140 ADVENTURES OF AN ELEPHANT HUNTER CH. 



On another occasion, when we were hunting, one 

 of my trackers came across his brother, who was 

 out in the forest in quest of honey and bees-wax, 

 and as we were not actually on the spoor of elephants, 

 they went off together to try to kill some rock 

 rabbits. They had not gone far, when they started 

 one of these rodents and my tracker, flinging his 

 stick, broke the animal's leg. At once, the rabbit 

 darted into its burrow, under a large boulder, 

 and my tracker's brother, running up, thrust his 

 hand into the hole to pull out the wounded 

 beast. Something promptly seized him by the 

 finger, and, for a moment, he thought that the rabbit 

 had bitten him, but on quickly withdrawing his 

 hand he discovered, to his horror, a snake (called by 

 the Mwera tribe, namaragwe, and by the Angoni, 

 nambaco) clinging to his finger. Within half an 

 hour the poor fellow was dead ! The above- 

 mentioned snake has a very black skin, and is 

 found chiefly in trees and among rocks. Many 

 natives, usually when out in the forest searching for 

 honey, are killed by it, and Simba, my tracker, tells 

 me that one of this species accounted for Fundi 

 Juma, who was one of the most famous native 

 elephant hunters in German East Africa. 



Two years ago, when encamped near Chimbunga's 

 village, close to the Mbemcuru River, I had missed 

 several fowls from my fowl-house, and suspecting my 



