560 .WOB£D PESTLES AND MORTARS. 



legs, gave me the idea that the amount of matter removed 

 by every freshet must be very great. In most rivers 

 where much wearing is going on, a person diving to the 

 bottom may hear literally thousands of stones knocking 

 against each other. This attrition, being carried on for 

 hundreds of miles in different rivers, must have an effect 

 greater than if all the pestles and mortars and mills of the 

 world were grinding and wearing away the rocks. The 

 pounding to which I refer, may be heard most distinctly 

 m the Vaal River, when that is slightly in flood. It was 

 there I first heard it. In the I^eeambye in the middle of 

 the country, where there is no discoloration and little 

 carried along but sand, it is not to be heard. 



While opposite the village of a head-man called Mosusa, 

 a number of elephants took refuge on an island in the 

 river. There were two males, and a third not full-grown, 

 indeed scarcely the size of a female. This was the first 

 instance I had ever seen of a comparatively young one 

 with the males, for they usually remain with the female 

 herd till as large as their dams. The inhabitants were 

 very anxious that my men should attack them, as they 

 go into the gardens on the islands, and do much damage. 

 The men went, but the elephants ran about half a mile to 

 the opposite end of the island, and swam to the mainland 

 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 enforced. The lands of each 

 chief are very well defined, the boundaries 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 carcase is claimed by the lord of the soil ; and 

 ♦.so stringent is the law, that the hunter cannot 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, 



