IN THE FOREST 



disturbed by the digging, rush out in a crowd, it 

 plunges into the midst its tongue, which is nearly 

 as long as its body and covered with a sticky secretion, 

 and withdraws it covered with ants. Its body is 

 covered with thick scales, which bullets do not pierce, 

 For its sole defence it rolls itself into a ball and awaits 

 events. It is but seldom seen, and the negroes, who 

 call it hacka, say that it falls from the sky, and con- 

 sider its capture a lucky event : its flesh, with which 

 my negroes regaled themselves, is white, close, and fat. 

 The one I killed was a pregnant female, weighing 

 twenty-two kilogrammes ; its foetus I preserved for 

 the museum. 



Loaded with this animal and my gun, I had great 

 difficulties in the dark night in returning to Guengere\ 

 In climbing the banks of the Nyantonga I had a 

 terrible fall into the bed of the river, and filled my 

 gun with sand, an accident which caused me a serious 

 mishap when I went out next day. When I arrived 

 in camp at nine o'clock everyone was anxious, for a 

 tramp of this kind in a country where there are lions 

 is by no means wise. 



My second hunt is less fortunate. This time I 

 cross the Pungwe" and enter the districts watered by 

 the Tchimulilo (the fire), so named because it has a 

 hot sulphurous source. I vainly try to approach a 

 waterbuck which fled, and I take up its track, when, 

 on reaching a spiny thicket, I hear roarings which I 

 recognise as being those of lions. I take my express, 



(55) 



