CHAPTER IV 



The Hand— Otocijon — Midgan hunters — How to attract Uons— My first 

 dibatag— On the tracks of the King of Beasts : first sight of him— Blank 

 days — Another long day after a Hon : again but a ghmpse — ^The Somali's 

 bump of locality — Lose a donkey in an unusual way — Description of 

 dibatag — Bad shooting — My first oryx — Northward again — ^^Vhy I had 

 no luck with lions. 



We were in the Haud at last ; to me the land of 

 promise, with the grand skin I had seen at Berbera 

 in my mind's eye, all the more that we passed next 

 day H.'s old zariba and saw there, still distinguishable, 

 the bare patch of ground on which the troph}^ had been 

 pegged out to dry. 



This day we sent off four camels to Odweina, a post 

 40 miles to the north-east, for a fresh supply of water, 

 in which one had to be decided^ economical. A bath 

 was a luxury rarely to be afforded, and one had to be 

 content with a sponge-down. 



A day's march over a dry country, varying from 

 thorn jungle interspersed with patches of high durr 

 grass to fairly open ground, brought us in the evening 

 to a zariba at Libah Gutair, where it seemed worth 

 while to stay for a day or two and investigate the 

 neighbourhood. Two harias moving north for water 

 had reported lions about. 



Shortly before reaching camp, after seeing a herd 

 of thirty or forty oryx, which took no chances with 

 suspicious characters like us, we came across a couple 



