642 GAME-LAWS. 



mile to the opposite end of the island, and swam to the main 

 land with their probosces above the water, and, no canoe being 

 near, they escaped. They swim strongly, with the proboscis 

 erect in the air. I was not very desirous to have one of these 

 animals killed, for we understood that when we passed Mpende 

 we came into a country where the game-laws are strictly en- 

 forced. The lands of each chief are very well defined, the bound- 

 aries being usually marked by rivulets, great numbers of which 

 flow into the Zambesi from both banks, and, if an elephant is 

 wounded on one man's land and dies on that of another, the under 

 half of the carcass is claimed by the lord of the soil; and so strin- 

 gent is the law, that the hunter can not begin at once to cut up 

 his own elephant, but must send notice to the lord of the soil on 

 which it lies, and wait until that personage sends one authorized 

 to see a fair partition made. If the hunter should begin to cut up 

 before the agent of the landowner arrives, he is liable to lose both 

 the tusks and all the flesh. The hind leg of a buffalo must also 

 be given to the man on whose land the animal was grazing, and 

 a still larger quantity of the eland, which here and every where 

 else in the country is esteemed right royal food. In the country 

 .above Zumbo we did not find a vestige of this law; and but for 

 the fact that it existed in the country of the Bamapela, far to the 

 south of this, I should have been disposed to regard it in the same 

 light as I do the payment fot. leave to pass — an imposition levied 

 on him who is seen to be weak because in the hands of his slaves. 

 The only game-laws in the interior are, that the man who first 

 wounds an animal, though he has inflicted but a mere scratch, is 

 considered the killer of it ; the second is entitled to a hind quar- 

 ter, and the third to a fore leg. The chiefs are generally enti- 

 tled to a share as tribute ; in some parts it is the breast, in others 

 the whole of the ribs and one fore leg. I generally respected this 

 law, although exceptions are sometimes made when animals are 

 killed by guns. The knowledge that he who succeeds in reach- 

 ing the wounded beast first is entitled to a share stimulates the 

 whole party to greater exertions in dispatching it. One of my 

 men, having a knowledge of elephant medicine, was considered the 

 leader in the hunt ; he went before the others, examined the ani- 

 mals, and on his decision all depended. If he decided to attack 

 a herd, the rest went boldly on ; but if he declined, none of them 



