THE REDISCOVERED COUNTRY 279 



naked red-brown savages with spears. They were 

 fine, lithe creatures. The news of our coming had gone 

 ahead of us, and they were waiting for us. Cuning- 

 hame is well known among these wild people. Follow- 

 ing closely on their heels we plunged into the deep 

 woods, and after a half-hour turning, twisting, and 

 ducking about, apparently at random, we popped out 

 into a tiny grass meadow right in the middle of the big 

 trees. It was about 100 yards in diameter, like a 

 shallow saucer in shape. This, Cuninghame explained, 

 was his customary camp, known as "Tembo Circus." 

 Even he, many times as he has been here, is unable to 

 find it without the help of his Wanderobo friends; and 

 many other people have tried in vain to reach it. 



We made camp, and managed to get a fire going and 

 to dry off. Everything was steaming with dampness. 

 Occasionally low heavy clouds swept across and dumped 

 their contents down on us. The tops of the great 

 trees by which we were surrounded often touched the 

 lower fringes of these clouds. 



Let us now consider why I am here, anyway. Be- 

 fore I went to Africa the first time, I rather looked 

 down on elephant shooting. '* Anybody ought to be 

 able to hit an elephant, " said I to myself. It seemed to 

 me a good deal like shooting at a barn. Beside which, 

 I had a soft spot in my heart for my old circus friend. 



But I had not been very long in Africa before I be- 

 gan to modify my ideas. In the first place, the African 



