34 BIG GAME SHOOTING 
to Baker when he went up the Nile, and it had the honour, I 
believe, of being left with Lady Baker to be used, if required, 
during her husband’s enforced absences. Baker returned it to 
me with a note apologising for the homeliness of the ramrod— 
a thornstick which still rests in the ferrules—adding that 
having to defend themselves from a sudden attack, his man 
Richarn, being hard pressed whilst loading, had fired the 
original ramrod into a chief’s stomach, from which they had no 
opportunity of extracting it. 
I am sorry now forall the fine old beasts I have killed ; but 
I was young then, there was excitement in the work, I had 
large numbers of men to feed, and if these are not considered 
sound excuses for slaughter, the regret is lightened by the 
knowledge that every animal, save three elephants, was eaten 
by man, and so put to a good use. I have no notes, and 
though many scenes and adventures stand out sharply enough, 
the sequence of events and surroundings is not always very 
clear. If my short narrative seems to take too much the 
form of a rather bald account of personal adventure, I must 
apologise ; and I may add that the nature and habits generally 
of the animals I met with are now so well known, and have 
over and over again been so well described by competent 
writers, that my relations with a few individuals of their families 
must be the burden of my song. 
I spent five years in Africa. I was never ill for a single 
day—laid up occasionally after an accident, but that was all. 
I had the best of companions—Murray, Vardon, Living- 
stone—and capital servants, who stuck to me throughout. 
I never had occasion to raise a hand against a native, and my 
foot only once, when I found a long lazy fellow poking his 
paw into my sugar tin. If I remember right, I never lost any- 
thing by theft, and I have had tusks of elephants, shot eighty 
miles from the waggons, duly delivered. One chief, and one 
only, wanted to hector a little, but he soon gave it up. 
And with the rest of the potentates, and people generally, I 
was certainly a Zersona grata, for I filled their stomachs, and 
a a eee ee. ae a ee 
