MY SOMALI BOOK 135 



hours of 2 and 5 p.m. I fancy that it sometimes 

 escapes notice through being taken for a jackal. 



On the 27th August I made an excursion eastwards 

 towards Tuyo, but was disappointed in not being able 

 to find a very big lion, whose tracks of the evening 

 before we came across amongst the high grass on the 

 western edge of the ban. He had killed a burrowing 

 animal called by the Somalis Idiarindi, which I after- 

 wards ascertained to be that little known ant-eating 

 creature the aard-vark. 



Crossing a corner of Tuyo I shot an aoul with 

 20^-inch horns, quite symmetrical, a very fine head, 

 and the best I have seen at all. Here, too, I saw a big 

 tortoise, which Abdilleh promptly stood upon, as a 

 Somali always does, to harden the soles of the feet ! 

 The tortoise does not mind. 



The following evening I was pottering about with 

 the Sherwood after dik-dik, when Elmi started a 

 gerenuk buck which, taken by surprise at close quarters, 

 all but ran into me whom it did not see ; I could have 

 touched it with a stick as it passed. Realising what 

 I was at the last moment, it was for once in its life 

 scared out of its trot into a gallop, but the rifle that 

 instinctively went up to my shoulder came down again 

 as I saw its horns were but moderate. 



A black storm was brewing, and we hurried back 

 to camp just in time to escape a drenching. That sunset 

 was one of the most impressive I have ever seen. Two 

 huge banks of thunder-cloud working up from the west, 

 but the setting sun between them unobscured. Result, 

 a wonderful purple light on the threatening cloud 

 masses. Purple, the colour of Emperors, the colour 



