54 TWO DIANAS IN SOMALILAND 



was about two inches long when we started, and he 

 had a way of cleaning it reminiscent of a bird taking a 

 sand bath. He rubbed his head with wet ashes, which 

 speedily dried in the sun, and allowed him to shake the 

 dust out — a nettoyage d sec process, and very effective. 

 As a rule he wore no head-covering in the hottest sun. 



Even the heads of the Somali babies are exposed 

 in all their baldness. I suppose God tempers the rays 

 to the shorn lambs. 



The huts are made of a frame of bent poles, over 

 which camel mats and odds and ends in the way of 

 blankets are thrown. The nomadic tribes in their 

 treks follow the grass, and occupy the same zarebas 

 year after year. These they make of thick thorn 

 brushwood, immensely high, two circles, one inside 

 the other. Between the two fences the cattle are 

 penned sometimes, but at night the middle encamp- 

 ment receives most of them, and fires are lighted. All 

 the work of erecting the huts and tending the animals 

 is done by women, and very often the oldest women 

 and the smallest of the children have this office thrust 

 upon them. 



You can imagine that a Somali karia is rather of the 

 nature of Barnum's, minus the auctioneering and the 

 shouting and bustle — countless people, ground all 

 ploughed with the sturm und drang of the restless 

 feet, and smell ! 



It is a wonderful thing that human beings can thrive 

 in the condition of dirt and squalor in which these 

 wandering Somalis live. They do, and some of them 

 are very fine-looking men indeed. 



