116 CUTTING UP AN ELEPHANT. Chap. IV. 



our visits. The slaves of the Portuguese, who are sent 

 by their masters to shoot elephants, probably 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. 



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 

 around the eye to the English, or chief of the travellers, 

 and different parts to the headmen of the different fires, 

 or groups, of which the camp is composed ; not forgetting 

 to enjoin the preservation of the fat and bowels for a 

 second distribution. This oration finished, the natives 

 soon become excited, and scream wildly as they cut away 

 at the carcass with a score of spears, whose long handles 

 quiver in the air above their heads. Their excitement 

 becomes momentarily more and more intense, and reaches 

 the culminating point when, as denoted by a roar of gas, 

 the huge mass is laid fairly open. Some jump inside, and 

 roll about there in their eagerness to seize the precious fat, 

 while others run off, screaming, with pieces of the bloody 

 meat, throw it on the grass, and run back for more : all 

 keep talking and shouting at the utmost pitch of their 



