CHAPTER IX. 
Long crawl after oryx — -Keturn of caravan from Berbera — Abundance of 
game — Somali method of hunting elephants — Abyssinian zareba — 
First encounter with Abyssinians — Fight with Midgans- — Camp at 
Jiggiga — Huge herds of game — Shooting hartebeest. 
Next day I walked over an immense area of ground 
where, when I was here last, I had seen a great number of 
oryx. To-day there was not one. They had all been 
disturbed by the large villages established just before I 
left the place for the Webbi Shebeyli. The ‘ owl ’ were 
also so wild that I could not get near enough for a shot. 
I sent four men to the Nagob Mountains, to look for koodoo 
spoor, as on asking my shikari if koodoo lived there, he 
answered : ‘ Nobardygo, nobardy know.’ My head-shikari 
now got fever badly, and had to be left at home. 
On looking over my trophies, I discovered to-day that 
another of my ‘ rhino ’ heads, which utterly refused to dry, 
had become infested with maggots, and the skin had begun 
to ^ smile ’ badly, as my shikari put it. I was just in time 
to stop it going altogether with alum and saltpetre. Whilst 
attending to my skins I saw an ostrich strutting about upon 
the plain. I sent the pony round him to try either to over- 
haul him or drive him round to me. You might just as well 
try to stop an express train. He was off in the twinkling 
of an eye. 
I went out in the afternoon upon the plain, and saw four 
oryx, which I stalked, or, rather, crawled at, in the open. 
I crawled about 400 yards in full view of them, enduring 
agonies the whole time from thorns in my hands and knees. 
Thump, thump, thump went my heart against my ribs with 
