SOMALILAND 
T i6 
certainly very easy to stalk, if the wind is blowing from 
him to you. 
A minute or two after firing at the rhinoceros, we came 
to a hole in the rock, full of very brackish water. We 
were talking loudly round it, when suddenly, from behind 
some thorn-bushes, about 15 yards off, sprang, or rather 
blundered, two rhinoceros, which careered away at a great 
pace. We could hear the rumbling of stones for several 
seconds. Whilst kneeling down and peering under the 
bushes, I beheld them staring in every direction, but before 
1 could get close enough to make a certain shot, they made 
off among the bushes. After this we w^alked along a 
dried-up watercourse, as far as the foot of Mount Culdush, 
a path probably untrodden hitherto by white man’s foot. 
Here we found that a large herd of elephants had been at 
work two or three days before, scratching holes in the 
sandy river-bed, searching for water. 
The havoc made by these animals was extraordinary. 
Branches torn down and stripped of their bark lay in every 
direction. Large trees had been literally torn up by the 
roots a,nd hurled aside, and were left to die stretched 
lengthwise on the stony ground. Every now and then the 
elephants had rested in a small patch of thick bush. Here 
was a pretty mess. Branches all over the place, and the 
grass all trampled down. 
Everywhere we went we found elephant spoor, but we 
were two days too late. Not an elephant remained behind, 
and we wended our way home, hot, tired, and disappointed. 
At night, when the camels came in, they were followed by 
a perfect swarm of tsetse fly. The sting of this fly, though 
harmless to human beings, is very painful, and made me 
jumj) every time I was bitten, as if a needle had been stuck 
half an inch into my flesh. One of my ponies was badly 
bitten on the ‘ billy,’ his tail not being long enough to whisk 
the pests off The Somalis said the pony would live until 
the next rain. We rubbed sheep’s fat on the ponies and 
the camels every day. 
