2o6 TWO DIANAS IN SOMALILAND 
and were so overjoyed and charmed with it that we 
ordered the tents to be placed on the verge, so that 
the ripples lapped up to our very feet. It was quite 
sea-sidey, or perhaps, more than anything, reminiscent 
of a park at home, for all varieties of birds floated on 
the surface and waded on the edge. When I threw 
broken biscuit to them they paddled to me in their 
dozens, flying over each other in the hurry to be first. 
Of course, a swim was what appealed most to us. 
To be wet all over at one time instead of furtive dabs 
with a damp sponge seemed the acme of desirability. 
It seemed difficult of accomplishment. I don’t care 
for mixed bathing at home — if the usual percentage of 
some twenty women to three men can be called “ mixed ” 
— and then there was the awkwardness about kit. 
Cecily suggested, in evil moment, cutting up the khaili 
tobes. And we did, fashioning them into bathing- 
suits during the hot hours of the afternoon, when we 
should have been using them. The result might not 
have passed at Ostend ; they were a succes fou at Sinna- 
dogho. On giving orders that the lake was to be 
reserved for us at five o’clock — the men, who were 
good swimmers, having been dashing in and out all 
day — the whole camp lined up to see the Mem-sahibs 
in a new phase. It was funny. We had made the 
tunics sleeveless, and from the wrist up our skin was 
as white as white could be, but from the wrist down 
we were Somali colour to our finger-tips. 
We ran in out of our tents, and words cannot tell 
how glorious that swim was. We dived, we raced, 
we floated, we dabbled, until at last we knew we must 
