"Just one more dance," said the Ughaz as he waved the line back. It retired and various other people came before it to dance--quite well too. A number of women had collected behind the men. I could see them kneeling to look between the latter's legs at me. Soon after _the_ dancer came out, when the women forgot to look at me, so interested were they in him. Up and down he pirouetted, juggling with his spear and shield. He rushed madly forward, stopped with a jerk, bent his body back to such an extent that it appeared as though his back-bone must snap, and I was really quite concerned. The dancer is supposed to be dying; his long black hair covers his face; it is suddenly brushed aside to show him in convulsions; his body writhes like a snake's; he is dying hard. A man runs out with drawn dagger in hand to finish the business. A tall fellow this. Straddling the body of the dying man he cuts his throat--in pantomime. The performance is sufficiently realistic to make my blood curdle, and I am relieved when it ends. [Illustration: A SOMAL DANCE.] There is a great gathering of people here. I have met a man who has just killed his own brother. A rascal, this latter, who, until a few weeks since, lived on the Abyssinian border, where he was able to raid and loot with impunity. His brother--this man whom I have just met--went out with his father to look for the robber, for they were tired of his escapades. They came upon him in Abyssinian territory, and as he showed fight the man now before me slashed him on the back of the neck with his dagger. The robber fell to the ground; the horror-stricken father rushed to the side of his fallen son, who, with his last breath, plunged his dagger in the old man's side. Such an incident excites no comment on this wild Somali-Abyssinian border, near which our camp now stands. Up to now we have come due South except when wandering through the hills, and our road onward lies across sixty miles of plateau. The rains are here and the country is green. There is much that would tempt the artist to loiter with pencil or brush. That river bank, for instance, lined with trees. Beyond those trees are smaller trees, and shrubs covered with leaves. Aloes throw up miniature poles bedizened with red flowers. Beyond again, open ground, showing yellow through the patches of green grass. Over there a Gadabursi or a Habr Awwal village, for here many natives have taken to growing jowari, and, after the manner of agriculturists, herd together. Near the village deep green leafless plants that point a thousand fingers at the sky, so blue overhead. What a beautiful picture it would all make!