MORE TUR HUNTING 191 



Head, undulating. 



Age, . 



Nationality, undiscoverable. 



Very enlightening and helpful, isn't it ? 



By the time we had finished breakfast Ali had almost 

 come to blows with the new-comer, and the two of 

 them dominated the camp by their plainly expressed 

 opinions of each other. Matters were difficult to arrange 

 as none of us could speak the stranger's tongue, but 

 by the end of the morning the Goorkha-like creature 

 resolved himself. We took him with us to the cathedral 

 on the mountain, and the exhuming of the bear, 

 coupled with the dread solemnity of the spot, acted 

 on his nerves to such an extent that he simply 

 vanished into space. All the way through the aisles, 

 darker than ever, as the sun was hidden in storm 

 clouds, his eyes had grown rounder and rounder in 

 a great wonder. At intervals he paused to kneel upon 

 a small prayer-mat he carried strung across his back, 

 and in a low distressed voice pray aloud to Allah. 



As soon as we missed him we called and called, and 

 searched diligently for fear he was lost in the vast 

 catacombs. But he had gone as he came, mysteriously, 

 unexplainably, just as the natives of Africa who drop 

 into camp from nowhere as suddenly disappear into 

 it again. 



When we made camp, with the bearskin and dangling 

 bits of Bruin on All's poor old back, we found no fires 

 to welcome us, no simmering ibex stew, nothing but 

 the chill embers of a fire that was. The wood supply 

 was exhausted — nobody had noticed how low the stock 



