xxxi SOME PECULIAR FOODS 277 



opinion, been somewhat overrated, and cannot 

 compare with either the feet or trunk. The 

 natives have a method of drying elephant and 

 other kinds of meat by exposing the flesh to the 

 sun during the day and smoking it over a fire at 

 night, after which treatment, it will keep in a 

 satisfactory condition for a considerable length of 

 time. When it is in this preserved state, the 

 natives will eat it without further cooking, but 

 though I have read of certain African tribes eating 

 raw meat, this custom does not obtain among any 

 of the numerous tribes with whom I have come in 

 contact. 



Of other kinds of game, young buffalo, insvvala, 

 eland, reedbuck and bushbuck are the most tooth- 

 some. The flesh of the rhinoceros is excellent, 

 being of a very fine texture, considering the 

 enormous size of the beast ; while hippopotamus 

 meat makes an ideal curry, as the fat and lean are 

 so nicely in proportion. 



Among their various foods, the natives have one 

 which they consider a special delicacy, although 

 I am afraid it would hardly appeal to a civilized 

 palate. This is a maggot, some three inches in 

 length, which they call the maungo, and which bores 

 into and lives in the decaying trunks of the mungo, 

 incunia and tumbie-tumbie trees. It is a perfectly 

 white mass of fat, and I have often seen a native 



