TWO DIANAS IN SOMALILAND 157 
On another early morning here, having only a 
collector’s gun with me, I put a charge into an old 
wart-hog, but failed to do more than prick him into a 
great annoyance and send him oh into the wilderness 
without getting him. I was vexed with myself for 
hurting him. 
Just here, too, we came on a kill which had been a 
jungle tragedy indeed : the spoor of two oryx all about 
the outskirts of a green oasis, where succulent bushes 
flourished, and confused pugs of a large lion. The 
pugs had no beginning, only an ending, and a return 
path. Therefore the devastator leaped from out his 
lair and struck down his prey all suddenly. We 
measured the spring from where it is certain the great 
cat must have taken off to the spot where lay the half- 
consumed oryx, lying as he fell, and it came out at 
nineteen feet. 
Somalis are exceedingly fond of giving nicknames 
to one another, more or less personal, and the European 
does not escape his satire in this direction. All the 
men in our caravan answered to names of the most 
irritatingly personal variety, though they all took the 
for the most part rude attention to some unfortunate 
peculiarity quite good-humouredly. I asked Clarence 
one day, as we were sitting under a shady guda tree 
waiting for what might chance to cross our line of 
fire, what the men had been pleased to christen me. 
He assented diffidently to the assumption that I had 
a nickname, but gave me to understand he would 
rather not mention it, if indeed he had not forgotten 
it, and a lapse of memory seemed imminent. This 
