280 TWO DIANAS IN SOMALILAND 
skin, the shoulder providing the second quality 
only. 
Higher and higher we climbed each trek, the going 
much slower now. The camels took their time over 
the so far simple ascent. We sighted gereniik many 
times, both when riding alone and with the caravan. 
Many times we pursued them, and as many times 
returned discouraged. Stalking was a very difficult 
business here, the bushes all grew aslant, and the 
buck had a perfection of balance unknown to us. 
One try of Cecily’s very much amused us. She got 
a chance at a gereniik, after a stiff pursuit over hill 
and down dale, fired, and the kick from her rifle over- 
balanced her as she clung with uncertain feet to the 
hillside, and she slid like an animated toboggan 
downwards. Goodness knows where the gereniik or 
the bullet went to. 
We camped on a beautiful range one night, where a 
small plateau seemed to invite us to rest awhile. The 
sun was just setting, and the mighty mountains around 
were bathed in a roseate glow. It was a most perfect 
scene. The camp that night was like a biblical 
picture — the sleeping camels, the recumbent forms of 
their drivers, and over all a sky of such wondrous blue 
dotted with stars innumerable. 
Next the sublime is always the ridiculous. Another 
camel-man fell sick here, but his case was not really 
genuine, I verily believe. Cecily and I feigned to 
have found among our things a medicine of most 
marvellous properties, warranted to cure in one dose 
all the ills that flesh is heir to. Quinine was its name 
