258 DIFFICULTY IN USING THE GUN. Chap. XIV. 



always preferred eating the game to killing it. Sulphur is the 

 remedy most admired, and I remember Sechele giving a large 

 price for a very small bit. He also gave some elephants' tusks, 

 worth 301, for another medicine which was to make him invul- 

 nerable to musket-balls. As I uniformly recommended that 

 these things should be tested by experiment, a calf was anointed 

 with the charm and tied to a tree. It proved decisive, and 

 Sechele remarked it was " pleasanter to be deceived than un- 

 deceived." I offered sulphur for the same purpose, but that was 

 declined, even though a person came to the town afterwards 

 and rubbed Ms hands with a little before a successful trial of 

 shooting at a mark. 



I explained to my men the nature of the gun, and tried to 

 teach them, but they would soon have expended all the ammu- 

 nition in my possession. I was thus obliged to do all the 

 shooting myself ever afterwards. Their inability was rather a 

 misfortune ; for, in consequence of working too soon after having 

 been bitten by the lion, the bone of my left arm had not united 

 well. Continual hard manual labour, and some falls from ox- 

 back, lengthened the ligament by which the ends of the bones 

 were united, and a false joint was the consequence. The limb 

 has never been painful, as those of my companions on the day 

 of the rencontre with the lion have been, but, there being a joint 

 too many, I could not steady the rifle, and was always obliged to 

 shoot with the piece resting on the left shoulder. I wanted 

 steadiness of aim, and it generally happened that the more 

 hungry the party became, the more frequently I missed the 

 animals. 



We spent a Sunday on our way up to the confluence of the 

 Leeba and Leeambye. Rains had fallen here before we came, 

 and the woods had put on their gayest hue. Flowers of great 

 beauty and curious forms grow everywhere ; they are unlike 

 those in the south, and so are the trees. Many of the forest-tree 

 leaves are palmated and largely developed; the trunks are 

 covered with lichens, and the abundance of ferns which appear 

 in the woods, shows we are now in a more humid climate than 

 any to the south of the Barotse valley. The ground begins to 

 swarm with insect life ; and in the cool, pleasant mornings the 



