362 A SPORTING TRIP THROUGH ABYSSINIA ciiak 



returned accompanied by the Shum and a train of 

 villagers bringing a sheep and some other presents. He 

 said he had received a letter from the governor, ordering 

 him to show me wala, but that there were very few now, 

 and he could not promise that we should see any ; he 

 then asked if I was going in boots, and, on my answering 

 him that such was my intention, he seemed to expect 

 my return on a shutter, or whatever may be the local 

 equivalent for that article. 



At last we started, two villagers leading the way, 

 followed by my two Somali shikaris, shivering in all the 

 clothes they could wind round them, and myself, clad in 

 one khaki suit over another. Having been told that 

 taking a mule was quite useless, we walked back nearly 

 two miles along the road down which we had stumbled 

 the previous day ; then, while we turned off to skirt the 

 base of the cliffs, two men went to the top with the idea 

 of driving down any ibex they might see. The wiry 

 grass which grew in tufts gave good foot- and hand-hold, 

 and I had no difficulty in following the guide, who led us 

 along the steep sloping ground below the main line of 

 cliffs. By a little stream of water he pointed out some 

 tracks and said, " Wala," but Ali and myself agreed that 

 they looked more like klipspringer than anything else ; 

 and this conjecture proved correct, for one of those 

 antelopes appeared soon after, perched on a rock above 

 us, and uttering its cry of alarm. We climbed round the 

 next shoulder and sat down to search the ground ; Ali, 

 who was a little ahead of me, said, " More klipspringer," 

 and directly after " No ! goats ! " I crawled over to him at 

 once and caught sight of three ibex, a fair-sized male 



