On the following morning I rode over to Ismail’s camp to hear what he had to say. I found the Somalis very despondent. Business was decreasing, as, owing to the presence of two safaris, the market was glutted with trade goods. They were buying camels, which was necessarily a very slow process, as the camels could only be bought for so many sheep. These sheep had first to be purchased for cloth or wire, and Ismail was finding out that between the value of a sheep he wished to buy, and that of a sheep he wished to sell, there was a wide difference. Ismail also informed me that a party of Wa’Embe had come to trade with the Rendili and Burkeneji, and had stayed at a Burkeneji village further up the river. When the Wa’Embe heard that the Somalis were camped among the villages of their hosts, they inquired of them why they had not attacked the Somalis and speared them. “We have beaten them twice,” they said, “and killed many of their men with our spears. Their bullets did not hurt us. Why do you not spear them?” This advice was not lost on the Burkeneji, and they would have probably acted upon it in the near future; but Ismail, hearing the news from his spies, went forth to attack the mischief-making Wa’Embe, who forthwith fled without giving battle. The next day we also moved our camp up-stream, and pitched our tents afresh on a spot a few yards from the river-bank and 500 yards or so from Ismail’s boma. We understood from Ismail that he intended going north to Marsabit, and for some reason he was very anxious that I should leave El Hakim and George to return alone and accompany him northward. He was very pressing in his invitation, which, however, I consistently declined. If Jamah had been alive, nothing would have pleased me better than an opportunity of penetrating further northward to Marsabit and perhaps Reshiat and Marle at the north end of Lake Rudolph, but I entertained such a hearty contempt for Ismail, that the prospect of some months’ journey in his company did not offer sufficient inducement to warrant me in altering my arrangements. After we had settled down in our fresh camp we concentrated our attention on exchanging the remainder of our cloth for sheep, so that we might start on our return journey to Nairobi. El Hakim wished to get back to Nairobi in November for personal reasons, otherwise we should have gone back to M’thara, and after buying a fresh supply of food there, and getting the forty odd loads of beads which were in N’Dominuki’s charge, we had intended journeying to Lake Baringo and thence northward into the country of the Turkana.