66 
SOMALILAND 
got out of them by men with conical wooden buckets in the 
following way : A stark-naked man (A) descends to the 
bottom of the well, which is 4 or 5 feet wide by 20 or 30 feet 
deep, by means of foot-holes dug in the sides of the well. 
He then fills his wooden conicaLwater- bucket, and throws 
it upwards to another naked man (B), who stands above 
him in the well with legs stretched out, standing with one 
foot in a hole on one side of the well, the other foot in 
another on the opposite side. As A throws a full bucket 
up to B, he receives at the same moment an empty one from 
B to fill. B throws up the full one he has received to C, 
receiving an empty one, and so on to the sixth man (F), 
who empties the full buckets he receives into the drinking- 
trough of mud (G), and returns them empty to E to be 
again passed down to be refilled by A. As fast as the 
water is in this ingenious and expeditious manner poured 
into the trough, it is drunk by the thirsty camels, which 
are driven up in relays of five or six at a time. The men 
as they work sing the whole time. When tired of watching 
this interesting sight, I repaired back to my big tree, where 
I found some ants busily engaged in carting all my date- 
stones to their hole. Here is a life-size portrait of one of 
these gentlemen : 
I have seen one of these insects lift a date-stone bodily 
off the ground with his nippers (A) to get it over a small 
stick or stone. And to see two of them pick up a stone 
and carry it together, one grasping one end and going 
backwards, and the second taking the other end and 
following, is a truly ludicrous sight. 
