88 
SOMALILAND 
squeaked out, as my shikari said, ‘ like a smarl stimboat,’ 
we found no blood-track. Shortly after we saw him walk 
quickly into another patch of bush ; but he escaped us, and 
finally we lost his track among boulders and stony ground, 
and had to give up the chase. Coming home, I spotted an 
ostrich in splendid plumage, with six or seven young ones, 
on a small sandy plain. I mounted the pony and gave 
chase, but they all got clean away from me in the long 
grass on theippposite side of the plain. We searched all 
over the grass, thinking that the young ones were squatting, 
but could not find them. 
My knees, which were terribly barked by the long crawl 
the day before, now gave me a good deal of pain and 
trouble, as my clothes would insist on sticking tight to the 
sores. In the afternoon I tried another oryx drive, but it 
was not attended with any success. Soon after we came 
across a lot of vultures, sitting in some thorn-bushes, and 
walking up, we found the rotting carcase of a wounded 
oryx of the morning before, with a bullet-hole in its middle. 
The smell was overpowering, but we managed to cut off 
the head, which I took home as a trophy, making the bag 
of the day before up to four oryx. The vultures here were 
very tame. By taking aim above their heads, with a stone 
I could hit them hard in the body as they rose, nine times 
out of ten, so close would they allow me to approach them. 
That night I slept in a zareba by the water-hole. Hyaenas 
came and howled, and lapped water all night round the 
zareba, but I could not see to shoot at them, until an extra 
large one came and stared at the donkey. I could not resist 
the temptation, when the moon came out from behind a cloud, 
so put a bullet through his right eye. He turned out to be 
a fine spotted hyaena, of very dark colour. He possessed 
positively immense jaws and teeth. During the rest of the 
night jackals made their curious ferret-like noises, and zebras 
galloped about and neighed, but did not come in sight. 
Oh, the mosquitoes ! I was nearly eaten alive, and the 
noise of chirping grasshoppers and frogs ^^as almost deafen- 
