232 TWO DIANAS IN SOMALILAND 
laden with treasure. They brought the rhino’s feet, 
his tail, his head, and some of his skin. There was no 
reason why they should not have brought it all. It 
comes off quite easily. They said they had not time, 
as they feared being bushed, or that lions would be 
attracted to the spot by the smell of blood. The skin 
is very valuable to the Somalis for shields, and many 
other purposes, and we rather thought it was a put up 
business to secure half the rhino hide for themselves. 
We thought of going back then and there and seeing 
the thing finished, but Clarence said it was such a 
long way off, the result would be we would all assuredly 
be caught out in the bush at night. I suppose he 
was right. They had us fairly. 
The Somalis don’t care for eating rhino, and I cannot 
say the flesh looks very inviting, but we got the chef 
to make us some soup of the tail, which you hear so 
well spoken of by all travellers. I do not think our 
opinion can be considered a fair one. It would have 
been a better soup had we made it ourselves. Our 
cook could not cook anything properly, and the tail 
and taste of it, if there had been either in the pan at 
any time, was drowned in a waste of water. 
Before the great pachyderm began to be dismem- 
bered we measured him, and his waist, or where his 
waist should be if he had one, was, by the tape, seven 
feet three inches. I don’t know what a fashionable 
belle rhinoceros would think of that. In length he 
was a shade over ten feet, but this was not a very 
large anmial as they go. We set to work helping to 
stretch and clean and saltpetre. The anterior horn 
