NATURE OF THE SAVAGE. 203 



odour being too strong for me to endure, I withdrew 

 to a respectful distance to windward, where I smoked 

 a pipe and watched their operations. They yelled and 

 fought over their work, and one or two were severely 

 stabbed. One boy came to me with an arrow-head 

 in his thigh. It was impossible to get it out, as two of 

 the barbs with which most of their arrows are armed 

 had entered the flesh, and the manner in which they 

 curled backwards, prevented the head coming out. 

 Taking the lancet from the handle of my hunting-knife, 

 I cut the piece out, and the boy underwent what was 

 no doubt a painful operation with wonderful fortitude. 

 I have seen a fox thrown to a pack of hungry 

 hounds more than once, and remarked how eagerly 

 they fought for the hard-earned morsel, but they 

 were nothing to these men. I never saw the savage 

 nature so thoroughly developed. Each elephant had 

 a mob closely packed round it, yelling and fighting 

 like demons. Fires were soon kindled in the river-bed, 

 to which the flesh was carried in large pieces as it was 

 hacked, cut, or torn from the dead animals ; and the 

 women busied themselves in cooking dinner for their 

 better halves, while the latter made up large bundles 

 of meat to take home. Still with all this tumult I 

 was not forgotten. The trunk of the largest elephant 

 was carried by two men to where I sat and laid at my 

 feet ; and another tit-bit, the similar part of another 

 animal, was laid beside it a minute or two after. The 

 latter, I was informed, was for their chief, Maramia. 

 In less than half an hour there was nothing left of 

 these animals save their heads and bones — not a ves- 

 tige of meat ! I then set to work and had the tusks 



