594 AMAZED BY THE GUNS. 



ble down in confusion on the ground, their loosely hooked wings 

 all detached from their fat bodies. The reader will remember 

 how artfully their wings are linked to them. Once on the 

 ground the cunning men sweep them up in baskets, and bear 

 them away to their huts in epicurean delight. The country all 

 about Bambarre was alive with splendid game, and there were 

 ample opportunities during the days of rest to astonish the 

 natives, by the display of the marvellous powers of ball and 

 powder. The natives were amazed by the guns. Their own 

 poisoned arrows were weapons not to be despised, but the sight 

 of guns, the loud report, the crushing force of the ball, the flash- 

 ing of the powder, were to them the climax of the mysterious 

 and awful. The huge animals, however, of the forest, though 

 as much terrified, were in their deeper ignorance not more re- 

 spectful than they should be, even though guns were about ; the 

 hunter in an African forest can never be too much impressed 

 with the importance of constant vigilance. 



It is no uncommon thing for the unwary or the inexperienced 

 to find themselves suddenly charged by the infuriated monsters 

 which they have ventured to insult too audaciously. Nearer 

 the coast, where hunters have ventured more commonly, we 

 have read of a party, who, taking with them a few natives, 

 marched into the forests to " bag an elephant or two." The 

 natives, arrayed, to their delight, in old shirts, were sent ahead 

 equipped with muskets, to find the game; hardly had they dis- 

 appeared, when the reports of their guns quite near at hand 

 were quickly followed by a tremendous crashing of trees and 

 brushwood and the dreadful, unmistakable trumpet-like scream- 

 ing, and back the men came followed by three or four huge 

 elephants in furious pursuit. The fleet limbs of the men were of 

 poor avail ; the monsters dashed over them in a moment, knock- 

 ing them right and left as they passed, and went rushing away 

 into the deeper forests. Elephants are elephants everywhere, 

 and are the victims of skill and caution more than of the fierce 

 courage which in our fancies we sometimes dream of matching 

 against wild beasts. The Manyuema greatly admired the ease 

 with which the strangers made themselves master of these great 

 prizes. But such employment, though it entertained the natives, 

 poorly repaid the toil and expense at which Mohamad had come 



