212 TWO DIANAS IN SOMALILAND 
the Koran in Arabic. It would not be to the advantage 
of the mullahs if any one and every one could accom- 
plish this feat. Not one of our men could even write, 
much less read. 
I had taken a couple of favourite books along with 
me, as every traveller must who will be away from 
libraries and would yet change literary diet. In my 
moments of leisure for reading I accompanied Elizabeth 
in Rugen, or wandered with her through that solitary 
summer. She was very good to me, but she bored 
Clarence almost to tears. I read him a little one 
afternoon in response to his demands to know what 
the book was all about, and after a short while, thinking 
he was very quiet, I looked up ; the vandal slept ! 
Sunday again. 
After the great heat of the early hours of the after- 
noon we made another start, heading straight now for 
the return journey over the Marehan. Cecily bagged 
a couple of dik-dik out of a bunch of three. All those 
hereabouts did not find the two-is-company axiom 
worth considering, and ran about everywhere in 
threes. We secured two guinea fowl, too, for future 
meals. They were decidedly gamey by night ; the 
heat was so against keeping any sort of meat. livery 
often thought this unceasing pondering on what 
could be provided for the next feast made for dreadful 
greediness. When we pitched tents Clarence reported 
that one of the camel-men was very sick. “ Him die 
all right.” I was not very much put about, because 
by this I had learned the Somali ways, and knew that 
every one of them considers himself at the portals of 
