All the flies in all the world seemed to join in at the skinning, and we went back to camp, breakfast, and a bath of sorts.
We rested that day, seeing to all the trophies, the new acquisition included, instructing the men where to rub the skins and where not. Taking them all round, every specimen was in good condition.
We progressed during the evening hours as long as the light held. The climbing was now quite a big thing, and for one step forward we seemed to go two back. A sounder of wart-hog crossed our front, and Cecily bagged a small sow, quite by mistake, but it was the animal’s own fault for growing tushes. This freak occurs often, and I don’t think one can be blamed if accidents happen through this mistaken habit. Accidents always do happen when femininity adopts the attributes which are the prerogative of the masculine gender. Anyway, the pig was a great luxury in the way of a change on the daily menu. Of course we had to dress it ourselves—a bit of a set back. We fried some chops for supper that night, and smiled to ourselves as we thought we could almost rival Chicago for quick despatch.
The next big undertaking was the negotiating of the Upper Sheik, a big affair indeed, and we set off with not a few qualms as to our success. The foremost camel looked as though if he fell he must carry all the others with him in swift rush downwards. We took care to lead the van.
“The morning was one of God’s own, done by hand, just to show what He could do.” We climbed up and up, painstakingly and ploddingly, and presently saw the rugged way over which we had come far below us. We had then been marching close on two hours, and must have done less than four miles. A little lonely karia was perched on a terraced outlook away to the west, its inhabitants strolling out lazily to watch our progress. Half a mile or so off was the Sheik Argudub’s tomb, a white dome-shaped structure, glinting in the sun, and looking for all the world like a replica of some massive wedding-cake. The whole scene was now grandly picturesque in the extreme, and gaining the top of the pass a wondrous panorama lay spread at our feet. Wealth of colour sprang voluptuous around us: here a mass of green merging to purple, there pale tints of cream and brown, aesthetic and delicate. Everywhere great ravines yawned, black and mysterious. Farther off, the vast Marmitime Plain, and miles on miles away, thirty or more, a tiny dark blue riband, fringing the whole, told us that the sea was there. Valleys, ravines, mountains, rivers too, helped out the beauteous scene, and above all, rising superior, was Mount Wager, mightiest of all the Golis.
We camped in this delightful place, overlooking a vista I can never forget. Preying vultures kept watch over infinite space, in widening circles. A hot wind blew through the camp. Here at last, for the moment, we could see about us without that smoke-like dust to curtain all things. The light of the setting sun limned clear the mighty peaks, and brooding night swept gently down the slopes and wrapped the world in sombre garb. The wild eerie grandeur of it impressed me greatly, and I simply could not leave our terraced plateau, but beneath the arch of the stars sat on and marvelled. Then, as though by some special arrangement of Providence for our good entertainment, a mighty storm brewed itself sullenly away over the Marmitime, then crept insidiously to the Golis, and broke in majesty. The bombardment lasted for an hour or more, reverberating through every pass and every ravine; the heavens were alight with wondrous flashes, that rent the air in forked spears, striking down to the depths of the darkest crevass.
We were as safe outside the tent as in, I think, but nowhere very safe, the lightning grew so close. Some of the men got under herios, some even under the standing camels, a nice Juggernaut to run the risk of bringing down on one’s devoted head. Then, gradually the wildness passed, and spent itself in deep-tongued mutterings and distant murmurs. Then came the rain, Somali rain, and we had to shelter. Cecily’s treasure had made us our inevitable nightcap—tea—before the streams of water drenched his fire. Thanks be!
I pictured in my mind the days when herds of elephants roamed the Golis valleys, and the lion woke the still ravines with resonant sound. Alas! this place will know them no more.
The Sheik Pass is, of course, christened after the old gentleman who is buried in the wedding-cake arrangement, and not very far from our camp was an immense cemetery where many thousands of people are buried. Clarence took us also to the ruins of a one-time city, now covered with grass and aloe growth. How ancient the place is I cannot say with accuracy, but it looked very ancient indeed. Not far away at the Upper Sheik is a large Somali village, a Mullah settlement, and the Sheik there, a very enlightened person indeed, told us that the remains of the city are not really very antediluvian, and is the site of the homes of the early settlers from the Yemen. As we neither of us knew anything about such influx we kept silent, to conceal our ignorance. Quite a lot of the tracery on the stones which satisfied un-archæological people like ourselves is nothing but decorative work carved by the shepherds trying to kill time!
Being comparatively near Berbera and “civilisation,” the pass being a kind of high road to Brighton, this Mullah saw a good deal of Europeans, and spoke a little English. We presented him with a Koran, a tusba, and a couple of tobes—the last of the Mohicans—and so our reception was exceedingly cordial. The Mullah was an elderly man, but it is exceedingly hard to guess ages “out there,” and his face was deeply lined, his eyes were very jaded. When the conversation, engineered by Clarence as usual, began to flag I cast about in my mind for a suitable remark, which I placed carefully. He would just wait for me to make another, and seemed to have no inventive faculty of his own. At last I said I hoped all his wives were well. The Mullah tersely said he had none, and relapsed into silence again. This was a set-back that took some getting over, but I gathered myself together sufficiently to say I trusted the forlorn condition of things was temporary only, and that when he had some wives they would keep well. Cecily pulled my sleeve, and whispered I was getting on very badly. “You try then,” I said huffily.