The only serious occupation a buck Somali will permit himself is to sit under a tree and watch his grazing flocks. He is fond of conversation, chiefly of a recriminative character, and gives vent to his _joie de vivre_ by prancing and singing on two or three simple notes to the accompaniment of his clapping hands and the thud of his horny heels. His chief woe is drought and lack of grazing, because he then has to get up off his butt-end and take long treks to pastures new. His ideas of earthly Paradise centre round the _cafés_ of Aden, where his countrymen are numerous and where wages are so high that six grown Somalis can batten in well-fed ease on the earnings of a seventh, who keeps on till he wants a holiday and then "goes sick" and sends another of the syndicate to replace him. Qualifications do not matter, as they all have sufficient to fumble through their jobs and no more. If he lacks the capital to start cab-driving and finds boat-rowing or punkah-pulling too strenuous for him, he sets himself to learn a little English and gets a job as servant with some new-fledged British subaltern at a minimum rate of £2 a month, which is fixed by his union, for that is one civilised device he really _can_ handle. He is the slackest oarsman, the laziest punkawala and the worst whip east of Suez. His idea of driving is to sit with knees drawn up toward his chin while he lugs at the reins as if they were a punkah-cord, urging his staunch little screw along with ineffectual flaps of his whip and noises like the paroxysms of sea sickness. He will ruin any saddle-camel for fast work if allowed to ride one regularly, such animals not being raised in his country, but he breeds a small, hardy type of pony which he loves to gallop in wild dashes, with flapping legs and sawing hands, reining the poor little beast up short on a bit like a rat-trap to witch beholders with his horsemanship. As a combatant you never know how to take him. He may put up a hefty fight or he may outrun the antelope in his precipitate retreat. I was much impressed by the defences in barbed wire and thorn trees considered necessary to ward off the onslaught of dervishes by men who knew them better than I did. He is a cheery, irresponsible soul and has been called the Irishman of the East. Missionaries rather like him, because he is very teachable up to a certain point, fond of learning new tricks if not too difficult, and without that habit of logical and consecutive thought which makes the real Arab so difficult to tackle in argument.