98 BIG GAME SHOOTING 



munition, and thus render them recalcitrant, and they had 

 found out I didn't and wouldn't trade ; indeed, the story 

 among them was that on a native bringing a tusk to my 

 waggon for sale I threatened to shoot him then and there ! 



Vardon was the most enthusiastic rhinoceros hunter ; he 

 filled his waggon with horns as I did mine with ivory ; he used 

 to shoot four or five every day, and there was always a fresh- 

 ness about the sport to him which seemed remarkable. He 

 was an all-round shot, but best at rhinoceros. The mahoho 

 is not bad eating by the way, his hump is excellent but there 

 is a good deal in the cooking of pachydermata. We had a 

 capital cook at the waggons, and had eaten elephant's trunk 

 many and many times. Two or three days farther down the 

 river the men told me they had heard of a fine herd of bull 

 elephants, about thirty miles off; as there was little water, or 

 at all events not sufficient for the oxen, they begged me to take 

 only a couple of horses and sleep two nights away from the 

 waggons. John and I started accordingly with our guides, and 

 at 5 P.M. reached the small spring where we were to halt. 

 Early next morning news came of two tuskers being close by, 

 and it was proposed I should begin with them and go after the 

 large herd next day. I soon found and shot them. One, a 

 very fine bull with large tusks, charged viciously after getting 

 a ball through the thick end of the heart. The men brought 

 it to me to look at when they opened him. We took a lump of 

 the trunk, and returned to our sleeping place only one woman 

 had remained, the rest were off to the dead elephants. We 

 were hungry, and John proposed \ve should cut part of the 

 trunk into small lumps and boil them. On the fire they went, 

 and on they were still three hours afterwards. John, who 

 was a very hungry fellow, kept prodding the pieces with a 

 pointed stick to see if they were fit to eat, but they were still 

 springy. At length we voted them done and tried to chew 

 them, but they were exactly like bits of india-rubber, and we 

 could make no impression. The woman, seeing our difficulty, 

 made us scrape a hole under the fire, roll the trunk up in its 



