"It is a very hot time of day, Inspector Buralli," I say, "to set out on a journey." "It is," he replies, "but the road is long and there is no water. The camels will stand the heat better now, at the commencement of the journey, than to-morrow morning should the sun catch you when they are tired. Besides, there is a good breeze from the right direction that will help them." "Good for you. But what about this miserable mule?" "It will follow the camels. What they can do he is up to." [Illustration: A SOMAL HOUSEHOLD ON THE MOVE.] And that was saying little for the camels, for the mule did not look "up to" much. The box of carefully packed eggs produced at the last moment by the chowkar is strapped behind a camel saddle. My blanket is spread across my saddle tree, and as I take my seat the patient camel unfolds himself, and, with three sharp jerks, comes from the prone to the standing position. We pass through my compound gate, cross the square, and, with our backs to the town of Zeila, trot off due south, along a straight track, running through a sandy plain devoid of all vegetation. We meet a few women heading for the town; we pass a half-dozen more heading away from it; farther on a spearman, followed by a small girl; beyond him again a girl leading a young camel packed with a bulky, clumsy-looking load. She pulls to the side of the road, but her brute of a camel takes alarm at our approach, gives a circular run, tightening the head-rope, and thus taking the girl at a disadvantage, swings her off her feet and makes off with the clumsiest of springs and buck jumps. The girl clings pluckily to the rope; her light weight and slender form cannot restrain the truculent brute. She is thrown; she is down; she is being dragged. Is she caught in the rope or just holding on? Holding on, for now she has let go and is clear; during the last ten seconds she has narrowly escaped having her brains knocked out just as many times. She is on her feet in a second, weeping and wringing her hands--with chagrin, not pain. The camel is unshipping his load backwards. He goes through the clumsiest of evolutions as mats, sticks, and the weirdest collection of parcels wrapped in skin, slide over his tail. And although he is going forward and all this paraphernalia is apparently slipping backwards, it becomes entangled with his legs and gets battered badly in consequence. Well may the girl weep and wring her hands. She has just covered three and a half miles of waterless plain from the town, and here, on this open stretch of sand, lie some two hundred pounds' weight of her father's goods and chattels. If the camel goes--and there he is going--she must walk back to Zeila and leave all these things at the mercy of any passer-by.