224 THE LAND OF THE LION 
easier. But time was precious, potio short, and little or no 
game in the country. So regretfully we had to turn back. 
One could not but admire these tall young fellows, so much 
alike in figure that they might all have been the sons of one 
mother. They were as different as could be from our 
sturdier Wanyamwazi porters, very slimly made in the hips, 
with beautifully formed legs, good travellers, but poorly 
built for field work or burden bearing. Their narrow shields 
tipped with ostrich feathers were made of elephant or 
giraffe hide and were very tough. ‘Their long, well-balanced 
and very narrow-headed spears were highly prized by them. 
I had difficulty in securing two. They carried on the left 
hand an iron hook, about two and a half inches across, 
and fixed to the third finger by a ring. They used this 
charming instrument, they told us, for gouging out their 
enemies’ eyes. ‘They had neither bows nor swords and did 
not know how to make poison. ‘They are great game trap- 
pers, using snares, not pits, and judging by the rarity of all 
game in this region, they have trapped only too successfully. 
They say they can trap the elephant, using rope nooses 
which are fastened to a fallen tree as a clog. Our old 
N’dorobo confirmed this extraordinary piece of information 
by saying he had once found such an elephant’s snare, all 
torn to pieces by an elephant which had been noosed and 
broken loose. I found a piece of an old kongoni snare 
which, for patient construction and clever adaptability, 
shows rare ingenuity. It must have been set in some such 
way as this: A rawhide noose has evidently been laid over 
some slight hollow on a kongoni run or under one of the 
shade trees the animals frequent at midday. If the kongoni 
stepped into the noose and sank his leg through it into the 
dip beneath, he might easily kick out of the noose. So this 
circlet of thorns has been very ingeniously made and is 
placed beneath the slip-knot of the snare. This clings to the 
animal’s leg, and holds the slip-knot in place, the thorny 
