Cecily, lucky person, shot a wart-hog, coming on him just as he was backing in to the little pied-à-terre they make for themselves. She did deserve her luck, for as I was out, and not able to help her, she had to dissect her prize alone. Pig is unclean to the Somali. Even the cook, who claimed to be “all same English,” was not English enough for this. We kept the tushes, and ate the rest. The meat was the most palatable of any we had tasted so far.
I bagged a wandering aoul, not at all a sporting shot. I got the buck in the near fore, and but for its terrible lameness I should never have come up with it at all. His wound, like Mercutio’s, sufficed. One might as well try to win the Derby on a cab-horse as come up with even a wounded buck on any of the steeds we possessed. I ambled along, and so slowly that the buck was outstripping the pony. I slipped off then, and running speedily, came within excellent range and put the poor thing out of his pain. His head was the finest of his kind we obtained.
The horns differ considerably, and I have in my collection backward and outward turning ones. Aoul is a very common gazelle in all parts of open country, barring South-East Somaliland, and travels about in vast herds. Its extraordinary inquisitiveness makes it fall a very easy victim.
Clarence went out with us in turn. His alternative was a fine upstanding fellow, but after three or four expeditions with him as guide I deposed him from the position of second hunter. He was slow, and lost his presence of mind on the smallest provocation, both of them fatal defects in a big game hunter, where quickness of brain and readiness of resource is a sine qua non.
CHAPTER IV—WE MEET KING LEO
My hour is almost come
Hamlet
A lion among ladies is a most dreadful thing, for there is not