72 A COLONY IN THE MAKING chap. 



found that their arrival had been forestalled by the 

 Somali-spread report that the sole object of the 

 expedition was to poison all the scanty wells and 

 watering places. 



To understand the points whereby the Somali obtains 

 his object through the agency of the European, the 

 personal characteristics of the former must be con- 

 sidered. To start with, it cannot be denied that both 

 in appearance and in many of his qualities he is one of 

 nature's gentlemen. Both men and women are tall and 

 most gracefully and symmetrically fashioned. Their 

 features are beautifully chiselled and refined, and their 

 voices low and melodious. Again, they are clean, and 

 their manners, deferential without being cringing, are 

 almost perfect ; they are always courteous and ever 

 ready to oblige. In sport they are generally both keen 

 and tireless ; though I recall two Somalis, who went 

 as headman and hunter to a rich merchant of Semitic 

 extraction, and during the course of a considerable 

 expedition gammoned him that it was quite out of the 

 question to start shooting before 10 a.m., as up to that 

 hour the game was inconceivably wild ! Finally, it is 

 as of the creed of a Somali to stand by his employer 

 in a tight place, and he literally does not know the 

 meaning of the word fear. There is, I believe, hardly 

 a single recorded instance of a Somali deserting his 

 master when attacked by elephant, buffalo, or lion ; and 

 on the contrary many and many an instance of the 

 most desperate gallantry stands out. Cases of unarmed 

 gunbearers flinging themselves on lions which have got 

 the white man down will occur to many hunters. In 

 one particular case a Somali thrust his hand into a lion's 

 mouth and twisted the tongue of the beast to induce 

 him to leave off savaging his master, and to turn its 



