232 
THROUGH SOMALILAND AND ABYSSINIA chap. 
picture against the brick-red face of the rock. There must have 
been three hundred altogether, including the little ones, which 
clung to the rocks or to their mothers’ backs ; and with all 
heads looking at us, they kept up a tremendous barking as we 
crossed the stream, and it continued all night close to our 
bivouac, so that it was a long time before we were able to get 
any sleep. Some of the males seemed as large as retriever dogs, 
with gray manes as imposing as that of the lion. 
Next morning we had to pass these baboons as we ascended 
a gorge to watch for koodoo, and they ran round to the head of 
the gully in a small army, like little men determined to block 
our passage. They hid in the rocks across our path, chattering 
at us as we came on, and when we were fifty yards away still 
sat ferociously watching. One gray old fellow had his head 
looking over a stone, and pointing my Martini-Henry at it, I 
was amused to see him duck behind a rock exactly as a man 
would have done. I again raised the rifle and down went his 
head again. This was curious, for he had certainly never seen 
a rifle before. My men stormed the pass, intent on catching a 
young one, but they were too quick for us, and retired slowly 
up the ravine, disputing with their short angry bark every inch 
of the ground. Of course I did not fire at the brutes ; and the 
Somhlis, approving, said that they were little men, and it was 
unlucky to kill them. 
In the forenoon we saw three cow koodoos and a young bull 
with half -grown horns, grazing up a patch of green meadow grass 
in a valley several hundred feet below ; but after watching them 
for an hour, and seeing that no old bull joined them, we gave it 
up for the day, and prepared for the long journey back to the 
main camp. As we descended to our bivouac to pack up our 
blankets and cooking-pots, we gave these koodoos a slant of our 
wind, and one of the females stood pawing the ground and 
looking up at us, both of the huge rounded ears held forward. 
We did not move, and every minute or so she emitted a loud 
bark which went echoing up the hillsides. 
This alarm-note is given by an old cow when she scents or 
sees danger but cannot quite make out its nature, and so she 
calls the attention of the herd. Sometimes three or four 
females on hearing the bark of one will throw up their heads, 
and joining her stand motionless, all eyes turned to the direction 
of danger, as if in council, and then they canter away, followed 
by the ruck of the herd. By remaining motionless, even if on 
