Page:First Footsteps in East Africa, 1894 - Volume 1.djvu/146

 to the sight, whilst the tumbling of the surf upon the near shore, and the music of the jackal, predisposed to sweet sleep. We now felt that at length the die was cast. Placing my pistols by my side, with my rifle butt for a pillow, and its barrel as a bed-fellow, I sought repose with none of that apprehension which even the most stout-hearted traveller knows before the start. It is the difference between fancy and reality, between anxiety and certainty: to men gifted with any imaginative powers the anticipation must ever be worse than the event. Thus it happens, that he who feels a thrill of fear before engaging in a peril, exchanges it for a throb of exultation when he finds himself hand to hand with the danger. The "End of Time" volunteered to keep watch that night. When the early dawn glimmered he aroused us, and blew up the smouldering fire, whilst our women proceeded to load the camels. We pursued our way over hard alluvial soil to sand, and thence passed into a growth of stiff yellow grass not unlike a stubble in English September. Day broke upon a Somali Arcadia, whose sole flaws were salt water and Simum. Whistling shepherds [14] carried in their arms the younglings of the herds, or, spear in hand, drove to pasture long regular lines of camels, that waved their vulture- like heads, and arched their necks to bite in play their neighbours' faces, humps, and hind thighs. They were led by a patriarch, to whose throat hung a Kor or wooden bell, the preventive