2'' TWO DIANAS IN SOMALILAND 



gridiron for the gun. So at the end of March 190- 

 \ve planned a sporting trip to Somaliland — very 

 secretly and to ourselves, for women hate being 

 laughed at quite as much as men do, and that is 

 very much indeed. 



My cousin is a wonderful shot, and I am by no 

 means a duffer with a rifle. As to our courage — well, 

 we could only trust we had sufficient to carry us 

 through. We felt we had, and with a woman intuition 

 is everything. If she feels she is not going to fail, you 

 may take it from me she won't. Certainly it is one 

 thing to look a lion in the face from England to gazing 

 at him in Somaliland. But we meant to meet him 

 somehow. 



Gradually and very carefully we amassed our stores, 

 and arranged for their meeting us in due course. We 

 collected our kit, medicines, and a thousand and one 

 needful things, and at last felt we had almost every- 

 thing, and yet as little as possible. Even the little 

 seemed too much as we reflected on the transport 

 difficulty. We sorted our things most carefully — I 

 longed for the floor-space of a cathedral to use as a 

 spreading-out ground — and glued a list of the contents 

 of each packing-case into each lid. 



To real sportsmen I shall seem to be leaving the 

 most important point to the last — the rifles, guns, and 

 ammunition. But, you see, I am only a sportswoman 

 by chance, not habit. I know it is the custom with 

 your born sportsman to place his weapons first, minor 

 details last. " Nice customs curtsey to great kings," 

 they say, and so it must be here. For King Circum- 



