to tend some
half-dozen poor wretches who had been frightfully mauled during the
night on the outskirts of the town itself and probably by the same
hyaena. The hot weather had induced many folk to sleep outside their
stifling huts and they _will_ not take the trouble to collect and build
up a few thorny bushes to keep the brutes off.

The Somali is about as incapable of hard work as his "fat" camel, and
the only time he may be seen digging is among the convict gangs who
till, or used to till, the Government garden out at Dubar on the inland
edge of the littoral plain, where the Berbera water supply bubbles out
hot from under the low maritime hills and trickles through ten miles of
surface pipe-line to supply the "Fort," which is supposed to protect the
British cantonment straggling some distance outside Berbera town. He
feels such work dreadfully, not only as an injury to his self-respect
(and he has all the puerile pride of the negroid races), but as an
irksome tax on his physical powers, which are quite unaccustomed to
sustained and strenuous exertion. On the other hand, he will make long
journeys on short commons and keep well and happy if allowed to
punctuate his hardships at long intervals with debauches on meat and
milk and fat. He excuses himself from tilling the ground on the plea
that others might harvest the fruit of his labours, as there is no
individual land-tenure or any definite divisions of land indicating
ownership, but only tribal grazing rights over ill-defined areas and the
parcel of land enclosed by his zareba fence, of which he is but the
tenant, as it is free to anybody as soon as he leaves it to trek to
other pastures. Therefore, vegetables are unattainable by him, and his
cereals (rice, millet and coarse flour) reach him by sea and caravan or
he does without. He appears immune from scurvy and is seldom sick or
sorry unless he over-eats himself. He loves _ghi_ (or clarified butter)
and animal fat, which he swallows in large gulps when he can get it,
also rubbing it in his frizzy hair and using it to sleek his black,
spindly shanks and smear his spear-blades--on shikar he will "gorm" it
all over your spare gun if you do not watch him. His favourite beverage
is strong tea with lots of sugar in it (when procurable) otherwise he
will not touch it, and he will drink water which a thirsty camel would
sniff at suspiciously before imbibing. He dresses in a white sheet worn
toga-wise and not without a cer