A HOT TRIP TO THE LUANGWA RIVER. 85 



using my '303. In a few hours the news got about, and I had deputations from all 

 the villages asking for a hippo. As I do not believe in giving natives meat for 

 nothing, I arranged to get a she-goat for each hippo, and I soon had quite a flock at 

 the tent. It may seem a shame, shooting so many hippos, but the villagers were not 

 only hungry, but they said the hippo did great damage to their crops in the rainy 

 season. I wanted the hide, and ivory too, and, as six hippos are allowed on the 

 licence, it makes no difference whether they are killed in one day or in the course of 

 a year. To shoot animals and waste the meat is, I consider, a crime ; but in this 

 case it was different, and not a pound of meat was wasted, for the natives soon 

 arrived in crowds, and spent two days and two nights on the spot, cutting up and 

 drying the meat. 



Besides the hippos I shot an impala ram and a warthog, for I needed some good 

 meat for myself. Game is abundant here, especially on the western bank, where there 

 are no villages. 



On the following day I went back to the hippos to get the ivory, and make 

 arrangements for the hide to be brought to the tent. 



Next day I went on to Kucumbe's village and stayed a night there, my tent being 

 pitched under a very big tree on the outskirts of the village. Kucumbe has a fine 

 herd of cattle, besides goats and sheep. About 10 p.m. the people began making a 

 noise and I heard one old woman shouting mkango (lion), but I think the cattle had 

 smelt a hyaena, and had broken out of the kraal. I had noticed the kraal was 

 broken down and rickety, and if a lion had come he could simply have walked into it. 

 This is a trait of the natives, to let things slide until something happens. Timber was 

 thick all round the village, yet the creatures could not take the trouble to make the 

 inclosure strong. 



The 1 2th was a scorching hot day, but I crossed the river to look for spoor, and 

 found some tolerably fresh in one of the native gardens. Although the natives here 

 had gardens on the western bank of the Luangwa, they lived on the east side. 



The elephants had been playing havoc with big patches of pumpkins and had 

 trampled down three times as much as they had eaten. The spoor led almost directly 

 west into hilly county, covered with thorn bushes and as dry as a bone. 



While spooring the beasts along a well-made path, I suddenly saw a group 

 of elephants to the right, but they were all tuskless. There was one bull, two 

 cows, and two calves. We went round them quietly and left them sleeping. They 

 seemed fast asleep, for their ears were flapping and they were swaying backwards 

 and forwards. 



I suppose we were about sixty yards from them when one of the men stupidly 



