328 ELEPHANT-HUNTING IN EAST AFRICA chap. 



his warriors that their day had arrived to do or to die, Labugo, 

 spear and shield in hand, led the charge upon the confident 

 foe with such effect that the assailants were put to flight with 

 great slaughter. This account raised Labugo very much in 

 my estimation, proving him to be as different in character as 

 he was in appearance from the orthodox type of obese, self- 

 indulgent African monarch, cruel and cowardly ; and though 

 he resembled others in his rapacity for presents, by which he 

 worried me a good deal, I could not but feel a respect for this 

 tall, active, and redoubtable savage. 



Hamisi also introduced to me an affable old man whom 

 he called his father, with whom I had an interesting chat 

 through his adopted son's interpretation. I found out from 

 him that these people know little or nothing of the country 

 beyond their own immediate neighbourhood. The petty 

 detached tribes with which it is so curiously peopled are 

 mostly at enmity, and always distrustful of each other, so that 

 there is little communication except within the narrowest 

 limits. He told me that they believed that there was a tribe 

 of cannibals living to the northward, but the only evidence 

 they had was the testimony of a woman who had run away 

 from there and found her way to Kere, where she had since 

 made her home. She described how they bound their victims, 

 he explained, while he demonstrated the method for my 

 edification by drawing up his legs as he sat on the ground, 

 his knees against his chin and his calves touching his thighs, 

 at the same time clasping his arms round his doubled-up legs. 

 In this position they were put alive into huge pots, water 

 poured in, and fires lighted under them. I told him I thought 

 the tale was probably invented by the woman out of spite 

 against the people she had escaped from ; but he evidently 

 believed it. He also gave me an account of a great flood 

 which had occurred on the river, when the water reached 

 nearly to their kraal, which is on pretty high ground, bringing 

 down huts, cattle, and human bodies. 



