2 TWO DIANAS IN SOMALILAND 
gridiron for the gun. So at the end of March 190- 
we planned a sporting trip to Somaliland — very 
secretly and to ourselves, for women hate being 
laughed at quite as much as men do, and that is 
very much indeed. 
My cousin is a wonderful shot, and I am by no 
means a duffer with a rifle. As to our courage — well, 
we could only trust we had sufficient to carry us 
through. We felt we had, and with a woman intuition 
is everything. If she feels she is not going to fail, you 
may take it from me she won’t. Certainly it is one 
thing to look a lion in the face from England to gazing 
at him in Somaliland. But we meant to meet him 
somehow. 
Gradually and very carefully we amassed our stores, 
and arranged for their meeting us in due course. We 
collected our kit, medicines, and a thousand and one 
needful things, and at last felt we had almost every- 
thing, and yet as little as possible. Even the little 
seemed too much as we reflected on the transport 
difficulty. We sorted our things most carefully — I 
longed for the floor-space of a cathedral to use as a 
spreading- out ground — and glued a list of the contents 
of each packing-case into each lid. 
To real sportsmen I shall seem to be leaving the 
most important point to the last — the rifles, guns, and 
ammunition. But, you see, I am only a sportswoman 
by chance, not habit. I know it is the custom with 
your born sportsman to place his weapons first, minor 
details last. “ Nice customs curtsey to great kings,” 
they say, and so it must be here. For King Circum- 
031 
