WE ENCOUNTER NATIVES ARMED WITH RIFLES 187 
had beaten us, and soon after, owing to the thick grass and 
hard ground, we lost the track altogether. 
It was now very hot, so, after resting in the very inade- 
quate shade afforded by a thin thorn-bush, we wended our 
long, weary way home, which I reached tired and very 
hungry, not having tasted food for twenty hours, my last 
meal having been at 4 p.m. the day before ! My camp had 
been moved now near the villages, and on arrival my boy 
showed me a tiny black snake which he said he had found 
under the camel-mat which lay under my bed. He 
remarked, ‘ If he bite, you lif five minute — that’s all !’ 
What pleasant companions one has in one’s tent in Africa ! 
In the evening a great crowd of men came in from the 
villages to see me and to show the rifles they had taken 
from the defeated Abyssinians. They were mostly of 
French 1874 and Egyptian make, but were nearly all 
serviceable weapons. They also had belts full of ‘ fire ’ or 
^ angulation,’ as my shikari called cartridge or ammunition. 
Later on a bevy of women, ever curious, came to look at 
the white man, and for a wonder allowed me to photograph 
them at close quarters. In all probability it was the 
chocolate I gave to their children which did it. 
During the early morning of the following day a leopard 
‘ jumped up ’ at the village zareba, near which I was 
posted, over one of my sick camels. There were great 
cries of ‘ Libah ! libah !’ (Lion ! lion !), but the track un- 
doubtedly proved it to be a leopard. In the afternoon I 
visited the ‘ wells ’ at Gambissa, which presented a re- 
markable sight, some 5,000 camels, sheep, goats and cattle 
filling the lake, which was several hundred yards square 
and 5 feet deep. It was a long walk in the hot sun, and 
I came home feeling ill with a bad sun headache. I was 
shortly afterwards violently sick. My headman announced 
with a grin, on my arrival in camp, that my sick camel 
was dead, so I sent about twenty men to drag it to the 
zareba of last night, intending to sit over it that night. 
No lion turned up, however, and next morning Mr. and 
