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.
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.
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.
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.
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!