218 ADVENTURES OF AN ELEPHANT HUNTER CH. 



quarry before firing, the hunter in question at once 

 returns to his home, saying the safari is logoed 

 (bewitched), probably because his wife is proving 

 herself a disciple of Messalina Valeria. On reach- 

 ing his village, he puts his suspected wife or female 

 slave through the poison ordeal, which is so 

 arranged that some one is ultimately made the 

 scapegoat, and as wives and slaves are generally 

 considered much too precious to lose, the poison is, 

 in most cases, administered to an unoffending fowl. 

 If the fowl dies, the accused is at once punished ; 

 if it lives, the accused, to put it in hackneyed 

 phrase, ' leaves the court without a stain on her 

 character.' Now, some one is certainly guilty of 

 misbehaviour and she must be found, so another 

 wife is accused and the fowl house is called upon 

 to supply another martyr to justice. Probably, 

 though it can never be asserted as an incontro- 

 vertible fact, the native hunter has predetermined 

 which wife is to receive punishment, and when her 

 turn for trial comes round, gives a more potent dose 

 of poison to the fowl that is to serve as an index to 

 her probity or guilt. 



Some years ago, at the Lumasuli River, I 

 engaged an elephant hunter of the name of 

 Makabuli to take me to the haunts of elephants in 

 this district, and one evening, having encamped 

 near a water-hole, we heard, near by, the smashing 



