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.
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.
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.
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.