358 



THROUGH JUNGLE AND DESERT 



CHAP. 



the last two or three days, and that he had divined 

 from his medicine that the elephants would be wary 

 in the extreme, so that all efforts to kill them would 

 meet with ill success. A long and patient talk ensued 

 (I being the contributor of most of the patience); and 

 this resulted in a promise that the Leguinan and the 

 more active of his tribe would set out with me shortly 

 after midnight for the purpose of finding elephant. 

 He said his medicine had told him that we should 

 find none ; but if I told him that my medicine would 

 produce these beasts, he was willing to undergo what 

 appeared to him unnecessary exertion. Neither my 

 men nor myself got much sleep that night. The 

 starving natives spent the entire night in songs and 

 prayers for our success on the morrow. The ham- 

 mering sounds continued several hours after sunset, 

 and when they finally ceased, I realized that even 

 the last bone in the camp was gone, and that it rested 

 with me and my fortune in hunting to keep these 

 poor people from death by starvation. 



The next day, Thursday, August 17, I awoke at 

 four o'clock, and found standing in front of my tent 

 a band of Wanderobbo, who had been there for some 

 time, waiting to act as guides on the elephant hunt. 

 Most of them were youths. All of them were armed 

 with bows and arrows, and each carried an elephant 

 spear, which they called " Bonati." This spear is 

 six feet in length, thick at either end, and narrowed 

 where grasped by the hand. In one end is bored a 

 hole, into which is fitted an arrow two feet long, as 

 thick as one's thumb, and with a head two inches 

 broad. Their method of killing elephants is to creep 



