V FORTY-TWO ELEPHANTS SHOT 69 



with our waggons, owing to that scourge of the 

 African hunter, the tsetse-fly, is situated about sixty 

 miles as the crow^ flies nearly due south of the con- 

 fluence of the Gwai and Shangani rivers. Here we 

 made our permanent encampment, building strong 

 lion-proof enclosures for our cattle, and erecting a 

 small hut under the shade of a wide-branching goussy 

 tree, and from here we made raids on foot in search 

 of elephants into the " fly "-infested country to the 

 north-west, our stay varying from a fortnight to ten 

 weeks in duration. 



In order to cover more ground, and that the one or 

 other of us might the oftener be at the waggons, to 

 see that everything was going on as it should. Wood 

 and myself deemed it advisable to hunt separately ; 

 and thus, in the beginning of July, I left the waggons 

 alone with eleven Kafir servants. My battery con- 

 sisted of two four-bore muzzle-loading elephant guns, 

 and nothing else, weapons which, however suitable 

 for killing elephants, are altogether unfitted for the 

 destruction of smaller game. Thus, although I shot 

 this season a goodly number of elephants, rhinoceros, 

 and buff^aloes, I seldom fired at anything smaller. 



In the course of four months I killed to my own 

 gun 42 elephants, 1 1 of which were big bulls, whose 

 tusks averaged 44 lbs. apiece ; I also shot several 

 very fine cows, whose tusks weighed from 1 5 lbs. to 

 1 6 lbs. The tusks of the largest bull 1 killed, when 

 thoroughly dried out, weighed 74 lbs. each. During 

 the same time, George Wood shot about 50 elephants, 

 whose tusks, however, did not weigh quite as much 

 as mine, and our Kafir hunters also shot nearly 40 

 more, so that altogether we made a very profitable 

 hunt. At the beginning of the season I could hardly 

 speak a word of Matabele, but, after having liveci for 



