72 TWO DIANAS IN SOMALILAND 



I sat down, and but for the presence of my shikari 

 I am sure I should have cried. 



Game was now most plentiful, gereniik, oryx, and 

 aoul being more often in sight than not. Thunder- 

 storms became more frequent, and rain more insistent. 

 Since leaving the place where we sojourned so long we 

 had not known one day in which rain did not fall some 

 time during the twenty-four hours. We had managed 

 fairly well by going out " between whiles," but now 

 there weren't any, and there came a time of no half 

 measures. Steady downpours bothered us no end. 

 I am very used to water, because my habitat in England 

 is in that delectable spot where of all other places 

 nobody dreams of going out minus an umbrella. And 

 I have seen rain in many corners of the world, but 

 never rain like the Somali variety. It is for all the 

 world like holding on to the string of a shower bath — 

 it pours and pours. Of course whilst the rain is on 

 there is no use in endeavouring to spoor, for all traces 

 of game are simply wiped out by the floods of water 

 as a sponge cleans a slate. We could do nothing save 

 remain in our soaked tents and fume. Things were 

 very bad and uncomfortable at this time. For a whole 

 week we never knew what it was to be dry. Every 

 mortal thing we had was drenched, and the poor tents 

 were no more use than brown paper in face of the 

 continued avalanches of water. We used to wring our 

 blankets each night, and but for copious doses of 

 quinine I don't know how I should have pulled through. 

 Cecily pinned her faith on weak whisky-and-water, of 

 which latter commodity there was now no scarcity, and 



