Sporting Trips of a Subaltern 



violent hot wind blew always from midnight about 

 to midday. We thought it would keep us cooler, 

 but found it raised dreadful sand-storms and im- 

 peded marching ; we nevertheless made the pace 

 pretty well, and passing Leferug, Hamas, Dera 

 Godli, and Chefto, soon reached Berbera. We shot 

 at nothing but a few dik-dik, our one aim being to 

 get out of this unpleasant bit of country, where, 

 what with the heat by day and the mosquitoes by 

 night, we were rapidly falling away from the fine 

 condition we had been in when we left the 

 mountains. We galloped into Berbera early one 

 morning to find a boat was leaving for Aden at 

 2 p.m. We tried to arrange for the selling of our 

 camels at once, and an old Arab offered us Bs. 28 

 apiece for the lot ; but while we were debating 

 whether we should take this or not, he heard we 

 were in a hurry and dropped to Bs. 25 ; and when 

 we were biting at this, he said that, after all, he 

 thought Ks, 20 was ample, so we washed our 

 hands of him. I ran down and arranged with 

 the skipper of the boat, the Lightning, to defer 

 his departure till 6 p.m., and then we sold the 

 camels by public auction at nearly 40 Es. apiece. 

 We sold ponies, donkeys, goats and all by the same 

 means, paid up our men, and sailed punctually 

 at 6 p.m. 



We had a most unpleasant crossing, our little 

 steamer pitching and rolling terribly. She was 



176 



