8 TWO DIANAS IN SOMALILAND 
scendent vulgarity of it all made one ashamed of being 
there. 
The next item on the programme was a Human 
Snake, who promised us faithfully that he would dis- 
locate his neck. He marched on to a gaudy dais, and 
after tying himself in sundry knots and things, sud- 
denly jerked, and his neck elongated, swinging loosely 
from his body. It was a very horrid sight. An atten- 
dant stepped forward and told us the Human Snake 
had kept his promise. The neck was dislocated. My 
only feeling in the matter was a regret he had not gone 
a step farther and broken it. All this was because I 
have no sense of humour. I don’t like music-hall 
entertainments. I would put up with being smoked 
into a kipper if the performance rewarded one at all. 
It is so automatic, so sad. There is no joy, or fresh- 
ness, or life about it. ’Tis a squalid way of earning 
money. 
At last every arrangement was arranged, our clothes 
for the trip duly packed. Being women, we had natu- 
rally given much thought to this part of the affair. 
We said “ Adieu ” to our wondering and amazed 
relatives, who, with many injunctions to us to “ write 
every day,” and requests that we should at all times 
abjure damp beds, saw us off en route for Berbera, via 
Aden, by a P. and O. liner. 
I think steamer-travelling is most enjoyable — that 
is, unless one happens to be married, in which case 
there is no pleasure in it, or in much else for the matter 
of that. I have always noticed that the selfishness 
which dominates every man more or less, usually more, 
