The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia 97 



it and he will see it is impossible. He must have had a stable 

 fulcrum for his smng. He is figured as standing still in Sir 

 Samuel's own sketch of the occurrence (which we have borrowed 

 to illustrate our quotation), and unless he had got a little in ad- 

 vance of the hind leg when he did poise himself for the blow, the 

 animal would have been out of reach before it descended. The 

 elephant may, indeed, before he jumped down, have been slacken- 

 ing his pace sufficiently to allow him to run forward along its side, 

 as far as was necessary, to give him time to stand and deUver his 

 blow in passing, as it were. 



It is in passing that the blow is delivered by hunters in other 

 parts of Africa, who adopt something of the same style of hunting 

 as that of the Hamrans. In fact, that of the latter is only a bolder, 

 more daring, and more hazardous exaggeration of a not unusual 

 mode of attacking the elephant practised in some parts of Inner 

 Africa. The elephant, as the reader knows, is an ease-loving 

 animal; he belongs to what in Scotland would be called the 

 "canna be fashed" order; consequently, when he has to pass 

 through a thick-grown forest, he does not usually, or unless when 

 excited, go crushing through the heart of it, regardless of ob- 

 stacles ; but if there are any paths through it (which there usually 

 are, made by the elephants themselves), he habitually takes them. 

 The natives know this, and take advantage of it. They select 

 a place for an ambush close to one of these paths, and having 

 one or t\vo requisites : it must be well clothed with foliage, to 

 conceal them from the eye of the elephant ; there must be room 

 for them to swing their weapon round, and it must be close to a 

 Baobab (Adansonia digitata), or other large tree, on which he can 

 take refuge after delivering his blow. (Sir Samuel alludes to the 

 natives climbing the Baobab for honey, by pegs stuck in the 

 soft bark.) They then lie in wait for the elephant. A herd 

 comes sauntering slowly and meditatively along, the hunter waits 

 until the last passes, and as soon as it does so, he strikes a ham- 

 stringing blow, as described by Sir Samuel ; and the moment it is 

 delivered, without waiting to see the result, he is up the tree like 

 lightning, or flying at full speed into the thickest of the jungle. If 

 the blow is successful, the animal is persecuted with spears and 

 arrows to death. 



The Hamran practice is a bolder and nobler step in the art of 

 venery, but they are obviously both species of the same genus. 



