TWO DIANAS IN SOMALILAND 199 
longed to take the whole lot to the wells to drink, 
but of course we had to go through the ceremonial 
properly. The dibaltig is a Somali way of doing honour 
or paying allegiance, and is only performed at the 
election of a Sultan, or for the offering of deference 
due to an English traveller. 
With spears held aloft the Somalis united in the 
strident familiar “ Mot ! Mot ! Mot ! io Mot ! ” (Hail ! 
Hail ! Hail ! again Hail !) — to which, as a safe remark, 
I replied “ Mot ! 55 The wrong thing, of course, and 
Clarence, who stood just behind, whispered I was to 
say “ Thank you,” which I did in Somali, very badly. 
Then we invited our circus party to a meal, and I 
said if they could produce a couple of sheep from 
somewhere I would pay for the banquet. We got 
through all right, but the whole of the day was taken 
up with the princely entertainment. The sheep duly 
arrived, and the entire camp helped to roast them, 
when with bowls of rice and ghee as a top up, every 
one made merry at our expense. We bestowed a few 
presents also, of which the most successful was a 
tusba, wooden beads to be counted in prayer-saying. 
I was sorry we had not provided ourselves with more of 
these to give away, as they seemed so intensely popular. 
Cecily gave one Berserk a piece of gay red ribbon, and 
he seemed very much delighted. They do not care 
for things of which no use can be made, as they are not 
a silly nation. Red scarves and ribbon can always be 
used up effectively for the ponies’ trappings on dibaltig 
and other great occasions. 
We managed to effect an exchange here. I wanted 
