TWO DIANAS IN SOMALILAND 143 



or write, can give you the names of his grandfathers, 

 great-grandfathers, and all the other greats, until you 

 know you must be going back to grope in the mists of 

 centuries. 



When we were tracking one morning about this 

 time, on the spoor of a very small-footed lion, we 

 came on a bit of ridge country, and for some hundred 

 yards or so a small thorn fence had been erected, 

 chevaux-de-frise like, the thorn having been cut and 

 brought there. At intervals tiny gaps were left, and 

 inset, right on the sand of the ridge, stood the most 

 primitive gins to catch — Clarence said — dik-dik. The 

 Midgans set them. It would need to be a very un- 

 sophisticated little antelope indeed to run its head into 

 so palpable a noose. They were like the ones you set 

 at home for rabbits, but made of string instead of wire 

 held up in an apology for a circle by plainly-to-be-seen 

 props of thorn twigs. On the sides of the thorn walls 

 forming the passages, bits of uninviting scraps of dik- 

 dik heads and tails were impaled — to attract and 

 allure their kind our shikari said. I should have 

 thought the evidence of what awaited them would 

 have had a deterring effect on any roaming dik-kik, 

 and serve merely to attract jackals and foxes. But 

 Clarence said the small antelope are often caught in 

 this way for the pot. 



That night a vast bat visited our tent, flying round 

 the candle lamp and dashing himself against it. We 

 called to Clarence to come and evict it, not meaning 

 him to kill it, but he flew at the creature forthwith, a 

 hangol in his hand, smashing the winged thing in a 



