888 GAME-LAWS — HYENAS. 



gave us a view of the chase, and uttered loud prayers for 

 success in the combat. I admired the devout belief they 

 alx possessed in the actual existence of unseen beings, and 

 prayed that they might yet know that benignant One who 

 views us all as his own. My own people, who are rather 

 a degraded lot, remarked to me, as I came up, " God gave 

 it to us. He said to the old beast, 'Go up there : men are 

 come who will kill and eat you.' " These remarks are quoted 

 to give the reader an idea of the native mode of expression. 



As we were now in the country of stringent game-laws, 

 we were obliged to send all the way back to Nyampungo, 

 to give information to a certain person who had been left 

 there by the real owner of this district to watch over his 

 property, the owner himself living near the Zambesi. The 

 side upon which the elephant fell had a short, broken task; 

 the upper one, which was ours, was large and thick. The 

 Banyai remarked on our good luck. The men sent to give 

 notice came back late in the afternoon of the following day. 

 They brought a basket of corn, a fowl, and a few strings 

 of handsome beads, as a sort of thank-offering for our 

 having killed it on their land, and said they had thanked 

 the Barimo besides for our success, adding, " There it is : 

 eat it and be glad." Had we begun to cut it up before we 

 got this permission, we should have lost the whole. They 

 brought a large party to eat their half, and they divided it 

 with us in a friendly way. My men were delighted with 

 the feast, though, by lying unopened a whole day, the 

 carcass was pretty far gone. An astonishing number of 

 hyenas collected round and kept up a loud laughter for 

 two whole nights. Some of them do make a very good 

 imitation of a laugh. I asked my men what the hyenas 

 were laughing at, as they usually give animals credit for a 

 share of intelligence. They said that they were laughing 

 because we could not take the whole, and that they would 

 have plenty to eat as well as we. 



On coming to the part where the elephant was slain, we 

 passed through grass so tall that it reminded me of that in 



