68 
THROUGH SOMALILAND AND ABYSSINIA chap. 
Soon from across the plain came two more horsemen, and a 
shock-headed boy leading a cow, which was brought in front of 
my tent as a present, with Shire ShirnMki’s compliments. We 
killed it ten minutes later, and my men joined the strangers in 
a big feed, followed by a firelight dance, the men clapping their 
hands to the strains of a reed flute, advancing and retiring as 
in a quadrille, and jumping up and down like men in a sack- 
race. Then followed a few interesting step- dances and songs in 
praise of the English or of the Habr Gerhajis. The burden of 
one song was, “ There is nobody like us ; our horses are the best 
and fly like the wind, and none can fight like we ; our old men 
are wise, our young men are brave as lions, and there are no 
girls so beautiful as ours.” When I retired to my tent at mid- 
night the clamour was still going on, and I was roused at 3 a.m. 
by the leave-taking. By the genial glare of our camp-fire Shire 
Shirm&ki made an impressive speech, laying great stress on my 
having seen his country, and asking me to tell the English that 
his tribe, being very good people, never molested caravans ; to 
which I replied that, so far as my having seen his country was 
concerned, he was perfectly free to come and see mine, and I 
promised him a new Idiaili from Berbera and some snow-white 
bafta tobes for his men. 
They recognised the horse I had caught as one which had 
been abandoned by one of their fellows three months before 
while engaged in a raid on the Jibril Abokr tribe, among the 
mountains to the south-west. I promised, if they would send a 
man to Berbera, that I would give up the horse to the Besident 
there, and their tribesman might then claim it. Finally, I 
apologised for not having shown them any equestrian games on 
our part, as the mule was sick ! After the joke had been handed 
round and duly appreciated we parted with a great deal of hand- 
shaking, and they trotted off into the darkness. 
While shifting our camp next day back to GuMnleh, we were 
constantly in sight of game, either beisa or one of the three sorts 
of gazelle, and caught sight of a leopard sneaking across a nala 
three hundred yards ahead of us, but he disappeared among 
some rocks, where tracking became impossible. On arriving at 
GuMnleh I sent horsemen for a grand tour to all the elephant- 
forests around, and remained in camp, ready to march to any 
point of the compass at a moment’s notice. Besides my own 
trackers I had two parties of Habr Gerhajis horsemen also 
searching for elephants, each party consisting of three men. 
