MY SOMALI BOOK 61 



goats, grazing on the rocky hill-side ; the glass showed 

 one of them to have short straight horns. I thought 

 they might be klipspringer, the shooting of which at 

 that time was prohibited. I asked Elmi, but he did 

 not know the Enghsh (or rather Dutch) name. He 

 called them " alah'it,'" and said he knew of no regula- 

 tion against shooting them. I thought that was good 

 enough, especially as, I don't know why, I had an idea 

 that the klipspringer was a reddish beast. 



The klipspringer (Somali alakdt, as I was soon to 

 discover !) is an agile little antelope by no means 



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given to standing to be potted at. But facilis est 

 descensus . . . ; since to shoot them was against the 

 law of the land, these two made no objection to my 

 approaching within fifty yards, they were close to the 

 camel track and my being with the caravan probably 

 disarmed their suspicions. I shot the buck, knocking 

 a lot of hair out of him, rather spoiling the skin which 

 I wanted ; so I proceeded to commit the further crime 

 of shooting the doe, who had seemed little alarmed ; she 

 was bigger than her mate. 



The khpspringer has a pecuhar coat with bristly 



