“This, General,” an American hostess once remarked to General Sheridan, who was busily manipulating an ordinary fork at the commencement of a banquet, “this is the oyster fork.”
“D——n it, madam,” answered the General, “I know it!”
In rifles, as in forks, and in many other things, Chacun à son goût.
Not even marksmanship can make a good sportsman, if there is any temper or jealousy or smallness about one. A good sportsman is as happy on the chance as on the certainty, and is not to be numbered as of the elect because he has slaughtered so many head. It is not the quantity but the quality that counts. Any one, short of an absolute lunatic, can hit a large mark, say a buck, but not all men can hit it in a vital place. Wounded animals, left in the jungle, are one of the most awful evidences of unskilled shots, bad judgment, flurry, and an hundred other proofs of things not learned or discovered for oneself. Of course, often it is that the chances are entirely against one, and the quarry escapes; but the careful, thoughtful, business-like shikari does not take on foolish impossibilities. He knows that word without the “im,” and the result is unerring success. Cecily and I never went in for anything but legitimate rivalry, and unlike the majority of women who go in for games of chance together never had the slightest desire to pull each other’s hair out, or indulge in sarcastic badinage disguised as humour.
Wandering about the Mijertain we came on one or two wealthy tribes. Their wealth consists of camels, and so many in a batch I had never before seen. When grazing in their hundreds like this each mob of camels is led by one of the most domineering character, who wears a bell, just as the leader of cattle does in Canada. The camel-bell is made of wood, carved by the natives, and, ringing in dull, toneless fashion, localises the band.
We now began to be afraid of our reception. We were out of the beaten track, and Clarence was getting a bit out of his depth. Nothing untoward happened We did not allow any stranger into our zareba, and met every caller outside. We felt that if we played the Englishman’s home is his castle idea for all it was worth we should be on the safe side. The Somali children seem to begin to work and carry heavy weights when ours at home are just about beginning to think it is time to sit up, and I never saw such out-sized heads! They were all head and “Little Mary.” With age equipoise asserts itself and the whole structure seems to revert to humdrumidity. For three years at least every Somali could qualify for Barnum’s as a freak. After that he begins to look like every other of his countrymen. But not all are alike. For instance, the head-man of this particular tribe was the most atrabilarious creature possible to meet. I don’t think he could smile. We thought he must be crossed in love, but Clarence said the Lothario had already worked through a little matter of four wives, so I suppose his excursions into the realms of Cupid had been fortunate rather than the reverse.
A Somali is entitled to four wives at once, and the number of his children, as a rule, would rejoice the heart of President Roosevelt. The more children the better for him, because they make for the strength of the tribe. Even girls are not altogether despised assets, because in their youth they are valuable to tend the camels and goats, and some day can be bartered for sheep or ponies. Some Somali women go to their lords with dowries, and, as with us at home, are the more important for their wealth. Consideration is shown them that is lacking towards their poorer sisters who toil and moil at heavy work the whole day long, and when on trek load all the camels, and do all the heavy camp work.
We tried our best to propitiate this Mijertain savage—he really was an ordinary savage—but he only glowered and received all overtures in the worst possible taste and rudeness. One could have told he was rich even if we hadn’t seen his banking account feeding in their thousands.
This tribe looked on the sporting spirit with distrust, evidently suspecting ulterior motives. It would be hard to convey to an utterly savage mind that we took on all this storm und drang of a big expedition merely because we loved it. Trophies here descended to being meat, and meat of all else topped the scale. Still, one could only eat a certain amount before being very ill, so why such energy to procure an unlimited quantity? I don’t think our sex was ever discovered here at all. Englishwomen were not exactly thick on the ground, and I think it possible the melancholy Mijertain had never previously seen one. Probably his intelligence, of a very low order indeed, did not take him farther than thinking what particularly undersized, emasculated English sahibs these two were.
After a consultation we decided it would be really nice to do a long forced march and put some miles between our two encampments. Somehow, we couldn’t fraternise. And that beautiful sentence, without which no suburban friendship is ever cemented—“Now you’ve found your way here, you must be sure to come again”—was quite useless to be spoken. In Suburbia that formula is a solemn rite, never disregarded in the formation of a friendship. You might as well forget to ask “Is your tea agreeable?” at an “At-Home” day. But in Somaliland you had friendship offered so differently, if indeed it was offered at all. It came in the guise of a dirty harn of camel’s milk, microbial and miasmatic, or in the person of a warlike goat, who with no mauvaise-honte is willing to take the whole caravan to his horns, or in cases of overwhelming friendliness a sheep may be presented, with no thought of return. We were rarely privileged to reach this giddy height—too stand-offish, I conclude.