Two Dianas in Somaliland: The Record of a Shooting Trip

|We were now having a great time trying to cure the skin of the rhino. I was so afraid something would go wrong with it that I was for ever messing away. Clarence would have it...

|It is not that I imagine the world is panting for another tale about a shoot. I am aware that of the making of sporting books there is no end. Simply--I want to write. And in t...

|At three o’clock in the morning we joined our caravan, all in readiness, in the Square. It was still dark, but we could see the outline of the waiting camels loaded up like pan...

|When out early one morning a green oasis tempted me to leave the sandy waste and ramble in among the depths of the aloes, creep in and out of the festoons of armo, and hunt for...

|At night came that weird lowing sound a leopard often makes when hunting. Our friend of the afternoon, of course. He wakened us up, and we turned out to see that the watch happ...

|Very often we made detours from the main caravan, rejoining it at a given spot, and this spirit of “wanderlust” brought us into a nice quandary one fine day. Going by the map a...

|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 th...

|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,...

|The following day we made our way to some adjacent wells, and spent the whole of the hours in filling up everything we could lay hands on with water. All old bottles were utili...

|By this time the weekly steamer had sailed to Berbera, across the Gulf, but we arranged to paddle our own canoes, so to speak, and the two sportsmen, still, I suppose, in fear...

|The Somalis, as I have explained before, are almost entirely a nation of nomads, and the only settled villages or townships are those run by Sheiks or Mullahs, or whatever name...

|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...

|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....

|My leg, with the extra big gash, was a frightful nuisance. It was not much, but was just enough to prevent my going out hunting for some time. I could not run at all; and if yo...

|The sun shall not be up so soon as I. Indeed, I had a whole half-hour’s start of him, while I put my house in order. I prepared in my own way for the fair adventure of the morn...

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

|One of our hunters, a melancholy visaged individual, was a very amusing personage to go out with alone. He always acted like the guide of a Cook’s personally conducted tour. No...

|You can imagine with what joy I looked forward to a good night’s rest after the previous twelve hours’ vigil, and therefore it is the more amusing to remember that, as Fate wou...

|It was impossible to feel down-hearted for long, and my spirits began to rise again. Even the heat did not affect us as much as one might have thought. Of course we were burnt...

|The next matter of interest lay in the return of the camel men. They came into camp unexpectedly, and Ralph, who was lunching with us, called out to me in my tent that a civili...

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