A STAMPEDE OF ELEPHANTS 



will clamour for it and will give anything to possess it. 

 Although there is plenty of iron ore found in the Luele 

 district, its smelting involves an enormous amount of 

 work. This is effected with charcoal fires in hollowed-out 

 ant heaps, and the extraordinary bellows I have de- 

 scribed. The hammers are suggestive of the stone age, 

 consisting as the}- do of a piece of gneiss or hard smooth 

 stone. Sometimes a cylindrical bar of iron is employed, 

 the anvil is generally a large mass of iron shaped like 

 a mushroom, but with a fairly flat top and sunk deep 

 in the ground or in a large section of timber. Although 

 yet in a primitive stage the natives in the districts through 

 which I have travelled are extremely clever in iron work, 

 and the decoration of their weapons of war. I have by 

 me a number of cleverly fashioned arrow-heads, some 

 of which were given me in terrible earnestness on my 

 return journey to the Nile. Nearly every tribe or race 

 has its own special scheme of decoration on its spears, 

 lances, knives, and arrow-heads, and all are extremely 

 ingenious in design and fashioning. Twice I saw several 

 arrow-heads standing immersed in a dull brownish liquid 

 that simmered in a large earthen jar over a slow fire ; 

 from this there emanated a distinct smell of rubber juice 

 mixed with other properties that filled the air with a 

 sickly odour. My boys, who were wont to hob-nob with 

 the natives at times, confirmed my surmise that the mess 

 contained the poison with which the barbs and heads of 

 these terrible messengers of death are thickly coated. 



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