-»5 After Elephants with Wandorobo 



Wandorobo would to the conditions of civilised life in 

 Europe. The one thing they are like us in being unable 

 to forego is water — and even that they can do without for 

 longer than we can. The most important factor in their 

 life as hunters is their knowledge where to get water 

 at the different periods of the year. Their intimate 

 acquaintance with the book of the velt is something 

 beyond our faculty for reading print. Our experiences in 

 our recent campaigns in South-West Africa have served 

 to bring home the wonderful way in which the natives 

 decipher and interpret the minutest indications to be found 

 in the ground of the velt and know how to shape their 

 course in accordance with them. 



This had already been brought home to me in the 

 regions through which I had travelled. You must have 

 had the experience yourself to realise the degree to which 

 civilised man has unlearnt the use of his eyes and ears. 

 Whether it be a question of finding one's bearings or 

 deciding in which direction to go, or of sizing up the 

 elephant-herds from their tracks, or of distinguishing the 

 tracks of one kind of antelope from those of another, or of 

 detecting some faint trace of blood telling us that some 

 animal we are after has been wounded, or of knowing 

 where and when we shall come to some water, or of 

 discovering a bee's nest with honey in it — in all such matters 

 the native is as clever as we are stupid. We may make 

 some progress in this kind of knowledge and capability, 

 but we shall always be a bad second to the native-born 

 hunter of the velt. 



With such men to act as your guides you get to feel 



395 



