250 
SOMALILAND 
proceeded several miles, and some hours after sunrise. 
Soon after we came upon another hollow full of rain-water. 
The ground about here was so wet and slippery that the 
camels had the greatest difficulty in standing up. One 
after the other fell, their burdens coming to the ground 
with a crash, and scattering in every direction. There was 
now too much water, a curious contrast to the Marehan 
desert. It was a curious sight to see the legs of a camel 
slide as it were from under him, and the boxes rolling next 
moment over and over. 
‘ Oh, Lord, this is ridiculous !’ as the man said when he 
prayed for rain, and it came and washed his house away ! 
We encountered fresh rhinoceros tracks, so, taking my 
eight-bore, I went after him, but in half an hour we came 
upon his dung, which was evidently a day old. 
At the mid-day rest my shikari produced a tiny thorn - 
tree with a thick red root, which he proceeded to scrape, 
disclosing a pure white root, which he gave me to suck. I 
bit it, when a quantity of very sweet water oozed out of it, 
which was most refreshing. One of the carnel-men caught 
a young dik-dik antelope alive, but the poor little thing 
soon died of fright. Its legs were quite as long as those of 
a full-grown one, but its body but half the size. 
We reached Hodayu at night, and luckily found enough 
water to fill up for our second great waterless march across 
the Hand to Edegan. Here I found the shell of a water- 
tortoise. These reptiles are rare in the east, but very 
plentiful at the bottom of wells in the west of Somaliland. 
At night I killed another camel for the men. 
Next morning was spent in repairing the harns and 
filling up with water. We started on our last great water- 
less march at mid-day. I killed some more guinea-fowl 
here for the pot. They literally swarmed in the brilliantly 
green grass. 
At the mid-day rest one of the men was detected stealing 
the water, and a free fight ensued. At the finish I expected 
there would be fewer mouths to water ! However, after 
