124 tw O DIANAS IN SOMALILAND 



to the ground. After he realised he still lived we had 

 to listen to his complaints, which embraced everything 

 from petitions to Allah, allusions to Kismet, to ordinary 

 swear words consigning the tree and the bruises to 

 altogether impossible places. It grew bitterly cold. 

 A breeze sprang up and dashed the sand in little sprays 

 about us. Then it got colder still, and darker ; pre- 

 sently night would fall and find us unprepared. We 

 guarded the ponies, and the men with nothing but a 

 couple of shikar knives, cut thorn hurriedly, and we 

 could not cry, " Hold, enough ! " until a goodly pile had 

 been collected. We started a fire then and sat about 

 it holding the ponies by us. A comical group. The 

 fire warmed us in front, but oh, the cold where the fire 

 was not. I kept turning round and round like a meat- 

 jack. We sat on like this in great discomfort until 

 twelve o'clock. We had on drill jackets, so were very 

 coldly clad. Then — a shot on the silence, cracking 

 suddenly like ice splitting on a frozen lake. Crack 

 again. We replied ; and after a waste of cartridges on 

 either side a dark mass loomed on our limited horizon, 

 and the camel-men called words of endearment to the 

 lost hunters. We were huffy enough to have dismissed 

 the whole caravan and left ourselves stranded, but 

 feigned to be propitiated by stories of how they lost 

 their way and the compass, for a Somali will lose, as 

 he can break, anything. The sight of our tents being 

 erected and the prospect of bed and warmth mollified 

 us as nothing else could have done, and we turned 

 in as soon as the cook produced some soup. The 

 men had to collect wood in the dark — a thing they 



