MY SOMALI BOOK 49 



the luaraba then as well as I do now ; so I was corre- 

 spondingly disgnsted in the morning to find the poor 

 beast had been killed and devoured by hyaenas, having 

 apparently been attacked by three at once. Elmi 

 said he had never known of such a case before, and 

 Drake-Brockman says these brutes seem to have a 

 great respect for the donkey and he has never known 

 them attack one. Mr. Selous, however, has mentioned 

 similar cases. 



Another change of camp. This was our furthest 

 point, about 160 miles from the coast. Here I saw 

 in ground which had been marshy in the rainy season, 

 the dry imprints of the feet of a rhinoceros which had 

 been there some months before. 



The move brought no change of luck and the time 

 had come to turn our steps to the north again. I got 

 another gerenfik and two more dibatag however, both 

 standing shots again, as the long diirr grass, whose 

 neighbourhood they are fond of, effectually prevents 

 one from getting down on the knee or sitting, as I 

 like to do where possible. 



The dibatag's description, which I have omitted, 

 may as well go in here. Having some affinities with 

 the gerenuk, the dibatag is yet a distinct type, con- 

 stituting a genus by itself. Smaller than the gerenuk 

 it nevertheless stands high for a gazelle and has a 

 long neck, like the former species browsing on the 

 acacias and rarely, if ever, grazing. The buck alone 

 has horns which, though small (ten inches is good), are 

 handsome, curving forward in the reed-buck style. 

 The coat is an uncommon colour, pretty purplish-grey, 

 with the face markings a handsome red-brown. A 



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