72 
A COLONY IN THE MAKING 
CHAP. 
found that their arrival had been forestalled by the 
Somali-spread report that the sole object of the 
expedition was to poison all the scanty wells and 
watering places. 
To understand the points whereby the Somali obtains 
his object through the agency of the European, the 
personal characteristics of the former must be con¬ 
sidered. To start with, it cannot be denied that both 
in appearance and in many of his qualities he is one of 
natures gentlemen. Both men and women are tall and 
most gracefully and symmetrically fashioned. Their 
features are beautifully chiselled and refined, and their 
voices low and melodious. Again, they are clean, and 
their manners, deferential without being cringing, are 
almost perfect ; they are always courteous and ever 
ready to oblige. In sport they are generally both keen 
and tireless ; though I recall two Somalis, who went 
as headman and hunter to a rich merchant of Semitic 
extraction, and during the course of a considerable 
expedition gammoned him that it was quite out of the 
question to start shooting before io a.m., as up to that 
hour the game was inconceivably wild ! Finally, it is 
as of the creed of a Somali to stand by his employer 
in a tight place, and he literally does not know the 
meaning of the word fear. There is, I believe, hardly 
a single recorded instance of a Somali deserting his 
master when attacked by elephant, buffalo, or lion; and 
on the contrary many and many an instance of the 
most desperate gallantry stands out. Cases of unarmed 
gunbearers flinging themselves on lions which have got 
the white man down will occur to many hunters. In 
one particular case a Somali thrust his hand into a lion’s 
mouth and twisted the tongue of the beast to induce 
him to leave off savaging his master, and to turn its 
