At midnight, a week later, I rode out on a camel, accompanied by Ali Hirsi, the four Midgáns, and nine dogs. We slept for a few hours at a Midgán karia out on the plain, and at dawn struck due south into the heart of the bush. As it became hot, after having seen nothing but Walleri and small gazelles all the morning, we sat down to rest, sending a boy, one of the Midgáns, up a thorn-tree to watch. The dogs lay round us panting, with their tongues hanging out, and all the men were soon asleep under the shade, except my Midgán sentry, who was softly intoning his Mahomedan prayers as he sat perched on the tree. Suddenly he stopped them with a jerk, slipped down the trunk of the tree, and came running to me snapping his fingers. We all got up, and the Midgáns, by whistling and throwing pebbles, put the dogs on to the broad path of a large herd of oryx. Off we went, and after running for five minutes as fast as our legs could carry us, the dogs being well out of sight, we heard a clamour in the distance; and crouching low as we ran, came into a glade where we found the herd bunched together round a thicket, keeping the dogs back, the oryx charging repeatedly and the dogs dodging nimbly, trying to cut out the young calves. Directly the oryx caught sight of us they scattered like a bursting shell. I ran hard to cut off some of them, jumping over low mimósas and stepping on large thorns, and the Midgáns sent a flight of poisoned arrows whizzing past me at the flying herd. The Midgáns, I knew, wanted meat, so I dropped a large cow with the .500 Express as she galloped past at forty yards, rolling her over in her tracks. The Midgáns rushing up, breathed a short prayer, slashed her throat open, and then stood clear from the quivering body, while all the dogs fastened on to a calf, which was soon lying beside the cow with its head cut off; and after half an hour spent in lighting a fire and roasting some oryx meat, we loaded up the rest and made for Bulhár.
I have had several trips with these Bulhár Midgáns in search of oryx. Their camping arrangements are very primitive, and many a time have I helped them to light a fire by rubbing two sticks together. Special wood had to be chosen, and it generally took us from ten to twenty minutes to get a light.
The skin on the withers of a bull oryx is much thicker than the rest of the skin, being about three-quarters of an inch thick. The average length of horns in a good bull is thirty-two inches, in a cow thirty-four inches. Young oryx, when caught and confined in an enclosure, will sometimes show their stubborn, wild nature by charging the bars, head down, and so killing themselves; a case of this kind once occurred in Berbera. The flesh of a calf oryx is, in my opinion, more delicious than that of any other antelope, and lions are particularly fond of it. These calves, when young, are very like those of English cattle in appearance, but smaller, with stumpy, straight horns a few inches long. They give out a peculiar half-bleat, half-bellow, when attacked by dogs or wounded. We fell in with young calves about the middle of August in two successive years. Oryx sometimes strike sideways with their horns as we use a stick. When very angry they lower them till nearly parallel with the ground, and make a dash forward for a few yards with surprising swiftness. Oryx are often seen in company with hartebeests and Plateau gazelles. Once I saw a small herd with some of these latter, and with the mixed herd were two ostriches.
The Koodoo (Strepsiceros Koodoo)
Native name, Gódir or Goriáleh Gódir (male); Adér-yu (female); Adér-yu (collective name for herd animals of both sexes and all ages)
Koodoos are found in mountainous or very broken ground where there is plenty of bush and good grass and water. The best koodoo grounds in Somáliland are Gólis Range and the Gadabursi Hills. The large koodoos scarcely exist in the parts of Ogádén which I have visited. Either they never existed there, or, as my followers declared, they died of the great epidemic of cattle disease four or five years ago. Ogádén Somális constantly offer to show koodoo to a sportsman, but they appear to mean the lesser koodoo; and this they call Gódir, knowing apparently of only the one kind. The Ishák tribes, on the other hand, have names for both.
Sometimes a solitary old bull will make his midday lair close to water, in some quiet part of the hills. They are very retiring, and live in small families, two bulls and seven cows being the largest number I have noticed together. They prefer the steepest mountains, but wander about at night in search of grass in broken ground in the neighbouring plains. An old male with a heavy pair of horns seems to avoid thick jungle, where they may catch in the branches, and likes to spend the heat of the day under the shadow of some great rock on the mountain side, where he can get a good view around. His eyes, nose, and ears appear to be equally on the alert, and he is often very cunning. Although such a heavy animal, he is a good climber and is hard to stalk, but, once successfully approached, the steep nature of the ground generally yields him up an easy victim to the rifle. The alarm-note of the female koodoo is a loud, startling bark, which echoes far into the surrounding hills, and is similar to that of the Indian sambar hind.[54] The bark is accompanied by an impatient pawing of the ground with the hoofs.
The habits of the greater and lesser koodoo exactly correspond respectively to those of the sambar and spotted deer of Southern India. Great koodoos live in the mountains, and lesser koodoos on the bush-covered slopes at their base. Koodoos are generally timid, but care must be taken when coming suddenly on them, as I once saw an unwounded bull make a very determined charge from some thirty yards’ distance at a solitary man who had been sent to stop the mouth of a gorge. The man jumped to one side and threw his spear, grazing the flank of the beast, which then galloped out into the plain below and escaped. I had a good view of this, and there could be no doubt as to the intention of the beast.
The koodoo is the largest of all the Somáli antelopes, a large bull standing about 13 hands 1 inch, and although an active climber, he is not fast on level ground. A fairly good pair of horns in Somáliland will measure 3 feet from base to tip, and 50 inches round the spiral of each horn. The largest I have ever seen measured 56 inches round the spiral. The koodoo is rare except in the mountains, and is found on the highest ground of Northern Somáliland, inhabiting the top of Wagar Mountain and Gólis Range, which rise to about six thousand eight hundred feet. It has lately become scarce even in these parts. The head is a great prize, and a good pair of horns should be ample reward for a fortnight’s climbing in the hills.