My leave now being at an end, we marched for Adadleh, over a waterless tract of Haud ninety miles in extent. We covered this distance in nine marches, or four and a half days, the whole of the country passed over having been one continuous sea of dense bush, dotted over with red ant-hills, some of the spires being twenty-five feet high. We arrived at Berbera on the 31st of October 1893, and I crossed to Aden next day on the way to England.
CHAPTER XI
NOTES ON THE WILD FAUNA OF SOMÁLILAND
The Lion (Felis leo)
Native name, Libah
Lion-shooting involves long halts of several days among the Somáli karias, with crowds of natives continually standing round camp, the dust from the countless camels and sheep filling the air and covering the bushes. Under these circumstances it may well be understood that other game is scarce, and that sitting unoccupied in camp waiting for news of a lion is not always interesting. Frequently the news which is brought in of lions having visited karias two or three miles away, taking a sheep or a heifer, or a young camel, as the case may be, is very unreliable. Yet the hunter must be ready to start on the instant, and after a tramp lasting from five to ten hours, he will return as often as not to his tent tired out, the victim of a silly hoax concocted for the purpose of wheedling bakshísh out of him.
Every few days one of these trips will probably end in a real find, and then grand excitement will be felt in creeping among the tunnels made by the dark khansa bushes, looking for the crouching enemy, which may spring up from any distance and from any direction; and there is an additional danger in three or four men being huddled together with rifles on full cock in such jungle.