212 TWO DIANAS IN SOMALILAND 



the Koran in Arabic. It would not be to the advantage 

 of the mullahs if any one and every one could accom - 

 plish this feat. Not one of our men could even write, 

 much less read. 



I had taken a couple of favourite books along with 

 me, as every traveller must who will be away from 

 libraries and would yet change literary diet. In my 

 moments of leisure for reading I accompanied Elizabeth 

 in Rugen, or wandered with her through that solitary 

 summer. She was very good to me, but she bored 

 Clarence almost to tears. I read him a little one 

 afternoon in response to his demands to know what 

 the book was all about, and after a short while, thinking 

 he was very quiet, I looked up ; the vandal slept ! 



Sunday again. 



After the great heat of the early hours of the after- 

 noon we made another start, heading straight now for 

 the return journey over the Marehan. Cecily bagged 

 a couple of dik-dik out of a bunch of three. All those 

 hereabouts did not find the two-is-company axiom 

 worth considering, and ran about everywhere in 

 threes. We secured two guinea fowl, too, for future 

 meals. They were decidedly gamey by night ; the 

 heat was so against keeping any sort of meat. I very 

 often thought this unceasing pondering on what 

 could be provided for the next feast made for dreadful 

 greediness. When we pitched tents Clarence reported 

 that one of the camel men very sick. " Him die all 

 right." I was not very much put about, because by 

 this I had learned the Somali ways, and knew that 

 every one of them considers himself at the portals of 



