Sporting Trips of a Subaltern 



the oryx may be classed, in the words of an 

 ancient French naturalist, as " Un animal tres 

 mechant, quand on 1'attaque il se defend." 



For some days we now moved south again by 

 easy stages. There were plenty of oryx and 

 Soemerring's gazelle or, to call them by the 

 shorter Somali name, aoul about, but we always 

 confined ourselves to shooting only picked heads, 

 and gradually got more and more exacting as to 

 what was really worth having. This was quite 

 enough to keep us in meat, and to add a bit at 

 times to our men's ration of rice and dates. Once 

 I shot a young aoul buck by mistaking him for 

 something else in some high grass, and we found 

 him so exceedingly toothsome that we hereafter 

 allowed ourselves one a week, to be shot alter- 

 nately. Our camel-men caught an aoul kid alive 

 one day ; he was not weaned, but took readily to 

 one of the goats we had to give us fresh milk. He 

 was quite a pet for a bit, but was a great trouble 

 to transport on the march, and well, I'm afraid 

 one day we ate him. 



The rain meanwhile steadily got worse till our 

 tents, etc., were so sodden that they were too 

 heavy for the camels, and we had perforce to halt. 

 I never heard anything like the Somali rains : 

 a dull roar begins, which gets louder and louder 

 till the deluge is on you. One afternoon, about 

 3.30, I was out hunting when it grew quite dark, 



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