TWO DIANAS IN SOMALILAND 213 



death's door if he has merely a pain somewhere. They 

 cannot be called cowards by any means, and will bear 

 pain well enough when it comes, but in minor illnesses 

 they cave in sooner than any other nation I have come 

 across, and get so terribly alarmed about themselves. 

 Theirs is not the stoicism of the American Indian, in 

 matters large and small, the delightful sangfroid of 

 the Chinaman is absent, and the calm of the English- 

 man unknown. We had really, up to now, been 

 singularly fortunate in the health of the caravan, and 

 most of the minor ills from which the men had suffered 

 could fairly have been ascribed to gorging. This 

 gluttony over meat occasionally landed them into 

 double-distilled bilious attacks. 



I was in a frightful tantrum with some one — of 

 course nobody would own to being the delinquent — 

 who had dropped, or somehow made away with, the 

 very best oryx shield we had. Going over the trophies, 

 which we knew individually, I missed the treasure. 

 The immortal one counselled " Give thy thoughts no 

 tongue." But, after all, he was giving directions to 

 a young man just about to go out into the world, and 

 had not dreamed of the conditions that would govern 

 the loss of an oryx shield most hardly come by. I 

 gave all the thoughts I had by me vehement voice, 

 and, more than that, I borrowed a few from Cecily. 



We had camped where there had once been a lake 

 as large as at Sinnadogho. It was now a mere hole, 

 and all the one-time springs were dry. Some Midgan 

 hunters here gave us news of having seen a lion an hour 

 or so ago. No wonder they reported such a find. 



