620 ELEPHANTS' TENACITY OE LIFE. 



self, who had come to the village of Selole, led the "brother of 

 Mburuma to see at once that it was all a hoax. But for this, the 

 foolish fellow Selole might have given us trouble. 



We saw many of the liberated captives of this Italian among 

 the villages here, and Sekwebu found them to be Matebele. The 

 brother of Mburuma had a gun, which was the first we had seen 

 in coming eastward. Before we reached Mburuma my men went 

 to attack a troop of elephants, as they were much in need of meat. 

 When the troop began to run, one of them fell into a hole, and 

 before he could extricate himself an opportunity was afforded for 

 all the men to throw their spears. When he rose he was like a 

 huge porcupine, for each of the seventy or eighty men had dis- 

 charged more than one spear at him. As they had no more, 

 they sent for me to finish him. In order to put him at once out 

 of pain, I went to within twenty yards, there being a bank be- 

 tween us which he could not readily climb. I rested the gun 

 upon an ant-hill so as to take a steady aim ; but, though I fired 

 twelve two-ounce bullets, all I had, into different parts, I could 

 not kill him. As it was becoming dark, I advised my men to 

 let him stand, being sure of finding him dead in the morning ; 

 but, though we searched all the next day, and went more than 

 ten miles, we never saw him again. I mention this to young 

 men who may think that they will be able to hunt elephants on 

 foot by adopting the Ceylon practice of killing them by one ball 

 in the brain. I believe that in Africa the practice of standing be- 

 fore an elephant, expecting to kill him with one shot, would be 

 certain death to the hunter ; and I would add, for the information 

 of those who may think that, because I met with a great abun- 

 dance of game here, they also might find rare sport, that the 

 tsetse exists all along both banks of the Zambesi, and there can 

 be no hunting by means of horses. Hunting on foot in this cli- 

 mate is such excessively hard work, that I feel certain the keenest 

 sportsman would very soon turn away from it in disgust. I my- 

 self was rather glad, when furnished with the excuse that I had 

 no longer any balls, to hand over all the hunting to my men, who 

 had no more love for the sport than myself, as they never engaged 

 in it except when forced by hunger. 



Some of them gave me a hint to melt down my plate by asking 

 if it were not lead. I had two pewter plates and a piece of zinc 



