DRILLING THE BOYS. 2 
5) 
picking berries, or begging, until they die of grad- 
ual starvation, or are caught by lions or hyenas. 
Almost continually there would be some of these old 
women following along the caravan, doing what work they 
could, bringing wood or water, for the sake of a few bones 
our boys would throw them. These were not the only 
females that accompanied the caravan. Frequently 
younger and better-looking girls would ask me to allow 
them the protection of the caravan, in order to travel from 
village to village, and usually they contrived to make them- 
selves useful in doing various little errands for the men. 
The march into Lafkei was one of twenty-five miles. 
This was the last settlement of Somalis we expected to 
find as we journeyed west, so I determined to remain here 
a few days to buy all the animals possible. I previously 
had been paying for animals in coin, having taken along 
several thousand rupees for that purpose; but at Lafkei the 
natives did not know the value of money, and insisted 
upon being paid in cloth. One of the natives was caught 
in the act of stealing some of my sheep; and, as I had 
been much annoyed by repeated thefts, I ordered the man 
to be given a good flogging. 
I had been making several stops up to this time, not 
only to rest the camels and to trade, but to get the camp 
better organized and to rate my chronometers. I divided 
up the men into companies of ten each, appointing a head 
man in each company. There were, besides these ten 
head men, my first head man, Haji Idris, and two second 
head men, splendid fellows, both of them, named Salan 
Mohammed and Ahamed Aden. The majority of the boys 
had never been on an expedition before, and knew nothing 
of the use of the rifle, so I had to be drilling them contin- 
ually. The Somalis were very fond of being drilled, and 
it was not long before they learned to obey quickly the 
