68 TWO DIANAS IN SOMALI LAND 



up the beds, placed our goods and chattels to hand, 

 and prepared a bath each for us if we happened to be 

 in a place where a bath was not too great a luxury, and 

 a mere sponge if water was absent. 



Meanwhile the cook had a fire going, or theoretically 

 he had, though very often it was a long time before it 

 got started. The camel men hacked down thorn bushes, 

 using native axes, and hangols, or wooden crooks, for 

 pulling the wood about with. The chant that accom- 

 panies all Somali occupations was loud and helpful. 

 Sometimes we took a hand at this zareba building, 

 using an English axe or a bill-hook, and the men would 

 laugh in surprise, and hold the boughs in readiness for 

 us to chop. They liked the English axes. " Best axe 

 I see," the camel-man in chief said. But we would 

 not lend them permanently, because they would have 

 been broken at once. Every mortal thing goes to 

 pieces in the hands of these Somalis ; most extraordi- 

 nary. Only tough native implements could stand 

 against such treatment. Buck were carried slung on 

 Sniders, and bent the weapon into graceful curves. 

 The sights and even the triggers were knocked off. 

 The Somali boys broke all the handles off the pans, 

 and seemed incapable of taking care of anything. 

 Many of the native harm gave out at the different 

 wells because of the smashing about they received, 

 and meant our buying more from passing tribes. 



At night my shikar pistol, loaded, lay to my hand on 

 a box at my bedside, for what I don't quite know, as 

 I should have disliked immensely to use it. But it 

 seemed the correct thing ; the butler expected it. He 



