The sunsets were superb, and heralded the most intense cold. It became necessary to trek every hour we could, as every one dreaded a water famine. We seemed in these days not to sleep at all, but march and march interminably.
One early morning we found the quaintest of lizards lying in the sun. It had an outspread tail that seemed to overbalance the horrid little thing. Clarence prodded it gently with a small stick, and it cried every time he did it, just like a baby. He told us it is called “asherbody,” which translated means baby, and I noticed, not for the first time, that the Somali mind has a nice sense in the christening of things.
We trekked right into a large Somali zareba, the largest camp we had yet seen, and after a visit from the head-man, were let in for a “tomasho,” or native dance, a different thing altogether to the dibaltig, and much more boring. We arrived at the karia at the time appointed, dressed in our best clothes, which did not say much, as the best was very bad. I would we had been fortified by the possession of spotless garments to steel ourselves against the inquisitive looks of the Somali ladies. It is so hard for a woman to appear at ease in rags. He was a philosopher indeed who said, somewhere or other, “It is our clothes-thatch that, reaching to our heart of hearts, tailorises and demoralises us.”
We were received by the usual curious crowd, who fingered our coats and tried to look into our pockets. Clarence explained we were to sit on the herios prepared, and the show would begin. Men and women took part in the dance, advancing from either side and then retreating. I have attended many an Indian “potlatch” of extravagant description, but they were dignified in the extreme to the Somali equivalent. I won’t describe the dance in detail, because this is supposed to be a pleasant book; besides, Mr. Stead may read it. To put the case mildly, the affair was savage to a degree of ignorance I had not dreamed of in its unvarnished vulgarity.
It was the first indication we had that the Somalis are uncivilised savages. I tried to doze. And being very weary, slept. A violent push from Cecily aroused me to a sense of politeness again, and realising that peace reigned around we stood up, and through Clarence, thanked the gratified “artistes,” and left them wrangling over the gifts which lay on the ground, looking as though they were trying to apologise for the fact that there were not enough of them to go round. We had to trench on the water supply a little after this entertainment, for a wash was an absolute necessity.
Next day a somewhat untoward incident occurred. Cecily and I had detached from a herd of three a fine bull oryx, who by reason of some infirmity was not so fleet as his fellows, and so made an easier quarry. Such a glorious chase he gave us, and more than once we almost took a toss as the ponies groped for a foothold in the maze of ant bear holes.
At last, to cut what promised to be a never-ending chase, I flung myself off the pony at the nearest point I judged we should ever get to the coveted oryx this way, and taking no sort of a sight, I was so out of breath with the shaking of my steed, brought down the antelope in a crumpled heap at a distance of some two hundred and ten yards. This was not so bad, all things considered. We went up close to the fallen creature. I had my hand through the reins of my prodigiously blowing pony, and most injudiciously ranged alongside. Cecily was still mounted. The splendid bull rose from the dead, erect and firm, and I was given no sort of a chance to protect myself before he made for me with lowered horns. It all happened in the twinkling of an eye. I jumped as clear as I could, but the reins entangled me, and the vicious horns caught my left arm as my foe swept along. I was brought to my knees with the impact. As he pulled up in a great slide to turn for a return joust Cecily dropped him, at such close quarters though that the skin was much damaged. My arm was ripped up most ingeniously for quite three inches, Another rent in my poor coat to be mended! However, it might all have been much worse. It might have been my right arm. The wind was tempered to the shorn lamb.
I rode back to camp, with a handkerchief twisted tightly round the wound, and Cecily stayed to guard the oryx from vultures, until I could send some one to take over, when she returned to me fired with medical ardour and primed with medical knowledge from our book. She pronounced the wound as of the variety to be stitched. Could I bear it being stitched? I said certainly, if she could endure the horror of stitching it. So we prepared for action. I told my doctor I would not have the place washed because I was convinced that Somali water, even when filtered, was not calculated to cleanse, rather the reverse, and I did dread blood-poisoning. I sat outside the tent on a packing case, and Cecily put three most workmanlike stitches into my arm. She was a brick, never flinching until it was done, when she let off bottled-up steam by crying about four tears, and I think four tears are allowable—I mean without showing any sort of cowardice or lack of courage—don’t you? Rome was not built in a day, and Cecily had never even been hospital-nursing; but then she is the most unfashionable person in the wide world.
I carried my arm in a sling as we marched next day. Cecily was very anxious to halt the caravan on my account, but this I would not allow. The wells must be reached at the earliest possible moment. Clarence had reported that the supply was dangerously low. We traversed very ugly country, sand and sand, with a few low scrub bushes dotted about—a dispiriting vista enough. We shot a dik-dik for dinner, and so fared sumptuously. There is about as much meat on the body of this tiny buck as one gets on an English hare.
At last we came to the wells. We found a number of Somalis making a spa out of the place, and selling the water, drop by drop. I don’t know if the wells were some one’s birthright, or if some speculative Somali jumped the claim, but a repellent old gentleman, who looked as though he had not tried the precious liquid on himself for some years, gave us to understand he owned the place. He asked such wealth for a mere dole of water we decided to camp and think it out. He knew the value of what he had to sell, the old sinner, for though we were but a few marches now from the end of the Haud our caravan was a good size, and its consumption necessarily great. We had the tents set up right there, and prepared to improve the shining hour by seeking some sport on the Toyo Plain.