She asked him how many cattle he owned. Oh, hundreds. Would we like some milk?
“I hope he didn’t think I was hinting!” murmured Cecily abashed. But we did look forward to a good drink of cow’s milk. When it came we could not manage it, for the milk tasted so horribly. I think the milking vessels must have been dirty.
In this settlement they made large quantities of ghee for sending down to Berbera, and the whole atmosphere seemed more business-like and agricultural than most Somali karias. Quite a crop of jowâri cultivation brightened the plateau ground around, and farming seemed to be thoroughly understood. Many herds of sheep, watched over by women and children, whitened the hills. A goat of acumen and intelligence led each band, and they were not driven from the rear, with the consequent going in the wrong direction every time that attends the moving of a flock of sheep with us. The shepherdess walked in front, the tame goat followed, and the sheep came wandering after. They were exceedingly fat sheep, and our men revelled in the grease that ensued after the cooking of two presented to us by our friend the Mullah.
The hot karif wind here blew hurricanes for a couple of days, and tents would not stand against it. We tried to keep them up, but the anxiety of the prospect of one’s house about one’s ears kept us awake, and the next night we had a sort of circle made of all our boxes and luggage generally, and slept inside the ring with the gale blowing great guns over our heads. The karif is part of the Haga season, July and August, and we had met it, only less furiously inclined, on and off lately. It springs up at night, and you may go to bed with not a breath stirring to wake to feel the tents straining at its moorings. The sand blows before the wind in clouds, and the best way to combat it is to precipitate oneself face downwards until the swirl of grit has passed for the time. At the height of the Golis the karif is not usually prevalent, keeping its attentions for the plains. And we were delighted that each morning as the day advanced the wind of the night spent itself into a pleasant refreshing breeze.
Just where we pitched our camp was a reserved area for game, so we descended next morning, minus the hunters, to lower country, down the remains of elephant trails. They are not so amazing to me as the tracks of the bison—extinct, or practically extinct anyway—one comes on in some parts of Montana. I remember one in particular that I thought was the ancient bed of some great river, so wide and deep was it. And yet thousands of bison passing over it to drink daily at a lake in the vicinity had made the wondrous track. But I’m digressing, and that badly.
A couple of agile wild asses raced along a little pathway cleft in the side of the ravine above us, the dislodged stones raining about our ears. Graceful alert creatures, but of course barred to us, and not only by reason of the red tape that ties them up. I cannot think a wild ass is an allowable trophy. I should for ever apologise if I had one. So—we saw them vanish in a cloud of dust. We saw a klipspringer as we turned a little curving piece of rock. I fired, and missed. Most unfortunately, as the shot was called through every ravine by every echo.
As we were silently standing gazing across a lovely valley a couple of wart-hog sows with immense families ran among the aloes. Cecily dashed after them, and into them, separating the little band. Laughing heartily, she pursued one agile mite, and almost cornered it. The sow turned viciously and charged head down. I shouted to the venturesome Cecily, but she saw the danger as soon as I, and made for an aloe stronghold. The baby pig with little grunts and squeals ran to its mother, who gave up the idea of punishing us for our temerity in waylaying her, and trotted back to her litter, all scuttling away in the tangle of jungly places. We laughed at the comical sight they presented, and then began to lunch off a bit of their relation.
The air made us drowsy, and I think we slept awhile. The bark of a koodoo wakened us, and we started up all alert. Two small does crossed the ravine lower down, but were gone in the fraction of a second. It was a stiff climb back, and as I made a detour round a jutting peak of rock I caught a glimpse of a distant klipspringer. Down I went, and oh, how I prayed Cecily would keep quiet, and not set a dozen stones a-rolling, for she had not sighted the prize. I threw up my rifle and took careful aim. The klipspringer was off. It perched again on a spiky summit. Bang! sounded to the astonishment of Cecily. The little buck took a header clean off its halting place, and turning somersaults fell a hundred feet or so. We slid and ran and fell after it. I made certain its horns would be broken and useless, but, thank goodness, we found them intact. I had hit the klipspringer fair and square in the heart, and its rough olive-coloured coat was hardly marked. The little straight horns of this trophy measured three and three quarter inches. The females are hornless.
Then came the difficulty of packing our prize back to camp—our camp in the skies. First we sought a stout branch, and then tied the hollow rounded hoofs of the little klipspringer to it. We always went about with our pockets stuffed with cord and useful things, the sort of things a woman in peace times would not find useful at all. Then we lifted together. What a mighty weight for so small a thing! The rests we had, the slips downhill, the tempers we got into, are they not all graphically described in my diaries of the day in the following terse but meaning words: “I shot a klipspringer at the bottom of a ravine. Cecily and I carried it back to our camp in the Upper Sheik ourselves.” Simple words, but fragrant with meaning.
Near camp the waiting Clarence met us, and we gladly turned over the klipspringer to him. It was indeed a charming trophy, and we were intensely happy at having procured one of this species. Our excursion had about put the finishing touch to our garments, which were already on their last legs. We were literally in rags, and had come down to our last suit. Time had indeed made us slovenly.