84 LIFE WITH THE H AMR AN ARABS. 



meter registering only 33 Fah., and should have doubted 

 its accuracy had it not been proved by the maximum at 

 daybreak, when both stood at 34. Comparing this 

 with the maximum heat of to-day viz., 81 in the shade, 

 and 115 in the sun the variation in the twenty-four 

 hours is very great. 



Three native hunters paid us a visit this evening, each 

 mounted on a camel, and having an almost naked black 

 boy perched up behind him carrying his rifle. They were 

 on their way to Zahani in a very despondent state of 

 mind, not having killed an elephant after three days* 

 hunting. The chief told us that this was the best season 

 for finding elephants in this neighbourhood, for a little 

 later they migrate to Abyssinia, and that as we advance 

 in our present direction we shall lose them, but in their 

 stead find rhinoceros and lions ; and if we go, as we pur- 

 pose doing ultimately, to the Salaam river, we shall find 

 lions as plentiful as sheep. Their rifles were very in- 

 ferior to those we had seen. Ours were examined with 

 great interest, and the breech-loading action quite asto- 

 nished them. 



Emanuel, with most of our available men and camels, 

 left camp before sunrise for the place where the dead ele- 

 phant lay, and spent the whole day there cutting it up and 

 packing as much of it upon the camels as the time would 

 allow. The Arabs left in camp have also been very 

 busy making huge fires, as there is to be a grand feast 



