96 MY SOMALI BOOK 



only caught a glimpse of the crouching feline in the 

 grass, and the aoul had seemed to think it suspicious, 

 while the camel-man who saw it first had sworn it was 

 a leopard. Well, I had made exactly the same mistake 

 on my own account once before in India, shooting in 

 a beat a jungle cat which I took for a leopard. 



Later on I stalked an aoul : had the setthig sun 

 behind me and could not see my platinum foresight a 

 bit. Result, three misses before I got him, a handsome 

 head with the tips of the horns curving downwards in 

 a rather unusual fashion. 



The water hereabouts was beastly, the colour of 

 tea and the consistency of pea-soup ; that one was 

 used to and did not mind, thiinied with a bit of alum 

 and boiled it is usually quite harmless. But this had 

 an unusual and most objectionable odour as well, 

 which even the goats disapproved. Seeing, moreover, 

 that my Berkefeld filter had struck work, I decided 

 that the soundest policy for me was to drink nothing 

 but milk. For that purpose, travelling as we did, 

 goats were of little use, so I hired a couple of milch 

 camels from a neighbouring karia. Europeans do not 

 always appreciate camel milk ; personally, I agree 

 with the Somali, to whom it is the staff of life, in 

 thinking it excellent. 



My new " milk-man," who accompanied his two 

 camels, was a good-looking youth and quite a dandy. 

 His gashan (oryx-hide shield) was always carried in a 

 white cover, his hair was just the fashionable tint, his 

 tobe was always white and clean, and the praying- 

 carpet of tanned leather he carried over his shoulder 

 was a swagger one. A bit of a mullah, he always led 



