A BOA-CONSTRICTOR. 75 



named Nelson, rode up and gave a very bad report. 

 He had shot fourteen elephants in two months, and 

 a few ostriches. He said the Mashonas, hunting 

 the elephants with their assegais and shouting, had 

 driven them away. His plan now was to go to 

 Damaraland, via Lake Ngami, where he had been 

 before and found elephants abundant. 



Resuming his journey in the afternoon, Frank 

 Oates now struck across the veldt to the south-east, 

 and crossed the Umgwanya River the following 

 morning, proceeding afterwards a few miles up its 

 banks. At this point he had intended to encamp 

 for a few days ; but hearing from two natives who 

 came to the waggon that there were still elephants 

 in the thick bush which had been passed through 

 the day before, he felt tempted to return there ; and 

 on the 1 3th, re-crossing the Umgwanya and Gwailo 

 Rivers in a more direct line than he had taken 

 coming, went back in the direction of the Umvungu. 

 " A boa-constrictor," he here writes, " six feet six 

 inches long and as thick as my wrist, lay its length 

 upon the ground, and was skilfully transfixed by one 

 of my boys' assegais and pinned to the ground. 

 The lads were evidently afraid of his bite, but the 

 men say that it is harmless. . . . The Mashonas 

 use these snakes as an article of food." 



Next day the spruit which they had outspanned 

 at on the 10th, near the thick elephant-bush they 

 were making for, was reached, and here, a short 

 way oft the waggon -track under some remarkably 

 picturesque kopjes, the landscape all budding with 



