I TO 
SOMALILAND 
found a number of holes in the rock full of water, most of it 
tasting very salt, and salt was deposited on all sides on the 
rock in the river-bed, looking exactly like a thin covering 
of snow. Here we found elephant tracks, some two days 
old, innumerable ‘rhino’ tracks, and what made my men look 
grave, namely, tracks of Abyssinians of the day before. 
There was no mistaking them, their feet giving a totally 
different imprint in the sand from those of Somalis. I 
sincerely hoped these robbers would keep out of my way, 
as the pleasure of shooting and collecting ceases when the 
hunter becomes the hunted either of man or beast. 
Coming back to where the camp was pitched we found 
fresh lions’ spoor. It was extraordinary we never came 
across lions in this desolate country, although we frequently 
saw their spoor, and they roared round our camp nearly 
every night. It was amusing to see how my men now 
stuck to their rifles, even when going down to the well, 
which was barely a couple of hundred yards off. The two 
donkeys would have an escort of four or five men, as the 
men feared Gallas and Abyssinians, to say nothing of lions, 
elephants, and ‘ rhinos.’ To-day my head-shikari turned 
up on the field of action for the first time since he had been 
tossed by the rhinoceros. 
Next morning we found very fresh spoor of four elephants 
in the little river-bed close by camp. We followed it west 
for several miles. From the top of a small hill we saw two 
rhinoceros, but, as I was after bigger game, I left them 
alone. 
On and on we went for miles. The elephants had made a 
pathway which could not be mistaken, strewing the ground 
all the way with branches of thorn-bush which they pulled 
off to eat as they walked along. We tracked them to the 
Daghato Fiver, a river running at the bottom of an immense 
gorge. The elephants evidently knew their way, for they 
passed down a precipitous and narrow rocky path, the only 
pass we could find down to the river. Across the river 
they went, and right up the other steep side of the nullah, 
