40 A HUNTER'S WANDERINGS ch. 



crossed the Longwe, Sangwe, Shangani, Vungo, and 

 Gwelo on our way. With the exception of a few 

 tsessebe antelope, we saw no game during the journey. 

 At Gwenia we found the wives and children of the 

 Viljoens all well. It seemed curious to find white 

 women and children so hr in the interior, but the 

 Boer elephant-hunters, many of whom have been 

 obliged to leave Marico on account of debt, always 

 take their wives, children, cows, sheep, goats, indeed 

 everything that they have, with them. The way in 

 which they live is this : — In the commencement of the 

 hunting season, which lasts from May to December 

 (the rest of the year being too unhealthy to do 

 anything), they trek with all their goods and chattels 

 to a " stand-place," where they build a rough-and- 

 ready sort of hut of wattle and daub, thatched with 

 dry grass, and here their women and children live 

 while the men go elephant-hunting, stopping away 

 from a week to a month at a time. During the 

 unhealthy season they live at such places as Inyati, 

 Gubulawayo, or Tati, buying with ivory and ostrich 

 feathers the absolute necessaries of life, such as 

 clothing, tea, coffee, and sugar, which they obtain 

 from English traders established at those places. 



Some of my oxen were now in a fearful state of 

 emaciation, as may be imagined when I tell you that 

 for three or four mornings after our arrival at Gwenia, 

 two of them had to be lifted on to their legs by 

 means of poles passed under their bellies. When 

 once up they went off and fed with the rest, but they 

 were so weak and stiffened with the cold at night that 

 at first they were unable to get up without assistance. 

 Being young animals, however, they all pulled through 

 eventually, and, as soon as the rains fell and the 

 young grass sprouted, became fat and sleek. 



