200 A HUNTER'S WANDERINGS ch. 



passing numberless herds of lechwe, that added hfe 

 and beauty to the scene, we reached our goal, viz. 

 two densely wooded islands, separated from one 

 another by a narrow channel not' more than loo 

 yards wide. The larger of these islands, called by 

 the natives " Umbaracarungwe," is of considerable 

 extent, and as far as my eye could reach I could 

 trace the blue outline of the forest with which it was 

 covered. The other, though considerably smaller 

 than its neighbour, must yet have been fifteen niiles 

 or so in circumference, and as I still had at least 

 seven hours ot daylight, I determined to commence 

 its exploration without delay. Stranding the entire 

 fleet of canoes, and leaving some of the natives 

 to form a camp (amongst them two of my own 

 Makalakas, who had come with me from the Mata- 

 bele country, and both of whom had got a touch of 

 fever), I at once started, striking into the jungle so 

 as to cut through to the farther side of the island, 

 from whence I intended to skirt round its edge, out- 

 side the bush, until I again reached the canoes. In 

 this way I judged that I should cross the spoor of 

 any elephants that might be there at the point where 

 they had come down to the water to drink on the 

 preceding night. 



On entering the jungle my heart sank. During 

 my experience of elephant-hunting I had seen some 

 nasty bits of bush, but never anything to be compared 

 to this island fastness. The underwood, thick and 

 thorny in itself, was interspersed with bushes covered 

 with dense foliage — though at this season of the year 

 everything on the mainland was leafless — and the 

 whole was matted and woven together by the long 

 branches of a low tree that I had never seen before, 

 with smooth, soft, green bark and enormous thorns 



