CHAPTER IV 



DURING THE RAINY SEASON 



Trapping Harmful Animals — An Encounter with Leopards — An 

 Enterprising Lion — The Red Lynx — The Civet — The Porcupine — 

 A Gigantic Rat — Monitors — Certain Birds — Kafir Modes of Tanning 

 and Dyeing — Journey to the Gorongoza — The Ascent of N'hatete 

 — Luis, the King of Gorongoza — Manuel Antonio Gouveia — 

 Richness of the Country in Timber — I Reduce my Menu to the 

 most simple style possible — The Python — Excursion on the Pungwe 

 — The Province of Barwe — An Interesting Cure — The Misdeeds of 

 the Crocodile — An Encounter with Elephants — An Angry Female — 

 An Agonising Night. 



Reduced to compulsory inactivity by the closure of 

 hunting and the appearance of the first rains, I occupy 

 my leisure in trapping noxious animals, of which I 

 recognised numerous tracks on the paths of the neigh- 

 bourhood. I have at my disposal three iron traps, 

 of German pattern, which Mr. Puech sent me ; two of 

 them weigh forty-four lbs. and have a double action, 

 the third has only a single bar and weighs less. 



I trap with bait on the track, after having deter- 

 mined the passage of carnivora, which, as a rule, 

 always follow the same route in their nocturnal wander- 

 ings. When I try with bait, I build a small cabin 

 surrounded with thick thorns, leaving an open space 

 at the entrance in which the trap is set. In the 

 interior I place a morsel of the meat of an animal, 

 it may be of a goat or of a young pig. At the end of 



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