io8 A HUNTER'S WANDERINGS ch. 



up the entrance with large stones, to keep the prowl- 

 ing hyaenas from exhuming it. Poor Mendose ! he 

 was an obedient, willing servant, and by far the best 

 shot of all our native hunters. 



The first thing to be done now was to cut some 

 meat from one of the elephants, and then get down 

 to a pool of water which we had passed during the 

 hunt, and make a " skerm " for the night. On 

 reaching the nearest carcase, which proved to be in 

 fair condition, I was much surprised to see my Kafirs 

 throw aside every semblance of grief, and fight and 

 quarrel over pieces of fat and other tit-bits in their 

 usual manner. Even the fellow who had had the 

 misfortune to shoot his comrade, though he kept 

 asserting that " his heart was dead," was quite as eager 

 as the rest. In the evening they laughed and chatted 

 and sang as usual, ate most hearty suppers, and 

 indeed seemed as if all memory of the tragedy which 

 had occurred but a few hours before, and which at the 

 time had seemed to affect them so deeply, had passed 

 from their minds. 



Thus ended the best day's hunting, as regards 

 weight of ivory, at which I had ever assisted. The 

 next day we set the Kafirs to work with three 

 American axes, and before nightfall the twelve tusks 

 (not one of which was broken) were lying side by 

 side, forming one of the finest trophies a sportsman's 

 heart could desire to look upon. The largest pair 

 of tusks weighed 57 lbs. apiece, and the smallest 29 

 lbs. and 31 lbs. respectively — a very fair lot of bull 

 ivory. 



A few days later, at the valley of Dett, we had a 

 day's elephant-shooting of a very different character. 

 We had arrived there the evening before, and had 

 found the ivory I had left there untouched by human 



