122 TWO DIANAS IN SOMALILAND 



are fierce beyond relief an oryx at bay is something to 

 be afraid of. His swift forward rush, head down, with 

 horns just fixed at the right angle for impaling an 

 enemy, and sideway strike render him a formidable 

 foe at close quarters. 



The Midgans were very friendly. They were very 

 ragged, and the quivers full of poisoned arrows hung 

 on quite bare shoulders. They kindly showed us a 

 track to our betterment, for the going now was stony 

 and difficult. In and out among rocky nullahs were 

 week-old pugs of lion, and farther, where rain had 

 fallen, well defined spoor of more lion, together with 

 massed tracks of oryx and aoul. The spoor of the 

 former is broad in the forefoot, somewhat resembling 

 two pears set together, and the hind foot makes a much 

 longer, narrower impress. We followed the rough 

 track for a mile or more being led to an open " bun," 

 not extensive, where some few bunches of aoul grazed 

 and an odd bull oryx also. We got off our ponies, 

 and making the hunters into syces pro tern., did a stalk 

 on all fours. Cover there was not, and the centre of 

 the u bun " was the centre of attraction to all the buck, 

 the best grass probably growing there. It was com- 

 pletely out of reasonable range. A crackle, a rustle, 

 or possibly a vision gave the alarm, and away went the 

 oryx, out of sightdnstantly. The aoul fled anrightedly 

 for a hundred yards or so, then brought up in a thick 

 bunch to stare. One, inquisitive beyond belief, trotted 

 towards us, advancing in short bounds in his anxiety 

 to solve the mystery of these new squirming creatures. 

 Head on, the aoul presented the position for the most 



