164 MY SOMALI BOOK 



country with my binoculars. But one could not see 

 much at a distance in that thorn scrub, and when 

 6 o'clock came with no sign of the caravan, we fired a 

 few signal shots, and as these evoked no reply started 

 back to look for dinner and dry clothes — it was now 

 raining hard. It was long after dark when we found 

 the camp, four miles back. It appeared that the local 

 guide had committed the fatal error of thinkmg for 

 himself, and had somehow arrived at the conclusion 

 that it was his duty to encamp at quite a different 

 place from that to which he had been instructed to 

 lead the caravan. I was not in the best of tempers 

 with trudging those extra four miles in heavy rain 

 after a long day, the more tiring for havmg been un- 

 successful, so I turned over the offender to Abdilleh's 

 tender mercies, with an admonition to deal with him 

 faithfully. I have reason to believe that he did so. 

 The following da3^'s marches, though unproductive 



:^^: 





of shikar, were interesting. At the start a herd of thirty 

 or forty oryx crossed our front, taking to their heels 

 as we saw them. Most of them were sure to be cows, 

 and I did not want to stop at the begimimg of a march 

 to shoot a cow unless with unusually fine horns, while 

 the bush was too thick to allow me to distinguish the 

 bulls or the good heads. So I did not follow. 



