TWO DIANAS IN SOMALILAND 235 



without milk in our tea for weeks. Camel milk was 

 not available, and the baby could not eat. I was 

 thankful of a reasonable excuse to offer Clarence, and 

 he saw the sense of it. I longed to restore the tiny 

 creature to its mother, and Clarence said if we took 

 it back to the place from whence it came the doe would 

 assuredly find it. 



We decided to try this, but to secrete ourselves, 

 and cover the baby buck with our protecting rifles. 

 Otherwise, it was quite on the cards that a lion or 

 leopard would make off with it ere its mother could 

 retrieve it. In any case, I should imagine a violent 

 death awaited it. It was so very youthful and easily 

 stalked. I took the timorous creature across my 

 saddle, it seemed all struggling legs and arms, and 

 with Clarence for guide made for the place, some two 

 miles off, where he first started the oryx. I confess 

 I still had my doubts as to his tale and its veracity, 

 but in this I wronged our shikari. 



We set the baby down alone, so fragile and small it 

 looked, and then hid ourselves in a great thorn brake. 

 We were as far off as we dared go, and the buck did not 

 wander far. Sometimes it bleated in a little treble, 

 once or twice it lay down, tucking its long legs beneath 

 it, to rise again and wander, all lonely, among the low 

 thorn bushes. Two hours or more we waited and 

 then — a gentle whinny, and almost before we realised 

 it, a perfect oryx doe cantered towards the fawn. She 

 nosed it all over and her joy expressed itself in every 

 imaginable way. It was a most beautiful and pathetic 

 sight. We made some movement, and all alert again, 



