SPOUT IN ABYSSINIA. 4 1 



started with two of the boys of the village, sent by 

 their father to show me the place where I might find 

 " pig." I did not see anything, but my Massovvah 

 boy annoyed me very much by coolly firing at some 

 guinea-fowl with my i6-bore gun loaded with ball, 

 so I told him that the next time he did that I should 

 give him a good thrashing. 



I then walked on towards the little stream running 

 from the hot springs, rather disappointed and tired. 

 Going through the jungle I put up a dik-dik hind ; 

 this animal trotted away out of shot range, and then 

 stopped and looked at me. I had read in some book 

 of African sport that the curiosity of deer is ex- 

 traordinary, so I squatted down and twirled my 

 gun about much in the same way as signallers do 

 with a signal flag. To my great astonishment the 

 little dik-dik pricked up her ears, and gradually 

 making little circuits approached within range ; it 

 seemed almost a pity to shoot so pretty a little 

 animal, but I fired and rolled her over. 



On my way towards home I heard in the jungle 

 some people chattering; they were the women of 

 the village of Ailet, gathering and cutting firewood. I 

 was walking on when two very pretty and gracefully- 

 shaped girls stepped out from the bushes ; they were 

 stripped to their waists in order to work more easily. 

 Mahomed, the Massowah boy, seemed to know them. 



