The ground was all ploughed up with the scuffle.
The head of the dead oryx was poor. It looked old, and was moreover the worse for strenuous living, being in parts hairless. As I now had better heads, I took his shield merely, as a souvenir of the great fight. It is now a little tea-tray from which I peacefully drink tea.
We struck camp next day, and trekked along the borders of the Ogaden country. That night we had a camel looted. A camel seems a bit of an undertaking to run off with, as more often than not he won’t move when you want him to. I suspect there was some collusion on the part of the camel-man in charge, but I never could bring it home to one of them.
Our clothes were now in a shocking state of repair, or disrepair. What with wait-a-bit thorns, drenching rain, torrid sun, wriggling on the ground, kneeling and grovelling about, we were the most awful scarecrows you ever saw. But we were intensely happy. That is the wonder of the wild. One forgets clothes—and that is much for a woman to say—newspapers and letters. What was going on in the world we knew not, nor did we care. I cannot conceive the heart of man desiring more than was ours just then. The glories of the jungle were all for us; every dawn brought something new, and everywhere we could trace the wonders of the world in which we lived: each morning come on romance in footprints, tragedy in massed spoor, “sermons in stones, and good in everything.”
It is not to be thought that all things went smoothly. In a big caravan of the kind such an idyllic condition of things would be well-nigh impossible. There were the most awkward disagreeablenesses and unpleasantnesses of all sorts to bother us. I hate sporting books full of grumbling and tales of discomforts. Nobody asked the sportsman to undertake the job, and nobody cares if he “chucks” it. Therefore why write reams about miseries when there are so many things to make up for them? No life is all couleur de rose; but we can make light of the darkness, “walk in its gardens, and forget the rain.”
Ostrich spoor was now all about, but they are the most difficult of all things to come on at close quarters. I stalked odd birds, birds in twos, birds in trios for hours, but never came within any sort of range.
All the natural history as told to me in childish days about the ostrich burying its head in the sand and imagining itself hidden I found very much of a nursery romance. The ostrich takes no chances, and, so far from burying its head, has to thank the length of its neck for much of its safety.