104 TWO DIANAS IN SOMALILAND 



last we should provide if the animals could not be 

 despatched in a quicker, more humane manner. The 

 "hallal" slash across the throat seems only to be 

 really efficacious if the animal to be killed is in full 

 possession of its senses. They might easily be stunned 

 first. When we killed antelope for meat the shikari 

 always satisfied himself first that the animal was alive 

 before he bothered to give the " hallal." This seems 

 rather an Irishism, but you understand how I mean. 



Somali sheep are never shorn, for their wool attains no 

 length. This is another of dear Nature's wise arrange- 

 ments. I do not like to imagine the condition of any 

 poor sheep in the Somali sun with a coat on like unto 

 the ones grown by our animals at home. The number 

 of sheep in Somaliland is as the sands of the sea. Such 

 vast flocks would be large even in an avowedly sheep- 

 producing country where the rearing of them is 

 reduced to a fine art. The Somali animals thrive and 

 multiply with hardly any attention. They never grow 

 horns, and have the most extraordinary tails, huge 

 lumps of fat, which wax all very fine and large if the 

 pasturage is good, and dwindle at once if the herbage 

 is scanty. Carefully fostered, the sheep raising industry 

 could support the country. The export at present is 

 as nothing to what it might be engineered into. 



