XL 

 THROUGH THE ENCHANTED FOREST 



WE waited at V.'s boma three days, waiting for 

 Cuninghame to turn up. He maintained a 

 little force of Wakamba, as the Masai would not take 

 service. The Wakamba are a hunting tribe, using both 

 the spear and the poisoned arrow to kill their game. 

 Their bows are short and powerful, and the arrows ex- 

 ceedingly well fashioned. The poison is made from 

 the wood of a certain fat tree with fruit like gigantic 

 bologna sausages. It is cut fine, boiled, and the 

 product evaporated away until only a black sticky 

 substance remains. Into this the point of the arrow 

 is dipped; and the head is then protected until 

 required by a narrow strip of buckskin wound around 

 and around it. I have never witnessed the effects 

 of this poison; but V. told me he had seen an eland 

 die in twenty-two minutes from so slight a wound in 

 the shoulder that it ran barely a hundred yards 

 before stopping. The poison more or less loses its 

 efficiency, however, after the sticky tarlike substance 

 has dried out. 



326 



