244 ADVENTURES OF AN ELEPHANT HUNTER CH. 



has been carried out with the utmost secrecy, there 

 is very little chance of the culprit being discovered 

 and brought to justice. 



The above practices are known to few, if any, 

 Europeans living in those parts of Africa in which 

 they obtain ; and the reader may naturally wonder 

 how I have managed to become acquainted with 

 them. Let me explain. During my ten years of 

 hunting, I have been in many life and death 

 escapades with my trackers and men, and, as the 

 reader can see by my narrative, we have again and 

 again pulled one another out of a tight corner. 

 This fact alone is apt to breed an intimacy of 

 thought among men, however diverse the races to 

 which they may belong. Besides, I speak their 

 language as fluently, perhaps more fluently, than I 

 do my own, and often, for the very sake of com- 

 panionship, I will let drop the strict sense of master 

 and man, and joke and laugh with them in a 

 familiar way. They appreciate this without taking 

 any advantage of it, and when in a communicative 

 mood, tell me things that intimately concern their 

 private lives, a subject which they rarely, if ever, 

 touch upon with a European. 



I shall now set down a list of the more virulent 

 poisons generally used by the natives, either for 

 personal revenge, for poisoning arrows and spears, 

 or for use in the poison ordeals. 



