166 CUTTING UP AN ELEPHANT. Chap. VII. 



the sphere of travel of those Arabs who imitated Portuguese 

 customs in trade. At the Ivafue in 1855 the Chiefs bought the 

 meat we killed, and demanded nothing as their due ; and so it 

 was up the Shire during our visits. The slaves of the Portu- 

 guese, who are sent by their masters to shoot elephants, pro- 

 bably connive at the extension of this law, for they strive to 

 get the good will of the Chiefs to whose country they come, 

 by advising them to make a demand of half of each 

 elephant killed, and for this advice they are well paid in 

 beer. When we found that the Portuguese argued in favour 

 of this law, we told the natives that they might exact 

 tusks from them, but that the English, being different, 

 preferred the pure native custom. It was this which made 

 Sandia, as afterwards mentioned, hesitate ; but we did not care 

 to insist on exemption in our favour, where the prevalence of 

 the custom might have been held to justify the exaction. 



Sandia's wife said that she had sent a messenger to her 

 husband on the day of our arrival, and soon expected his return ; 

 but that some of his people would go with our men in the morn- 

 ing, and receive what we chose to give. We accompanied our 

 hunters across the hills to the elephant vale, north of Zibah. 

 It was a beautiful valley covered with tall heavy-seeded 

 grass, on which the elephants had been quietly feeding when 

 attacked. We found the carcass undisturbed, an enormous 

 mass of meat. 



The cutting up of an elephant is quite a unique spec- 

 tacle. The men stand round the animal in dead silence, 

 while the chief of the travelling party declares that, ac- 

 cording to ancient law, the head and right hind-leg belong- 

 to him who killed the beast, that is, to him who inflicted 

 the first wound; the left leg to him who delivered the 

 second, or first touched the animal after it fell. The meat 



