```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.