El Hakim heard that many years before, the sheep and goats of the Rendili, with the exception of Lubo’s, which were camped in another place at the time, had been swept away by a pestilence. In such cases the custom of the tribe appears to be that the owner of the surviving flocks must give the others sufficient animals to enable them to recommence breeding; but he has the right to take them back, together with their progeny, provided that his own needs require it. Old Lubo, therefore, was practically the owner of all the vast flocks of the Rendili, which could only be numbered by hundreds of thousands. The confidence between the animals and their owners was very noteworthy, even the sheep allowing themselves to be handled freely for milking, and for purposes of examination. They are of the fat-tailed variety, some of the tails weighing as much as thirty pounds. This fat tail is another object lesson of the way nature provides her creatures against all emergencies. The Rendili sheep in times of plenty develop and store a large reserve of nourishment in the fat of their ponderous tails, so that when, as often happens, their pasturage becomes exhausted through want of rain or other causes, they have a store to draw upon, sufficient for their needs for a considerable period. Another store of fat is also formed, in the case of the Rendili sheep, in a large pouch or dewlap under the throat, and also on the breast-bone, where the fat is often a couple of inches in thickness. As an instance of the ignorance and denseness of the average Swahili, as regards anything outside his own particular sphere, I will mention a little incident which occurred one day. El Hakim sent Jumbi and three or four men with a supply of cloth and beads to buy sheep at a Rendili village. He was instructed to buy “soben,” _i.e._ ewes, in good condition. He returned next day with a dozen or so of the raggedest scarecrows that the Rendili had been able to rake out. El Hakim reprimanded him, and asked why he had not obtained better animals, as those he had brought had no fat tails at all, but merely shrivelled-up skin. Jumbi answered that it was true that the Rendili had brought sheep with much fatter tails to him, but he had rejected them, their tails being so large that _he thought the sheep would not be able to travel_! The Rendili own donkeys, but not so many as the Burkeneji. They also own horses, which the Burkeneji do not, and which they probably procure from the Borana, who are reported to own vast numbers of them. The Borana are a very powerful and numerous tribe living in north-east Galla-land. They are fierce fighters, and it was formerly quite the correct thing for any warrior among the Rendili who yearned for distinction to lead a raiding party against the Borana, who as often returned the compliment.