86 MY SOMALI BOOK 



as it was now 6 p.m. and I had had no breakfast ; how- 

 ever, the dmner I ate made up. This was a spot named 

 Shabeleh ("the place of leopards"), on the borders of 

 a district called Dudwein, where M. had shot one or 

 two lions the previous year. There was no very 

 definite Jchahar (news) of lions jet, but we heard of a 

 sheep having been carried off near by three days before, 

 so we decided to stay a day or two. We were now 

 some thirty-eight miles S.E. of Hargeisa. 



The next day, the 2nd of August, was a date to be 

 blazoned on the scroll of fame, or at any rate on the 

 register of my shikar experiences. Out early with my 

 three shikaris, it was about 9 a.m. when we suddenly 

 struck the fresh trail of a troop of six lions ! apparently 

 three or four adult lionesses and two or three nearly 

 full-grown youngsters. No time lost in discussion, but 

 after them at once. The going was not good, in some 

 places stony, and the tracking difficult in consequence : 

 it was only the number of the beasts that made it 

 possible to keep the trail at a fair pace. Where the 

 ground was open we wasted no time, but whenever we 

 approached thick grass or bush, Abdilleh was very 

 careful, always posting me in a good position before 

 investigating to see if the tracks had passed on. 



I suppose we had followed the trail for about six 

 or seven miles when at 11.30 a.m. we came to a patch 

 of durr grass, about fifty yards long and twenty-five or 

 thirty broad. This durr grass grows to a height of 

 from four to six feet in thick clumps set close together, 

 and affords the favourite daytime cover for most 

 nocturnal creatures in this part of the country. I was 

 considering this when Henduleh whistled and pointed 



