CH. XV] A NATIVE CHIEF 4;}t) 



his people came out to see us. The chief proudly wore 

 a dirty jersey and pair of drawers ; a follower carried 

 his spear and the little wooden stool of dignity on which 

 he sat. There Avere a couple of \\arriors with him, one 

 a man in a bark apron with an old breech-loading rifle, 

 the other a stark-naked savage — not a rag on him — 

 witli a bow and arrows, a very powerfully built man 

 with a ferocious and sinister face. Two women bore on 

 their heads, as gifts for us, one a large earthenware jar 

 of water, the other a basket of groundnuts. They were 

 tall and well-shaped. One as her sole clothing wore a 

 beaded cord around her waist, and a breechclout con- 

 sisting of lialf a dozen long, thickly leaved, fresh sprays 

 of a kind of vine ; the other, instead of this vine breech- 

 clout, had hanging from her girdle in front a cluster of 

 long-stemmed green leaves, and behind a bundle of long- 

 strings, carried like a horse's tail. 



The weather was very hot, and the country, far and 

 wide, was a waste of barren desolation. The flats of 

 endless thorn-scrub were broken by occasional low and 

 rugged hills, and in the empty watercourses the pools 

 were many miles apart. Yet there was a good deal of 

 game. We saw buffalo, giraffe, and elephant : and on 

 our way back to camp in the evenings we now and then 

 killed a roan, hartebeest, or oribi. But the game we 

 sought was the giant eland, and we never fired when 

 there was the slightest chance of disturbing our quarry. 

 They usually went in herds, but there were solitary 

 bulls. We found that they drank at some pool in the 

 Koda before dawn and then travelled many miles back 

 into the parched interior, feeding as they went ; and, 

 after lying up for some hours about mid-day, again 

 moved slowly off, feeding. They did not graze, but 

 fed on the green lea\'es, and the bean-pods of the tree 



