Everything we brought with us was in apple-pie order owing to the lists so carefully placed in the lid of each box, and gave us no trouble in the dividing up into the usual camel loads. It was our myriad purchases in Berbera that caused the chaos. They were here, there and everywhere, and all concerning them was at six and seven. I detailed some camels to carry our personal kit, food supplies, &c., exclusively; the same men to be always responsible for their safety, and that there should be no mistake about it I took down the branding marks on apiece of paper. Camels seem to be branded on the neck, and most of the marks are different, for I suppose every tribe has its own hallmark.
Some of the camels brought into Berbera for sale are not intended to be draught animals, being merely for food, and with so much care and extra attention get very fine and well-developed generally. Camel-meat is to the Somali what we are given to understand turtle soup is to the London alderman. Next in favour comes mutton, but no flesh comes up to camel. The Somali camel-man is exceedingly attentive to his charges, giving them names, and rarely, if ever, ill treating them. As a result the animals are fairly even tempered, for camels, and one may go amongst them with more or less assurance of emerging unbitten. When loading up the man sings away, and the camel must get familiar with the song. It seems to be interminably the same, and goes on and on in dreary monotone until the job is over. I would I knew what it was all about.
Of course it is a fact that a camel can take in a month’s supply of water, but it very much depends on the nature of the month how the animal gets on. If he is on pasture, green and succulent, he can go on much longer than a month, but if working hard, continuously, and much loaded, once a week is none too often to water him. They are not strong animals; far from it, and they have a great many complaints and annoyances to contend with in a strenuous life. The most awful, to my mind, is sore back and its consequences. This trouble comes from bad and uneven lading, damp mats, &c., and more often than not the sore is scratched until it gets into a shocking condition. Flies come next, and maggots follow, and then a ghastly Nemesis in the form of the rhinoceros bird which comes for a meal, and with its sharp pointed beak picks up maggots and flesh together. When out at pasture these birds never leave the browsing camels alone, clinging on to shoulders, haunch, and side, in threes and fours.
We had now in our caravan, not counting Clarence and the cook, two boys (men of at least forty, who always referred to themselves as “boys”) to assist the cook, one “makadam,” or head camel-man, twenty-four camel men, four syces, and six hunters, to say nothing of a couple of men of all work, who appeared to be going with us for reasons only known to themselves.
In most caravans the head-man and head shikari are separate individuals, but in our show Clarence was to double the parts. It seemed to us the wisest arrangement. He was so excellent a manager, and we knew him to be a mighty hunter.
The chaos of purchases included rice, harns or native water-casks, ordinary water barrels calculated to hold about twelve gallons apiece, blankets for the men, herios, or camel mats, potatoes, ghee, leather loading ropes, numerous native axes, onions, many white tobes for gifts up country, and some Merikani tobes (American made cloth) also for presents, or exchange. Tent-pegs, cooking utensils, and crowds of little things which added to the confusion. A big day’s work, however, set things right, and meanwhile Cecily had discovered a treasure in the way of a butler. He had lived in the service of a white family at Aden, and so would know our ways.
We had taken out a saddle apiece, as the double-peaked affair used by the Somalis is a very uncomfortable thing indeed.
