Hamlet
At three o’clock in the morning we joined our caravan, all in readiness, in the Square. It was still dark, but we could see the outline of the waiting camels loaded up like pantechnicon vans, and our ponies saddled in expectation of our coming. The Opposition, who had mapped out a different route, beginning by skirting the borders of the now barred reserve for game in the Hargaisa, got up to see us start and wish us “Good hunting.” What our men thought of us and the expedition generally I cannot conjecture. Outwardly at least they gave no sign of astonishment. Clarence gave the word to march, and we set out, leaving Berbera behind us, and very glad we were to see the suburbs a thing of the past. The flies and the sand storms there are most hard to bear, and a little longer sojourn would have seen both of us in bad tempers.
We made up our minds from the first to have tents pitched every night under any circumstances, and never do any of that sleeping on the ground business which seems to be an indispensable part of the fun of big game shooting. We also resolved to share a tent for safety’s sake, but after a little, when we had begun to understand there was nothing on earth to be afraid of, we “chucked” this uncomfortable plan and sported a tent apiece.
On clear nights I always left the flap of the tent open.
I loved to see the wonderful blue of the sky, so reminiscent of the chromo-lithograph pictures admired so greatly in childhood’s days. And I would try and count the myriad stars, and trace a path down the Milky Way. How glorious it was, that first waking in the early, early morning with dark shadows lurking around, the embers of the fires glowing dully, and—just here—a faint breeze blowing in with messages from the distant sea.
The long string of grunting camels ahead looked like some pantomime snake of colossal proportions as it wriggled its way through the low thorn bushes which, here and there, grew stunted and forlorn; camels move with such an undulating gait, and the loads I had trembled about seemed to be a mere bagatelle.
All too soon came the day, and, with the day, the sun in fiery splendour, which speedily reduced us both to the condition of Mr. Mantalini’s expressive description of “demn’d, damp, unpleasant bodies.” The glitter from the sand made us blink at first, but, like everything else, we got perfectly inured to it, and dark days or wet seemed the darker for its loss.
Jerk! And all the camels stopped and bumped into each other, like a train of loaded trucks after a push from an engine. The front camel decided he would rest and meditate awhile, so sat down. He had to be taught the error of such ways, and in a volley of furious undertones from his driver be persuaded to rise.
We passed numerous camels grazing, or trying to, in charge of poor looking, half-fed Somali youths. There is no grazing very near into Berbera, very little outside either unless the animals are taken far afield. Here they were simply spending their energy on trying to pick a bit from an attenuated burnt-up patch of grass that would have been starvation to the average rabbit.
The camel men in charge came over to exchange salaams with ours, and proffer camels’ milk, in the filthiest of harns, to the “sahibs.” We couldn’t help laughing. But for our hair we looked undersized sahibs all right, I suppose, but we couldn’t face the milk. It would have been almost as disagreeable as that bilge water tea.