CHAPTER X 



MOBE SOMALI 



WE now moved on further south, through country 

 full of oryx and aoul, with a few gerenuk, while 

 two or three days after I saw, for the first time, 

 a "dibatag " buck, very similar in appearance to 

 the gerenuk, but of a cinnamon colour instead of 

 the rufus red of the latter. I stalked him very 

 carefully to sixty yards, when I saw his head and 

 neck very plainly ; he appeared to have either 

 heard or winded me, and was staring hard in my 

 direction. Fearing that any moment he might 

 trot off, and thinking the small head and giraffe- 

 like neck too small a mark, besides the fact that 

 in getting him I should damage him as a trophy, 

 I aimed into the grass where his body should have 

 been. Unluckily for me he must have been stand- 

 ing broadside on, with his long neck stretched out 

 and head turned towards me. There was no 

 answering " phut," and with a whisk he was gone 

 for ever. That day, for the first time, we both 

 came on ostrich spoor. 



