290 TWO DIANAS IN SOMALILAND 



" The morning was one of God's own, done by hand, 

 just to show what He could do." We climbed up 

 and up, painstakingly and ploddingly, and presently 

 saw the rugged way over which we had come far 

 below us. We had then been marching close on two 

 hours, and must have done less than four miles. A 

 little lonely karia was perched on a terraced outlook 

 away to the west, its inhabitants strolling out lazily to 

 watch our progress. Half a mile or so off was the 

 Sheik Argudub's tomb, a white dome-shaped structure, 

 glinting in the sun, and looking for all the world like 

 a replica of some massive wedding-cake. The whole 

 scene was now grandly picturesque in the extreme, 

 and gaining the top of the pass a wondrous panorama 

 lay spread at our feet. Wealth of colour sprang 

 voluptuous around us : here a mass of green merging 

 to purple, there pale tints of cream and brown, aesthetic 

 and delicate. Everywhere great ravines yawned, 

 black and mysterious. Farther off, the vast Marmitime 

 Plain, and miles on miles away, thirty or more, a tiny 

 dark blue riband, fringing the whole, told us that the 

 sea was there. Valleys, ravines, mountains, rivers 

 too, helped out the beauteous scene, and above all, 

 rising superior, was Mount Wager, mightiest of all the 

 Golis. 



We camped in this delightful place, overlooking a 

 vista I can never forget. Preying vultures kept watch 

 over infinite space, in widening circles. A hot wind 

 blew through the camp. Here at last, for the moment, 

 we could see about us without that smoke-like dust 

 to curtain all things. The light of the setting sun 



