TWO DIANAS IN SOMALILAND 
174 
little Western mining camp, when its familiarity struck 
my ear. But it eluded me, until at last I placed it. 
You remember where Dante, guided by Virgil, comes 
on the suffering spirits of Paolo and Francesca : 
“ Noi che tingemmo il mondo di sanguino.” 
There in a nutshell lies the origin of the 4 4 painting 
the town red ” phrase. One cannot but admire the 
literary points of American slang, though we know 
there is so little originality in the mind of man, even 
of the American. There is no time to create. It is 
simpler to take the ready-made, so that all our speech 
and writing is unconsciously but a series of quotations 
from the great human poets, who expressed simple 
human thoughts in the most perfect and yet the 
simplest words. Every thought we have can be 
expressed in quotations from Horace, Dante, and 
Shakespeare. 
The strength of our party on that memorable morn- 
ing comprised six of us — Cecily, myself, Clarence and 
three hunters. The men led us first to the kill, from 
which two sleuth-like forms glided away — jackals, 
young ones, with youthful rough coats. Vultures 
poised motionless in the blue, or nearer, flew sluggishly, 
with legs hanging loosely, screaming. 
The dead aoul poisoned the air with odoriferous 
whiffs, and I found it difficult to believe that a lion had 
returned to a carcase in such an advanced stage of 
decomposition, but apparently it was so. Among the 
devious trails of hyaena and jackal were the indents of 
lion spoor. Massed often, and there in the sand was 
the plainly seen mark of the crouched beast as he 
