seemed to be to return to the
spot where we left the camel, let Clarence lead two men to the scene of
the _débâcle_, and then I would proceed to camp and order out further
assistance.

We covered the poor Baron with cut thorns, which seemed a slight barrier
of protection for his body; and the thought of the inroads of some
beasts of prey made me hurry and almost run back through the awful
way we had come so short a time ago. Our passage had cleared it a very
little, and my mind was so much occupied with the catastrophe that it
did not seem very long before we reached the philosophic camel and the
help of which we stood in need.

One camel-man I instructed to return to camp with his charge; the other
and my syce I detailed to go back with Clarence to attend to the Baron
and the rhino. I got on my own pony, leading the others, and going as
hard as I could under such harassing conditions, I returned an hour or
so after with a few men, whom I led to the edge of the thick jungle into
which I heartily wished I had never penetrated, and explained to the
leader the exact location of the scene of the disaster. I arranged that
a rifle should be fired three times to acquaint me of his meeting with
Clarence at the awful spot. For myself, I was too utterly done to take
on the journey down that path again. I sat and waited for the signal,
and felt a little easier in my mind as I heard the welcome one, two,
three.

I wearily returned to camp, and having fully explained to Cecily the
extent of the disaster, lay on my bed, face down, for ages. The death of
the poor hunter could not, strictly speaking, be ascribed to me. I might
so easily have been the victim myself, but the horror of it all and
the pity of it bothered me as I suppose it would not have done a real
sportsman. For, in retailing it now to my uncle, he pooh-poohs my
trouble and says it is the fortune of big game hunting. “You hunt big
game, big game hunt you,” as the case may be.

Cecily tried in her loving way to comfort me, and the cook made me a
soporific in the shape of tea, and the kettle had really boiled. I was
very glad to see Clarence back before the light gave out, and hear that
the Baron had been buried deeply and far out of the reach of hungry
jackals and hyænas.

I spent a fearful night of regrets and recriminations. When pain is
acute it is as well to let it bite deep, because the reaction is greater
in proportion to the pain. I’m not sure that the old adage about crying
over spilt milk isn’t a fraud. It does a woman good to cry, so I wept
and wept.

Next morning I thoroughly overhauled my prize so dearly bought. The
spoil must have taken some carrying. The head, which I kept entire--I
mean without despoiling it of horns--was not so large as I somehow
expected from an animal of his bulk. Still, it was big enough in all
conscience. The skin appeared like some freshly-peeled fruit, and was of
great thickness, though it afterwards shrank in the drying a little.

After the epidermis is removed, the hide, when polished, comes up like
clouded amber, and makes the most exquisite top for a table, of which
the four feet form the base. In my worry at the time I neglected to
measure the rhinoceros as he lay, but in any case we were quite unable
to move him. I afterwards took the dimensions of the horns, and the
length of the anterior was sixteen inches, the posterior being at seven.
I could not settle in that camp again, nor hunt with any happiness. As
soon as Cecily was well enough to trek we struck camp, and held on in
the direction of Galadi, wherever that might be.




CHAPTER X--WE MEET “THE OPPOSITION”


```Therefore be merry, coz; since sudden sorrow

```Serves to say thus--some good thing comes to-morrow

`````King Henry VI=


|It was impossible to feel down-hearted for long, and my spirits began
to rise again. Even the heat did not affect us as much as one might have
thought. Of course we were burnt as mahogany brown as it is possible
for a white woman to be, and I think very little marked us out from
our Somalis in point of colour. Our very fair hair looked quite odd in
contrast.

Our hunters reported one morning that in spooring for leopard they had
come on the tracks of a large caravan, and overtaking some part of it
gathered that the outfit belonged to some English officer on sport
bent. Every Englishman is an officer to the Somalis. It is really rather
funny. It is quite like the way every American is--to the Englishman--a
martial colonel. I was intensely sorry to know we were so near to other
hunters. It was very selfish too, for the country was big enough, in all
conscience, to hold us all. But I _was_ sorry, and there’s an end of it.
Cecily said perhaps it was all a mistake, because how could anyone
be hunting in the forbidden ground of the Ogaden unless they were as
signally favoured as ourselves? I suggested that they might be, because
we did not surely suppose we were the only people with relatives able to
pull the strings. We were both a bit “shirty” because we were vexed to
know we had not got the Ogaden to ourselves. A nice sporting spirit,
wasn’t it?

We were at lunch, battling with an altogether impossible curry Cecily
had perpetrated, for she always said you can curry anything, even old
boots, at a push, and they would be rendered appetising. Oryx beat her
efforts culinary, and she had to admit at last that curry powder and
oryx meat should be strangers.

As she had had all the trouble of stirring the concoction over a
grilling fire on a grilling day I struggled on as long as I possibly
could in order that the amateur chefs feelings should not be hurt,
but confessed myself beaten in the end and very hungry, so we fell to
opening a tin of meat.

“I fear no beef that’s canned by Armour,” sang Cecily, coming events not
having cast any shadows before.

“Salaam, ladies!” said an English voice close at hand.

It was the leader of the opposition shoot. The younger, my kinsman, was
quarrelling with a syce about the proper way to hold a pony. I don’t
know if we were glad to see them or not. Anyway we had to pretend to be,
besides making the usual ridiculous remarks about the smallness of the
world, and how odd it was we should have come across each other again.

[Illustration: 0173]

It would have been inhospitable to offer any of the curry, so we begged
them to sample the tinned beef. Our butler waited on us, and drenched
the four of us in a successful attempt to open a champagne bottle. Oh
yes, we gave them champagne, to make up for other deficiencies. I told
them if they would wait for dinner they should have a Carlton-like meal.
After lunch they would see our skins and heads, so we excavated the
skulls, and displayed all we had for admiration. We tried not to feel
superior, but it was rather difficult when we heard they had not as yet
got a shot even at a rhino. I lay low about the price we paid for ours!
We evidently went up a little in their estimation, because they invited
us to take part in a big shoot next day, and seemed really anxious we
should accept. We said we were about to trek in an opposite direction,
but I was rather taken aback when the elder warrior asked me how I knew
which direction the proposed shoot was to take? They invited us to go
over and see their trophies, but we did not mean to give them one single
chance to crow, and instantly on their departure struck camp and moved
on towards a large Somali encampment which had recently suffered many
grievous losses from the depredations of leopards.

We were anxious to see the spoor for ourselves. A great many of the
leopards reported are nothing in the wide world but hyæna in spite of
the fact that the leopard, being a cat, does not, in quiescence, show
his claws in the pug marks, and the hyæna, being a dog, does; besides,
the _shape_ of the pad is entirely different. The hyaena has a
triangle-shaped back pad, with two large side toes and two smaller
centre ones, whilst the pug of the leopard is similar to that of lion
but proportionately smaller. In spite of these mistakes on the part of
some unlettered Somali, almost every black man spoors in a way no white
man ever can hope to do. The former can follow tracks of game over
ground that tells us nothing. Stony ground, wet ground, loose ground,
dry ground, all alike give up secrets to him whereof we cannot hear
the faintest whispers. The whole jungle is an open book to the black
shikari, and compared to him the cleverest chiel among us is but a tyro.

We camped some two miles from the _karia_, and barely arrived when the
head-man arrived to say “Salaam,” He brought with him all his sisters
and his cousins and his aunts. A very plain lot they looked too,
although Clarence whispered to me that in Somaliland one of the women
was rated as a great beauty. I don’t know how he knew, unless the local
M. A. P. said so. After a closer inspection of the lady I came to the
conclusion that, for a beauty, she really was not bad looking.

They were very prying though, and really dangerous to have round, as one
could not be everywhere at once. They all had advanced kleptomania. My
tent was overflowing with them, though I had given orders to keep the
place clear, and somebody annexed my sponge, hair-brush, and even a
tooth-brush vanished from Cecily’s tent, though we never saw any one
penetrate it. I don’t know what use the tooth-brush would be. The
Somalis do not neglect their teeth, far from it, but they use for
cleaning purposes a soft stick, rubbing and polishing away at all sorts
of odd moments. The result is of dazzling whiteness.

It was unnecessary also for them to help themselves as we were more than
generous, and in response to their unblushing demands for presents we
gave them at least four tobes, a turban or two, and an umbrella without
a handle, which the proud proprietor unfurled and at once subsided
beneath.

When Cecily in the warmth of her heart began to bestow things we really
had need of ourselves I begged her to curb her Santa Claus-like ideas,
and let us try and get to the leopard subject. But they were not to be
switched off so easily. The head-man yearned for a rifle, and seemed to
think we were the very people to satisfy him, and I don’t wonder, when
we had been playing universal provider to them for half an hour. There
is nothing on earth a black man longs for so earnestly as a rifle of his
own. It does not matter if it is a mere piece of gas piping with sights
set on it, so that he may call it rifle. A vast amount of rubbish is
palmed off by rascally traders, who get the arms through in spite of
regulations and precautions. The maker is nothing, the skill of the user
nothing, the mere name rifle is everything; and the fact that a native
was not--it may still be so, I don’t know--allowed to own such a
treasure made the prospect more enchanting than ever. I refused the
head-man’s request, so trifling as it was too, as firmly and politely
as possible, and offered him a pen-knife instead. He took one somewhat
superciliously, and went off with it with both blades open. We had not
once got to the main point, the leopard, whose existence was supposed to
be a daily menace to their _karia_. I bade Clarence go after our guest,
and extract particulars.

After a little time a convoy appeared with return gifts, a couple of
goats, and dirty _harns_ without number full of camels’ milk. I thought
at one time the extreme uncleanliness of the _harns_ accounted for the
unpleasant taste of the milk, but I liked it no better when I sampled it
from a can of my own providing.

The leopard, for this time rumour had not lied, had made serious
depredations, and carried off nightly goats, sheep, and even a baby
camel. It jumped the zareba wall with ease apparently. We decided to
have “machan,” or rather a small enclosure, built, and sit up for the
thief. I never see much fun in this sitting up business. It is so often
all waiting and no coming. We set some of the men to construct the
shelters, and arranged them some six hundred yards away from the Somali
encampment on the side where the leopard had most often made an entry.
We decided to have a small zareba each, two hundred yards apart, and
took up our residence for the night about 6 p.m. Cecily had Clarence
with her; I had mine to myself. I was most uncomfortably crowded as it
was, but Cecily had a little more space in her prison.

We tied up a goat between us, and settled down to dreary hours of silent
watching. Though we kept quiet, the Somalis never gave over singing and
shouting for a moment. I wondered at a leopard going near the place at
all. But it may have used the din to its own advantage.

The night grew very dark, and for a wonder, as the midnight hours drew
near, it got intensely cold. The mosquitoes did not bother me in the
least, though they were present in hundreds. I was completely fastened
in, and only had a peep hole for my rifle which covered the goat.

I heard a lion roar once, and after a little came a strange lowing
sound, most weird and eldritch. I had never known it before, but I
judged a leopard was hunting. My senses being completely awake, I
peered through the darkness at the goat. It was most ridiculous. It
was impossible even to see it. The whole place was in inky darkness. I
waited, shivering, and next moment I distinctly heard the crunching of
bones and the tearing of flesh. The leopard, or hyæna, had come without
a sound. I could not fire when I could see absolutely nothing to fire
at. Bang! came from Cecily’s zareba, and was followed by a choking
gurgle.

“I’ve got him, don’t you think?” called out Cicely from her enclosure.

We dared not venture out, and remained there until in the early hours
some of our men arrived to let us free. But as it grew light I could
see the shadowy form of a great leopard lying prone on his victim. We
investigated as soon as possible, and found that Cecily had got him
through the head. This was, of course, a mere fluke, for she says she
only fired after she and Clarence had sighted and just as the darkness
seemed to lift in the very slightest. She did not see the arrival of
the beast either, though she says from her zareba his form was at times
dimly apparent. For myself, I never saw our prize in life at all.

He was a glorious trophy, and with perfectly undamaged skin measured,
before skinning, seven feet, and after, seven feet six inches. Then from
out of the Somali _karia_ strolled the head-man, not obliged at all,
still clamouring for some further souvenir! I bade Clarence endeavour
to explain that the boot was on the other leg now, which the shikari
literally and faithfully did, as I heard boots and legs, inextricably
muddled with Somali cuss words, being heatedly discussed. Then back to
camp and breakfast.

Sometimes at night, before turning in we would go and sit around the
blazing fires and try to talk to the men. We really wanted to find out
more about them, where they came from, what they had done, and what
they would like to do, but on our approach the chanting and the chatter
ceased almost invariably and all the naturalness would vanish. I do not
think they had any sense of humour. They laughed and were happy enough,
but situations that would have taxed the risible faculties of a white
man left them solemn and unmoved.

Almost every one of our men, if you could extract his real name instead
of his nick-name, had been christened Mahomed. What a lot of Mahomeds
there must be! I suppose it is like the glut of Jameses and Johns with
us. They are tremendous aristocrats, these Somalis; immensely proud of
their descent and origin, and even the most unlettered, though he
cannot read or write, can give you the names of his grandfathers,
great-grandfathers, and all the other greats, until you know you must be
going back to grope in the mists of centuries.

[Illustration: 0181]

When we were tracking one morning about this time, on the spoor of a
very small-footed lion, we came on a bit of ridge country, and for
some hundred yards or so a small thorn fence had been erected,
_chevaux-de-frise_ like, the thorn having been cut and brought there.
At intervals tiny gaps were left, and inset, right on the sand of the
ridge, stood the most primitive gins to catch--Clarence said--dik-dik.
The Midgans set them. It would need to be a very unsophisticated little
antelope indeed to run its head into so palpable a noose. They were like
the ones you set at home for rabbits, but made of string instead of wire
held up in an apology for a circle by plainly-to-be-seen props of thorn
twigs. On the sides of the thorn walls forming the passages, bits of
uninviting scraps of dik-dik heads and tails were impaled--to attract
and allure their kind our shikari said. I should have thought the
evidence of what awaited them would have had a deterring effect on any
roaming dik-dik, and serve merely to attract jackals and foxes. But
Clarence said the small antelope are often caught in this way for the
pot.

That night a vast bat visited our tent, flying round the candle lamp and
dashing himself against it. We called to Clarence to come and evict it,
not meaning him to kill it, but he flew at the creature forthwith, a
_hangol_ in his hand, smashing the winged thing in a heap to the ground.
The wings hung limply around the mouse body, and myriads of fleas
scattered from it. It was larger than our English bats, and the top of
the head was raised in a sort of crown-like lump.

As we sat breakfasting, the camel-man in charge of the grazing camels
ran into the zareba and did a lot of excited jabbering. Then most of
the men made off outside. I called to know what was the matter, and the
butler said one of the camels had fallen into a pit and could not
get out. Presently we went off to see how affairs stood, and were
exceedingly put about to find Zeila, our big brown camel, had somehow
or other fallen into a long disused elephant trap which are still to be
found in parts of the Ogaden. They were quite deep, and the intention
was that an elephant would tumble in at night and find itself unable to
get out like our Zeila, whose hump was about level with the top of the
hole.

Every order the camel-man gave he countermanded as soon as it was about
to be put into execution, and all they had as a means of retrieving our
camel was one leather lading rope. We sent back to camp for more, and
sat on the edge of the trap and waited. The other camels grazed about
us, and Zeila was very quiet indeed, only occasionally breaking into
groans. The poor beast was ominously down in the forequarters, and we
thought must be kneeling. When the ropes arrived the difficulty was
how to pass them around the camel, and if we did get them round how
to prevent the leather thongs from cutting into the flesh. A rather
sporting hunter volunteered to join Zeila in the trap, a tight fit
already, and endeavour to place the ropes. First we wound grass around
the rope up to a certain distance making a pad, and then the hunter
climbed down. Had the camel done any lashing about or moving the man
would have been awkwardly placed. The ropes were successfully passed
around the body, made into nooses, the intrepid hunter, wreathed in
smiles at our congratulations, emerged sandy but successful, and we all
did a tug of war, heaving poor Zeila to the surface, a struggling mass.
Once on _terra firma_ at the top it sank groaning pitifully. The camel
man examined it, “Bruk I bruk!” he said, ruefully regarding the right
fore-leg.

He evidently was right. The poor creature had broken the leg in the
fall. Here was a calamity! The head camel man said it could not be
mended, and Zeila was no more use to us. I asked Clarence if he thought
so fine a camel would be given a home at the _karia_ of the leopard
adventure if I offered to hand it over. He laughed and said a
broken-legged camel is no use anywhere, and if I offered the animal the
Somalis would accept it gladly and then eat it, and didn’t I think
it better our own men should get the benefit of the meat? I had never
thought of our turning cannibal and eating each other this wise, but
I believe all the men were looking forward to a Zeila chop. With great
reluctance I said I supposed the poor camel must be killed, that it must
be shot first through the head, and then that “hallal” business could
follow immediately. Clarence swore by Allah he would do the killing
humanely, a word the Somali does not understand at all. The rest of the
day the men spent in gorging.

When we went out late in the afternoon by the place of the catastrophe,
where the vultures were feasting on dragged-away bits of camel bones,
we caught some exquisite butterflies who sat on the now putrid carcase,
gorged into quiescence. It seems an odd juxtaposition, butterflies
and bad flesh, but there they were in unison. Cecily is an ardent
entomologist, and collected. I let her do the securing the specimens
because she understands how to kill them neatly, pressing the thorax
without damaging the glory of the wings. I never could gain the
knowledge. My fingers seemed all thumbs at it.

We purchased two new camels from the neighbouring _karia_, needing a
full complement on account of the water-carrying nuisance. I gave the
head-man an order on our banker at Berbera with which he was as pleased
as though it were cash, but the next trading trip would take him to the
coast-town. These jungle Somalis have some delightfully pre-historic
traits. Belief is one of them. An Englishman’s bond is as good as his
word, and that is something; it isn’t always in civilisation.




CHAPTER XI--AN OASIS IN THE DESERT


```Since mine own doors refuse to entertain me

`````Comedy of Errors=


```Things without all remedy

```Should be without regard, what’s done is done

`````Macbeth=


```What’s gone and what’s past help

```Should be past grief.

`````Winter’s Tale=


|We were now having a great time trying to cure the skin of the rhino.
I was so afraid something would go wrong with it that I was for ever
messing away. Clarence would have it that the wrong thing had been done
from the first. He was rather pessimistic these days, mainly, I think,
because he had a gathered hand and it pained very considerably.

The skins generally were menaced by the deadly beetle grub, and we had
to resort to all sorts of drastic measures. Saltpetre I found of great
use here, and we used it freely. The heads of rhino are very difficult
to dry, as can well be imagined, and our trophy looked a hopeless mess.
It was difficult to believe it would ever rise in glory, Phoenix-like,
from the ashes, to be a thing of joy to anyone. Such great heads swarm
with maggots in no time unless carefully watched. The monster we were
tackling was no exception to the rule, and manufactured the enemy on the
“whilst you wait” principle.

It now became a matter for our deep consideration as to how far our trip
should extend.

We had known before we started that Somaliland is no longer the old
time sportsman’s paradise. The shikar obtainable is not what it was, and
every year lessens the chances. The truth is the country is fairly shot
out.

Fifteen years ago the most excellent shooting was to be had all over;
now, unless one penetrates right into the interior where a certain
amount of danger from warlike tribes must be looked for, there is not
much hope of a truly great and representative bag. The reserving of the
Hargeisa and Mirso as entirely protected regions has also necessarily
restricted the game area. The day of the sportsman in all Africa was
in that Golden Age when he, all untrammelled, might stalk the more
important fauna, to say nothing of the lesser, as he listed. Now he pays
heavy toll, varying with the scarcity of the quarry, and the licences
are not the least part of the expenses. Of course the needful
preservation of big game should, and inevitably must, lead to good
results, since to husband the resources of anything is to accumulate in
the long run. But the idea of artificial preservation and legislation
seems to knock some of the elemental romance out of hunting. Anything
cut and dried seems out of place in sport of big game variety, and
brings it down to the nearer level of shooting pheasants that know
you by sight, and which have been on terms of friendship with their
slaughterers. The Ogaden country, in parts, like the curate’s egg, still
possesses potentialities not to be sneered at, and if one is willing to
penetrate the interior, getting clear away from the beaten track, the
possibilities become certainties.

To go onwards through the Mijertain meant striking into, or crossing the
“Mary Ann Desert,” as Cecily persisted in styling the Marehan. This was
a somewhat daunting enterprise, but to put against any drawbacks there
was the attraction and magnet of unlimited sport at the other side. We
consulted our maps, and understood them sufficiently to plan a route
and leave the rest to Providence, which useful commodity or personage we
confidently hoped would be good enough to see us through.

We told Clarence and the caravan generally in an off-hand manner, very
confidently, that we proposed trekking eventually to Joh in the Haweea
country, but I cannot say they received the news in the same spirit
of easy confidence. Clarence was and looked taken aback. He murmured
something about its being a great journey, days and days, that he had
never penetrated so far before. Even our shikari uncle had stopped at
the Bun Arnwein. This rather settled the matter. Oh, to go one better
than our relative!

We mapped our homeward route so that it permitted of a day or more on
the Bun Toyo with the new grass all a-blowing and a-growing to tempt
out buck in dozens, even though it all meant going over much of our old
shooting ground. We had not yet got a “sig,” Swayne’s hartebeest, among
our trophies. We also intended to pass through a new--to us--part of the
Golis, and try our luck there.

This Ogaden country is a God-forsaken spot, and the eye aches at last
with the dull brown of everything. Even the haze of the early morning is
khaki-tinted. As for ourselves, we matched the landscape. Our hands were
sienna-coloured, and our complexions------, but maybe the very word is
out of place in connection with our sun-dried faces.

Cecily was very bent on shooting a rhino on her own,’ saying she would
not count the one that fell to my rifle as anything to do with her. I
offered half share in it enthusiastically, for I had no desire to meet
another.

I had killed one, to say nothing of the Baron, and was more than sated.
Cecily, however, would not be put off with any sophistry on my part, so
we had the order on hand.

At last we came on the oasis called Galadi, a very remarkable place, set
like a jewel in a rim of iron. We could hardly believe our eyes. It was
such a faceted gem. No more dingy brown landscape, but a peaceful sylvan
scene of great trees, real turf, and a wealth of green vegetation. This
patch of emerald extended for a mile or more and seemed like a little
Heaven. I was very interested in the wells we came on here and there.
They were of immense antiquity, very deep, cut in the solid rock. We
could not but be impressed with the industry of the long dead hewers.
Naturally in some places, though the wells are deep, the work of
excavation is rendered less difficult by the nature of the ground cut
through, which is in most parts of red earth. There are always steps
cut all the way down, on which the Somalis balance themselves with the
greatest _sang-froid_, doing the necessary conjuring trick with-the
buckets from hand to hand the while. They are made from the ubiquitous
leather--in no country, I imagine, can leather be more pressed into
service--and a number of Somalis often descend a deep well at one time,
passing up the full buckets in continuous chain, receiving back the
returning empty ones as the other leaves the hand. All the time the ever
helpful songs are sung.

When a large number of camels have to be watered it means spending the
best part of a day down the wells, which are often very foul, and full
of noxious gases. Troughs for the cattle are made by the wells as a
rule, again of the ever helpful leather, or hollowed by hand, and
lined with some sort of clay. We used the ordinary English method,
much simpler, of procuring water, and a bucket and rope seemed to be as
effectual and as expeditious, with certainly less waste than the Somali
system.

We had hoped to have a splendid bath at Galadi, and a real good drink,
but on trying well after well we found the water absolutely poisonous,
and highly dangerous. The liquid was putrid. The birds of the air
in their thousands made the place their own, and the smell when we
disturbed the surface of the wells was simply abominable. Our men drank
freely, but Cecily and I worried along on the short commons of our last
water barrel. All the animals were watered, and it did not surprise me
in the least when one of the camels shortly afterwards without a word of
warning, sat down, and promptly died. Clarence said it died because its
time to die had come, but I averred, and held to it, that even a
camel cannot always swallow drainage with impunity, even if it can
philosophically. Such big words baffled the shikari, and I left him
pondering.

We were camped in a beautiful glade, the armo creeper, bright green,
with large leaves, grew festooned on lofty guda trees, and the fairy
web of the Hangeyu spider hung in golden threads from leaf to leaf. The
camels were rejoicing in splendid grazing, and would be all the better
for the change. It is always very rough on camels, I think, having to
provide for themselves, after bringing them in so late at night, after
a march, as one is so often compelled to do. If reasonable care is not
taken of them they will cave in, and there’s the end. Grazing through
the hot hours, as is the inevitable custom, does not permit of enough
food being taken in, especially when the grass is more often than
not conspicuous merely by its absence. They fed now in charge of the
camel-men, wandering whithersoever, in reason, they listed. On trek
camels are tied together in good going. In bad I always ordered them to
go separately, because I observed how cruelly jerked the tail often was.

Here we had an apiary of wild bees. They are expected to live on flowers
in Somaliland as elsewhere, I presume, but the flowers were not. And the
insects, naturally, were a bit peckish and invaded my tent after a pot
of marmalade. They ate away to their hearts content, for no human being
thought of going in and interfering; but the brainy Clarence put some
sugar in their official residence and the counter attraction caused them
to return.

There was a strong moon now, so magical that it set all the jackals
for miles around a-baying and a-barking, and nearly distracted us whose
vocal chords were not so susceptible. What this mysterious influence on
the canine genus is no man can tell, but it had the effect of making me
rouse some of the men to eject rocks at the offenders. The worship
of Astarte was all very well in olden days, but the manner of it in
Somaliland was intolerable.

A quaint insect made a loud tapping noise in the roof of my
tent--probably his love signal. I tried to see him, but he hid from the
light. Altogether I had a wakeful time.

I watched some weavers building next morning as I strolled about, the
while the parody of a cook struggled with the kettle which seemed unable
to boil. It really was very wonderful and astonishing. They snip off the
threads of grass with their beaks, and actually tie knots, half-hitches.
It was rather late for building, but the cock birds of this species,
sensible little things, sometimes make nests for roosting purposes.

Whydah birds were flying about in large numbers. They have crimson
bodies, black wings and tails about two feet long, which hamper them
so in flight they can only lollop along. I pursued one, and could have
caught it had I wished. They are finches, and so always to be found in
damp green places. I saw a merry little sand-piper in grey, with no tail
at all, but wagging as though he had one. He had rather a long beak and
was very tame, eating the crumbs I threw him within a yard of my feet.
Two birds that looked like sand-grouse crossed to the wells. The whole
oasis was a paradise for birds.

Dik-dik was now our staple food, and very palatable we found it. We had
it cooked up every imaginable way. The cook was a sombre individual, but
in moments of roasting he could joke with ease. We had but little fat to
cook with, as antelope have none on them to speak of. We put our meat on
stones in the pot with a little water, and we grilled on a gridiron,
or we boiled it. We made bread easily, but as a long course of baking
powder is bad for one we made our yeast from hops, of which we had some
packets with us. It was much nicer than dough bread, all sour.

The butler who had lived with the English family had an insinuating
smile, and a vocabulary of English words, a moiety of which he had
grasped the meaning of. He had no fairy footsteps nor airy nothingness,
so valued in an attendant of his variety at home. On the contrary, he
hit the ground with heavy beats in plantigrade fashion.

We felt quite regretful to leave this fairy place and turn back to the
blistering hot red sand. But time was flying, and we were rather out of
the way of big game here.

We struck camp and marched, seeing dibitag and oryx, which we vainly
stalked, and as we progressed we passed through extraordinary changes.
Every two or three miles or so we came on similar oases to Galadi and
then, in between, burnt up patches of familiar country. In one of these
green gardens Cecily bagged a lesser koodoo, somewhat rare in these
parts, and an exceedingly beautiful trophy.

Nearing another oasis, some two miles in extent, Clarence manifested the
greatest desire for me to penetrate the place with him and see something
that was bound to interest me. He was like a woman with a secret,
longing to tell, telling a little, then feeling if he showed his hand
entirely I might not trouble to go at all. Whatever could the mystery
be? Animal, vegetable, or mineral? “Curiouser and curiouser.”

None of these things! So, following the shikari, his face all alight
with eager interest and desire to surprise me, we pushed our way through
the density of the foliage until we reached about the centre of the
place. It was a Titania’s bower, carpeted with green and shaded by lofty
trees. I sat down and gazed upon the wonders of it, though it would
have taken me hours to take in the many beauties in detail. They were so
infinite in variety, the etchings, the colour and the rainbow effects
as the sun glinted through the lustrous fresh verdure. I sat on and
marvelled. To think that outside of this there existed only a waste of
red sand, ugly and monotonous, and here--but it is ridiculous on my part
to try and describe it. I should like some Shakespeare to see it and try
his art.

This did not please Clarence at all, who has no love for the beauties of
nature. We must push on. Then, of a sudden, he turned and running to a
tree, proudly patted its trunk. I looked and there I saw in indistinct
letters--my uncle’s initials. Clarence had evidently seen the deed of
vandalism committed. I could not have believed my relative would do such
a thing had I not seen the result with my own eyes. Not that I mean
to say my uncle is anything but truly British to the backbone, but
I thought he would have been the man to rise above the habits of his
countrymen. I never looked on the stern old shikari as a man likely to
give the lighter side of life the upper hand. _Ex pede Herculem!_

We turned to get back to the caravan, taking a different route and found
it stiffish going. In a little shady dingle I came on the remains of a
jungle king dead and turned to dust. The oasis had been his sepulchre
these many years, and there was little of him left to tell us of long
passed monarchy. His skull, which I looked at, was practically eaten
away, and was not worth taking.

A venomous snake struck at me here, but was turned by the top of my
shooting boot. It was a near shave, and I was off and out of the place
in quick time after that.

I missed a fine lion in this thick forest that evening, and followed
him in fear and trembling without getting him. On the way back to camp
however, disconsolate, I bagged a small oryx for the pot, which turned a
somersault like a hare does when shot in the head. I thought I had lost
him when I saw him leap about seven feet into the air, and then again
and again until I despatched him.

On another early morning here, having only a collector’s gun with me, I
put a charge into an old wart-hog, but failed to do more than prick
him into a great annoyance and send him off into the wilderness without
getting him. I was vexed with myself for hurting him.

Just here, too, we came on a kill which had been a jungle tragedy
indeed: the spoor of two oryx all about the outskirts of a green oasis,
where succulent bushes flourished, and confused pugs of a large lion.
The pugs had no beginning, only an ending, and a return path. Therefore
the devastator leaped from out his lair and struck down his prey all
suddenly. We measured the spring from where it is certain the great cat
must have taken off to the spot where lay the half-consumed oryx, lying
as he fell, and it came out at nineteen feet.

Somalis are exceedingly fond of giving nicknames to one another, more
or less personal, and the European does not escape his satire in this
direction. All the men in our caravan answered to names of the most
irritatingly personal variety, though they all took the for the
most part rude attention to some unfortunate peculiarity quite good
humouredly. I asked Clarence one day, as we were sitting under a shady
guda tree waiting for what might chance to cross our line of fire, what
the men had been pleased to christen me. He assented diffidently to the
assumption that I had a nickname, but gave me to understand he would
rather not mention it, if indeed he had not forgotten it, and a lapse of
memory seemed imminent. This piqued my curiosity naturally, and I gave
him no peace until I extracted what I wanted to know more than anything
else just then. Prepared for any mortal thing, for the Somali nicknames
are nothing if not deadly descriptive, I learned I was called by the
men “Daga-yera,” small ears. This was not so bad, and at least not
uncomplimentary. Clarence looked at me keenly to see if he noted any
signs of offence but I was smiling broadly, so he smiled too. I told him
that with us small ears are not considered a drawback, whatever they may
be in Somaliland.

Almost on every march we came on graves, some together, here and there
one alone, marking the spot where some traveller had fallen by the way.
An important head-man, or chief, has a perfect stockade of thorn bushes
and stones piled atop of him to keep off the jackals and hyænas. The
women, however, less important in death as in life, have merely thorn
piled casually on their tombs with some such relic as a bit of an old
shield or worse for wear ham strung aloft to act as a deterrent to the
scratchings of wild beasts. When we passed by graves the men would cross
their hands and say a prayer, whether for themselves or for the dead I
do not know. They would be solemn for a moment, brooding, and then set
off a-chanting again. They are a strange romantic people, whose sun ever
follows on the silver mist of rain.

A perfect avalanche of water fell after this for two whole days and kept
us in our drenched tents. And again everything was wet through. Rain is
a very real terror to the poor camper out. Fires are off and many little
comforts, that passed unnoticed before, go with them. We had our spirit
lamp, and had economised with it all along, only using it on hopeless
occasions like the present. Cecily again fled to her warm whisky and
water cure, and I drank ammoniated quinine until my brain reeled. My
tent, after a night of deluge which more resembles the bursting of a
reservoir than anything else I can think of, collapsed altogether, and
was a perfect wreck. Since mine own doors refused to entertain me I
migrated to Cecily’s, after digging out my belongings from the _débris_,
and, packed like sardines, we had to go on until I got my flattened home
set to rights, which I did after a lot of trouble.

Two black-backed jackals came close around the tents several times
during the torrential rains. I think they winded the rhino, who was by
now exceedingly “niffy.” About six one evening, when the rain ceased for
a short five minutes, I had a shot at one venturesome jackal and caught
him in the shoulder. I had to rush after him and follow quite a long
way before I got within range again, when I finished the job with a long
shot. Clarence and one of the hunters brought his skin and head to camp.
I admire the black-backed jackal, next to the koodoo, more than any
other trophy to be found in Somaliland. It is quite unique in colouring.
A veritable admixture of the _beaux arts_ and the bizarre.

A fine day again, and with everything steaming like boiling water we
trekked on. Two or three of the camels were suffering terribly from
sore backs, and had to be placed _hors de combat_ and unloaded, thus
disorganising everything. We can take the average load at 250 pounds,
though it frequently exceeds this, because naturally loads vary with the
nature of the things to be carried, bulky or compact, easy or difficult.
On being required to walk, one sick animal refused to budge another
inch. It is very hard to judge the extent of the illness of a camel.
They do not act any differently, ill or well, as far as my small
experience goes. Clarence and the head camel-man made certain that the
creature was sick unto death, and finally it had to be shot. It would
not walk, we could not tow it, and humanity forbade our leaving it to
fend for itself. All the camels were bothered no end by a small fly, a
species of gad-fly, I think, not very large, but most mischievous.

One or two of the animals were so overcome with the attentions of these
pests of insects they took to rolling, which, all encumbered as the
camels were, could not but be exceedingly detrimental to the load. These
troubles continued for some days, and the camel we lost may have been
too badly bitten to go on. This fly is a cause of great loss to the
Somali herds. Another joined the attack, a fearsome creature too--much
larger again--and he seemed to prefer people to camels. We, Cecily
and myself, kept him off by bathing the exposed parts of our skin in
solution of carbolic, and this seemed to him an anathema-maranatha and
was to us a god-send. We only wished we had sufficient to tub all the
camels. I think our precautions against these annoying flies helped to
keep off the fearful ticks also. Our ponies were much affected by them,
and the camels, poor things, lived in a chronic state of providing
nourishment for the hateful little insects, which grew and fattened by
what they fed on. Some of the antelopes we shot had these ticks very
badly too, and in one or two cases the skin was marred thereby, being
pitted with small pin-head spots all over the even surface.

There was now such an abundance of water we decided to camp for a day
and have a washing of ourselves and our clothes. It was not clear water
as we use the word, but limpidly translucent compared to most of the
water holes we had struck lately. Game was plentiful again, but very,
very shy.

We went out at dawn and saw spoor of many varieties of game and rhino;
of the last a perfect maze of tracks. I had privately no intention,
however I may have play-acted to Cecily with a view of keeping up
appearances, of being in at another battue; but Fate, that tricksy dame,
ordained otherwise. As we were spooring for leopard, and hard on him,
we suddenly came on a vast rhino calmly lying down by a patch of guda
thorn. The idea of another fracas with an infuriated animal of the genus
was too much for me, and I shamelessly turned on my heel, taking the
precaution, however, to grab my rifle from my hunter as I passed him.

I put myself behind a little adad tree, and turned to see what was going
on. The great lumbering bulk stood up, winded us, saw us too, I should
think, and sniffed the air. There was very poor cover immediately around
the pachyderm, but a thick belt of khansa and mimosa jungle lay to our
left and the country behind us was fairly thick.

All this unexpected treat was joy untold to Cecily, I suppose; it was
absolute horror to me. If she could have had the affair all to herself
it wouldn’t have mattered, but how are you to know which hunter the
rhino may select to chase? His sight is so poor, his charge goes this
way or that, and has, in my experience, next to nothing to do with the
way of the wind; and all this makes it quite impossible to reduce the
possibilities of his onslaught to a mathematical calculation beforehand.
Another moment and the huge animal was rushing straight at my poor bit
of thorn bush, a mere broken reed of a shelter. What was I to do? Anger
the brute with a useless frontal shot, or fly on the wings of terror?
The wings of terror had it. I abandoned my untenable position, and
gained another very little better. I let the rhino have the right barrel
just as I installed myself, and looked for Cecily to finish the affair.
She was doing a scientific stalk on the flank.

The rhino was now spinning about and knocking up the dust in clouds.
I played Brer Rabbit and “lay low.” I saw Cecily expose herself to the
full view of the wounded animal, and her 12-bore spoke. We were spared
another charge, thank goodness; and as the dust subsided I saw the
rhino ambling quickly towards the thick cover, blood pouring from
its shoulder. We followed, discreetly, I assure you, as far as I’m
concerned, on the blood trail until we reached the fringe of jungle.
The men volunteered to beat, but I was set against this; so we wandered
about on the edge of this natural zareba awaiting developments, my heart
in my mouth the whole time. Intrepid Cecily was all for penetrating the
thorn, and at last came on a place she could at least peer into. There
was not a sound nor rustle, nor crackle of twig. Then Clarence, in evil
minute, suggested firing the place, and under Cecily’s directions at
once set about the business with his fire stick. I had often tried to
acquire the knack of summoning the spirit of flame thus, but had long
since given it up as an accomplishment impossible for me to learn.

The thorn was damp and took some time to ignite, but in half an hour the
blaze got a fair start and simply ate up all before it. We had to back
farther and farther away each moment. Volumes of smoke rolled away to
the northward, and the heat grew insufferable. It had been about as much
as we could stand before we began operations. The flames roared away,
licking up every trace of vegetation. I was so surprised no small
affrighted animals broke cover, but this was explained to my wondering
mind a moment later, when, to my amazement, a tawny lioness sprang from
the burning bush and, terror-stricken, passed close to me--so close
almost I could have touched her. I ran straight to my waiting pony held
by my syce at some distance, mounted, and calling to a couple of men
to follow, galloped on the track of the lioness. Occasionally I caught
glimpses of her as she cantered between the low-lying bushes. Then
she disappeared suddenly and precipitately. There was a small nullah
hereabouts, and I made certain the great cat had brought up there; so I
rode on and then settled down on the verge to wait for the shikaris to
come up. When they arrived, they surrounded the place in most daring
fashion, and began to prod with their spears into the thickest grass and
thorn, keeping up a hideous yelling the while.

A choking, gurgling roar, and the lioness was out and off. I hastily
brought up my rifle and fired. It was a shaky shot enough, and I only
got her in the hind quarter. Things looked a bit nasty as she turned on
us, ears laid back, mouth curled up in a furious snarl, and tail working
up and down like a clockwork toy. She sprang, as a set off, several feet
into the air. Such mighty bounds with a sideway twist about them, and I
did not delay longer.

Seeing the great head over my sights, I pulled the trigger. Still she
came on a few yards, worrying the ground with her mouth. Then the game
and magnificent creature crashed forward and never moved again-She was
a young lioness, in the heyday of beauty, and I sat down quivering all
over at the sight of so wondrous a prize. After directing the three men
who had followed to skin and decapitate my lioness, I worked back to
the retreat of the rhino. On my way I sighted a dibatag and a couple of
graceful oryx, but saw them disappear on the horizon without an attempt
to annex one of them. It was not only late, but the men had all they
could manage.

I imagined the rhino would be by now accounted for. It was--thoroughly!
Cicely met me as I neared the blackened waste, and explained they had
waited and waited for the rhino to break cover, expecting the rush every
second, and the flames and heat drove them almost out of range. Nothing
happened, and it was not until the whole brake of thorn was a heap of
ashes that they came on the pachyderm at last. His charred bulk lay in
the smouldering embers, and until the place cooled it was impossible
to retrieve his horns. What a pity and what a waste! We both cursed the
fire stick and our haste. One bullet, Cecily’s, I surmise, must have
penetrated the rhino’s heart, and after careering on for a short way the
stricken animal settled down silently to die. We were intensely put out.
Not even the beautiful lioness allayed our disappointment and chagrin.

[Illustration: 0205]

After a rest and a meal in camp we returned to the scene of the still
smoking barbecue. The vultures rose in a slothful lazy mass, and perched
again around us. The hide of the rhino was too roasted to be of any use,
and the men commenced sawing off the horns, a slow, weary job which we
left them to finish. Bed was what I prayed for just then. I was wearied
out. It had been our biggest, hottest day yet, and next morning, Sunday
too, I deliberately and carefully detained Morpheus--what a loop-hole
for a Somali scandal--until 9 a.m.




CHAPTER XII--OUR BUTLER LEVANTS


```O, I am out of breath in this fond chase

`````Midsummer Night’s Dream=


``Good morrow to you both; what counterfeit did I give you?

```The slip, sir, the slip

`````Romeo and Juliet=


|Whenever practicable, usually when we remained a day or two in the one
place, I made the men build me a little hut of bushes, so that if there
was any breeze it blew through the branches. At such times I made
my canvas residence a cache-tent, and gladly took up my abode in my
jerry-built shelter, esteeming myself lucky in having it. I should never
have done for a Bedouin or Baluchi. I hate and detest tents, even the
most sumptuous. They are the hottest and coldest residences I know. Give
me four walls and a roof of any sort! Be they never so humble they are
better than the best tent that ever was made. Really, if it hadn’t been
for the flies that unceasingly did worry, my _pied-a-terre_ was luxury,
and I could sing with unmixed pleasure as I looked across at my, for the
nonce, discarded tent, “I wouldn’t leave my little wooden hut for you.”

My furniture was of the “art” variety that you see so frequently
advertised in that useful little journal indispensable to housewives,
_Home Snips_. Two wooden boxes up-ended, with a box lid for top, formed
the table. It was simple and effective, and only lacked the necessary
Aspinall, hedge-sparrow blue for choice, to convert it into a joy for
ever. The remainder of “the suite” matched. A _herio_ made me a carpet,
a biscuit-box a foot-stool. Cecily went in for Spartan simplicity, and
her tent was quite like you read of famous generals who wilfully make
themselves unnecessarily uncomfortable.

Late one evening we had a fracas with the butler. That henchman entered
the precincts of our tent where we were hungrily awaiting supper, and
instead of depositing my cup of soup on to another “art” table presented
me with it in the form of an avalanche down my back. The soup was not
only hot, burning hot, but exceedingly messy, being of the variety known
to our cook as “thick”--_Anglice_, not sieved--and with more bits in it
than usual. Our appearance was not so enticing that it could bear being
played any pranks with, or putting to any additional strain. Moreover,
the cook had no more soup prepared. I had it all, he said. I had indeed!

I gave our butler a sound talking to for his carelessness in this matter
and in others, and incidentally cast doubts on the _savoir faire_ of
that English family who know what’s what. This was the last straw, and I
was answered in a furious jabber of talk. I could not make head nor tail
of it, or even get a word in edgeways. Clarence came to the rescue as
usual. He translated, and tried to stem the torrent of language.

Finally, the whole thing resolved itself into this. Our butler refused
to “buttle” any more. He gave notice, and desired to leave our service.
When I understood, I could not help laughing. I said of course I
accepted the notice, but how he proposed it to take effect was beyond
my understanding, as we were miles from Berbera, at the very back of
beyond, and there could be no means of leaving the caravan with
any degree of safety or sense. If the butler remained, as remain he
obviously must, I insisted on his buttling as usual, but better. He
withdrew at last, angry looking and discontented, and we went to bed.

I remember what a lively night it was. A lion roared for two hours
or more at intervals of ten minutes, very close to camp--such fine
majestic, rolling roars, ending each time in three rumbling “grumphs.”
 I hoped the watch watched, and looking forward to meeting my serenader
next day, I turned over and tried to sleep. What a glorious country to
be in! I might anticipate presenting myself on the morrow to a king, and
no mere ordinary mortal, without the “open sesame” of “let me introduce”
 being necessary. What a glorious country! Convention spelt with a little
c, and originality--that most excellent of things--everywhere rife. No
running of jungle affairs on the deadly tram-lines of tradition, and
everything new looked on askance. Mrs. Grundy does not live in the wild;
an’ she did conventionality would be taught to the jungle people,
and she would rob them of all their naturalness. Doesn’t she regard
originality very much in the light of a magazine of combustibles, and
take care to lose all the matchboxes? But I--superior I--in Somaliland
might strike, and strike, and strike.

Having once returned to Nature, one has eaten of the tree of life
and knowledge, and can never again be content with what we call
“civilisation.” Fortunately Nature can be discovered everywhere
quite close at hand if we hunt very carefully, but unless God is very
particularly kind with His storms and clouds, imagination has often to
do so much. Then, as if to remind me of my own smallness and impotence
and limitations, came that earthquake roar again.

In the morning breakfast was served by one of the hunters who told us
that Clarence--good man--was out betimes spooring for the lion of
the night, and we hurried our meal that we might not lose any time in
getting started out ourselves. The butler did not appear, and I did not
ask for him, because I judged he was trying to recover his lost temper
and sense of dignity. Breakfast over, Clarence rode into camp, and we
heard raised voices and much discussion. We went on cleaning rifles.
Presently a very perturbed Clarence hurried to us, and told us that
the butler had taken notice, yet without it had annexed one of our best
camels, its driver, a supply of food, and levanted! Heaven only knows
where! How did he propose to reach safety, all unarmed as he was too.
But--was he unarmed? As the thought struck us both instantaneously, we
rushed--Cecily and I--pell-mell to our armoury, and delved into it. In
an agony of fury we realised that our _ci-devant_ butler had taken with
him our ‘35 Winchester. I doubt if he ever fired a rifle in his life,
but I swore he shouldn’t learn on ours. I would go after him, and catch
up with him, if I had to pursue him all the way to Berbera itself.
My chance of meeting that lion--which Clarence had practically
located--were knocked out at 1000 to 1.

A few speedy directions and questions produced a couple of our best
camels, lightly laden, and the knowledge that the fugitive had about an
hour’s start of us, having indeed, waited to go until he saw Clarence
clear of the camp. I reproached the caravan that they had not prevented
the running away, but no sense could be driven into their stupid heads.
Every man feigned complete ignorance. The stolid “me no savey” of
the Chinaman is not a whit more obtuse or provoking than the Somali
equivalent. They can be as beautifully dense as the most wilfully
non-understanding Chinee. Hammers won’t drive a subject in if that
subject is, in their opinion, better kept out. They are diplomatic, but
maddening.

Our two camels for the pursuit were loaded up with a small amount of
food in case we were out all night, and taking my .500 Express as the
best all round rifle, I mounted, not without trepidation, an evil-looking
beast, whose driver greeted me with a tolerant and broad smile.
Clarence, as to the manner born, put himself on the other animal, and
with a waved “Good-bye” to Cecily, who, lucky person, was going after
King Leo, we set out. My irritation and annoyance at being so signally
done kept me up for a short time, but it was not really long before the
unaccustomed method of travel began to tell. I had never before been
for a long excursion on board a ship of the desert, certainly I had
previously no idea of what it could do going “full steam ahead.” It
is difficult to explain the matter delicately. To put it as nicely as
possible, I suffered horribly from “mal-de-camel.”

We never stopped, we rushed on at top speed. The way the camel-men
picked up the trail of the runaway was very clever, sorting it out
from other trails, and must, I think, have been born of centuries of
following. Sometimes the great splayed track lay ahead for all to see,
but ofttimes it was lost--to me--in a maze of stones and scrub and thick
country. We went on until, as far as I was concerned, the world was
revolving around me, the sun a gimlet to bore my brain, the dust a dense
curtain to my mind. I did not now look ahead. Vengeance and the desire
for it had left me. Let the man go, and the rifle with him. Probably it
would prove Nemesis enough without my taking on the function!

Suddenly Clarence shouted, and pointed enthusiastically to the horizon.
Yes, there was a twirling column of dust. The fugitive of course. We had
come up with him sooner than I thought. The driver urged along our camel
until we fairly shot over the ground, and presently we could hear the
pad, pad, pad of our stolen animal, and see plainly the recreant butler,
apparently in two minds whether to alter his course or not. His party
swerved suddenly, away to the left, towards a tangle of thorn country.
This was absolute nonsense, and I was provoked into firing anyhow, very
wide, I need hardly say _how_ wide, as a sort of warning to pull up.
The runaways slackened speed at once, and the chase ended like a pricked
bubble. We ranged alongside, and without speaking, bar a few curt
directions, turned campwards, and slowly--oh, how slowly--retraced our
way. We did not make home until 5.30, and during the whole of the hours
since morning we had been going solid, and of course had no opportunity
to get a meal. I personally did not require one, but the men must have
been hungry.

Terribly jolted and worn out I made for my little hut, and lay down
for an hour or so. Cecily was still out, and I resolved to wait for her
assistance to tell off our shameless henchman. She arrived at last from
a fruitless expedition. She came on the kill and followed the lion up,
saw him, then lost all trace of him in thick khansa cover. So we hoped
for better luck next day.

Clarence conducted the crest-fallen butler to the presence, and we
intimated to him that we were astonished, not to say disgusted; that the
promised bonus at the end of the trip was now non-existent as far as
he was concerned; and further, on returning to Berbera, he would be
indicted for the attempted stealing of the rifle and camel. These words
had tremendous effect. He begged us to forgive him. With sophistry
unequalled he explained that our ways were strange to him, that the
Mem-sahib in whose household he was such an ornament was not like unto
these Mem-sahibs.

She stayed at home, and we--“We scour the plain,” put in Cecily.

It was all very absurd, and as we were for the time being perfectly
impotent, however much we might bluster, we provisionally pardoned him
on condition that he returned to butler’s duty, and henceforth spelt it
with a capital D.

“Oh, frabjous day! Calloo! Callay!”

Our men reported that the lion--presumably the same lion--had returned
to his kill, and was now lying up in the bushes watching the meat. Our
tempers had recovered their balance, and we happily set out, Clarence
promising that we should “paint um day red.” His vocabulary was varied
enough to amuse us, and what little English he was absolute master of
was interspersed with the quaintest idioms of Hindostanee and American,
which he would bring out in whole representative sentences. His last
big “shikar” was with an American magnate who wanted, said Clarence, to
“shoot um libbah before um died.” Whether it was to be before the lion
died or the sportsman seemed a bit involved, though as it was obvious
that the sportsman could not very well go shooting after crossing the
“Great Divide,” the demise of the lion must have been referred to. It
certainly was more sporting to wish to shoot at the animal before it
expired than after.

It was the oddest thing in the world to hear that Americanism of
“Painting the town red” on the lips of the solemn Somali. Did he wonder
at its origin as I did? I remember hearing it for the first time in a
little Western mining camp, when its familiarity struck my ear. But it
eluded me, until at last I placed it. You remember where Dante, guided
by Virgil, comes on the suffering spirits of Paolo and Francesca:

“_Noi che tingemmo il mondo di sanguino_.”

There in a nutshell lies the origin of the “painting the town red”
 phrase. One cannot but admire the literary points of American slang,
though we know there is so little originality in the mind of man, even
of the American. There is no time to create. It is simpler to take the
ready-made, so that all our speech and writing is unconsciously but a
series of quotations from the great human poets, who expressed simple
human thoughts in the most perfect and yet the simplest words. Every
thought we have can be expressed in quotations from Horace, Dante, and
Shakespeare.

The strength of our party on that memorable morning comprised six of
us--Cecily, myself, Clarence and three hunters. The men led us first to
the kill, from which two sleuth-like forms glided away--jackals, young
ones, with youthful rough coats. Vultures poised motionless in the blue,
or nearer flew sluggishly, with legs hanging loosely, screaming.

The dead aoul poisoned the air with odoriferous whiffs, and I found it
difficult to believe that a lion had returned to a carcase in such an
advanced stage of decomposition, but apparently it was so. Among the
devious trails of hyæna and jackal were the indents of lion spoor.
Massed often, and there in the sand was the plainly seen mark of the
crouched beast as he gnawed his food. We found, too, at a short distance
a piece of dropped flesh, and either side of it the pugs holding on and
quiescent.

Our men, as a rule, wore tremendously heavy sandals, which turned up
at the front like the prow of a ship, but when stalking the hunters
discarded these and were barefooted. For stalking some game the lightest
of foot wear is essential, and though, as a rule, I wore nothing but
boots, I found a pair of moccasins very handy on occasions; they are
too hot, though, for wear in such a country, and the knowing and learned
shikari provides himself with cotton shoes. The thorns are too insistent
to make any light footwear pleasurable to me, but I have gone the length
of taking off my boots and running in stocking feet when a particularly
alert koodoo needed an exceptionally careful stalk, but it was a painful
business, even if necessary, and I don’t advocate it.

Two exquisite lesser koodoo does crossed our front going like the wind,
and we heard a distant bark. Otherwise the jungle slept in the heat of
the sun. Our ponies drooped their heads as the fierce rays smote them
between the eyes. Waves of heat seemed to come rising and rising as the
hoofs churned up the sand.

We dismounted presently, and two of the hunters bestrode the ponies and
fell behind. Fresh lion spoor was now crossing the old trail, and we
decided to follow it up. We came on some very dense mimosa and khansa,
and in this zareba the pugs vanished. We encircled the whole place.
There were no other prints. Our quarry was run to earth. Cecily fired
into the mimosa once, twice, and instantly, like a toy, the machinery
was set in motion, and great snarling growls breaking into stifled
roars broke on the quiet air. This was a most business-like lion, and
evidently was for putting up with none of our monkey tricks. The bushes
parted, and quicker than I can set it down a lion charged out straight,
like a whirlwind, past one of our men who stood next to me. The beast
would have gone on had not the hunter made the greatest possible
mistake. He bolted, thereby drawing attention to himself. The lion
turned on the man, catching him, it seemed to me, by the leg, and they
fell in an inextricable heap. We dared not fire because of the danger,
but not a moment was lost.

All the four hunters rallied to the aid of their comrade. One threw a
spear, which might have done some good had it been pitched accurately.
It fell wide. One smart little fellow actually ran up and whacked
the lion a resounding slap with a rifle--poor rifle! A most brave and
familiar way of acting. It was effectual though. The lion turned from
his purpose and made a bid for safety in the bushes again. I let fly my
right barrel at him as he crashed in, but know I missed, for all I
heard was metallic singing in my ears and no answering thud of a bullet
striking flesh. I went towards the place where the cat vanished. The
humane Cecily was attending to the injured man.

The lion betrayed his exact location by low growls, and I did all I
knew to induce him to charge out again. I shouted, the men shouted,
we whistled, we fired. Then the enraged animal took to roaring,
real resounding roars, in which his personal animus railed at us. I
instructed the men to remain as they were, talking and endeavouring to
weary the lion into breaking cover, whilst I did a stalk.

[Illustration: 0219]

When investigated from the other side, the citadel chosen for the great
stand was of less dense khansa, and the umbrella tops made great dark
shelters for the tunnels between the stems. It was most exciting and
dangerous, and I had so many things to plan and think out. I crawled
in, and commenced to work my way towards the place occupied by my enemy,
whose exact position could be located to a nicety by his growls and
snarls, and the noise he kept up was of the greatest help to me. Even
the lightest, deftest tracker could hardly go through bush like that in
silence.

It was very dark at first in my covert, but at intervals it lightened
up. I crawled for the best part of half an hour, and then, when my
aching hands almost refused to drag me farther, I found myself in dense
undergrowth, in the actual vicinity of the lion, who halfstanding,
half-crouching, was facing, in sparser cover the direction of my hunters
and the scene of the catastrophe. There was nothing to fire at but
swishing tail. The grass and aloes hid any vital part, and I dared not
miss, whatever came about. A heart shot, or a head shot it must be, or
the sportswoman! Oh, where was she! The thought struck through my brain
of the imminence of my danger should Clarence or one of the others take
to some flank movement whereby the present position of things might be
altered by a hair’s breadth. As it was, time was what I needed, and
I should get that. It was foolish of me to doubt my shikari’s common
sense. I had never known him fail, and he knew I was carefully stalking.
I heard their voices at intervals in the distance, buzzing, and it all
seemed some chimera of my brain. Myself in that hot jungle tangle, and
but twenty yards away a lion of mettle and business-like habits! I was
on my knees in half-raised position, and had he turned even in a half
circle, he must, I verily believe, have seen me, and sorted me out as
something untoward.

The air was stifling, and oh! how heavily I weighed on my knees! My
fighting weight seemed enormous as I supported it. It was eight stone
really and seemed like eighteen, but of course it was because, in my
excitement, Antæus-like, I pressed down heavily to something solid until
I drew my strength from earth, and thus took heart of grace. I carefully
got up my rifle. It seemed a long business. Did I really make no noise?
Strange crackling rustlings sounded in my ears, as at each growl I
seized the opportunity, and in the semi-obscurity of the reverberations
placed myself better. The lion came more into focus. I saw his side
where it sank in, then--farther. A heart-shaking second. My bullet was
too low. The vast body lashed round and round. I seemed to see what my
fate would be in another instant. My breath was coming in great sobs,
and I wondered whether the lion was choking or I. All this was in the
fraction of a moment. Then came my opportunity. His chest presented
itself fair and square like a target. I pressed my second trigger, and
then threw myself backwards and went anyhow as though the devil himself
was after me; like a streak of greased lightning. “You kill um libbah?”
 asked Clarence, who remained pretty much as I had last seen him.

“I don’t know,” I gasped, stupidly enough.

And neither did I.

Loading up carefully again, I carefully retraced my steps, Clarence
crawling after me. There was no sound. All was still as death. We
crept on until we reached my coign of vantage, and there ahead, prone,
motionless, lay a great yellow mass, some ten yards nearer than at my
first shot. He was dead indeed, and a very fine specimen of his kind.
Strangely enough, he had one eye missing, the hall-mark of some early
battle, and to this fact I possibly owed much of the credit I had been
taking to myself for my stalk. Then began the usual _modus operandi_ for
the animal’s dismemberment, and I cleared out of the place to find that
Cecily had taken the injured man back to camp, propping him up on her
pony with the help of the second hunter. My pony was amusing itself at
some distance, having dragged its moorings, and I caught him after a bit
of a tussle.

The invalid was given my tent, which smelt like concentrated essence of
High Churchism. Keating’s incense smouldered in one corner and burning
carbolic powder fought it for the mastery. Puzzled mosquitoes buzzed
in and out, but more out than in, thanks be. The man’s leg was torn in
strips which hung in two or three inch lengths, fleshy and horrible.
We arranged the torn shreds back, like patching an ornament minus the
seccotine. We covered the wounds with iodoform--very amateurishly of
course--and then bandaged it. Altogether I think the invalid was
rather pleased with himself, as he lay up in the cache-tent, feeling,
doubtless, the importance of having been in the jaws of a lion and come
out alive from such a gin.

As we could not move him for several days, we arranged to form quite a
good zareba, strong and comfortable, round our follower, and make flying
excursions of which it should be the base. The wounded hunter proved
a very unwilling dawdler, being an active-souled creature, and did not
take at all kindly to a life of enforced idleness. He acted like an
irritated vegetable, and only slept and drowsed the hours away, and kept
his leg up, because I solemnly told him he would die if he did not. I
think the active spirits in nations not yet civilised are always the
better. Laziness is demoralising anywhere, and with it one soon harks
back to the animal. Energetic souls are never idle from choice. The
power to idle successfully and with comfort must be inborn. During his
days of illness our charge grew really attached to us, and looked for
our coming with an expansive smile of welcome. We kept the fever down
with quinine, and before many weeks were over his scars were healed into
cicatrices, which, of course, he could never lose. They would, however,
be a glorious asset and advertisement, showing such undoubted zeal, and
should commend the proprietor to any one on the look-out for a truly
sporting hunter.

While I was examining the skull and wet skin of the lion as Clarence
pegged it out, our cook volunteered the information that the butler had
gone again on a still better camel, with the same driver, but minus a
rifle. I had thought he would settle down to a dreary acceptance of
the position. It really was uncomfortable to harbour two such unwilling
people in our otherwise contented caravan, so we decided they were
better gone even at the cost of a camel, and this time we wasted no
energy on trying to retrieve them. Whether they ever made safety again
we never could find out. Their movements from that hour were wrapped in
mystery, and the butler, the driver, and the camel disappeared for
ever from our ken. They must have wanted to go very badly. It was not
complimentary, but we put as good a face on the crusher as we could.




CHAPTER XIII--WE CROSS THE MAREHAN


```They are as sick that surfeit with too much,

```As they that starve with nothing

`````Merchant of Venice=


|And now for a few days we struck a period of bad luck. Our larder
was empty save for tins of food kept for dire emergencies, and the men
affected to be weak from scant rations. In any other caravan they would
never, or hardly ever, have had them supplemented by flesh food; but
we had thoroughly spoiled them. Game grew scarce, even the ubiquitous
dik-dik was absent, and any shot we got on these flying excursions of
ours away from the base camp we bungled. The more we failed the more
disconcerted we became. How true it is nothing succeeds like success! At
last matters got so bad we both of us always politely offered the other
the chance of a miss. I would first decline to take it, and then Cecily.
Meanwhile the buck made good its escape. We both got backward in coming
forward, and, in American parlance, were thoroughly rattled.

At last I volunteered to go out early one morning with Clarence, and we
put up a bunch of aoul some five hundred yards away. They winded us, and
went off at their best pace. In desperation I spurred on the pony, and
called to Clarence to try and round up the flying creatures from behind
a clump of mimosa and shoot one himself if he could. Of course they
passed the place sailing ere ever he reached it. As we galloped along
our rush disturbed another band of aoul at close quarters, and in sheer
desperation I checked my pony so suddenly that he sat down. I flung
myself into a semblance of a position, and fired at the vanishing
quarters of a fine-looking buck. He staggered and kicked out, but caught
up again with his fellows, and they all disappeared in a cloud of dust.
Mounting again, we dashed after them, and after a hard gallop came on
the wounded animal going slower and far separated from the others. I
dared not try a shot from the saddle, as the going was so bad; and if
there is one thing I object to it is a cocked rifle at a gallop over
ant-bear holes.

The aoul put on a spurt and my pony began to show signs of stress, and
blundering terribly let me down suddenly over a large-sized hole. Much
shaken, I gathered up my scattered wits and called to Clarence to ride
the buck down. It was certainly wounded, and, I judged, badly so. To
return to the famishing, reproachful camp without meat was unthinkable,
as we had done it so often lately. I sat where I was tossed and
meditated until I felt a burning sensation on my finger, sharp and
stinging, and found it to be a scorpion of sorts. He paid toll for such
a liberty, and the butt of my rifle finished him. I immediately sucked
the stung finger perseveringly. What an odd thing it is--or seems odd to
me, being unlearned--that no mischief ever comes from the poison being
sucked into the system _via_ the mouth. Not even the virulent poison of
the rattler harms this way. When I got into camp I soaked my finger in
ammonia, and so got off excellently well.

I bestrode my weary steed again, asking no more of it than a slow walk,
and followed on the traces of Clarence and the aoul. I shouted after a
while, and he replied. I came on him shortly, sitting by the dead aoul,
resting between moments of butchery. I hadn’t heard a shot, but I must
have been too dazed. We were a long way from camp, and the difficulty
confronted us of packing so large a buck back. We could only do it
conveniently, as I did not want to walk, minus the head and feet. The
horns were good, but the head as a trophy was ruined by the way its
neck was cut. The system of “hallal” doesn’t seem to allow of ordinary
throat-cutting, far down, where the gash does not show. The gash must
run from ear to ear, consequently it ruins a trophy for setting up
purposes. Laden, we hied us back to what Nathaniel Gubbins would call
“the home-sweet,” and were welcomed with glowing fires, on which the
aoul, in parts, was immediately frizzling. The men gorged incontinently,
as Cecily came in shortly after us with an oryx. These two beasts broke
the run of bad luck, and afterwards, for a few days, we could not miss a
shot. Our bullets seemed charmed. So did the men. They ate semiraw meat
in such large quantities I wondered they didn’t get mange and lose
their hair. There is no satisfying a Somali with meat. He cannot have
sufficient. If a man would give all the substance of a buck to him it
would utterly be condemned.

After what seemed like a very long period of doing very little, we
judged our follower was well enough to be moved, and very glad we were
to strike camp, as the men were none the better for so much idleness.
It takes about an hour to strike camp, load up, and set out. The camels
kneel for the process of lading, with an anchor in the shape of the
head rope tied behind the knees. Unloading is a much more expeditious
business. Everything comes off in a quarter the time taken up in putting
it on. Our rifles travelled in cases made to take two at full length.
They were not very cumbersome, and we felt that the terrific amount of
banging about they would receive during loading and unloading made it a
necessity to give them entire protection.

This, I feel sure, is the very moment your hardened, seasoned shikari
would seize to make a few pertinent remarks on the merits of various
sporting rifles. Anything I could say on the subject, either of rifles,
or the shooting on our expedition, I am diffident of setting down. The
time is not yet when masculinity will accept from a mere woman hints or
views on a question so essentially man’s own. In the days of my youth
I troubled myself to read all sorts of books on shooting: Hints to
beginners on how to shoot, hints to beginners on how not to shoot; how
to open your eyes; how to hold your rifle that you feel no recoil, how
the rifle must be fitted to your shoulder or you cannot do any good at
all with it; and (gem of all) how to be a good sportsman--as though one
could learn that from books!

All these tomes of wisdom were written for man by man. I tried to follow
out their often entirely opposite advice, but after a while, being a
woman and therefore contrary, I “chucked” all systems and manufactured
rules for myself. I don’t close either eye when I shoot. I shoot with
both open. In Cecily’s case her left is the most reliable, and she
makes provision accordingly. Our present rifles were not fitted to our
shoulders. So far as I know, they would have done nicely for any one’s
shoulder. Either we were making the best of things, putting up with
inconveniences unknown to us, or else there is a frightful lot of
rubbish written around a sportsman’s battery. In spite of any “advice”
 and “remarks” to the contrary, I consider my 12-bore, with soft lead
spherical bullets, driven by drams of powder, ideal for lion and all
more important, because dangerous, game. When one did get a bullet in it
stayed in, and there was no wasting of its dreadness on the desert air.
In reply to remarks as to the undoubted superiority of this, that, and
the other rifle, &c., &c., &c., I merely answer oracularly: “May be.”

“This, General,” an American hostess once remarked to General Sheridan,
who was busily manipulating an ordinary fork at the commencement of a
banquet, “_this_ is the oyster fork.”

“D----n it, madam,” answered the General, “I know it!”

In rifles, as in forks, and in many other things, _Chacun à son goût_.

Not even marksmanship can make a good sportsman, if there is any temper
or jealousy or smallness about one. A good sportsman is as happy on the
chance as on the certainty, and is not to be numbered as of the elect
because he has slaughtered so many head. It is not the quantity but the
quality that counts. Any one, short of an absolute lunatic, can hit a
large mark, say a buck, but not all men can hit it in a vital place.
Wounded animals, left in the jungle, are one of the most awful evidences
of unskilled shots, bad judgment, flurry, and an hundred other proofs
of things not learned or discovered for oneself. Of course, often it is
that the chances are entirely against one, and the quarry escapes; but
the careful, thoughtful, business-like shikari does not take on foolish
impossibilities. He knows that word without the “im,” and the result is
unerring success. Cecily and I never went in for anything but legitimate
rivalry, and unlike the majority of women who go in for games of chance
together never had the slightest desire to pull each other’s hair out,
or indulge in sarcastic badinage disguised as humour.

Wandering about the Mijertain we came on one or two wealthy tribes.
Their wealth consists of camels, and so many in a batch I had never
before seen. When grazing in their hundreds like this each mob of camels
is led by one of the most domineering character, who wears a bell, just
as the leader of cattle does in Canada. The camel-bell is made of wood,
carved by the natives, and, ringing in dull, toneless fashion, localises
the band.

We now began to be afraid of our reception. We were out of the beaten
track, and Clarence was getting a bit out of his depth. Nothing untoward
happened We did not allow any stranger into our zareba, and met every
caller outside. We felt that if we played the Englishman’s home is his
castle idea for all it was worth we should be on the safe side. The
Somali children seem to begin to work and carry heavy weights when ours
at home are just about beginning to think it is time to sit up, and I
never saw such out-sized heads! They were all head and “Little Mary.”
 With age equipoise asserts itself and the whole structure seems to
revert to humdrumidity. For three years at least every Somali could
qualify for Barnum’s as a freak. After that he begins to look like
every other of his countrymen. But not all are alike. For instance, the
head-man of this particular tribe was the most atrabilarious creature
possible to meet. I don’t think he could smile. We thought he must
be crossed in love, but Clarence said the Lothario had already worked
through a little matter of four wives, so I suppose his excursions into
the realms of Cupid had been fortunate rather than the reverse.

A Somali is entitled to four wives at once, and the number of his
children, as a rule, would rejoice the heart of President Roosevelt. The
more children the better for him, because they make for the strength
of the tribe. Even girls are not altogether despised assets, because in
their youth they are valuable to tend the camels and goats, and some day
can be bartered for sheep or ponies. Some Somali women go to their lords
with dowries, and, as with us at home, are the more important for their
wealth. Consideration is shown them that is lacking towards their poorer
sisters who toil and moil at heavy work the whole day long, and when on
trek load all the camels, and do all the heavy camp work.

We tried our best to propitiate this Mijertain savage--he really was an
ordinary savage--but he only glowered and received all overtures in the
worst possible taste and rudeness. One could have told he was rich even
if we hadn’t seen his banking account feeding in their thousands.

This tribe looked on the sporting spirit with distrust, evidently
suspecting ulterior motives. It would be hard to convey to an utterly
savage mind that we took on all this _storm und drang_ of a big
expedition merely because we loved it. Trophies here descended to being
meat, and meat of all else topped the scale. Still, one could only eat
a certain amount before being very ill, so why such energy to procure
an unlimited quantity? I don’t think our sex was ever discovered here at
all. Englishwomen were not exactly thick on the ground, and I think
it possible the melancholy Mijertain had never previously seen one.
Probably his intelligence, of a very low order indeed, did not take him
farther than thinking what particularly undersized, emasculated English
sahibs these two were.

After a consultation we decided it would be really nice to do a long
forced march and put some miles between our two encampments. Somehow,
we couldn’t fraternise. And that beautiful sentence, without which no
suburban friendship is ever cemented--“Now you’ve found your way here,
you must be sure to come again”--was quite useless to be spoken.
In Suburbia that formula is a solemn rite, never disregarded in the
formation of a friendship. You might as well forget to ask “Is your tea
agreeable?” at an “At-Home” day. But in Somaliland you had friendship
offered so differently, if indeed it was offered at all. It came in the
guise of a dirty _harn_ of camel’s milk, microbial and miasmatic, or in
the person of a warlike goat, who with no _mauvaise-honte_ is willing
to take the whole caravan to his horns, or in cases of overwhelming
friendliness a sheep may be presented, with no thought of return. We
were rarely privileged to reach this giddy height--too stand-offish, I
conclude.

We did a stalk about this time that amused us very much. We went out
alone on our ponies, and came on a couple of oryx in a plot of country
interspersed with light cover of mimosa and thorn bushes, who winded us
and were off immediately. They did not run very far, but inquisitively
turned to stare back, standing close together. They were considerably
out of range. We separated, and Cecily rode off, so that finally we
two and the oryx formed the points of a triangle. A nomadic Somali came
riding up, the wind blowing away from him screened his approach, but
presently the oryx caught sight of this new apparition and back my way
they raced. As they came level with my pony I blazed at the nearest
buck, but as I am no good at all at shooting from the saddle I missed
gloriously, and the confused and startled animal fled helter skelter,
and dashed headlong into Cecily, who, not ready for the unexpected
joust, went flying with the impact. Fortunately oryx carry their heads
high when at the gallop, so she wasn’t really hurt, only winded. It does
take one’s breath a bit to be cannonaded into by a flying buck of the
size of an oryx. I think this one was the last we saw for some time, as
this variety is very scarce in the Mijertain and Haweea country.

[Illustration: 0235]

The Somali looked very much astonished, and after remarking a few not
understood sentences, took to a course of signalling of which we hadn’t
the code. We agreed between ourselves that the man meant his _karia_
was “over there,” so we windmilled back with our arms to demonstrate we
lived “over here,” which thoroughly mystified and fogged him. He made
things a trifle clearer by pointing to his mouth, and pretending to
eat, which could not mean anything but “an invitation to lunch would be
acceptable.” We nodded benignly and signed to him to follow us, and rode
back to camp. He gorged on oryx, like all the rest, and seemed to be
about to put himself on the strength of the caravan, dawdling round
until later on in the evening. We seemed to act on these wandering
spirits like a flypaper does on flies, but not wanting any more stickers
I bade Clarence ask our friend if they wouldn’t be missing him at home.
And the last I saw of our visitor was his outlined figure, in tattered
tobe, riding away, gnawing a lump of meat, a “speed the parting guest”
 present.

This particular part of the world was overdone with snakes, of a deadly
variety, black and horrible looking. I went warily now, I can tell you,
and there was no more tracking for a few days in anything but my stout
boots.

We next filled up every available thing that held water, and launched
ourselves fairly on to the Marehan Desert. Never was the word more apt.
The place was deserted by man and beast. There was no life nor thing
stirring. We marched the first day from dawn to about 10 a.m., when the
fierce sun forced us to take shelter in hastily erected tents. Even the
men, accustomed to the glare, made shift to primitive shelters from the
_herios_. The ponies stood up well, and the camels were calm as ever.
Oh, the heat of that frightful noon-day! We did not wish to eat, and put
off meals until the evening. The men were now on dates and rice, as we
had no dried meat, and fresh meat, even if we had been able to get it,
would not have kept an hour.

In the evening we doled out the water, and the ponies got their
insufficient share. Afterwards we marched on, travelling until very
late, or rather early. It was nearly full moon again, and the hideous
parched-up desert looked quite pretty, and was busy trying to pass
itself off as a delectable country. After too little of bed we rose and
toiled on until 9.30, when we caved in, this time very thoroughly,
as Cecily had a bad touch of the sun and was in rather a bad way. But
progress we must, as time was of the utmost consequence. I had a sort
of hammock rigged up, made from a camel mat, with a shelter over it;
and she was carried along in it that evening for some miles. During the
night hours the bigness of the job we had taken on began to appal me. I
wished myself back in the woodlands of Galadi. But it is not of much use
in purgatory to sigh for heaven!

Next dawn we could do no marching at all, and I was forced to use an
unlimited amount of the precious water to keep wet the handkerchief on
Cecily’s burning head, occasionally pouring some over her lavishly and
in regardless-of-consequence fashion. The heat in the tent, as out, was
unspeakable; and I spent most of the hours of that dreadful day fanning
my cousin, who was really in parlous state. Clarence told me late on in
the afternoon we must push on, whatever happened, as the water was very
low indeed. I gave the word, and we marched, Cecily carried as before.
We heard a lion roaring, but did not see anything, and it was not very
likely we should. Night was the only bearable time, and I would it had
perpetually remained night.

Not until the next night did we come on some water-holes, and they were
dry! I could not persuade the men to camp; they said the place was not
good, and mysterious things of that kind. I found out that the place
was supposed to be haunted by spirits of some sort, and it was no use
ordering or commanding, for the men would not stay to spend a night in
the vicinity. We had to go on. Matters were now really serious.

Cecily was much better, though still travelling luxuriously, but there
was not much more than a gallon of water left. We opened a bottle of
lukewarm champagne and drank a little at intervals, but this silly idea
made us nearly frantic with thirst, and we wished we hadn’t thought of
it. The ponies, poor creatures, had been without water for hours, and
their lolling tongues and straining eyes went to our hearts. Cecily was
the more concerned, because she said but for her the water would have
lasted. I assured her it was my prodigality, but in any case it was
water well wasted, as she was almost herself again.

I consulted with Clarence, and we found that by going on, never
stopping, for another twenty miles we should make wells. Twenty miles
was a big thing to us then with horses and men in the state ours were.
I asked them, through Clarence, to “make an effort,” and promised them
water by the morning. We struck camp on a grilling afternoon at 4.30.
Cecily in her hammock, I alternately walking to ease my pony, and then
mounting for a little to ease myself. I will not describe the tramp
through the night, or how very childish the men got. I prefer the
English way of bearing small troubles--in silence. I think it is
embarrassing to be let in on the ground floor of anyone’s emotion.

Let it pass!

A few camel men raced on ahead, and got to the wells before the main
caravan, who were able to quicken the pace pathetically little, and we
made safety, which this time spelt water, about an hour after dawn. I
saw the ponies watered myself before turning in, and I slept eight hours
straight on end.

Going out late in the evening with the object of securing something for
the pot, I came on a regular aviary of birds. Sand grouse and pigeons,
guinea-fowl and wild geese, and small birds too in thousands. I lay down
for a little and watched the small ones preparing for the night. I love
the tiny birds of Somaliland, and never wearied of studying their pretty
ways. It seems to me that they are most beautiful in proportion to their
size of any bird life. The protections, the pleadings, the dances, the
love-making, the little furies, the make-believes, cannot be excelled in
charm.

I was too wearied out to bother much, even though food in plenty was
there to my hand, and I don’t like killing anything so tame, even when I
ought to. When I got back to camp I sent Clarence out with instructions
to shoot some guinea-fowl and geese.

A vast caravan of some hundreds arrived at the wells in the middle of
that night, and things hummed for an hour or so. I was not disturbed,
except by the wrangling that went on all the hours until dawn. It was
very cold, and my “carpet” ended on the top of me!




CHAPTER XIV--WE REACH A REAL LAKE


```So fair a troop

```Call it a travel that thou tak’st for pleasure

`````King Richard II=


|In the morning we found ourselves the centre of an admiring throng.
Every mouthful of my breakfast was criticised and commented on, every
square yard of camp was congested with Somalis, and when one, more
daring than the rest, embraced a rifle box, tight round its waist, as
though to feel the weight, and then let it drop, bump, my amazement and
horror knew no bounds. Even had he known the contents I don’t suppose
the treatment meted out would have been any kinder. The most experienced
native hunter has an idea that rifles are non-breakable, and a small
kink or bulge here and there can make no possible difference! But
this--_this_ was too much. I could not order the zareba to be cleared,
for the good reason we had no zareba, having been too tired the previous
day to form one. I could, and did, however, order the tents to be
struck, and meanwhile Cecily watched like a detective at a fashionable
wedding over the treasures. It would have been fairly easy to have lost
bits of our kit in such crowds.

Marching until about eleven, we settled down once more, only to be
immediately disturbed by a messenger from the head-man of the tribe just
so gladly parted from, who was followed hard on his tracks by a number
of horsemen, streaming across the plain, threading in and out between
the clumps of durr grass, the sun glinting on their shining spears.

They very kindly wished to entertain us with a species of circus
performance, known as the _dibâltig,_ a great equestrian feat, carried
out in this case by some fifty Somalis on typical native ponies got up
for the occasion--a veritable attempt to make silk purses out of sow’s
ears--in trappings of red, and many tassels. Their riders were dressed
in brilliantly dyed tobes of green and scarlet and blue, and each man
carried a complete warrior’s kit of shield, spear, and short sword.
It was nice that the performance did not wait for us to go to it, but
placed itself right in our way like this--a great improvement on the
system of amusements at home. Our men gave up all idea of doing any
camp work for the time, and stood in an admiring throng in a half-circle
behind Cecily and myself, who were allowed a box each to sit on.

On a prairie-like waste of sand the Somalis formed in an even line, and
with the usual “Salaam aleikum,” the show began. One of the horsemen
advanced slightly, and still sitting in his peaked saddle, began to sing
a long chant. I do not know if he was chosen as chorister because of
some hereditary right in his family, or by favour, or because of the
fancied excellence of his voice. With every singer not all are pleased.
So I will just state that this one sang. I need not say _how_. It
is rude to look a gift horse in the mouth, and this was a free
entertainment. The warbler continued his romance and pæan in various
tones for a long time when, suddenly, at a more screeching note than
usual, every man left the line and galloped frantically about the sand,
never knocking into each other, throwing spears with all their force
here, there, and everywhere, to catch them up again as the ponies dashed
past. The pace grew hotter, and presently each rider was enveloped in a
cloud of dust, and we could only see the energetic frantic forms through
a maze of sand. It reached us and set us coughing. The riders seemed
almost to lift the ponies by the grip of the knees and the balance
seemed perfect, and the greatest surprise was that something other than
the ground was not jabbed by the flying spears. Some good throwers could
attain a distance of about seventy to eighty yards.

They all careered about like possessed creatures in a turmoil of tossed
up sand and wild excitement, when, at a signal may be, but I saw none,
back the whole lot raced, straight like an arrow from a bow, so swiftly,
I thought we should be ridden over. But of course we had to sit tight,
and pretend we were not in fear and trembling about the issue of so
furious a charge. The poor ponies were reined in at our very feet so
jerkily and cruelly that the blood started from the overstrained corners
of their mouths. Then crowding around us, jostling and pushing each
other, the animals gasped and panted their hearts out. I longed to take
the whole lot to the wells to drink but of course we had to go through
the ceremonial properly. The dibaltig is a Somali way of doing honour or
paying allegiance, and is only performed at the election of a Sultan, or
for the offering of deference due to an English traveller.

With spears held aloft the Somalis united in the strident familiar “Mot!
Mot! Mot! io Mot!” (Hail! Hail! Hail! again Hail!)--to which, as a safe
remark, I replied “Mot!” The wrong thing, of course, and Clarence, who
stood just behind, whispered I was to say “Thank you,” which I did in
Somali, very badly.

Then we invited our circus party to a meal, and I said if they could
produce a couple of sheep from somewhere I would pay for the banquet.
We got through all right, but the whole of the day was taken up with
the princely entertainment. The sheep duly arrived, and the entire camp
helped to roast them, when with bowls of rice and _ghee_ as a top up,
every one made merry at our expense. We bestowed a few presents also, of
which the most successful was a _tusba_, wooden beads to be counted in
prayer saying. I was sorry we had not provided ourselves with more of
these to give away, as they seemed so intensely popular. Cecily gave one
Berserk a piece of gay red ribbon, and he seemed very much delighted.
They do not care for things of which no use can be made, as they are not
a silly nation. Red scarves and ribbon can always be used up effectively
for the ponies’ trappings on dibaltig and other great occasions.

We managed to effect an exchange here. I wanted a couple of the native
dyed blue and red _khaili_ tobes to take home as souvenirs, so Clarence
managed it for us by handing over two new white ones, a turban, and a
couple of iron tent pegs. These last were great treasures, as they can
be fashioned into spear heads. The throwing spear is a cruel barbed
affair, but some are plain. Accurately pitched it is a deadly weapon,
and the Somali as he throws gives the spear a smart knock on the palm of
his hand, which conveys an odd trembling that keeps the shaft straight
as it flies through the air. The spear blades take different shapes
in the different tribes, but shields seem to be of uniform pattern--of
oryx, rhino, or other leather, made with a handle at the back.

We did a short march in the evening and were spared the trouble of
building a zareba, and like cuckoos, took up a place in a nest of some
one’s making. It had been evacuated long enough to be fairly clean, and
did us well with a little patching. Ant-hills around us were so numerous
we seemed in the centre of some human settlement. That night a leopard
entered our zareba and, regardless of the fires and the watch, clawed
one of the ponies badly, being only driven off by having a rifle fired
at him. Even at such close quarters the bullet found no billet, as there
was no sign of the blood trail. We could clearly see the spot where our
visitor entered; the thorn was lower and weaker there. We decided to
remain over the next night and try and catch him. I gave orders for
somebody to ride back towards the camp of our dibaltig friends and, if
possible, buy a goat for tying up. Meanwhile, Cecily and I went out on a
sort of prospecting excursion. We actually came on some water oozing up
through a rock, not standing or sluggish. So we sent a man back to camp
to tell the head camel man to have out all his animals and water them
whether they wanted it or not.

We struck a well-defined caravan route, probably the road to Wardare
over the Marehan. We arrived by a more direct line from Galadi. Game is
always scarcer on frequented ways, so we turned off into the wilderness.

A rocky nullah lay to our left, and we caught a glimpse of a fine hyæna
looking over the country. He stood on the summit of a pile of whitish
rock, clearly outlined, and as he winded us, or caught a glimpse of the
leading figures, he was off his pinnacle with a mighty bound and away
into the adad bushes behind him. A little farther we came on fresh lion
spoor, and followed it up only to overrun it. The ground here was for
the most part so stony and baked up it was impossible to track at all.
We held on, searching in circles and then pursuing the line we thought
most likely. We were more than rewarded. Under a shady guda tree lay a
vast lioness with year-old cub. Our men ran in different directions to
cut off the retreat, but we called to them to come back. We had quite
enough skins without trying to deplete the country of a lioness at this
stage of the expedition, especially as the cub was small, and not yet
thoroughly able to fight his own battles. She would have to wage war
for herself and him. I dislike all wholesale slaughter; it ruins any
sporting ground.

Interested, we watched the two cats cantering off, shoulder to shoulder,
far out into the open country beyond our ken. Our men whispered among
themselves. We were out with the second hunter, as Clarence was occupied
in camp. They were puzzled evidently. As a result of a long course of
noticing that to many white shikaris a lion is a lion, and has no sex or
age, it seemed to the native mind a remarkably odd circumstance that we
made no effort at all to bag two specimens at one fell swoop. I never
had any scruples about killing hyenas. They are not to be classed as
among the more valuable fauna, being so numerous and productive, and
such low-down sneaking creatures, doing such harm among the herds
and _karias_, carrying off the children so frequently, and always
maltreating the face, as if with some evil design, voraciously tearing
it before it commences on any other part.

We entered a little forest of khansa and adad, sombre and dark. But in
the great tunnellings it was possible to see ahead for a fair distance.
We were just examining a bit of gum-arabic with faint tracery on it when
a hunter pulled my sleeve. There, a great way off, going with the wind,
moving with a rolling gait, was a lion; head carried low as is their
wont, and going along at a smart pace. Signing to the syce to stand
there with the ponies, Cecily and I rushed down the path the lion had
taken. But we never sighted him again. The jungle grew thicker, and it
was getting late, so we were forced to abandon the stalk, returning to
our distant camp after a blank day.

The goat had been procured, and after supper we had it tied in between
the fences of the zareba. Our stolen homestead being of native make,
I had a great loop-hole made for me in the inner circle and remained
inside our main camp, You have to do this miserable form of sport to
bag leopards, because they are too cunning as a rule to appear in the
day-time, and rarely walk about in the open way lions will. There is
nothing magnificent about the character of a leopard. He is a mere
cunning thief.

A rush, and the leopard was on his prey, his side towards me, his tail
slowly lashing from left to right with pleasure as he drank the warm
blood. I carefully sighted. It was not a dark night, and I simply
couldn’t miss. Bang! Then the second barrel. The whole caravan turned
out, and buzzed like disturbed bees, one or two wakeful spirits singing
the chant they keep for the occasion of the killing of some dangerous
beast. I had the leopard kept as he was until morning, when I examined
him to find he was of the Marehan variety, or hunting leopard, quite
different to his first cousin _Felis pardus_. His head was smaller, and
much more cunning looking, and he was distinguished from the panther by
non-retractile claws. He was fawn in colour, and his teeth were old and
much worn.

It took two men now pretty well all their time to see after the
trophies, and bar the way they went on with anything to do with
wart-hog, they really were most assiduous and careful. At first the men
actually routed us out every time the loading-up commenced in order that
we should put bits of pig on to the pack camels! We struck. It was going
a little too far. We made a huge fuss, and some one, probably the cook,
who seemed a more casual person than most, attended to this little
matter from that time onwards, and things went quite smoothly. I am sure
these scruples about pigs are very largely labour-saving dodges.

Next morning as we marched we came on a half-eaten lesser koodoo,
surrounded by a lot of kites, vultures, and white carrion storks, tall,
imposing-looking birds. We shot one to cure as a specimen, damaging it
rather. It had a horrid smell, but was very handsome. One of the hunters
skinned it at our next camp.

The American who was out with Clarence on his last big shikar seemed to
have been outrageously free and easy in his dealings with the men. In
fact, in one or two trifling ways such habits as we heard of had rather
been to Clarence’s detriment. A very little encouragement breeds too
great familiarity in any native of narrow mind. I do not mean to infer
that Clarence presumed, or that his judgment was ever at fault in his
dealings with us, merely that I was annoyed to hear some of his stories
relating to the terms on which the men of the camp were on with the
free and open-hearted Yankee. One would think that an American, with
the nigger problem ever before him, would be more stand-offish than
most people. May be he considered himself on a real holiday, and let his
national socialistic tendencies run riot. This is not “writ sarcastic,”
 for I’m a Socialist myself, and if I were a professional politician I
should be a Socialist of a kind that very soon, in our time, will be the
usual type all over the world. At present, the Socialists, by going
too far, by plucking the fruit ere it is ripe, have brought ridicule
on themselves and their cause, and by associating themselves with
nihilists, anarchists, and destructionists generally, have alienated the
sympathy of all moderate, gradual, and practical reformers. The days for
revolutions have gone by, and the reforms urgently required by almost
every European nation can take place without the painting red of the
great cities.

[Illustration: 0251]

Gracious! I am digressing! And talking like a suffragette! This is
supposed to be a book on sport--mostly. Other things will creep in, and
come crowding to my pen, crying, “Put me down! Put me down!” But--a big
But: did you ever know a woman stick to the point?

Everywhere we came on ancient elephant tracks, but I think it would have
been difficult to find any sort of a specimen. We heard of none having
been seen for years, yet it has always been understood that at no
distant time this part of the Haweea was a resort for herds of the great
pachyderms.

We were now not more than a week’s trek of the east coast line.
Wonderful! Or we thought it so who had marched from Berbera. At our
next halt we came on a lake, a real lake, a delightful spot, quite a
good-sized sheet of water, 125 yards or so across, and formed in a basin
of gypsum-like rock. We had not seen so much water _en masse_ since
leaving the sea, and were so overjoyed and charmed with it that we
ordered the tents to be placed on the verge, so that the ripples lapped
up to our very feet. It was quite sea-side, or perhaps, more than
anything, reminiscent of a park at home, for all varieties of birds
floated on the surface and waded on the edge. When I threw broken
biscuit to them they paddled to me in their dozens, flying over each
other in the hurry to be first.

Of course, a swim was what appealed most to us. To be wet all over at
one time instead of furtive dabs with a damp sponge seemed the acme of
desirability. It seemed difficult of accomplishment. I don’t care for
mixed bathing at home--if the usual percentage of some twenty women
to three men can be called “mixed”--and then there was the awkwardness
about kit. Cecily suggested, in evil moment, cutting up the _khaili_
tobes. And we did, fashioning them into bathing-suits during the hot
hours of the afternoon, when we should have been using them. The
result might not have passed at Ostend; they were a _succès fou_ at
Sinna-dogho. On giving orders that the lake was to be reserved for us
at five o’clock--the men, who were good swimmers, having been dashing in
and out all day--the whole camp lined up to see the Mem-sahibs in a new
phase. It _was_ funny. We had made the tunics sleeveless, and from the
wrist up our skin was as white as white could be, but from the wrist
down we were Somali colour to our fingertips.

We ran in out of our tents, and words cannot tell how glorious that swim
was. We dived, we raced, we floated, we dabbled, until at last we knew
we must get out, for the water was quite cold. It was altogether
a rarity in Somaliland. The result will seem absurd, I know. Those
wretched _khaili_ tobes! The dye came straight out of them when wet, and
on to us-We found ourselves converted into woaded Britons! It was quite
a catastrophe, if ridiculous, and bothered us considerably, and at
night, very late, when it was quite dark, we went across to the other
side of’ the lake and had a real good scrub with any amount of water
to draw on. Coming back, something started up so close to me, I felt it
brush my hand--something furry. A wild dog, I imagine, for we saw many
next day.

It was an absolute joy to breakfast by the cool rippling waters, and we
could hardly bear to leave it to strike on to Joh, so remained all day,
and then, in the late afternoon, regretfully said “good-bye.” After a
short march we came on another small lake, not a patch on Sinnadogho,
but we liked it because it was wet. The country now was of the most
rolling description, intensely stony, with small rounded hills like
Atlantic billows, and in between good grass and grazing for many camels.
On the top of each rise there was thorn jungle, thick or sparse, and
stunted-looking guda trees. It was a most peculiar tract, holding on
like this for some way. We came on herds of camels and goats grazing,
this time in charge of men, and no _karia_ seemed visible for miles. We
procured some camel’s milk for the men, as it is such a treat to them.
We ourselves, however, liked it no better than before.

A Somali shepherd wished to tack on to us here, deserting his charge,
and as he seemed so very keen about it, and Clarence said he could do
with another man, we assented. It is the dream with some of these jungle
people to taste the sweets of civilisation, make money, and then return
to his tribe, acquiring many camels and wealth of goats and sheep, and
it is very strange that in no time he becomes a jungly person again,
casting off the trammels of civilisation with ease after having lived
perhaps for two or three years in the service of a white man. A very
good thing it is so too. For the savage who lives in the wild is far
more to be admired, and is altogether a more estimable creature than the
savage who drives you about Aden, or hauls your boxes about at Berbera.
Like many other wanderers, he learns the white man’s follies and faults
and none of his better attributes.

And so it comes about, once in a while, you enter a _karia_, with every
evidence of native domesticity about it, and are greeted by the village
head-man without the usual “Nabad,” or “Salaam aleikum,” and in great
amaze, you hear an English salutation.

We camped for the night at a place of deep stone wells. If game seemed
scarce, water was plentiful. Next day we came on a Somali encampment
where lions were provided against and so must occasionally come to
call. All manner of scare-lions were set about the zareba, torn herios
arranged flag-like on broken spears, and an ingenious scheme for making
a scratching noise in a wind amused us very much. It was a rough piece
of iron, strung on a bit of leather rope, and its duty was to scrape
against a flint set in a contrivance of wood. Poor protections against
so fierce a foe as a lion! This tribe seemed none too friendly, and we
put a couple of miles between us ere we camped.

We sighted a dibatag buck, shy as a hawk. This was a part of the country
destitute of game apparently. Only the useful dik-dik abode with us to
fill the pot.

To Joh next day. There was nothing to tell us it was Joh, any more than
Bob or Tom. The only reason it had for being specified as a place at all
was that it had a very superior well with running water. Even that did
not please half the caravan, for we saw them, in preference, choose a
dirty mud-hole and drink from it. We did a big day’s excursion into the
jungle, trying to come on spoor of any animal where spoor was not. As a
resort for game this part of Somaliland seems unpopular. I cannot think
why. Were I a lion, far rather would I haunt the shores of the lake at
Sinna-dogho than grill on the sands of the Ogaden.




CHAPTER XV--ANOTHER GAP IN OUR RANKS


```Give thy thoughts no tongue

`````Hamlet=


```Ay, but to die, and go we know not where

`````Measure for Measure=


|The poor pony which the leopard had pounced upon was now in grievous
plight, hardly able to drag itself along, and the condition of his
wounds, though we had done all we could, can better be imagined than
described. I judged it kindest to read the death warrant, and the
unfortunate creature was led away from camp, going very painfully, to
be shot. His knell rang out as we were dressing, and rather spoilt our
breakfast. We had grown by this time to be quite fond of all the ponies;
even “Sceptre” counted as a friend of standing.

Leaving Joh about 8.30, we passed the spot where the men had buried our
steed, not deeply, I fear, and as the caravan came up a great horde of
yellowish animals ceased their depredations and made off. Cecily, who
was walking, dropped one, I am glad to say, and the others loped away
at break-neck speed. It was a fine vicious-looking animal, the sort of
creature you would not care to meet if it happened to be hungry, and we
afterwards knew it to be a Cape hunting-dog.

There were dabs of black and white here and there on its thick
khaki-coloured coat, and the tail was immense, and white tipped. Each
foot had but four toes, with much-worn claws. We delayed progress for a
little while for the skin to be secured. Meanwhile, we rode off a short
distance and sighted some gerenük, far out of range, and dik-dik in
multitudes popped up.

We got into some thick thorn cover, too dense for the ponies’ comfort,
after a short ten minutes, and turning, on another path, we startled
some large animal which crashed off in front of us. We separated,
dashing different ways, to try and cut whatever it was off, and saw a
reddish antelope careering away across a small open expanse. It was
a gerenük, hornless; a doe, of course--I say “of course,” because our
luck, or rather the lack of it, in this part of the world, was most
depressing. To have endured that Marehan Desert for such “sport” as
this! We kicked ourselves, figuratively speaking, every day.

Our next halt at a place garnished with a name was El Dara. “El” in
Somali parlance means “well,” so anything “El” signifies water ought to
be in the vicinity. Very often it isn’t. But it ought to be--like a good
many other things.

I don’t see how any one could master the Somali language thoroughly--any
foreigner, I mean. There are no books to be got about it, because the
language has not as yet been reduced or elevated by pen and ink. Reading
anything seems an intense puzzle to the native mind, and to be able to
do it raises one miles in their estimation! Only the scholars can read
the Koran in Arabic. It would not be to the advantage of the mullahs
if any one and every one could accomplish this feat. Not one of our men
could even write, much less read.

I had taken a couple of favourite books along with me, as every
traveller must who will be away from libraries and would yet change
literary diet. In my moments of leisure for reading I accompanied
Elizabeth in Rugen, or wandered with her through that solitary summer.
She was very good to me, but she bored Clarence almost to tears. I read
him a little one afternoon in response to his demands to know what the
book was all about, and after a short while, thinking he was very quiet,
I looked up; the vandal slept!

Sunday again.

After the great heat of the early hours of the afternoon we made another
start, heading straight now for the return journey over the Marehan.
Cecily bagged a couple of dik-dik out of a bunch of three. All those
hereabouts did not find the two-is-company axiom worth considering, and
ran about everywhere in threes. We secured two guinea fowl, too, for
future meals. They were decidedly gamey by night; the heat was so
against keeping any sort of meat. I very often thought this unceasing
pondering on what could be provided for the next feast made for dreadful
greediness. When we pitched tents Clarence reported that one of the
camel men very sick. “Him die all right.” I was not very much put about,
because by this I had learned the Somali ways, and knew that every
one of them considers himself at the portals of death’s door if he has
merely a pain somewhere. They cannot be called cowards by any means, and
will bear pain well enough when it comes, but in minor illnesses they
cave in sooner than any other nation I have come across, and get so
terribly alarmed about themselves. Theirs is not the stoicism of the
American Indian, in matters large and small, the delightful _sangfroid_
of the Chinaman is absent, and the calm of the Englishman unknown. We
had really, up to now, been singularly fortunate in the health of the
caravan, and most of the minor ills from which the men had suffered
could fairly have been ascribed to gorging. This gluttony over meat
occasionally landed them into double-distilled bilious attacks.

I was in a frightful tantrum with some one--of course nobody would own
to being the delinquent--who had dropped, or somehow made away with,
the very best oryx shield we had. Going over the trophies, which we knew
individually, I missed the treasure. The immortal one counselled “Give
thy thoughts no tongue.” But, after all, he was giving directions to a
young man just about to go out into the world, and had not dreamed of
the conditions that would govern the loss of an oryx shield most hardly
come by. I gave all the thoughts I had by me vehement voice, and, more
than that, I borrowed a few from Cecily.

We had camped where there had once been a lake as large as at
Sinnadogho. It was now a mere hole, and all the one-time springs were
dry. Some Midgan hunters here gave us news of having seen a lion an hour
or so ago. No wonder they reported such a find.

Lions and all other game seemed about to follow the dodo in these parts.
We were so thoroughly disgusted now that all our object was to push back
to our old haunts in the Ogaden, and enjoy ourselves for the short time
left to us in the country. I am not wilfully rubbing it in about this
Marehan and Haweea locality, because I myself hate bewailing as much as
any one. But, to let you in on the ground floor, all this part of the
expedition was hateful, and our one desire was to get it over. No wonder
our shikari uncle, wise in his generation, had never passed the Bun
Arnwein. We intended to lie low about our having done so also.

After our temper had dwindled a little; we went to see the sick man,
armed with a few medicines, and our vexation merged into forgetfulness,
and then to pity. The poor fellow lay on a camel mat, his dirty tobe
tangled about him, in acute pain, and often in delirium. It could not
be a touch of the sun very well, for Somalis and the sun are well
acquainted. Cecily suggested that dirty water of a short time ago as the
root of the evil, but here again, had we not seen the men drinking quite
as filthy water, and thriving the better for it. We really were stuck to
know what to do, and fled to our everlasting remedy, champagne. It was
difficult to get any down, and the little we managed to dispose of
made no earthly difference to the writhing man. Cecily tried catapultic
questions in a Somali accent that came from her inner consciousness.

“Wurrer anoncsha” (head-ache)?

“Aloche anonesha” (stomach-ache)?

There was no reply, and Cecily had expended all the lingo she knew.

The man went on suffering all night, and we did all we could, putting
mustard leaves on his side and keeping him warm, for the nights here
were bitterly cold. Ever and again we tried to force champagne between
his set teeth. Of no avail. He died about five o’clock in the morning.
Clarence said it was Kismet, but I think, and always shall, it was a
newt. Anyway, it was something swallowed in that filthy water, too much
even for the inner mechanism of a Somali.

[Illustration: 0263]

Cecily and I retired to get some sleep if possible, and the men buried
their unfortunate comrade. We did not attend, as it is always so
intensely piteous a ceremony--a burial without a coffin--at least to
me it seems far worse than seeing a coffin put into the earth. I gave
Clarence a blanket to wrap our follower in. He seemed amused, and
certainly did not use it, for I saw him lapped in it a night or so
later. I rebuked him, but he said it was a different blanket. All
men are liars, and though an estimable servant, our head-man was no
exception to the rule.

We investigated to see that the funeral had been conducted properly,
and ordered more stones and brushwood to be piled on top, such a rampart
indeed that Clarence said we were giving our dead friend the grave of a
chief. Then, in the late afternoon we marched away, leaving the lonely
stockade behind us. Every man of the caravan threw some grass upon the
grave and, touching their ears, prayed to Allah.

Cecily and I could not help feeling very sorry, but in half an hour the
men had all forgotten, and marched chanting a droning song. The camels
that had been the charge of the dead man now were controlled by a lively
little fellow, and the whole incident seemed of no moment.

Any amount of wild geese abode here. It was rather like keeping a vast
poultry farm. The birds were so ridiculously tame and easily caught. At
our next trek we should have to consider the return journey across the
Marehan as begun, and we should not be likely to make any water for five
or six days. Everything was carefully filled up, and the march commenced
at 3.30 a.m. The net result of this Marehan excursion was one leopard
and one wild dog, which we would just as soon have been without as with.
They may be hard to shoot, and come on--I have heard so--but take it how
you like, with everything said that can be to belaud them into valuable
treasures, dogs aren’t very grand trophies when all is done. Who values
a coyote in Canada?

We passed thousands of grazing camels. The men in charge weren’t
bothering about water at all, but drank milk only. I arranged with
Clarence that our men were to go on to rations of dates, and do without
rice for the trip over the waterless desert. Rice in such quantities
sucks up such an amount of water, and it was safer to keep it for
drinking purposes merely. The dates are very nutritious, and natives
often live on nothing else for days.

We camped about eleven o’clock, when the sun grew too fierce to let us
proceed. We did a few more miles in the evening. Every hour we were not
on trek we spent in exhausted sleep. Even as we marched I was often in a
condition of somnolence that prevented my guiding the pony in the least.

We passed a fine range of mountains, said to be alive with leopards. We
saw the tracks of several, but time did not permit of a stalk. However,
one came to stalk us, very thoughtfully, and saved us a lot of trouble.
We made the round of the camp that night very late before turning in to
see that all was extra safe. The camels were lying in rows, some with
heads outstretched flat, snake-like, on the sand, asleep, others chewing
the cud, watching us lazily with keen bright eyes threading our way
among the _débris_ of the stores. Our candle lamps were hardly needed
here, the bright fires lighted us to bed, and we had but just settled
down when the most prodigious shouting and banging of tin pans together
roused us up again. Then two shots reverberated on the night. By the
time I was sufficiently clad to emerge with propriety the camp was more
or less calm again, save for a few men jabbering in excited groups.
The ponies stood in a bunch, and one or two of the camels had risen. A
leopard had jumped the zareba, but was immediately turned by having a
piece of lighted brushwood thrust in his face. One of the hunters had
fired after the retreating animal, and claimed to have hit it. As no
man of the black persuasion cares to go outside a zareba at night, all
investigations had to be put off until day-break, when, without waiting
for breakfast, we hurried out to see what we should see.

The hunter was right. The blood trail was plain, and held on at
intervals for a mile or more, when it led us to a flimsy bit of thorn
growing in some rocky cover. Stones and shouts did not serve to eject
our visitor of the night before, but we heard his singing snarls.
Posting ourselves some hundred yards away, for a wounded leopard is not
likely to prove an amiable customer, Clarence made some fire alongside
us with another hunter by twirling the fire stick. And as soon as the
flame burst from the timber he fostered it with a little durr grass,
then using it to ignite a larger torch, ran towards the citadel and
threw the blazing thing into the midst. Speedily the flames took hold,
burning all before it.

“Shebel! Shebel!”

The leopard stole out from the side of the underbrush, with low crouched
shoulders, and made for the open. It limped badly, and lurched as it
ran. I wanted to clear the hunters who were dancing about right in
the very zone of fire--a lot of good shots are spoiled in this way--so
dashed after our prey. Cecily ran round the back of the burning bush,
and as she was nearer, the leopard hearing the quick pad-pad after him
turned, as a cat does when cornered. With ears flattened against the
head and a look of most vicious rage on the snarling face the leopard
shot, all wounded as he was, straight at us like an arrow from a bow.
He was a most courageous animal, but my cousin dropped him with a
well-planted bullet, catching him in the chest. The creature doubled
up like a caterpillar, undid itself, gave one or two twists, doubled up
again, and finally dropped very near to us.

We were anxious to get the trophy back to camp for the better
convenience of skinning it, as we were already late in starting
the morning’s march, but our pony would have none of it, and at the
suggestion of burdening his usually willing little back with the catlike
carcase, gave us to understand that whatever else he might carry at any
time it would never be leopard. We had to give up the attempt at last,
and two hunters stayed behind to skin and decapitate the prize, coming
in to camp about two hours after us. This particular leopard differed
slightly from the one obtained in the Haweea, but, like all of the
leopard tribe, it doubtless differed in skin and colouring by reason
of the part of the world where it lived and had its being. The chin was
almost white, and it was lighter in colouring all over. We neglected to
measure it when pegged out for drying, but, dressed, it touched just six
feet from tip to tail. The bullet of the night before had passed through
the forearm, and I think it would have got over its effects in time
nicely.

Nothing more of any moment occurred on the great hurried march. We
walked, and slept, and rode and ate, and ate, and rode, and slept, and
walked. The history of those strenuous six days is summed up in these
words. We managed very well this time about the water, though we ran
things very fine at the last, landing at wells with but a quart in hand.

The last afternoon was rendered hideous by a plague of locusts, and
their millions darkened all the sky, like the big black crow in Alice’s
Adventures through the Looking-glass, taking an hour or more to pass.
Some didn’t pass at all, but settled in countless thousands on an area
of red sand, that they changed to rainbow colours. Closely looked at,
they are the ordinary familiar locust of many countries, in shades
of green, yellow, with red spots. Cecily, who would, I believe, curry
anything, said they ought to taste like prawns. The insects quite forgot
their plain duty--and didn’t. They tasted like--well, like themselves!
The shell of the back was as hard as nails, and I’m sure they were meant
to be anything but curried.

At last, towards 6.30, as the light was not so good, we found ourselves
on a plain again covered with splendid trees, and we knew we had left
the dreary waste of forsaken desert behind us. Turning joyfully in my
saddle I waved my hand, crying _Au revoir_.

“It’s good-bye as far as I’m concerned,” said Cecily stolidly.

We came to a place of many deep wells, and the men went down forthwith
and began watering the animals. A few busied themselves cutting the
thorn for the zareba, whilst two more erected our tents. The camels
commenced to graze as each one was satisfied by a drink.

We rested under a thorn tree until, in awful moment, we realised it was
already in the possession of a most horrible-looking creature, a hateful
monster who eyed us from his branch above us. We vacated our seats
_instanter_, but returned carefully to investigate. ’Twas a hideous
monstrosity indeed, alligator-like, with yellow claws. In length about
a foot, with tail of twice as much, yellow gray, with whitish markings,
and appeared to have no interest in us or animosity towards us. We knew
it was of the lizard fraternity, and afterwards natural history revealed
it to us as a Monitor. He disturbed my slumbers all that night. I could
not get the hideous thing out of my dreams, and my fancy peopled the
tent with creatures of his kind, and every place on which I would set my
foot was covered with monitors. Next morning our friend was still on his
perch, and we saw a smaller brother on another tree. Common chameleons
frequented this part also. They lay thickly on the branches of the guda
trees, brown-green, and almost unnoticeable.

That evening, as the light was fading, I shot a marabou stork, not often
to be met with in these parts. It was indeed a prize, and we spent hours
of semidarkness, in a dim religious light, skinning our treasure. It
sounds so easy--it seems nothing--but try your hand on a common or
garden hen, and see if the business is as simple as you think? We
poked and pushed, and, I’m afraid, tore a little, but in the end were
successful, and stretched the result to dry. The splendid colour of
the pouch of this marabou, which was so much admired by us, faded after
skinning, and was gone. The feathers, so reminiscent of civilisation,
and beloved of suburban fan proprietors, were very fine and fluffy. We
measured the beak of our trophy, and it came out at a shade over eleven
inches, and the extended wings topped eight and a half feet.

We were now on the march through a waterless tract again, but game was
once more plentiful, and the men dined royally every day. We not so
magnificently, as a whole boxful of our provisions had mysteriously
disappeared; the camel man in charge said lost, but looted or sold
really. I kicked up a frightful fuss, but of course that did not bring
back the missing necessaries. The loss of the box meant much carefulness
to us, as it would certainly be five weeks or more before we touched
Berbera, a consummation not wished for at all, and even the idea was a
vast regret to us. To think that in a short space of time we should be
in touch with the world again, that the wild would call, and we, all an
ache of desperate longing, could not reply! There would be nothing to
compensate us for the loss of the joys of the jungle, no music like unto
the lion’s roar. We should listen in vain for the whining bark of the
koodoo, and the weird calls of the wrangling hyænas prowling around our
zareba o’ nights would echo only in memory. To us these things were the
heart of happiness, and to dream of leaving them was pain.

Ah me! Well, “fill the cup.”

Cecily bagged an oryx near Well-Wall, a fine female, ever the best
fitted out in the horn line among this species. It is strange this
should be so, when the bulls are so pugnacious. The horns of this trophy
were in perfect condition, and measured thirty-two inches. The bird life
around us charmed us exceedingly. I think our admiration for the small
birds puzzled Clarence very much. He made nothing of them. All the
hunters were singularly ignorant on the subject, and could tell us
nothing, not even the names of quite well-known finches. All the
exquisite little things were tame as tame could be, willingly picking up
crumbs as we scattered them in the very tent. The most wondrously coated
starlings wandered about in their inquisitive habit, and made many
moments of amusement for us with their quarrels and peacocking ways.

At Well-Wall we got some water, and camped for the night. There were
many stray nomadic Somalis, hunters mostly, at the water, some Midgans,
almost in “the altogether.” They were a scraggy, miserable-looking
lot, with whom our men got to loggerheads in “the wee sma’ hours,” and,
quarrelling most of the night, made the place hideous with their din,
all carried on, as it was, on a top note. I went out once to try and
silence them all, and Cecily had a go at it also, but nothing would stop
the incessant jangle of their voices. We simply lay down, said things,
and wished for day.

When the dawn broke in gray shadows we insisted on striking camp at
once, breakfasting after a short trek. The outcaste Somalis followed us
for a long way, begging for tobes. It seemed cruel to refuse them, but
we hadn’t enough to go round even if we handed over our remaining stock,
and really to give one tobe, or even two or three, to such a needy
band would be about as much use as to present one brace of grouse to
a hospital. At last we outdistanced our following, and were able to
negotiate breakfast. How I loved the breakfasts “out there” in the open,
a permanent, everlasting picnic. Many insects came to breakfast too, but
then, what would you? Were they not all part and parcel of this world of
happiness?

We went on, and everywhere was beautiful now in green splendour; the
jungle had dressed itself anew in robes of emerald. How exquisite the
colours, how drowsy all the air! Great golden cobwebs hung from thorn
to thorn, the early sun scintillating on the myriad dewdrops clinging to
the fragile web. Ants here lived in larger palaces than ever.

The only available track lay through jungle as dense as could be
negotiated by any caravan. Progress was very slow, and sometimes very
annoying. Camels refused to move through gaps, necessitating unloading
and reloading, all the time bothered by the grabbing wait-a-bit thorn.
My pony put his foot into a hole of sorts unexpectedly, and I came a
terrific purler bang into a bunch of thorn. I daresay it was a blessing
in disguise and saved me a bad shaking, but I was grievously pricked
and scratched. Besides, it really is a very humiliating feeling to be
retrieved from a thorn bush by a mere camel man. I felt disgraced for
ever as an _equestrienne_. It was a “come off” so disgracefully simple.

At intervals, when the bush lightened a little, we came on spoor of lion
and rhino. The latter again whetted Cecily’s desire to come on another
of these creatures and give battle. I agreed we would track the spoor if
she really wished it, but after a hard five miles of really impossible
going at right angles from our main camp we quitted the chase for that
day arranging to get up with the sun and make a real day of it after
rhino. I admit I did all I knew to stifle these sporting longings. It
seemed cowardly of me to say “Go alone, if go you must.” But I longed to
say it. I could never forget the apparition of that rhino going for the
Baron, and--I’ll whisper it if you’ll come nearer--where a rhinoceros is
concerned I am a contemptible coward.




CHAPTER XVI--CECILY SHOOTS A RHINOCEROS


```The day shall not be up so soon as I,

```To try the fair adventure of the morn

`````King John=


```We are blessed in this man, as I may say, even blessed

`````Winter’s Tale=


|The sun shall not be up so soon as I. Indeed, I had a whole half-hour’s
start of him, while I put my house in order. I prepared in my own way
for the fair adventure of the morn, and told Cecily where to look for
my will. She was in wild spirits, and chaffed me no end. She saw to
her armoury, and asked me over and over to eat more. But I said I felt
exactly like a man about to be hanged, of whom you read in the next
day’s papers: “The prisoner made a most excellent breakfast.”

Out we started, Clarence, the Somali who joined our forces at the spot
where the camels tried a course of mud baths, four hunters, and two
syces. We followed the old spoor for miles, but it was at last apparent
that the pachyderm we were after had by this time travelled far out of
our ken. We sat down to cogitate, and the hunters went off spooring on a
detour of their own.

In the thick jungle we disturbed a few baby ostriches. I could not count
how many, because they scattered right and left, thrown into panic by
the shameless desertion of the little brood by their father, who making
a direct bid for his own safety, took a beeline out of our radius. I
cornered one little fluffy yellow and black bird, and could have caught
him had I wished. He was about twelve inches high, very important
looking, and his bright black boot-button eyes gazed at me unblinkingly.
Stout little yellow legs supported the tubby quaint body, and then I let
him pass to gain solitude and his brothers. We did not war with ostrich
babies. I had rather a contempt for that cock bird. Imagine leaving his
children like that! And yet, considered in the abstract, an ostrich
of all other denizens of the wild world stands for respectability and
staunchness of purpose. He pairs for life. None of your gad-about ideas
for him. One life, one love, is the ostrich motto, and if he finds
the “Ever and ever, Amen” variety of domesticity spells satiety almost
invariably, well, he is no different from other two-footed creatures we
know. Nature is the same wherever or however we find it.

The ostrich does not _look_ a happy bird. His sad pathetic face makes
one think something in this “sorry scheme of things entire” does not
altogether satisfy. What the ostrich really needs is a matrimonial
system whereby these birds might take each other on the lease principle,
as we do houses, with the option of renewal. Things would brighten up
for them, I am sure, considerably. I don’t know how we can arrange
it, or even put the suggestion to them. Perhaps some intensely knowing
person could arrange this, the editor of the halfpenny patron of
patriotism, for instance. He understands everything. The suggested lease
system would add considerable zest to life in the ostrich world, as
indeed it would in many others. Just before the lease fell in Madame
Ostrich would assure her husband that the very last idea she had would
be its renewal. For all masculinity wants is that, and that only, which
is denied him. Mr. Ostrich would feel that the renewal of the lease was
the be-all of everything, and the fattest slugs, the best bit of ground
for finding tit-bits upon, and the least prickly walks in the jungle
would all be offered as persuasive arguments. The general pleasantness
would last them both for weeks.

A hunter reported he had come on a maze of rhino tracks. Allowing for
the usual exaggeration, we judged one rhinoceros might be get-at-able.
On investigation, we found that one had passed through the thickish
country, and that very recently. Joy!--for Cecily! Hastily we left our
ponies in charge of the syces, detailed two other hunters to remain
also, and with the remaining followers prepared to stalk. Often the
spoor was lost for a hundred yards or so, but our very able shikaris
never failed to pick it up again, and though the going was exceedingly
heavy, we made fair progress. We saw numerous oryx and dibitag, one
of the latter passing so near me that I exchanged glances with her at
twenty-five yards. But, of course, “the likes of them” were safe from us
now.

We sped across an open bit, and then into another belt of jungle.
The whole aspect of the spot looked to me as the very place to see a
repetition of the Baron disaster. We plunged into the ubiquitous thorn,
starting a frightened dik-dik as I took my header. Crawling, pushing,
scratching, we won our way to comparatively clear ground. Clarence
raised his hand for utter silence. We heard a scrunching and breaking of
thorns. A great beast was a-travelling. Maybe he had winded us or
been disturbed. And then “a strange thing happened.” I, who had been
absolutely impassive up to now, was drawn into the mesh of desire. The
effects of rhino shooting on me is like unto the results of champagne
drinking on Brillat-Savarin, at first (_ab initio_) most exciting,
afterward (_in rccessu_) stupefying. I was now thoroughly game for
anything. But kept my reason in sufficient bounds to remember that thick
thorn cover is not an ideal place to meet a rhino in.

We did a most careful stalk, creeping towards the place of the sounds,
under Clarence’s complete directions. At last, he alone pressed on with
us, the others willingly remaining where he signalled. We were not now
in overwhelmingly thick thorn, but it was too dense to be pleasant, and
necessitated our handling our rifles with the greatest care. After
a hard few minutes we sank down to rest. Our rifles covered a small
clearing.

The game of all sizes had made tunnels through the jungly place, high
enough in some parts for us to stand upright, and all seemed to lead to
this open glade. Flies in myriads were buzzing about the undergrowth,
a reddish squirrel, with bushy tail, jerked towards me on a fallen
guda tree, then with a chatter made off among the branches. The air was
simply stifling with dry heat, and I was thirsty beyond words.

Wonder of wonders! A dark ponderous bulk loomed on the left of us, under
a great guda tree, overhung with armo creeper. The great head came well
into view, all unconscious of intruders. The beast was lunching,
eating his favourite bushes, and munching steadily. This was not at all
sporting--it seemed so simple.

Cecily gently pushed the muzzle of her 12-bore through the sheltering
thorns, and was able to take careful and steady aim at the rhino’s
ear. She was in excellent range. It is no use trying for a rhino at a
distance exceeding eighty, or at the most, ninety yards. Bang! The smoke
hung for a moment, obscuring everything. The animal seemed to stagger to
the shot. And then, on the instant, with snorts and squeals, small
out of all proportion to the size of the emitter, charged across the
intervening space. Then when he made the jungle he as quickly dashed
back again. I was very anxious for Cecily to have this shoot all to
herself, and though I had a glorious chance of a heart shot from my
position, I held my fire.

I am not very clear what happened next, and when I apply to my cousin
she says, “I’m sure I cannot tell you.” I think Cecily came dangerously
forward. The rhino turned on our inadequate fortress of mimosa, and as
the peril swept upon us we seemed to gather wit and sense to combat the
danger. Separating widely as the beast plunged straight in where we had
been, we turned on him, simultaneously, to fire. Then we branched
off again, at right angles. I fell into a thorn bush, and took the
opportunity of comparative safety to reload. Cecily was now dancing
about in the open, in a most sporting but in no sense a common-sense
fashion. For a dreadful instant I feared the result. The rhino bull took
up a large circle with its careering and struggles, and the dust was so
great that from my post I could not clearly see the finish. I heard the
rifle crack twice again, and then a ringing shout for me came. There lay
the mighty carcase in a kneeling attitude. A mountain of flesh indeed!

[Illustration: 0281]

Cecily had a great gash on her wrist, caused, I fancy, by some sharp
flint stone, and the blood was running down her rifle as she held it at
the trail. She was too excited to speak, and there was no calming her
down. She really seemed like a person in a dream. I announced to her
solemnly it was to be our last rhino shoot. The tension relaxed then,
and she laughed at my serious face.

A series of whistles brought up the hunters, and the last phase began.
Cecily and I set off to find our ponies, and, full of elation, made for
camp and tea. We had tea at all hours of the day, finding it the most
refreshing of anything, and I don’t really think it affected our nerves
one scrap.

It was rather late when our men reached camp, laden with treasure. They
brought the rhino’s feet, his tail, his head, and some of his skin.
There was no reason why they should not have brought it all. It comes
off quite easily. They said they had not time, as they feared being
bushed, or that lions would be attracted to the spot by the smell of
blood. The skin is very valuable to the Somalis for shields, and many
other purposes, and we rather thought it was a put up business to secure
half the rhino hide for themselves. We thought of going back then and
there and seeing the thing finished, but Clarence said it was such a
long way off, the result would be we would all assuredly be caught out
in the bush at night. I suppose he was right. They had us fairly.

The Somalis don’t care for eating rhino, and I cannot say the flesh
looks very inviting, but we got the chef to make us some soup of the
tail, which you hear so well spoken of by all travellers. I do not think
our opinion can be considered a fair one. It would have been a better
soup had we made it ourselves. Our cook could not cook anything
properly, and the tail and taste of it, if there had been either in the
pan at any time, was drowned in a waste of water.

Before the great pachyderm began to be dismembered we measured him, and
his waist, or where his waist should be if he had one, was by the
tape, seven feet three inches. I don’t know what a fashionable belle
rhinoceros would think of that. In length he was a shade over ten feet,
but this was not a very large animal as they go. We set to work helping
to stretch and clean and saltpetre. The anterior horn was much blunted
at the tip, the result of some accident or wear and tear of some kind,
so that it lost half an inch or so in length. But eleven inches looks
formidable enough, on such a fearsome head. The eyes are ridiculously
small in a rhino. I think to such altogether inadequate optics much of
the bad sight put down to the rhino must be ascribed. One would hardly
think every single animal of this variety starts its career with bad
sight, but that is what every hunter tells you. Go nap every time on the
non-seeing powers of your enemy if he happens to be a rhinoceros if you
like, but see there is a tree to get behind before you begin. This is
advice from myself.

Next day was a poor one as far as sport was concerned. We were very
stiff with so much crawling, though at the time we had not noticed it.
We sent off a few men to retrieve the rest of the hide from the remains
of the rhino, and when the camp was quiet we investigated the trophies,
and overhauled them carefully. Some of them cried aloud in their agony
for attention. The skin of the last killed lion was beginning to lose
some hair in parts. And this was because, when we undid it and looked
behind, great lumps of flesh still adhered, making it impossible for
the preservatives to do any curing. It took us a long time to set this
right, and we rubbed alum in as hard as we could on the inside. Of
course, if the skinning is not carefully done, the chances are the
trophy will have to be thrown away. I don’t know how we should have
taken a catastrophe of such magnitude.

The men returned to say the skin of the rhino was not to be found. I
don’t suppose they had even been to the spot. I am confident they had,
in some mysterious way, managed to let their friends know a wealth of
shields were to be had for the taking. There was nothing left of our
huge friend of the day before, so the men said. Wild beasts had eaten
him.

Later, I heard a great shouting in camp and calls for us, and answering
in person, I saw Clarence seated on a pony, proudly displaying and
offering to me a baby oryx, which he had in front of him. We lifted the
mite down, holding it, all struggling, firmly. It was terror-stricken,
poor wee thing. I tried to stroke its satin coat, but it only started
and looked at me with frightened piteous beseeching eyes. Clarence meant
well, but oh, I would a thousand times he had left the kid with its
mother. And then a thought struck me. How had he come by this fleet
thing? May be killed the doe and then ridden the baby down. Instantly I
put it to him. I know I frowned. But he disarmed me by saying the matter
was not as I thought, and the mother was alive, unharmed; that he had
ridden them down until the little oryx, spent, had to drop, and the
mother fled away in fear before his threatening gestures.

I consulted with Cecily, and we came to the conclusion that if we wanted
to please Clarence there was nothing for it but to keep the buck, but
after mixing it some condensed milk, which we gave it in a bottle with a
bit of rubber tubing on the neck, we realised that to retain our little
guest meant _our_ going without milk in our tea for weeks. Camel milk
was not available, and the baby could not eat. I was thankful of a
reasonable excuse to offer Clarence, and he saw the sense of it. I
longed to restore the tiny creature to its mother, and Clarence said if
we took it back to the place from whence it came the doe would assuredly
find it.

We decided to try this, but to secrete ourselves, and cover the baby
buck with our protecting rifles. Otherwise, it was quite on the cards
that a lion or leopard would make off with it ere its mother could
retrieve it. In any case, I should imagine a violent death awaited it.
It was so very youthful and easily stalked. I took the timorous creature
across my saddle, it seemed all struggling legs and arms, and with
Clarence for guide made for the place, some two miles off, where he
first started the oryx. I confess I still had my doubts as to his tale
and its veracity, but in this I wronged our shikari.

We set the baby down alone, so fragile and small it looked, and then hid
ourselves in a great thorn brake. We were as far off as we dared go, and
the buck did not wander far. Sometimes it bleated in a little treble,
once or twice it lay down, tucking its long legs beneath it, to rise
again and wander, all lonely, among the low thorn bushes. Two hours or
more we waited and then--a gentle whinny, and almost before we realised
it, a perfect oryx doe cantered towards the fawn. She nosed it all over
and her joy expressed itself in every imaginable way. It was a most
beautiful and pathetic sight. We made some movement, and all alert
again, the graceful creature sailed away, the baby trotting beside. My
eyes were full of tears, and I had a lump in my throat. ’Twas pitiful,
’twas wondrous pitiful. To think that in all the jungle a mother could
find her way to the lost best beloved with nothing to guide her, nothing
to tell her. Clarence took it all most naturally, and said all female
things are like that. I do almost believe him!

*****

The sun sailed high in a sky of molten brass, the hot sand blistered the
palm set down on it, not a breath of air was stirring. And I, foolish
wight, was stalking, on hands and knees, a hartebeest. A family of ants
had crawled up my sleeve. I went too near their palace, I suppose, and
they mistook the way. A yellow snake, small, wicked-looking, and alert,
lay right in my path. Not for a hundred hartebeest would I disturb him!
I made a great detour, to the wonderment of Clarence, who trailed along
in my wake. When he saw he wondered no longer. He has learned now, and
thinks snakes are a sort of mania of mine, and that I must be humoured.
Great bluebottle flies jumped up in our faces from the red-hot sand,
then--buzz--and down again. Oh, for some shade--some air--some water!
There was my hartebeest again, with well-groomed coat and flicking
tail. The flies were a worry to him too. Now he gets beyond a bunch
of aoul--his sentinels. I shall never get within range. I lay my
rifle down, myself with it. I can’t see the hartebeest, the aoul, the
flies--there is nothing anywhere but a golden maze of light, and a world
of noisy hammers in my ears.

’Twas nothing, just a mild touch of the sun, and next day Richard was
himself again, and out with the second hunter, like a French falconer,
prepared to fly at anything. Only we chose towards evening for our
hunting.

Our ponies carried us through most of the dense country, but sometimes
we had to get off and seek an easier way round. We saw tracks of all
varieties of game, but for an hour or more had the jungle apparently to
ourselves. We were leading our steeds, when we crossed a great find, a
place where a lion had been lying, may be after some great banquet. The
thorns had taken his size and shape like a mould, and his hairs were all
about to betray his whilom presence. The hunter spoored about and picked
up the lion trail some little way off. The ground being so loose and
sandy made no good evidence of time. The pugs might have been made
now, or that morning. We went on silently and after not more than five
minutes going, with an electric-like shock, I realised that a lion stood
over a kill to our immediate front. He winded us, and stretching his
great neck and head upwards to sniff in magnificent disregard bounded
into the thicket, the tuft on his tail being the last glimpse I caught
of him. I was too taken aback to even try to get my rifle up. It all
happened so very swiftly. We were a very small party to tackle a lion in
thick cover, but my man was a little Trojan and did not hesitate when
I said I would proceed and he must take a hand at the game. He was
carrying my 12-bore, and I had my .500 Express.

First we tethered the ponies, thinking they would be quite safe as
we should be in the near vicinity, then we commenced to beat after a
fashion of our own. Walking as straight ahead as we could, pushing and
struggling through where we couldn’t. We fired into the dusky depths
in desperation at last, but nothing happened. It was not until we had
covered a few hundred yards more before we saw, in a lightening of the
undergrowth, a sinuous yellow form streaking along. The hunter in his
excitement brought up his rifle. I held his arm. The danger was too
great. If a wounded lion turned on us here we were done for, hemmed in
as we were. We saw no more of him, he had put some distance between us,
and “on my life, had stol’n him home to bed.”

It was a great disappointment, but, after all, there isn’t much sport in
courting disaster. The chances should be almost even, a little in favour
of the animal, not entirely so.

The ponies had untethered themselves, it doesn’t say much for the way we
secured them, I’m afraid, and had betaken their way campwards. We had
to track their hoof marks that we might also cut a long journey short.
Night was closing in, and we wanted the shelter of our zareba. And
supper, oh, supper! most of all!

We had no special time for meals in camp. A system that would properly
disgust a good housewife. The cook had to produce food whenever we
required some, at any time, early or late. It did not make for good
cooking; but then, neither did the chef.




CHAPTER XVII--TREE CLIMBING


```Do not give dalliance too much the rein

`````The Tempest=


|When out early one morning a green oasis tempted me to leave the sandy
waste and ramble in among the depths of the aloes, creep in and out
of the festoons of armo, and hunt for anything that might be astir.
Choosing the part where the bushes seemed most willing to admit us, we
crept in--a hunter and I--he of the Cook’s Guide turn of mind. Parting
the creepers as we went, we found it easier than we had thought to
penetrate the density.

On almost every branch a chameleon lay basking, dead to all appearances
save for the eternal wakefulness of their eyes. In a glade where the
grass grew high there was a whirr and a rush. Some small animal was
startled. But we saw nothing. The hunter prepared to account for it, but
I would have none of it, and silenced him with a look. I was there to
read the book of the wild for myself, not to have it read aloud.

A tree snake dropped from his low perch on a thorn bush, and wriggled
away in the thicket. Two distinct lines of brown marked him, and that
was all I saw. He gave me “creeps,” and I turned away in an opposite
direction. Sometimes a bit of thorn would hold me lovingly, and all my
blandishments could not make it let me go. I only obtained freedom with
leaving a piece of my coat as tribute. Vulturine guinea-fowl ran at the
sight of us, raising their naked necks and setting off at great speed to
make safety. They are beautiful birds, and the prismatic colours of the
feathers show up against the green of the armo very distinctly. Doves
cooed above us, but I could not catch a glimpse of one. As we neared the
middle of the oasis we came on a few scattered half-eaten bones--a dead
lesser koodoo. He had furnished a meal for a lion, doubtless, and later
for one of his own people. One or two varieties of antelope are very
fond of nibbling dry white bones.

We took a turn to the right, and on the instant a beautiful lesser
koodoo took a gigantic leap over an in-the-way bunch of aloe scrub.
He disappeared into a thicket and I stood motionless listening. So I
suspect did my koodoo. All was still, but only for a moment. The amateur
Cook’s Guide got entangled somehow or other with a trailing creeper, and
to my complete horror and amazement let off my .500 Express which he was
carrying. He must have been holding it in very unskilled fashion. The
bullet missed my head by a couple of inches. I felt the whiz of it
and heard it ricochet into the trees. I was so unnerved I sat down and
thought things out. My hunter was quite oblivious to any shock I
might have received, because the stock of the rifle had hit him hard
somewhere--I was too vexed to inquire the exact location--and he
bewailed his misfortune. I ordered him to go home to camp and leave me,
which he did with alacrity. After about half an hour my trembling fit
passed. It was very cowardly to be so upset, but I hate unknown and
quite unforeseen dangers, and an unsuspected bullet at close quarters
demoralises me.

I sat on quietly, and the bush began to stir and take up its daily round
again, forgetting the demon crash that had disturbed its slumbers. A
little red velveteen spider ran speedily up an armo leaf, tumbled over
the edge and suspended himself on a golden wire. Jerk! jerk! Lower he
went, then up again. Two bars of his house completed, when alas, a great
fly of the species that haunted our trophies, flew right across and
smashed the spider-house to nothing. The velveteen spider sat on
a leaf--fortunately he had made safety ere the Juggernaut passed
along--and meditated, but only for a moment. He was a philosopher and
knew all about the “Try, try, try again” axiom. Over he hurled himself
on another golden thread and laid another criss-cross foundation-stone.
And there I left him because I wanted to penetrate farther.

How could I manoeuvre a big antelope now if I shot one, seeing that my
hunter had left me? Was it not counting my chickens? Yes, but that is
what one does all the time in big game shooting!

In one bit of glade I worked my way through the caterpillars had played
devastator; every leaf was eaten. I hurried on. I rested again on a
fallen guda tree, hunting first to see no snake shared my seat with
me. I kept utterly silent for an hour or more, when my patience was
rewarded. Through the bushes I saw a white chin bobbing up and down
as it chose out the most succulent thorns. Lower it went. I hardly
breathed. To see a lesser koodoo in his haunts one sometimes has to wait
for months. Here was I, in the limits of a morning’s patrol, so lucky.
The great broad ear flickered in and out. Because this antelope mostly
lives in thick cover where quick hearing is his only safety, his ear
has grown in accordance with necessities. Somali hunters never seem to
differentiate between the koodoo and the lesser koodoo. They are both
one and the same to them, and are called “Godir” indiscriminately.
And yet the two animals are so different it seems absurd to think of
confusion.

The koodoo (_strepsiceros koodoo_) is the biggest antelope in
Somaliland, heavy, magnificent and warlike. It inhabits mountainous
parts, and the reason would seem to be plain. Space for such great horns
is required, and though on occasion they frequent jungly parts of
the Golis, their nature and habit is to live in the stony gorges, and
stalking one is not unlike stalking one of our own Scotch deer. The
lesser koodoo (_strepsiceros imberbis_) is the personification of all
the graces. What the koodoo gains in majesty the lesser has in exquisite
symmetry of line and contour. The lesser koodoo never grows much larger
than a small donkey, the horns are replicas in little of the average
three footer of the koodoo, and there is no beard, but a short mane.
Like the koodoo, the lesser is striped down each side like the white
ribs of a skeleton.

My friend still fed, rustling the bushes as he chose out his favourite
herbage. I had seen nothing to fire at, but, in any case, I did not mean
to try for him, as in my lone condition it would mean a return to camp
for assistance, and meanwhile the beautiful antelope would be food for
any prowling beast. I hated at all times to kill wastefully. The head of
the lesser koodoo looked, as far as I could see, a fair one, the light
of the sun glinting through the shadowy depths occasionally caught the
curving horns. But since he might not be mine, since I could not get him
back to camp, I would not kill wantonly.

In speaking of the wholesale slaughter of Somaliland fauna by sportsmen
and sportsmen so-called, one ought really to include the Somalis
themselves. They have assisted materially to decimate the country--of
elephants particularly. On lions they have not made much impression, as
these animals are too big a job to tackle unless they are driven to it.
But in the days when the elephant roamed the land, their slaughter for
the sake of the ivory was wholesale, terrific and amazing. Clarence, who
was of the Gadabursi country, well remembers his father and his tribe
hunting the elephant on a colossal scale, killing several a week. The
manner of it was courageous, to say the least. The tribe went out,
mounted on swift ponies, and the marked-down elephant being selected
from the herd, he was ridden down in the open. One agile Somali would
caper in front of the pachyderm to attract his attention, and a rider at
the gallop would pass in swift flying rush behind and cut the ham-string
or tendon of one of the hind legs. The elephant would then be at the
mercy of the hunters. It must have been a dangerously exciting business.
The sword used--I saw one in the hut of a Mullah at the Upper Sheik--is
of native make, apparently, strong, and longer in the blade than the
bilâwa, which is often seen in its scabbard of white leather bound round
the waist of a Somali. It was not unlike the familiar sword known to us
as the “Dervish”--two-edged, with a groove down the centre, and light.
The handle was of horn, and bound about with leather. And yet we think
ourselves brave to venture in the vicinity of my lord the elephant with
the latest thing in rifles in our hands!

What with the ham-stringing, and all hunters killing cows and bulls
indiscriminately, the result has been that the elephant has left his old
haunts, never to return. The Somalis wasted the entire carcase. They do
not care to eat the flesh, and even the hide is not so beloved as
that of the oryx and rhino. The Somali tusks were never of the vast
proportions attained in other parts of Africa. Ivory still forms part of
the stock of some trading caravans, so the elephants must exist in the
flesh somewhere in Somaliland, unless these traders trade with others
again at the rear of the back of beyond.

A twig cracked! No twig of mine, I swear, since I sat like a statue
carved in stone. My foot had long since gone to sleep, and pins
and needles pricked it. The bushes trembled, then were still, and
stealthily, with very little movement, the beautiful antelope moved
away. I saw him as he circled round a bend in the jungle, and in a flash
he was gone. Really I had enjoyed my morning as keenly as though I had
added to my bag an hundredfold.

And so back to camp I went, and as I went I notched the trees that I
might find the right place in my “Hedd-Godir” (koodoo forest) again.
I wanted Cecily to come with me and try and track my friend the lesser
koodoo. When I got home, I found all the men congregated round one whom
they said was grievously hurt through a camel falling on him. I
couldn’t find anything wrong, no broken bones, but the man said the pain
internally was very great, almost unbearable. I got out my hypodermic
syringe and injected some of the morphia we had in case of emergencies
into the arm, to the wonderment of the men, and then I had the invalid
placed down on a camel-mat to sleep, and all the other men were
forbidden to disturb the invalid. And lo! when the effects of the
morphia wore off we heard no more of aches and pains. It was _the_ cure
of the trip. And the “coogeri” medicine was held in high esteem ever
afterwards. I asked what “coogeri” meant, and was told--“inside.”

Sitting on a camp chair in peace and quietness, with a book and the cup
that cheers, Clarence broke in on us to say that a party of twenty-five
horsemen had arrived prepared to dibaltig before us--Heaven only knows
why, or where the men had dropped from. With as good grace as we could,
and a cup of tea in hand, we went outside the zareba to see a crowd of
Somalis, mounted, in the usual lively get-up, _khaili_ tobes, shields,
spears, and the other necessaries of performers of the dibâltig. The
ponies were so be-tasselled on a bright red band over the eyes, I don’t
know how they were to see the way at all. One stalwart, the head-man of
the party, had decorated his steed with a frill of lions’ mane around
its neck, fastening in front with a large bunch of yellow ribbons. Very
hot and uncomfortable for the pony, but very effective and circus-like.

“Salaam aleikum,” and “Mot! Mot! io Mot!” Then the chorister-in-chief
(these dibâltig performances are somewhat like the “waits” at Christmas)
began a long song, all--Clarence said--about us, wishing us health,
happiness, and many wives.

“Wives, Clarence?”

“So says the song.”

“Then say we can’t have wives, because we are not sahibs, and some day
we shall be wives ourselves.”

“With luck!” ejaculated Cecily.

Clarence translated, and a perfect tremor of excitement shook the whole
team. The horsemen pressed closer, and gazed at us until their eyes
nearly dropped out of their heads. Laughing at the intensity of the
inspection, we took our hats off and bowed. Our hair might be considered
adequate proof of Mem-sahibdom. Goodness knows what the team considered
it. They drew back and talked and jabbered and discussed.

To dibâltig or not to dibâltig, that is the question. And how we _hoped_
they would answer it in the negative, and let us get back to tea.

With a wild war-whoop the matter was decided, and girding up their
loins, away and away, hither and thither dashed the performers, throwing
spears, catching them, jumping off the pony, then vaulting the saddle,
then back again, finally gaining a seat face to tail. A real circus show
this. Going at a mad gallop the riders would suddenly jerk the bit--a
perfect devil of cruelty--and back the foaming pony would go, haunches
to the ground. Poor creatures, how lathered they were and beside
themselves with the pace and rush. Dust rose in volumes, and we receded
and receded, but the flying figures only drew the circle closer. The
affair went on for a whole hour, when it had to cease because the ponies
were done, and could not keep up the required speed any longer. All the
Somalis came round us, the ponies’ heads facing us, almost touching us,
and we must have been hidden entirely from our own men, because as our
dibâltig friends sat their panting ponies they raised both arms with
spears held high, and dear me, _how_ they shouted that “Mot” sentence.

I signed with my hand that we wished to get out of the circle--it
was not pleasant so near the panting, pawing ponies, and one big
black-looking fellow backed his steed out and made a path. I thanked
them through Clarence and then began the usual palaver about the
inadequacy of the presents.

If every man had to have a tobe it meant twenty-five, and we had to
economise or we should clear out our stock before we finished up at
Berbera. We had started out with several pieces of sheeting, but had
done an immense amount of distributing. A tobe when cut has to be about
twelve times over the length from a man’s elbow to his finger tips. That
is how we measured. We offered half a dozen tobes, and suggested that
the performers should toss up for them.

A hurricane of stormy words ensued, most annoying, as six tobes at a
whack is very generous indeed. The men could not be invited to a meal
because the rice supplies would not bear any undue strain. The affair
ended with the presentation of five good clasp knives. And then the
dissatisfied warriors rode away. We took the opportunity of telling
Clarence that if any more Somalis came bent on doing this dibâltig
performance they must do it on their own. We had seen enough of it. And
run on the present lines it is more expensive than a box at the opera.
We went back to a second tea, and a bath to get rid of the dust that
covered us like flour.

In the evening, Cecily and I again penetrated my koodoo forest by
ourselves, more for the pleasure of wandering in the beautiful oasis
than anything, and our search went farther than my stroll of the
morning. We pushed and crawled our way through the densest thickets that
we might find the reason for such flapping and screaming of dozens and
dozens of vultures, kites and hawks. In a thicket of thorn where the
durr grass grew high, and in patches left off altogether, and exposed
the sand, lay the remains of a lesser koodoo. It had been partially
eaten, but not by vultures, a lion evidently, because it had begun on
the hind quarters and eaten about half the animal. The antelope’s head
was thrown back, and the fore legs were tucked beneath him. The lion
had sprung from the grass straight on to his prey. The horns swept
the hunched shoulders, and I think it must have been my friend of the
morning.

Judging by the way in which the birds were acting, coming near, and
then retiring, and taking into consideration the fact that they had not
ventured to the kill, it was likely that the lion was now lying close
to the meat, watching it, until the internal arrangements permitted of
eating some more. This is a very usual thing with the big cats. Was it
nice to be in this durr grass with a lion, even a fed-up one?

We decided to hurry back to camp and try and get out some of the men
before the light gave in, to build us a “machan” over the dead antelope,
in which we should keep watch and ward all night in the hope of bagging
the lion as he returned to his kill. Our first idea was that one of
us--to be decided by tossing up--should remain in the jungly place
to see that time was not taken by the forelock by his majesty. But,
debating the point, we thought it was going to be a trifle lonely for
the one left behind, with night, and possibly a lion, coming on.

We made our way out as quickly as possible, and careering back to camp
as though all the fiends were after us, brought Clarence and four of the
hunters with axes and _hangols_ to the place where the koodoo had been.
Had been! For there it was not when we returned. The dragging of the
bushes and the crushed grass showed us the way. There at some two
hundred yards off was all that now remained of the lesser koodoo.

[Illustration: 0303]

A flash of sinuous yellow. A cry of “Libbah! Libbah!” from the left-hand
hunter. The durr grass waved, and a fine lioness bounded high and sank
again. Crack! from Cecily’s rifle. She must have been in better place
than I was for a shot. I should have annihilated one of the men had I
blazed away. Crack! again. And then I saw what the redoubtable Cecily
was firing at. Another animal altogether! A massive lion, with an almost
black mane and more cumbersome in the front than any other of his genus
I had ever seen. All lions fall away very much behind, but I really
think this one must have been malformed. However, we never saw him
again, so the point had, perforce, to remain unsettled. As the lion
streaked off, evidently not inconvenienced by Cecily’s bombardment,
his mate made a successful effort to follow his lead. Flat, and low to
earth, snake-like, she crossed the only bare patch of clearing to the
right of me. Still my line of fire was blocked by a hunter who put
himself in my way every time as if by design, and had not the sense
to drop and give me a chance. Still, there was Clarence on the extreme
right, armed with a 12-bore. The lioness would have to run the gauntlet
of his fire. “Mâro! Mâro!” (Shoot! Shoot!) I cried to him in an agony of
nervous Hindostanee.

The imperturbable Clarence did nothing, and let the yellow one pass him.
Cecily was not now so placed that she could get in a successful shot.
Two lions, and both gone! No koodoo left to attract anything save
hyaenas and jackals. When I asked our shikari why on earth he had let
slip so wonderful a chance he was quite calm and said: “Mem-sahib
shoot dar lion. I no shoot dar lion.” Evidently he meant to be very
magnanimous and refrain from poaching on our preserves in the laudable
desire to see we got our money’s worth.

It was now getting dusk, and ominous dark corners told us night had cast
her mantle athwart the trees. I ordered a hunter to cut off the head of
the maltreated lesser koodoo, for the sake of the horns, a very easily
acquired trophy, but one very well worth having. The head was not eaten
at all, for as I have explained it is the habit of lions to begin at the
other end.

Then we tried to get out of the place. We took some tosses over thorn
and bramble, and disturbed the guinea fowl as they settled to roost
in rows on the branches. I upset the equilibrium of a hornbill and his
wife, who flapped and croaked their annoyance at me. Before we were
clear of the oasis, night had settled down in inky blackness, and then
Clarence led us by the hand. I believe he saw in the dark like a cat.
He brought us safe and sound to the sandy waste that rimmed the green
garden, and once there camp was easily reached.

All through the night the lions roared, and we could distinguish the
difference in the voice of the lion to that of his mate. One would have
thought they had eaten too much to roar--a whole lesser koodoo between
them! Perhaps they were protesting that we had docked them of the head.
Next day around the wells near where we were camped the pugs of two
lions stood out clear in the sand, going from the oasis and back. The
wells are too deep for wild creatures to negotiate, but water sometimes
is to be had in the clay troughs used by the camels. These troughs were
very dry, and I’m afraid that the lions went away thirsty. As it seemed
an undoubted fact that the great cats were still in the fastness of
green a mile or more in circumference, it did seem absurd for us to
go on until we had made another effort to secure a fine trophy for the
collection.

At the edge of the oasis, on the north side, before it finally ended in
a yellow waste of sand, stood a few guda trees, difficult to climb, for
no branches hold out kindly assistance for at least sixteen feet from
the roots, when the tree spreads vigorously into fantastic shapes to
the top, which attains a height of some fifty feet. The foliage is
very wide, and beautifully green. Our idea was to climb a guda in the
evening, having tied up a suitable bait below. It had to be a sheep,
because we had no goat. We chose our tree, and when the witching hour
of twilight arrived, armed with climbing-irons we began the ascent
this-wise. First myself, to the astonishment of half our caravan, who
had come to see what they should see. They liked the climbing-irons
immensely. I don’t think they had seen any before.

When I was perched on the bough selected I flung the irons down to
Cecily, who used them. Next, with cords, we drew up the rifles. Clarence
and a hunter used the climbing irons also, and came up like woodpeckers.
The men below tethered the sheep, and departed to camp and bed. It was
not very long before we wished we had had a platform made. Not being
birds, or bird-like, the perching business hurt frightfully. And it was
only by getting well against the trunk we could put up with the
position at all. Clarence lay extended full length along a bough, on the
look-out--“ship-ahoy!” sort of game. The other hunter imagined himself
a Blondin on an insignificant branch beyond me, slightly above me. A
ridiculous situation we were all in. I longed to laugh out loud. But
we had to be very, very silent and hardly move a muscle. After about
an hour I began to get cramp in my foot, and had to press my boot hard
against the bough to try to bear the agony calmly.

A roar broke on the stillness. Things were more interesting for a few
moments, and Clarence’s tense figure outlined on the branch seemed to be
an Argus of many eyes. The Blondin gentleman had got on my nerves long
since, and I wished with all my heart he would take a seat. The clouds
grew darker and darker, and presently rain began to fall, real Somali
rain, not in single drops, but water-spouts. The hunter pirouetting on
the adjacent bough missed his footing and fell to the ground--Somalis
are not the slightest use as tree-climbers--and caused as much
consternation to the sheep as the appearance of the lion could
have done. The man had to be followed by the necessary humanitarian
inquiries, and we reflected that no lion with an ounce of caution about
him would have failed to take warning long ere this. The rain had damped
our ardour as well as our clothes. We voted for camp and bed. Cecily
affixed the irons to her boots and descended, and then I pulled them up
again for my use. Clarence got the rifles down, and the fallen hunter
had no need to get any lower. There we all stood in pouring rain.
Clarence had to lead the hunter who claimed to be badly injured, and
Cecily and I led the sheep.

The caravan was silent, fires out with the rain, but the watch was
alert, for on our approach we heard, “Kuma?” (Who are you?) repeated
twice. Clarence replied “Friends,” and we passed, and all was well--at
least more or less, for the camp was in a dismal state of slop. A big
rain-storm speedily turns the deep sand to mud. The men were sleeping
beneath _herios_, and I think one or two had been making free with our
tents, as they had a very hot native smell about them when we turned in
to rid ourselves of our dripping garments. The canvas residences stood
up well that night and resisted the downpour valiantly. Everything was
damp and fires were impossible.

All the next day the deluge continued. It was no use to attempt to go
a-hunting, as the rain was washing out spoor as fast as the animals
walked. The day dragged through somehow, and bored us almost to tears.
However, night saw a welcome cessation of the rain, and the sky grew
clear and dotted with stars innumerable. The next morning had to see the
camel-mats dried ere they could go on, and the sun was fortunately like
a furnace.

In the evening we were able to trek some eight miles, and formed zareba
by starlight. To get the fires lighted was a great difficulty, and the
cook sent many messages by the “boy,” to encourage us in the belief
supper would be forthcoming if we had the patience to wait long enough.

Chatting over the meal we realised that the hour had come when we might
dawdle no longer. Time and the season bade us make a decided effort
to cross the Haud again now that water was so plentiful. We sent for
Clarence and talked to him, deciding to rise early on the morrow and get
things into trim for the great undertaking.




CHAPTER XVIII--A JOUST WITH A BULL ORYX


```On a sudden one hath wounded me,

```That’s by me wounded

`````Romeo and Juliet=


```Truly, pleasure will be paid, one time or another

`````Twelfth Night=


|The following day we made our way to some adjacent wells, and spent the
whole of the hours in filling up everything we could lay hands on with
water. All old bottles were utilised, and I arranged that the precious
fluid should be allowanced, and any man found helping himself would find
the promised bonus at the end of the trip a myth. The camels and ponies
were watered, and we had baths! Then, in the dawn of a day of intense
heat, with the early sun a-shimmer on all the glory of green that
surrounded us again, the air yet heavy with dew, and drowsy with the hum
of myriad insects we marched, heading for the Haud. We might not again
have any opportunity of securing any water before we negotiated the
great tract, which we were to cross in a different part to our previous
journey over.

The jungle was very dense, and the caravan simply crawled. I rode ahead,
and about eight o’clock walked into, almost over, a lioness sound asleep
with two cubs. She was off almost before I realised the marvel of the
thing. Clarence dashed up, his quick eye had taken in the scene. He
handed me my rifle. I frowned at him. Surely he had learned by this time
that even a woman can be sporting. For it was not only discretion that
made me play the better part, nor the thought of the panic a fracas with
a lioness would cause in the caravan. I would have loved to take a cub
home. But--there was a big but. Nobody short of a sportsman who “browns”
 a herd of buck indiscriminately--oh yes, there are such men here and
there!--would destroy such a family. They departed in peace, and not in
pieces. I spoored a little way, and in clear sandy ground came on the
tiny pugs, now quiescent, now running and claw marks showing.

Next we came on rhino spoor, but in spite of what I had said Cecily
halted the caravan, whilst she, in the very hottest part of the day, did
a stalk. It all came to nothing, thanks be. I fell asleep on a _herio_,
and awakened to find my tent over me. The men had erected it to screen
me from the sun. They were servants in a thousand.

From this thick jungle we emerged on to a great open plain, or “bun,”
 and Clarence told me it was called the Dumberelli. He often told us the
names of places we came to, and sometimes I wondered why they should be
christened at all. The “bun” was a waving sea of bright green grass, and
full of game. Aoul in regiments sought the new grass, an oryx or two,
and “Sig” (Swayne’s gazelle), looking like well kept sea-side donkeys,
stood about in ones and twos. But always out of range. Time was of such
value here we could not make a really big attempt to secure a specimen
of picked hartebeest. But I managed after a wearying effort, in which
I was frustrated time and time again by alert bands of aoul, who
constantly gave the alarm, to bag a smallish sig, a female, and they
carry much lighter heads than the male. I could not afford to pick and
choose. It was my first hartebeest, and I feared the possibility of
going home minus a specimen of the genus. However, Cecily, who did a
rival shoot on her own, secured a male, whose horns topped seventeen
inches, a great improvement on the beggarly twelve of my trophy. We took
the tape measurement on the front curves.

The sunsets were superb, and heralded the most intense cold. It became
necessary to trek every hour we could, as every one dreaded a water
famine. We seemed in these days not to sleep at all, but march and march
interminably.

One early morning we found the quaintest of lizards lying in the sun.
It had an outspread tail that seemed to overbalance the horrid little
thing. Clarence prodded it gently with a small stick, and it cried every
time he did it, just like a baby. He told us it is called “asherbody,”
 which translated means baby, and I noticed, not for the first time, that
the Somali mind has a nice sense in the christening of things.

We trekked right into a large Somali zareba, the largest camp we had yet
seen, and after a visit from the head-man, were let in for a “tomasho,”
 or native dance, a different thing altogether to the dibaltig, and much
more boring. We arrived at the _karia_ at the time appointed, dressed
in our best clothes, which did not say much, as the best was very bad.
I would we had been fortified by the possession of spotless garments to
steel ourselves against the inquisitive looks of the Somali ladies. It
is so hard for a woman to appear at ease in rags. He was a philosopher
indeed who said, somewhere or other, “It is our clothes-thatch that,
reaching to our heart of hearts, tailorises and demoralises us.”

We were received by the usual curious crowd, who fingered our coats and
tried to look into our pockets. Clarence explained we were to sit on the
_herios_ prepared, and the show would begin. Men and women took part
in the dance, advancing from either side and then retreating. I have
attended many an Indian “potlatch” of extravagant description, but they
were dignified in the extreme to the Somali equivalent. I won’t describe
the dance in detail, because this is supposed to be a pleasant book;
besides, Mr. Stead may read it. To put the case mildly, the affair was
savage to a degree of ignorance I had not dreamed of in its unvarnished
vulgarity.

It was the first indication we had that the Somalis are uncivilised
savages. I tried to doze. And being very weary, slept. A violent push
from Cecily aroused me to a sense of politeness again, and realising
that peace reigned around we stood up, and through Clarence, thanked the
gratified “artistes,” and left them wrangling over the gifts which lay
on the ground, looking as though they were trying to apologise for the
fact that there were not enough of them to go round. We had to trench
on the water supply a little after this entertainment, for a wash was an
absolute necessity.

Next day a somewhat untoward incident occurred. Cecily and I had
detached from a herd of three a fine bull oryx, who by reason of some
infirmity was not so fleet as his fellows, and so made an easier quarry.
Such a glorious chase he gave us, and more than once we almost took a
toss as the ponies groped for a foothold in the maze of ant bear holes.

At last, to cut what promised to be a never-ending chase, I flung myself
off the pony at the nearest point I judged we should ever get to the
coveted oryx this way, and taking no sort of a sight, I was so out of
breath with the shaking of my steed, brought down the antelope in a
crumpled heap at a distance of some two hundred and ten yards. This
was not so bad, all things considered. We went up close to the fallen
creature. I had my hand through the reins of my prodigiously blowing
pony, and most injudiciously ranged alongside. Cecily was still mounted.
The splendid bull rose from the dead, erect and firm, and I was given
no sort of a chance to protect myself before he made for me with lowered
horns. It all happened in the twinkling of an eye. I jumped as clear
as I could, but the reins entangled me, and the vicious horns caught
my left arm as my foe swept along. I was brought to my knees with the
impact. As he pulled up in a great slide to turn for a return joust
Cecily dropped him, at such close quarters though that the skin was much
damaged. My arm was ripped up most ingeniously for quite three inches,
Another rent in my poor coat to be mended! However, it might all have
been much worse. It might have been my right arm. The wind was tempered
to the shorn lamb.

I rode back to camp, with a handkerchief twisted tightly round the
wound, and Cecily stayed to guard the oryx from vultures, until I could
send some one to take over, when she returned to me fired with medical
ardour and primed with medical knowledge from our book. She pronounced
the wound as of the variety to be stitched. Could I bear it being
stitched? I said certainly, if she could endure the horror of stitching
it. So we prepared for action. I told my doctor I would not have the
place washed because I was convinced that Somali water, even when
filtered, was not calculated to cleanse, rather the reverse, and I did
dread blood-poisoning. I sat outside the tent on a packing case, and
Cecily put three most workmanlike stitches into my arm. She was a brick,
never flinching until it was done, when she let off bottled-up steam by
crying about four tears, and I think four tears are allowable--I mean
without showing any sort of cowardice or lack of courage--don’t
you? Rome was not built in a day, and Cecily had never even been
hospital-nursing; but then she is the most unfashionable person in the
wide world.

I carried my arm in a sling as we marched next day. Cecily was very
anxious to halt the caravan on my account, but this I would not allow.
The wells must be reached at the earliest possible moment. Clarence had
reported that the supply was dangerously low. We traversed very ugly
country, sand and sand, with a few low scrub bushes dotted about--a
dispiriting vista enough. We shot a dik-dik for dinner, and so fared
sumptuously. There is about as much meat on the body of this tiny buck
as one gets on an English hare.

At last we came to the wells. We found a number of Somalis making a spa
out of the place, and selling the water, drop by drop. I don’t know
if the wells were some one’s birthright, or if some speculative Somali
jumped the claim, but a repellent old gentleman, who looked as though he
had not tried the precious liquid on himself for some years, gave us to
understand he owned the place. He asked such wealth for a mere dole of
water we decided to camp and think it out. He knew the value of what he
had to sell, the old sinner, for though we were but a few marches
now from the end of the Haud our caravan was a good size, and its
consumption necessarily great. We had the tents set up right there, and
prepared to improve the shining hour by seeking some sport on the Toyo
Plain.

I discarded my sling altogether, and we started from camp early,
reaching the great “bun” after a stiffish ride. We left the ponies
in charge of the hunters some way from the fringe of grass, and in a
certain amount of cover. We stood for quite a long while watching
the sea of waving green which was not yet tall enough to conceal the
numerous bands of game that were out betimes to breakfast. A somnolent
hartebeest stood up out of range behind a clump of active aoul. Then we
worked our way very gently to a spot which gave us a clearer view. We
lay down awhile, glad of the rest, and watched the little harems quarrel
and make it up. Sometimes a buck of detective-like propensities would
seem to say “I spy strangers,” and communicated his alarm to the entire
herd. A perfect note of interrogation animated every one for a few
moments, and all would gather together, until a buck skipped towards
us, and then in active graceful bounds dash back to bring a pal to help
investigation. Satisfied, they rejoined the admiring does again.

But that hartebeest! I longed to get near him, but it seemed a hopeless
task. His sleepiness had passed, and now he was all ears and eyes. The
sun lit up his glossy coat, and caught the odd twist of his horns until
they gleamed again. We stalked in vain for an hour or more. My arm was a
great drawback to me, but I would not allow it to hamper me, and played
the Christian Science dodge on myself, saying, whenever a particularly
acute shoot of agony stabbed me, “You only _think_ you have pain.” At
last we hit on a device for ensnaring the active one. He was taking no
chances, and that the best laid plans gang aft agley we know. Still
my schemes and machinations were rather disorganised for the moment,
because I suddenly realised I was sharing my small portion of the
earth’s surface with a particularly nasty looking snake! It was quite
large enough to rout us both, and we should have fled, I know, had not
the reptile manifested a dislike of its own to our presence, and made
off into the long grass.

It took us a few minutes to recover from this shock and get back to our
designs for ensnaring the hartebeest. The general idea was that Cecily
was to work her way round opposite to me so that the sig lay between us.
The coveted prize would then, at least we hoped so, break near to one
of us. Of course it might just as easily dash off in quite another
direction, altogether out of range. But it was the only thing we could
think of to dislodge our quarry from the out-of-reach area in which it
fed. I could not do any stalking myself that necessitated going on hands
and knees, so Cecily set off, wriggling along like an eel. Though I
soon lost sight of her, I could in a way judge of her whereabouts.
Aoul started here and there as they winded her, moved away, and then
contented themselves again. They are like sentinels, these creatures,
and must play a most useful part in the drama of the jungle. Not
knowing, though, the actual moment Cecily would start the hartebeest, I
began to feel quite nervous for fear I missed an easy shot. The tension
got quite irritating when up from the sea of grass rose Cecily, like
an Aphrodite in khaki. Her loud shout startled the sig, who stood an
instant in paralysed affright, then, on the wings of the wind he sailed
past me. I threw up my rifle, the pain in my supporting arm forgotten,
and fired. The animal went on at a great pace. I do not think I got him
anywhere, but Cecily, who ran through the grass to join me, says she
heard even from where she was the “phut” of the bullet, and why didn’t
I? This worried me a lot. I hate to think of half-shot creatures
dragging on in agony. We found our ponies and galloped off in the
line of country traversed by the vanished sig. We rode for a long way,
searched thoroughly, but found nothing. We saw ostrich, but at long
range, and we hadn’t the desire to try and bag one. After a lunch of
cold oryx and bread of sorts (the oryx, by the way, who gave me reason
to remember him), we decided to give up the chase, satisfied my bullet
had not found a billet. The whole way home was blank. My shot had
alarmed all the jungle folk, and they were now as shy as hawks.

Back in camp the parleying with the stingy proprietor of the wells
began. He would not reduce his charges, and we had to have water. I so
hated to be done. After due deliberation we served the old gentleman
with an ultimatum to the effect that we offered him a fair price, and
if he would not accept the amount, we should take the water by force if
necessary. Clarence translated the message, and afterwards we saw
the recipient talking to his friends, some fifteen Somalis, and
gesticulating wildly. The time arrived when the kettle demanded filling
ere tea was forthcoming, so with almost all our men carrying _harns_ and
barrels, we marched right up to the walls. The old man, backed up by his
Somalis, came close to Cecily and myself, and jabbered a great deal
in furious tones. I expect the words were cuss words all right. They
sounded like them. I signed to the men to set to work filling up. The
enraged Somali struck at me with his spear. It would have fallen heavily
upon me had not Clarence seen the danger and parried it on his rifle.
This annoyed me frightfully. I tendered the amount we considered the
water worth, and tapped my rifle significantly. The Somalis fell back,
and congregated at a little distance, one of their number presently
advancing to ask for backsheesh. The battle was over.

That night my arm was in a parlous state, swollen and inflamed, and the
pain well-nigh overwhelmed me. I was in a high fever, and to proceed
with the journey was impossible. Cecily’s kindness during the awful days
that followed was wonderful, and her patience inexhaustible. In truth, I
cannot tell how much trouble I must have caused her, for things were not
always clear to me, and time seemed nothing. One night I wakened from
this world o’ dreams, and the tent flap being open I saw the scene
around me like a clear-limned etching. A glorious moon lit up the camp.
Cecily stood just outside, and by her side--who was it? I racked my
muddled brains. Why, of course, the leader of the Opposition. I sank
back again, convinced I was dreaming. By my side, on an upturned packing
case, lay a bunch of flowers. In the dim light they looked like English
roses. They were dream flowers, I suspect, but they seemed to me most
sweet. I pondered about them for an age. Was it the marvellous Marconi?
Or did Mercury bring them? I cared not, so they came.

Next morning I wakened to sense again, and Cecily was beside me and told
me--her dear eyes filled with tears--how nearly I had been lost to her,
and how, at the very worst of things, all unexpectedly, the leader of
the Opposition and Ralph had ridden into camp; that without their help
and common sense she could never have pulled me through.

The wells were now practically in our possession, the old gentleman
having waived his claims, but we were, of course, still out on the Haud.
Camels had been sent off to Berbera to meet us a little farther on, to
return with stores, mainly for the men. The Opposition had provided us
with many necessaries, and I was so glad because I did not want to leave
the wild any the sooner because of all this wasted time.

Next afternoon I held quite a Durbar. I sat outside the tent, and most
of the men came to make their salaams. Clarence--the good fellow--even
got so far as to say, shyly, “Me glad you olri.” They _all_ seemed glad
to have me all right, and it was nice of them.

The leader of the Opposition and Ralph came to tea, and we made very
merry. The latter pretended to be not on speaking terms with Cecily,
because at their last interview she had called him “horrid pig,” but I
explained that it must be a wild pig, and then it would be a compliment;
he is so much nobler than a tame one, is fleet of foot, and courageous
of heart, and sometimes resembles a lion. Where comes the sting of being
called after such an animal? It was delightful to feel we had friends so
near, at least just now, when self-reliance was at such a low ebb with
me. Old William puts “Honour, love, obedience, troops of friends” as
making up the joys of life. I did not want troops, but after the jungle
world, _two_ did make my joy just then. I have to say the jungle first,
because it still stood first, and I longed to be out again, not in it,
and yet not of it. “He who has heard the voice of Nature in her wildest
places, who has felt the mystery of her loveliness, the glamour of her
nameless airs and graces, is one who has eaten of the bread of Faëry,
and drunken of the wine of dreams.”

And the next day they propounded a scheme to me--these three
arch-plotters--we would all join forces, and wind up the shoots
together. But I had so many objections, one being the remembrance of
the remark at Aden about our wishing to cling on. The leader, with deep
sophistry, said that was more than atoned for, and wiped out by the
humiliating fact--to them--that our trip was much the most successful,
not only in the actual results, but in the peace and quiet of the
caravan. In theirs chaos had reigned from the very outset. The head-man
had levanted early on, taking with him the two best camels and no end
of loot, far worse calamity than a butler! Not a thing had been done
willingly, only under compulsion, and grumbling was the order of every
day.

I wondered if the extra large sum of money promised to each man of our
caravan at the end of the trip, provided his conduct pleased us--quite
my own idea--had kept things straight. Was it bribery and corruption? If
so, in our case, at least, the end justified the means.

As for our trophies, we of the rival expedition had much the best of it.
The Opposition had but one rhino, and altogether we had reason to feel
quite conceited. I hope we didn’t. For if there is one thing I hate it
is this same conceit. And sometimes I fear I have it slightly. For I
judge by the fact that I am apt to feel contempt at times, and lose
sight of the motto “Make allowances.” Now, conceit and contempt are hand
in glove, and if one has the one it entails having the other. But I hate
contempt in others, and admire humility as much as any virtue, it
is perhaps the rarest of them all. So I tried to be very humble, and
thanked the warriors for their gracious words.

Another great reason against the amalgamation was the trouble that would
arise with the men. With us Clarence was all powerful. Perhaps the new
arrivals would not pay allegiance to him, and so large a number together
would surely fight. All things considered, we agreed not to join, but to
meet at Berbera and go home together. We were bound there by way of the
midst of the Golis, and the Opposition did not propose to take them so
far up. They thought the game hardly worth the candle, in more senses
than one. True, the reserved area spreads a long way, but we wanted to
see the country anyhow.

In these days of convalescence we learned we had such worth having
friends. If Cecily regretted calling Ralph a “pig,” my conscience
pricked me that I once scornfully cavilled at the “leader’s” lack of
inches. Not that he was by any means a midget. How foolish I was!
Why, the greatest men have been little. Nelson and Napoleon, Lee and
Frederick the Great, Gustavus Adolphus and Marlborough, too, were on the
small side.

How very foolish I was!

Of a night Ralph would play his violin around the twinkling fires. It
looked so unlikely an instrument in his hands, and yet he made it speak
to us like a living thing. He was the finest amateur I ever heard. Even
the Somalis loved to hear him play, and sat in charmed groups listening
intently. It shows they have receptive souls for beauty. I agree with an
old friend of mine that the man who has no music in his soul is fit for
“treasons, stratagems, and spoils.” If I haven’t mangled the Immortal
One’s words.




CHAPTER XIX--IN THE GOLIS


``There was never yet philosopher that could endure the toothache

``patiently

`````Much Ado About Nothing=


```To climb steep hills requires slow pace at first.

`````Henry VIII=


|The next matter of interest lay in the return of the camel men. They
came into camp unexpectedly, and Ralph, who was lunching with us, called
out to me in my tent that a civilised looking “oont-wallah” (camel-man)
wanted to speak to me. There indeed stood one of the men who had gone
off to Berbera by the shortest possible route for supplies. He was to
have met us farther on, but we had delayed our departure so much longer
than had been planned; we were not, of course, to be found at the
arranged rendezvous. So, very sensibly, the small caravan came on to
find us. The man gave me particulars of his stewardship, and handed me a
bundle of letters, and some ancient _Daily Wails_ and other newspapers.
The whole lot seemed out of place. Letters and papers are for those
who live in the humming world of men. We considered ourselves dead and
buried to it, We wished we had been in very truth after opening some
of the communications. “Another little bill,” Cecily said, handing me a
quarter yard long sheet.

There were letters from our old shikari uncle, full of advice, kindly
doubts, and a few sharp digs. But his rapiers always had great big
buttons on, so did not hurt us as he lunged. Sooner, I know, would he
have broken his weapon across his knee.

[Illustration: 0327]

All Suburbia was announcing, through the columns of the _Morning
Post_, that marriages had been arranged for them. Who does all this
“arranging”? Nobody ever “arranges” a marriage for me. I often look
hopefully to see. I suppose if you come on it “arranged,” however
unpleasant it may be to you, there is nothing to be done but see the
thing through. A quaint business! Really quite on the lines of the Stone
Age, when a furry suitor would arrange with the furry father to exchange
the furry daughter for a couple of rabbits.

Cecily says if some one doesn’t arrange a marriage for her soon she’ll
be left on the shelf, but one can see a lot from a shelf, provided it
is high enough. Of course she’d be unpopular. Old maids always are.
And this is just because a man sees in every unmarried woman a walking
statistic against his irresistibility.

The Opposition kept us going in meat these days, but at last I prevailed
on Cecily to leave me and do a stalk on her own. But Ralph joined her,
and I wonder how much stalking they did. Anyway, they were bound for the
Toyo to look for hartebeest, and all they came back with was the tail,
very much the worse for wear and time, of an aoul. Ralph said he grabbed
it as the animal dashed past him, and it came off in his hand! I told
him he reminded me of the Book of Chronicles--Unveracious Chronicles!
After all, it was no taller story than many one hears, and a good deal
funnier than some. We know Eve told the first lie, but I am confident
that if Adam ever went big game shooting he came in a very good second
at the winning post.

The leader had a brilliant inspiration just then. We would have a day
at pig-sticking. He was great after pig in India, and of course where we
were was quite the right sort of country. I won’t say we had the right
sort of mounts. They did not understand the chase of a pig, did not
yearn to, and certainly never fathomed the secret.

First, we were explained to about the rules of the game. Then Clarence
and some hunters were told off to beat, and we saw to the spears,
tipping them, choosing the most likely from the collected ones
belonging to our men. I was allowed to wield a light one, being still
a semi-invalid. We all rode out towards the Toyo Plain, the men walking
behind. I think I have forgotten to mention the fact that Cecily and I
rode astride. That torturing, awkward, and most uncomfortable position
which is at home considered the correct way to sit a horse would have
been impossible in Somaliland, not to say dangerous, living under our
present conditions.

The men beat every bush and blade of grass most conscientiously, but
at first nothing resulted. On nearing the Toyo, however, we joyfully
discovered that a bit of thick thorn cover concealed a small sounder of
wart-hog. They scattered as we rode into them.

Cecily smartly detached one of them, which immediately charged away
back into the fastnesses of the waving grass of the “bun.” A grand
hiding-place, and I feared we had lost the treasure. The leader and
Ralph dashed like lightning after the pig, and rounded it up in style.
Back it came like a whirlwind, and made for the open again. I rode at
him, thinking I was doing quite the right thing, and wild to draw first
blood, when Ralph signalled “Sow.” I was going far too quickly to draw
up, my stirrup leather broke, and the consequence was the pig and my
steed cannoned violently, and bang over I went. I called to the others
not on any account to stop, but to pursue the vanished sounder before it
was too late. This they did, and disappeared in a moment.

After I had sorted myself from out the pony, and with Clarence’s help
picked sundry bits of the landscape off my clothes, I mounted again, and
following the trail of the others, and led by their shouts, I arrived
on the scene of action just as one spear--Ralph’s--was taken. I tried to
join the exciting chase that ensued, but my pony would not see the thing
through, and disgraced me and itself every “jink.” The leader’s spear
now flashed about so very quickly I could hardly follow each phase of
the game, intent as I was on forcing my pony to take a hand in it. The
boar charged several times most ferociously, but the nimble warrior
parried each onslaught successfully. The boar was indeed a game one,
and nothing could hold him. Ralph and his pony went down like ninepins
before him, but the effort was the gallant hog’s last. The leader pinned
him down, and that spear was the _coup-de-grâce._

They said Cecily and I did very well for complete novices at the sport,
but I can’t see that we did anything but get in the way. It was all very
exciting, and we were no end done up by the time we made camp again.
Cecily’s pony had a nasty gash as a reminder of the fray. Ralph stitched
it up most scientifically. We were promised the tushes of the boar, set
up in some way, as a souvenir of the great adventure.

One late afternoon Cecily went off with Ralph and Clarence for a final
attempt on the life of a hartebeest, while the leader and I peacefully
collected butterflies, or tried to, and paid a visit to the opposition
camp to see their trophies. All the skulls and skins were inspected.
They had a couple of Grevy’s zebra, having been to the Bun Feroli (Zebra
Plain), after we left them in the Ogaden, and a magnificent hippo from
near the Webbi. I felt very envious, but one can’t go everywhere. The
zebra skins were most exquisite, shining and silky, marked in great
lines of white and brown. The stripes varied very much in the two skins,
one having much narrower lines than the other. Birds of many varieties
the leader had collected, snakes too, and all the lizards. Being full
of infinite variety he loved the coleoptera as much as the flaunting
glories of the lepidoptera, and it took us a long time to go through
it, for each treasure was safely put away in its own box. We made for
my camp to find Ralph in the seventh heaven of delight because he had
brought down a hartebeest that Cecily had missed--missed on purpose,
she said, to give him the pleasure of bagging it. Anyway, there lay the
trophy, a present, Ralph said, for me. I thanked him profusely, because
our collection was not overdone with this variety.

I do not really admire this antelope very much, or perhaps I should say
I admire it less than any other, since every antelope has some points
of undoubted beauty. Their faces are what baulk me. They are so silly
looking, like a particularly inane cow--a cow’s face, and yet not a
cow’s face, and though very massive and magnificent in the fore they
pan out to nothing in the hind quarters. The horns, set in sockets,
are hardly ever the same, curving this way and that way,’ as cow’s do.
Hartebeest are the quickest goers in all the antelope world. They are
never spoken of by the natives by any other name than “sig.” And this
is odd, because in other varieties I frequently heard the correct
designation.

The best of friends must part, and we were no exception to the rule.
However, we buoyed ourselves up with the notion that it was not to
be for long. For the second time the opposition shoot watched our
departure, but this time we all had an interest in the affair--very
different to the almost animosity that actuated us at the start.
_Souvent femme varie_, and man too.

Our caravan got on the move once more. The _harns_ were not well filled
because we had used up all the water, whoever it belonged to, and this
made it necessary for us to march as swiftly as might be. We took on
three of the most terrific treks, for length and weariness unsurpassed.
The track was fortunately good, but the dust was absolutely blinding,
blowing before the wind in clouds, and once or twice during the march
I had the tent pitched that we might rest awhile in a slightly clearer
atmosphere. Our small quantity of water was used almost at once, and
the last march on the Haud was a forced one indeed. We lumbered on long
after darkness had fallen, and reached some wells, apparently free,
about eleven o’clock. The men formed a rough zareba, but we were all too
tired to trouble much, and after watering the animals by the light of
the watch fires we had supper and turned in.

The Haud now was safely over, and before us lay the great ascent of the
Golis range. The gradual rise began to be felt after the second day’s
march. We saw numerous Speke’s gazelle, and Cecily bagged a fine male,
after a prolonged chase, that took her some miles from camp. I was
nearly out of my senses with toothache, a grievous pain indeed, and one
so impossible almost, under the circumstances, to cure. Dentistry was
beyond us.

For two days I trekked in a state of semi-delirium. I got no peace at
night nor by day, until at last I hit on a glorious panacea. We had
finished a huge day, and on turning in for another sleepless night I
decided to drink enough whisky to paralyse me _and_ the tooth. A very
little spirit overcomes me. I mixed half a tumbler full of whisky with
precious little water--drank it--and knew no more till morning!

The thing worked like a charm. The tooth had given over aching, and bar
a dark brown taste in my mouth I was none the worse for my carouse.

We saw a couple of oryx out early, and dashed off after them. Ponies
were of no use now, and had to be left behind. I crawled along such
stony ground I wore down to my bare knees in no time, and then only got
within range as the oryx sped away again. They sailed so gracefully over
the rough ground, and no obstacle barred their way. Cecily was posted on
a small rise beneath which the oryx passed, and got in a telling shot,
running down to see the result. We were exceedingly foolish in what we
did, after all the experience we had too. Seeing the oryx was hard hit
we ran towards him, and he who looked at first like dying as suddenly
rose to his feet and ran towards us head down for the charge, his whole
weight set for the blow. Perdition catch our stupidity! Did we not know
the strength and power of those rapier horns? Cecily was taken back with
the onslaught for a moment, and then dashed precipitately behind a clump
of aloes. I dropped on one knee to try and get a surer shot, to rise
next moment to dodge and flee. My very ignominious flight was my
cousin’s opportunity. The buck followed me, she followed him,
and getting in a close raking shot, finished what looked like the
commencement of an ugly affair. This was our last oryx of the trip, and
a very fair specimen. The skin of his neck was quite half an inch in
thickness, a veritable armour-plate. I did not know until later that the
best and most desired shields are got from the neck skin, the shoulder
providing the second quality only.

Higher and higher we climbed each trek, the going much slower now.
The camels took their time over the so far simple ascent. We sighted
gerenük many times, both when riding alone and with the caravan. Many
times we pursued them, and as many times returned discouraged. Stalking
was a very difficult business here, the bushes all grew aslant, and the
buck had a perfection of balance unknown to us. One try of Cecily’s very
much amused us. She got a chance at a gerenük, after a stiff pursuit
over hill and down dale, fired, and the kick from her rifle overbalanced
her as she clung with uncertain feet to the hillside, and she slid like
an animated toboggan downwards. Goodness knows where the gerenük or the
bullet went to.

We camped on a beautiful range one night, where a small plateau seemed
to invite us to rest awhile. The sun was just setting, and the mighty
mountains around were bathed in a roseate glow. It was a most perfect
scene. The camp that night was like a biblical picture--the sleeping
camels, the recumbent forms of their drivers, and over all a sky of such
wondrous blue dotted with stars innumerable.

Next the sublime is always the ridiculous. Another camel man fell sick
here, but his case was not really genuine, I verily believe. Cecily and
I feigned to have found among our things a medicine of most marvellous
properties, warranted to cure in one dose all the ills that flesh is
heir to. Quinine was its name really, and Clarence dosed the Somali with
it, and the curative effect was at once apparent.

Jackals were here very plentiful, too much so for our peace and quiet.
They came prowling round the camp in ones and twos seeking for what they
might devour. I shot one at night on hearing a crunching sound near
by. I rushed out of the tent in terror lest the half-dry rhino was
furnishing a succulent meal. We had no thorn zareba in these days, and
the watch must have belied his name. The stealthy prowler passed behind
our tent, and I got a clear shot between his gleaming eyes. Far too
near! I blew the jackal’s head to smithereens, and damaged its beautiful
coat considerably also. The whole camp awakened then and buzzed with
excitement, until the men knew the nature of the animal that had come
in on us. When it was discovered that the intruder was a mere jackal
matters quieted down considerably. It was no credit to them that it
wasn’t a leopard. I lectured the parody of a watch severely next day,
and as we were getting to an end of the trip our lightest words had
immediate effect. It was quite odd.

The thickness of the aloe jungle here was immense, and to penetrate
it was impossible, though constantly we longed to do so, as we heard
mysterious rustles n the density.

Our mileage was next to nothing these days, and our marches desperate
slow. But a camel won’t be hurried.

We had a day in the ravines, picking up the caravan at a given place,
taking Clarence and the second hunt with us. We ventured down a perfect
abyss clothed at the bottom in aloe jungle. It was most difficult to
keep upright at all, and we took some glorious tosses. The worst thing
to contend with was the hunter’s habit of carrying Cecily’s rifle
pointing straight at the person who happened to be struggling along
in front. It gave me the creeps to watch him. However improbable an
accident may be, we know they do happen in the best regulated families.
At last, as repeated telling him did no good, we relieved him of his
load. He may have had some method in his madness.

We heard a crackle of the aloes, and two koodoo passed in view, going
fairly hard. We hadn’t a look in, for they vanished before we realised
they were there. We crossed from ravine to ravine, and came on any
amount of koodoo spoor, and leopard, the latter some two days old.
At last, as we were giving up dispirited, sitting down to recover our
breath, a small koodoo bull passed below us, at a distance of some
two hundred and thirty yards. It was ridiculous to wait for a slightly
improved position, there wouldn’t be one, and as meat was very scarce
with us these days, I had a try for him. I really aimed in front of the
bull, averaging the pace at which he was travelling, and pressed the
trigger. It was written in my Kismet book that I might not do freak
shots of this kind with success. The koodoo saved his venison, and a
sort of groan went up from the greedy hunters. Two hundred yards is
really the limit of a sporting shot or chance, and at that distance you
cannot make out the animal’s ear clearly--my invariable test. A down
hill shot is the one most likely to fail, because it is so difficult to
judge distance horizontally, not vertically.

We had a huge climb for it back to our camp, which we saw perched high
above us, our tent looking a mere white speck on the sky-line. Once as
we skirted a thick bunch of foliage and undergrowth we heard a leopard
“cough.” We pulled up, and listened awhile, but could hear no more of
him. Firing the place was no use. The smoke might hang about, there was
little air in these ravines, and it might be impossible for us to see
clearly. We were really tired, and very unenthusiastic, so let the
matter go.




CHAPTER XX--THE LAST PHASE


```Our gayness and our gilt are all besmirch’d

```With rainy marching in the painful field,

```And time has worn us into slovenry,

```But, by the mass, our hearts are in the trim

`````King Henry V=


|At night came that weird lowing sound a leopard often makes when
hunting. Our friend of the afternoon, of course. He wakened us up, and
we turned out to see that the watch happened to be on the alert. It
would be a parlous thing if we lost any of the precious trophies now
when the expedition was almost over--not that taxidermine-covered
skins and heads would be the sort of feast that would appeal to a saucy
leopard. Then silence again.

Next day one of our hunters heard of a neighbouring _karia_ losing a
sheep the previous night. It was struck down but not removed. I had
heard of such a thing before, and believe it to be an undoubted fact
that a leopard kills on occasion for mere lust.

Cecily and I went to the _karia_, which was perched on a plateau
surrounded with slopes covered with aloes. Quite a natural fortress,
and one that might be most easily guarded from the incursions of wild
beasts. But the Somalis seem to me to introduce the kismet idea into
every phase of their everyday life. Any easily avoided disaster is
accepted in this fashion.

The head-man gave us all the particulars. A leopard had indeed entered
the _karia_, killed a sheep, and then left the carcase. We begged for
the remains, and for a consideration got them. Clarence bestowed them
at the foot of the rise in open ground, by a brake of aloes and thick
cover. The men set about constructing a “machan” in the jungly place,
and kept guard till sunset, when Cecily and I took the job on. We
climbed into our refuge; it was intensely rickety, and rocked every
time we made the least movement. I was no more enamoured of this sort of
sport than before, and suppose we were doing it because we felt the trip
being so nearly over it was foolish now to miss any chance whatever. For
once in a way we were both rather uninterested, a fatal frame of mind in
this sort of an affair. We were bitterly cold, and I could hardly hold
my rifle at all. Hours seemed to drag along, minutes really. I had to
strike a light, whatever the consequence, to ascertain the time. It
was 12 a.m. Oh, for bed and this sort of sport at an end! Another weary
silence. I slept, I believe, with one eye open. Then an ominous rustle,
and a lightning whirr and rush, succeeded by a blank silence again.
Whatever had happened now? We listened and gazed attentively, but no
more sounds reached our straining ears. Over all the jungle brooded a
stillness that could almost be felt. Then Cecily, whose sight is better
than mine, said it was plain to be seen even in the blackness that
surrounded us that the carcase of the sheep was no longer there. After
that, what a weary night. We did not care to risk getting out, and there
was no good to be done in staying in. The dawn broke at last, falsely
at first, and dark gray shadows fell again to flee away before the all
conquering sun, who rose in splendour, gilding the lofty ranges with
tips of gold and red.

We pushed our way out, not waiting for the men to come and let us free,
and the whole show, unable to hold up any longer, fell over with us. It
was very badly put together, and would have been a pantomime protection
in case of stress. We were dishevelled looking before, and worn out for
want of sleep, but we were objects by the time we had fought our way
from out the collapsed “machan.” We followed the pugs of the leopard
till they disappeared in impenetrable bush. He had taken his victim to
a safe stronghold. But we weren’t to be worsted so easily. When Clarence
appeared we asked him the best plan for dislodging the cat, who must be
gorged now, and a little overdone. Our shikari said he would order some
of the men out and try to beat the place. I asked him to take the .35
Winchester himself, and use it if he could. Then began a lively morning.
The men beat the place with their spears in sort of flying rushes,
dashing forward, then dashing back, and at last, as we really made the
radius of the place smaller, we heard a continuous snarling, like that
a domestic cat makes when it has a mouse in its paws, only this was much
more vicious and sounding louder.

I stood close to the jungle, and Clarence begged me to stand a little
farther off. This I did not care to do. The men were not armed, bar
their spears, and it seemed unfair to expose them so without giving them
the protection of one’s rifle. Cecily was doing the same thing on her
side of the brake, where the men were spearing bravely and shouting
lustily. We fired into the undergrowth, but it was of no avail; still
the ominous snarling kept up, still the animal would not break cover. I
made up my mind I would try and see if I could not get a shot into him
somehow, so I took on the silly job of crawling very slowly down the
rough trail made through the dense bush by the dragging of the sheep.
I came on its remains almost at once. The leopard, where was he? Then
I saw it in one brief second. What a face of rage and fury! I dare not
fire. I backed hurriedly, getting clear of the place, and then fired
twice into the very place where I judged the leopard lay up. A rush.
Out he came, rather from the side, looking like a fiend let loose. I was
glad we were not bang in his path. I could not get a shot in at all, for
one of the hunters, in the warmth of his earnest efforts, put himself in
my light. There was Cecily, she blazed away; there was Clarence, whose
rifle spoke, but I heard his bullet strike a rock behind. The leopard,
with lithe swinging bounds, was up the clefts of the ravine in a moment.
I threw up my rifle and had a try for him. No result. He was lost to
sight. Four of the men went to the top of the ravine and descended
carefully, reporting the leopard to be in a sort of cave between two
boulders. We must get there too, of course, which would be a prodigious
bit of climbing. Cicely said she was confident her bullet told; I know
mine didn’t. We reached the spot where the animal was ensconced, and
there, sure enough, we could see, if we stooped, his crouched shoulders,
head dropped on paws, eyes gleaming defiance. He was a foe to be afraid
of, and I _was_ afraid for consequences. The men were in such dangerous
positions, and all of us had such insecure foothold. In case of a charge
from the leopard one or more would certainly go over the rocks to the
bottom of the gorge, a very nasty fall indeed. I made up my mind I would
finish it. I walked as carefully as I could towards my enemy, rifle
ready, expecting the very worst every minute. I drew a bead on its
head. Fired! A moment of such intense anxiety. No movement. We advanced
cautiously. The great cat was dead. A passive ending indeed.

By all the laws of first blood he belonged to Cecily. She had got him
very much indeed, in the base of the spine. He was done for when I shot
him, and it is questionable if he had the power to move at all. Indeed,
his ascent of the place, wounded where he was, seemed to us a wonderful
feat. The men extricated the beautiful thing; he was somewhat aged, with
old teeth, and skin much scarred and seamed with fighting. The head-man
from the _karia_ was very much delighted, for he insisted the leopard
was one for whom they had long looked to make an end of. He had struck
down a Somali, who was only saved by the spears of his friends. The
yellow danger lurked in rocks, and would, from all accounts, probably
have developed into a man-eater. We were glad to have finished his
career.

All the flies in all the world seemed to join in at the skinning, and we
went back to camp, breakfast, and a bath of sorts.

We rested that day, seeing to all the trophies, the new acquisition
included, instructing the men where to rub the skins and where not.
Taking them all round, every specimen was in good condition.

We progressed during the evening hours as long as the light held. The
climbing was now quite a big thing, and for one step forward we seemed
to go two back. A sounder of wart-hog crossed our front, and Cecily
bagged a small sow, quite by mistake, but it was the animal’s own fault
for growing tushes. This freak occurs often, and I don’t think one can
be blamed if accidents happen through this mistaken habit. Accidents
always do happen when femininity adopts the attributes which are the
prerogative of the masculine gender. Anyway, the pig was a great luxury
in the way of a change on the daily menu. Of course we had to dress
it ourselves--a bit of a set back. We fried some chops for supper that
night, and smiled to ourselves as we thought we could almost rival
Chicago for quick despatch.

The next big undertaking was the negotiating of the Upper Sheik, a big
affair indeed, and we set off with not a few qualms as to our success.
The foremost camel looked as though if he fell he must carry all the
others with him in swift rush downwards. We took care to lead the van.

“The morning was one of God’s own, done by hand, just to show what
He could do.” We climbed up and up, painstakingly and ploddingly, and
presently saw the rugged way over which we had come far below us. We had
then been marching close on two hours, and must have done less than four
miles. A little lonely _karia_ was perched on a terraced outlook away
to the west, its inhabitants strolling out lazily to watch our progress.
Half a mile or so off was the Sheik Argudub’s tomb, a white dome-shaped
structure, glinting in the sun, and looking for all the world like a
replica of some massive wedding-cake. The whole scene was now grandly
picturesque in the extreme, and gaining the top of the pass a wondrous
panorama lay spread at our feet. Wealth of colour sprang voluptuous
around us: here a mass of green merging to purple, there pale tints
of cream and brown, aesthetic and delicate. Everywhere great ravines
yawned, black and mysterious. Farther off, the vast Marmitime Plain, and
miles on miles away, thirty or more, a tiny dark blue riband, fringing
the whole, told us that the sea was there. Valleys, ravines, mountains,
rivers too, helped out the beauteous scene, and above all, rising
superior, was Mount Wager, mightiest of all the Golis.

We camped in this delightful place, overlooking a vista I can never
forget. Preying vultures kept watch over infinite space, in widening
circles. A hot wind blew through the camp. Here at last, for the moment,
we could see about us without that smoke-like dust to curtain all
things. The light of the setting sun limned clear the mighty peaks, and
brooding night swept gently down the slopes and wrapped the world in
sombre garb. The wild eerie grandeur of it impressed me greatly, and I
simply could not leave our terraced plateau, but beneath the arch of the
stars sat on and marvelled. Then, as though by some special arrangement
of Providence for our good entertainment, a mighty storm brewed itself
sullenly away over the Marmitime, then crept insidiously to the Golis,
and broke in majesty. The bombardment lasted for an hour or more,
reverberating through every pass and every ravine; the heavens were
alight with wondrous flashes, that rent the air in forked spears,
striking down to the depths of the darkest crevass.

We were as safe outside the tent as in, I think, but nowhere very safe,
the lightning grew so close. Some of the men got under _herios_, some
even under the standing camels, a nice Juggernaut to run the risk
of bringing down on one’s devoted head. Then, gradually the wildness
passed, and spent itself in deep-tongued mutterings and distant murmurs.
Then came the rain, Somali rain, and we had to shelter. Cecily’s
treasure had made us our inevitable nightcap--tea--before the streams of
water drenched his fire. Thanks be!

I pictured in my mind the days when herds of elephants roamed the Golis
valleys, and the lion woke the still ravines with resonant sound. Alas!
this place will know them no more.

The Sheik Pass is, of course, christened after the old gentleman who is
buried in the wedding-cake arrangement, and not very far from our camp
was an immense cemetery where many thousands of people are buried.
Clarence took us also to the ruins of a one-time city, now covered
with grass and aloe growth. How ancient the place is I cannot say with
accuracy, but it looked very ancient indeed. Not far away at the Upper
Sheik is a large Somali village, a Mullah settlement, and the Sheik
there, a very enlightened person indeed, told us that the remains of the
city are not really very antediluvian, and is the site of the homes of
the early settlers from the Yemen. As we neither of us knew anything
about such influx we kept silent, to conceal our ignorance. Quite a lot
of the tracery on the stones which satisfied un-archæological people
like ourselves is nothing but decorative work carved by the shepherds
trying to kill time!

Being comparatively near Berbera and “civilisation,” the pass being a
kind of high road to Brighton, this Mullah saw a good deal of Europeans,
and spoke a little English. We presented him with a Koran, a _tusba_,
and a couple of tobes--the last of the Mohicans--and so our reception
was exceedingly cordial. The Mullah was an elderly man, but it is
exceedingly hard to guess ages “out there,” and his face was deeply
lined, his eyes were very jaded. When the conversation, engineered by
Clarence as usual, began to flag I cast about in my mind for a suitable
remark, which I placed carefully. He would just wait for me to make
another, and seemed to have no inventive faculty of his own. At last
I said I hoped all his wives were well. The Mullah tersely said he had
none, and relapsed into silence again. This was a set-back that took
some getting over, but I gathered myself together sufficiently to say
I trusted the forlorn condition of things was temporary only, and that
when he had some wives they would keep well. Cecily pulled my sleeve,
and whispered I was getting on very badly. “You try then,” I said
huffily.

She asked him how many cattle he owned. Oh, hundreds. Would we like some
milk?

“I hope he didn’t think I was hinting!” murmured Cecily abashed. But we
did look forward to a good drink of cow’s milk. When it came we could
not manage it, for the milk tasted so horribly. I think the milking
vessels must have been dirty.

In this settlement they made large quantities of _ghee_ for sending
down to Berbera, and the whole atmosphere seemed more business-like
and agricultural than most Somali _karias_. Quite a crop of jowâri
cultivation brightened the plateau ground around, and farming seemed to
be thoroughly understood. Many herds of sheep, watched over by women and
children, whitened the hills. A goat of acumen and intelligence led each
band, and they were not driven from the rear, with the consequent going
in the wrong direction every time that attends the moving of a flock of
sheep with us. The shepherdess walked in front, the tame goat followed,
and the sheep came wandering after. They were exceedingly fat sheep,
and our men revelled in the grease that ensued after the cooking of two
presented to us by our friend the Mullah.

The hot _karif_ wind here blew hurricanes for a couple of days, and
tents would not stand against it. We tried to keep them up, but the
anxiety of the prospect of one’s house about one’s ears kept us awake,
and the next night we had a sort of circle made of all our boxes and
luggage generally, and slept inside the ring with the gale blowing great
guns over our heads. The _karif_ is part of the Haga season, July and
August, and we had met it, only less furiously inclined, on and off
lately. It springs up at night, and you may go to bed with not a breath
stirring to wake to feel the tents straining at its moorings. The sand
blows before the wind in clouds, and the best way to combat it is to
precipitate oneself face downwards until the swirl of grit has passed
for the time. At the height of the Golis the _karif_ is not usually
prevalent, keeping its attentions for the plains. And we were delighted
that each morning as the day advanced the wind of the night spent itself
into a pleasant refreshing breeze.

Just where we pitched our camp was a reserved area for game, so we
descended next morning, minus the hunters, to lower country, down the
remains of elephant trails. They are not so amazing to me as the tracks
of the bison--extinct, or practically extinct anyway--one comes on in
some parts of Montana. I remember one in particular that I thought was
the ancient bed of some great river, so wide and deep was it. And yet
thousands of bison passing over it to drink daily at a lake in the
vicinity had made the wondrous track. But I’m digressing, and that
badly.

A couple of agile wild asses raced along a little pathway cleft in the
side of the ravine above us, the dislodged stones raining about our
ears. Graceful alert creatures, but of course barred to us, and not only
by reason of the red tape that ties them up. I cannot think a wild ass
is an allowable trophy. I should for ever apologise if I had one. So--we
saw them vanish in a cloud of dust. We saw a klipspringer as we turned
a little curving piece of rock. I fired, and missed. Most unfortunately,
as the shot was called through every ravine by every echo.

As we were silently standing gazing across a lovely valley a couple of
wart-hog sows with immense families ran among the aloes. Cecily
dashed after them, and into them, separating the little band. Laughing
heartily, she pursued one agile mite, and almost cornered it. The sow
turned viciously and charged head down. I shouted to the venturesome
Cecily, but she saw the danger as soon as I, and made for an aloe
stronghold. The baby pig with little grunts and squeals ran to its
mother, who gave up the idea of punishing us for our temerity in
waylaying her, and trotted back to her litter, all scuttling away in the
tangle of jungly places. We laughed at the comical sight they presented,
and then began to lunch off a bit of their relation.

The air made us drowsy, and I think we slept awhile. The bark of a
koodoo wakened us, and we started up all alert. Two small does crossed
the ravine lower down, but were gone in the fraction of a second. It was
a stiff climb back, and as I made a detour round a jutting peak of rock
I caught a glimpse of a distant klipspringer. Down I went, and oh, how
I prayed Cecily would keep quiet, and not set a dozen stones a-rolling,
for she had not sighted the prize. I threw up my rifle and took careful
aim. The klipspringer was off. It perched again on a spiky summit. Bang!
sounded to the astonishment of Cecily. The little buck took a header
clean off its halting place, and turning somersaults fell a hundred feet
or so. We slid and ran and fell after it. I made certain its horns would
be broken and useless, but, thank goodness, we found them intact. I
had hit the klipspringer fair and square in the heart, and its rough
olive-coloured coat was hardly marked. The little straight horns of
this trophy measured three and three quarter inches. The females are
hornless.

Then came the difficulty of packing our prize back to camp--our camp
in the skies. First we sought a stout branch, and then tied the hollow
rounded hoofs of the little klipspringer to it. We always went about
with our pockets stuffed with cord and useful things, the sort of things
a woman in peace times would not find useful at all. Then we lifted
together. What a mighty weight for so small a thing! The rests we
had, the slips downhill, the tempers we got into, are they not all
graphically described in my diaries of the day in the following terse
but meaning words: “I shot a klipspringer at the bottom of a ravine.
Cecily and I carried it back to our camp in the Upper Sheik ourselves.”
 Simple words, but fragrant with meaning.

Near camp the waiting Clarence met us, and we gladly turned over the
klipspringer to him. It was indeed a charming trophy, and we were
intensely happy at having procured one of this species. Our excursion
had about put the finishing touch to our garments, which were already
on their last legs. We were literally in rags, and had come down to our
last suit. Time had indeed made us slovenly.

If the ascent of the Upper Sheik had been a big matter, what shall we
say about the descent? It was a very serious matter, but Cecily and I
laughed and laughed, and hugely enjoyed ourselves. The proceedings of a
barrow load of stones tipped over the edge would have been graceful
to us. I tried the going down for a short way on my pony, but speedily
resolved that if I must die I would at least do it with some degree of
dignity, and not be hurled into space in company with a wretched, if
well meaning, Somali tat. The camels, one by one, went on before us; it
would have been vastly unpleasant to go before. Westinghouse brakes are
what they wanted, Somali camel men are what they got. Clinging on to the
already overbalanced creatures, backing, pushing, shouting, rarely have
I seen a more amusing sight. The ponies practically tobogganed down, and
the accidents were many. One box full of provisions fell off a heaving
camel, burst open, and all the provisions spread themselves as far and
as widely as ever they possibly could. I scooped up all the coffee
I could find, as it was the last we had. We drank it as “Turkish”
 afterwards, grits and all, and thus got it down with more liking.

At the bottom of the pass we called a halt for a much-needed rest,
and looking back one wondered however we had made the journey down
so successfully. The camels seemed none the worse, but one pony, my
erstwhile steed “Sceptre,” had gone very lame. We were now in big timber
country, and for the first time for an age saw water running, and not
stagnant. We took off our boots and stockings, and went in at once, only
sorry that propriety would not allow a total eclipse. We could not leave
that blessed brook; I really cannot dignify it by the name of river.

Camp was formed here, but a zareba was no longer a necessity. All that
day we drowsed away the hours, wandering about among the trees and
chasing butterflies. It was quite an idyllic day.

Next morning we left camp, thoroughly fresh and game for a big tramp.
We took our way up a rocky gorge that led us towards the Marmitime. The
scenery everywhere was still of the most exquisite description, vastly
different to the sun-dried plains we had traversed so short a time ago.
Walking was not easy, and we made a great clatter of stones as we passed
along. Our noise startled a small creature we had not noticed before, so
much the colour of the ground was he. He sprang from rock to rock with
surprising agility, and poised for a moment ere he took off again like
some light-winged bird. We excitedly started in pursuit, and I was
almost certain we should lose him. Cecily vowed she must risk it, and
I did not think it mattered very much anyway. The gazelle seemed to me
lost.

My cousin waited for the creature to rest a second, and then did what I
consider the finest shot of the trip. She brought her quarry down from
a great height, two hundred and ten yards at least, smack, to a little
grassy knoll beneath, stone dead. I patted her on the back. It was a
wonderful and never-to-be-forgotten achievement. We had no end of a
difficulty to reach the place, and arrived, our joy knew no bounds. It
might be said of our trip as of the life of King Charles, that nothing
in all of it so much became it as the ending, for this, our last trophy
of all, proved to be the somewhat rare Pelzeln’s Gazelle. It is not
at all rare in the Marmitime, I believe, but necessitating a special
expedition there to bag one. The gazelle had quite good horns, topping
eight inches. He was fawn in colour, darker on the back, with a black
tail. The females of this species carry horns also.

[Illustration: 0355]

I stayed up in the rocks on guard until Cecily brought Clarence and one
of the hunters to do the carrying of our treasure, Cecily and I having
gone out of that business.

In camp now the greatest activity reigned, the men working so very
willingly, taking no end of pains with the heads and skulls and skins.
And the cook, Cecily’s cook, made us weird hashes and tea till we feared
for our digestions.




CHAPTER XX--END OF THE GREAT SHIKAR


```Approved warriors, and my faithful friends

`````Titus Andronicus=


````Then must I count my gains

`````Richard III=


````And so I take my leave

`````Midsummer Night’s Dream=


|At last Berbera in the distance. At last the one remaining night in
our tent--over. At last the final breakfast in the open--over. Then the
outskirts of the town, and then Berbera itself.

The leader of the Opposition and Ralph met us almost at once, looking
quite respectable and clean. They said they had been waiting right there
for two days for fear we should come unwelcomed. We put up at the
old familiar rest-house in the European Square, and our camels and
_impedimenta_ generally camped in front of us. Our first dinner in
“civilisation” did not please us half as much as the culinary efforts of
Cecily’s _chef_. Roast chicken with flies is not, after all, so
appetising as badly cooked oryx, served up with hunger sauce, and at
least, in the jungle, we escaped that last resource of the average cook
when she can’t think up a pudding--stewed rhubarb. I wonder if there is
a country where the weed can be avoided? Here it was again, a mass of
flies and fermentation, singing away to itself in a little dish.

After dinner we sat outside the bungalow fighting battles o’er again,
and regretting, oh, with such an ache of longing, the jungle and the
wild. That night we hardly slept at all. We missed the camp sounds,
the grunting camels, the sound of the fires being piled, we missed the
open--all! We stretched out longing arms and touched a wall! We paced a
floor that was not ground.

Everything in the world comes to an end. How sad that is sometimes! How
we longed to turn the hands of the clock back, and Time with it!

Next day we joined our camp again, and began to make arrangements for
its disbandment. We had come in at a bad time--camels being a drug in
the market. The leader and Ralph disposed of theirs by public auction,
but there could not be much of a demand for any more at this time of the
year. Our beasts were in a very fair condition, all things considered,
but we had great difficulty in getting rid of them. At last Clarence
produced a dirty old Arab, whose appearance gave one the idea he had no
means whatever, but of course this is not peculiar to Arabs, for some of
our home millionaires are afflicted in the same way. The old gentleman
bargained and bargained until I almost let the creatures go at 30 Rs.
apiece, but Ralph arrived at the crucial moment and put a different
complexion on the matter. He rushed into the discussion with vigour, and
called the offer piracy, robbery, and things of that sort. I never could
have been so personal myself. The Arab did not seem to think any worse
of my kinsman for it, and the camels changed hands at the much improved
price of 35 Rs. apiece.

The ponies were practically given away, and I had no end of a difficulty
to unearth a philanthropist willing to board and lodge “Sceptre.” We
only just got rid of our camels in time! That very evening the sportsman
arrived in Berbera whom we had left cogitating at Aden. His wife was
going stronger than ever, and her temper was, if possible, _worse_. He
had not lost her. What a wasted opportunity! Their caravan had taken a
completely different route to ours, having been to the Boorgha country
and round by the Bun Feroli. Their trophies were very fine and numerous,
and the kindly old shikari showed them to us with great pleasure and
pride. He managed to be a sportsman in spite of Madam, not, I am sure,
by her aid. She was a Woman’s-Righter, and like Sally Brass, a regular
one-er. Regardless of the plain fact that we must all be hopelessly
ignorant of home affairs, she worried our lives out of an evening to
discover our trivial, worthless opinions on all sorts of political
questions. It was very amusing to hear Cecily artfully trying to conceal
her dense ignorance; we listened to them one night after dinner, and
Madam, who probably knew as little of the subject as her victim, desired
to know what Cecily thought of Mr. Chamberlain’s fiscal policy. My
cousin did not enlarge, so that her lack of knowledge was overwhelmingly
apparent. She shook her head solemnly, and said darkly, with grave
emphasis, “What indeed!”

Now, “What, indeed!” can cover a multitude of things if said just as it
should be. Put the accent on both words, and try it next time you are
cornered.

I know Madam regarded us four as a ribald crew, and kept her fickle
smiles only for “the Leader,” whom she desired to propitiate because his
place at home adjoined hers, and as the old shikari meant to put up for
Parliament at the next election, Madam saw a faint chance of securing
a vote. We got a great deal of amusement out of her wiles and
blandishments. One day in between the camel-selling and general
disbandment we had much difficulty to repress our mirth, as we heard the
warrior being tackled something like this.

“Of course, Major,” very suavely, “I can count on _your_ vote?”

“I ought to say ‘Of course’ too. But what precisely are your husband’s
political views?”

“Oh, he hasn’t any. Except on big game shooting.”

“Well, that simplifies matters, anyhow,” said the officer, musingly.
“Could you tell me if he holds with an eight hours’ day?”

“I expect so.” Then added, as an afterthought, “What--er--what kind of a
day is it?”

“Oh,” answered the no-wiser warrior, “an eight hours’ days is--er--an
eight hours’ day.”

“To be sure,” in a tone of great relief. “How _silly_ of me! I should
persuade my husband to have any kind of day his constituents most
preferred.”

“But imagine,” put in Cecily, “if they all wanted different!”

“There are three hundred and sixty-five days in the year, I believe,”
 said the offended lady, frigidly.

The old husband was much more likeable, and we got on well with him when
we were allowed a look in. He had a pretty wit, and told stories in an
inimitable manner, though not always of come-in-with-the-fish variety.
Indeed, some of his anecdotes could better have made an _entree_ with
the curry. I dare say so much camp life had roughened him a little.
When Madam waxed sarcastic, and scornfully told him a tale was too far
fetched he would say quite good-humouredly he could never fetch his
stories from far enough, as he was for ever seeing the light of auld
lang syne in some eye. He had that best and most useful of gifts, the
power to say things _apropos_ at just the right moment. Most of us think
them up afterwards when it is too late. Such a power is a gift worth
having from the gods, just as malapropisms come from another quarter.

The traveller’s bungalow affected to put us all up. Ralph said it was
affectation merely, as the place was so crowded out he slept with his
feet through the window!

Anything that was likely to be of the least use to him we gave to
Clarence, to his great joy, and his choice did fall on some quaint
things. An ordinary English axe was his first selection; he passed over
the native ones in lofty scorn. In addition to these few simple gifts we
decided to bestow on him, as a mark of our immense appreciation of the
good work done, our spare 12-bore, in order that he might go out on his
next shikar with every degree of safety. Such a present overwhelmed our
follower by its magnificence, and he was almost too excited to speak, or
express his thanks. At first he did not realise we meant to give it,
and it was very pleasant indeed to watch his face as the wonderful truth
dawned on his mind.

The rest of our men filed past us as we stood ready to pay them by the
side of the tent that had been our home for so long. Every man got his
bonus of money, and a little present besides from the stores, and we
shook hands all round. I think we all felt the same regret at parting.
Absurd as it may sound, the saying “Good-bye” to these rough followers
of ours was a sentimentally sad business.

“What days and nights we’d seen, enjoyed, and passed.” And truly few
travellers had been better served. Clarence was immensely anxious to go
home with us, and become, I don’t quite know what, in our household. He
spoke to me very seriously about it.

“Yu welly good people,” he said; “me go to Englan’ all same you.” But
England and Clarence could never amalgamate, and we had to explain to
him we would all look forward to meeting again in Berbera some day.

Cecily gave my Waterbury to the cook--a cheap way of giving a
present, as I told her; but she had to give him a useful mark of her
appreciation, she said, and her own watch was broken. I said farewell to
this personage more in sorrow than in anger, and he went off winding his
Waterbury as hard as he could go.

Clarence helped us pack the trophies in great cases, a big piece of
work, and one that took us right up to the time of sailing. We
counted our gains, and found that they included rhino, lion,
leopard, harte-beest, dibatag, gerenük, oryx, aoul, Speke’s gazelle,
klipspringer, Pelzeln’s gazelle, wart-hog, hyaena, jackal, wolf,
ostrich, marabou, dik-dik, and one or two other varieties of game and
birds. As for our losses--well, I was assured the Baron was no loss at
all. For on being guided by Clarence to the filthy abode in the native
quarter where the Baron’s family resided, I was given to understand that
his removal was a source of gratification to them all. The amount of
money owing him, and a little over, which I tendered apolegetically
enough, instantly caused the very memory of the ill-fated man to fade
away. Our other follower, who died naturally, with no assistance from
us, directly or indirectly, did not appear to have any belongings.

And so the great shikar ended, and for nearly four months and a half we
had lived in tents, and played at being nomads.

Every one of our men came to the quay to see us off, Clarence carrying
his rifle, the cook still winding his watch. We all shook hands over
again.

“Salaam aleikum, Clarence.”

“Aleikum salaam, Mem-sahibs.”

Salaam.


THE END









End of Project Gutenberg's Two Dianas in Somaliland, by Agnes Herbert