THE CHIEF OF THE HAMRAN SWORD-HUNTERS. 105 



very powerfully-built man, with a fine-shaped head, now 

 nearly bald, with good features and most jovial counte- 

 nance, as if he had known but few of the cares of life 

 in his wild exciting career, and he has a skin of a far 

 lighter shade of brown than the usual colour of these 

 Arabs. 



He is on his way to Abyssinia, so he says, as chief 

 of a party of hunters numbering twenty-six, all mounted 

 on horses, to kill elephants and catch young ones for Sheik 

 Aghill. In two days they will be in the Base country, 

 where they expect some fighting, and in seven days 

 they will reach the present great home of the elephant. 

 Baker gives a very spirited account of this man's skill as 

 a hunter, and when he had to send him to his village in 

 consequence of his misfortune, he considered that he had 

 lost his best man. Jali speaks of his master also in the 

 warmest terms, and has very far from forgotten the 

 kindness he received from him after the accident oc- 

 curred. 



Vivian did a good stroke of business with him by an 

 exchange of horses, adding ten dollars, his own having a 

 very sore back. Jali had evidently not forgotten some 

 of his English master's comforts, for he came quietly to 

 me and whispered 'Cognac,' and then found in our 

 whisky an excellent substitute. On his return he will 

 try to seek us out again, for we shall not in all probability 

 have moved far from our present ground. 



