TWO DIANAS IN SOMALILAND 189 
because in their youth they are valuable to tend the 
camels and goats, and some day can be bartered for 
sheep or ponies. Some Somali women go to their 
lords with dowries, and, as with us at home, are the 
more important for their wealth. Consideration is 
shown them that is lacking towards their poorer sisters 
who toil and moil at heavy work the whole day long, 
and when on trek load all the camels, and do all the 
heavy camp work. 
We tried our best to propitiate this Mijertain savage 
—he really was an ordinary savage — but he only 
glowered and received all overtures in the worst 
possible taste and rudeness. One could have told he 
was rich even if we hadn’t seen his banking account 
feeding in their thousands. 
This tribe looked on the sporting spirit with distrust, 
evidently suspecting ulterior motives. It would be 
hard to convey to an utterly savage mind that we took 
on all this sturm und drang of a big expedition 
merely because we loved it. Trophies here descended 
to being meat, and meat of all else topped the scale. 
Still, one could only eat a certain amount before being 
very ill, so why such energy to procure an unlimited 
quantity ? I don’t think our sex was ever discovered 
here at all. Englishwomen were not exactly thick on 
the ground, and I think it possible the melancholy 
Mijertain had never previously seen one. Probably 
his intelligence, of a very low order indeed, did not 
take him farther than thinking what particularly under- 
sized, emasculated English sahibs these two were. 
After a consultation we decided it would be really 
