216 TWO DIANAS IN SOMALILAND 
Cecily and I could not help feeling very sorry, but in 
half an hour the men had all forgotten, and marched 
chanting a droning song. The camels that had been 
the charge of the dead man now were controlled by a 
lively little fellow, and the whole incident seemed of 
no moment. 
Any amount of wild geese abode here. It was 
rather like keeping a vast poultry farm. The birds 
were so ridiculously tame and easily caught. At our 
next trek we should have to consider the return journey 
across the Marehan as begun, and we should not be 
likely to make any water for five or six days. Every- 
thing was carefully filled up, and the march commenced 
at 3.30 a.m. The net result of this Marehan excursion 
was one leopard and one wild dog, which we would 
just as soon have been without as with. They may 
be hard to shoot, and come on— -I have heard so — but 
take it how you like, with everything said that can 
be to belaud them into valuable treasures, dogs aren’t 
very grand trophies when all is done. Who values a 
coyote in Canada ? 
We passed thousands of grazing camels. The men 
in charge weren’t bothering about water at all, but 
drank milk only. I arranged with Clarence that our 
men were to go on to rations of dates, and do without 
rice for the trip over the waterless desert. Rice in 
such quantities sucks up such an amount of water, 
and it was safer to keep it for drinking purposes merely. 
The dates are very nutritious, and natives often live 
on nothing else for days. 
We camped about eleven o’clock, when the sun 
