A NEW GUIDE 



four days, to locate the herd at all. In fact, it 

 was only on the third day that I ever got near 

 them or had the remotest chance of success. Up at 

 five, I reached the plains before dawn, and soon sighted 

 the same herd, whose individual members I was now 

 beginning to recognise quite easily. Then began a 

 most exasperating stalk, that lasted four hours ; time 

 and time again, with the help of a guide, I thought 

 that I should be able to approach close enough to 

 get a shot, but invariably when I emerged from the 

 bush the game was gone ; and finally, at ten o'clock, 

 we lost them altogether, and though I searched for 

 them most diligently until long after noon, I had to 

 return, empty-handed and disappointed once more, 

 to camp. 



Here I was informed that Abdi Aden had arrived 

 and had brought me a new guide to take me farther 

 west. He very generously presented me with some 

 fine wooden pillows and hair combs, which made a 

 valuable addition to my ethnological collection. He 

 was delighted with a present of a full " tobe " of 

 bufta, a brilliant loin-cloth, a coloured piece of silk 

 and some coffee, which I gave him in return ; but his 

 father-in-law, who accompanied him, on receiving his 

 piece of calico (which, I must say, was a little soiled 

 by contact with the camel's back), merely remarked 

 that "he would now have to buy a piece of soap to 

 wash it with." I firmly ignored this gentle hint, and 

 having submitted to the scrutiny of some half a dozen 

 friends "who," as he said, "had never seen a white 

 man before," proceeded to pay off my old guide. He 

 demanded an exorbitant price for his week's work, 

 and when reproached for this, Abdi Aden answered 

 for him, and remarked that these bushmen did not 



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