A HUNTER'S CAMP-FIRES 



thorns, as was also the hide, which was reddish in color from 

 being continually plastered with the mud of the country. 



As the cutting up of the elephant progressed rapidly under 

 the swarm of natives which surrounded and covered it, I was 

 surprised to discover the sky filled with the usual circling vult- 

 ures. It is difficult to imagine how multitudes of these birds 

 can exist even in the lower plains, which are either covered 

 with game or native flocks, but how they can exist in such 

 numbers in a country- inhabited by only a few elephants is a 

 mystery. It was three o'clock in the afternoon before the 

 tusks had been removed by the aid of the antiquated soft- 

 metal axes of the natives, and it was after dark before we 

 reached a small outlying village of Mutari's people. Although 

 we were given the chief's hut, I passed a sleepless night, as the 

 only food we could procure was an unlimited supply of green 

 bananas, and the hut was built without any means of ventila- 

 tion, so that the thick smoke from a small wood-fire in the 

 centre hung in a white cloud to within a foot and a half of the 

 dirt floor. One, therefore, had to lie fiat to avoid suffocation. 

 After a breakfast of bananas I started off at dawn the next 

 morning, accompanied by a small but triumphant escort of 

 natives, and was gladdened about noon to discover the green 

 tops of our tents standing out among the yellow millet-fields 

 in the distance. 



We were just finishing luncheon when Mutari's eldest son 

 came into camp with a delegation to report elephants near 

 his village. Being utterly exhausted by two and a half days 

 of continuous work in the hot sun, without much food and by 

 two sleepless nights, I was obliged to see Fuguet start after 

 this herd alone. The next afternoon he and his followers re- 

 turned with a pair of tusks which averaged about forty-five 

 pounds apiece. He had overtaken the herd of elephants, con- 

 sisting of two bulls, two cows and two calves, at dusk as they 

 were climbing out of a small stream-bed in the grass country, 



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