138 TRAVELS IN 
a very limpid liquor, fome of which my peo- 
ple drank, and which I alfo had the curiofity 
to put to my mouth ; but it was fo difagreea- 
bly naufeous, that to deftroy the tafte of it,, 
and to refrefh myfelf, I went and drank from 
a fpring that happened to be at the diftance of 
SL quarter of a league from the place where we 
were. 
Having left my people bufy in cutting up 
the elephants, when I returned from the fpring, 
at the end of half an hour, I was much fur- 
prifed to perceive nobody. I could not con- 
je£lure what had obliged them to leave their 
work ; nor could I conceive the caufe of this 
fudden defertion. Beginning to bawl out as 
loudly as 1 could, in order to recal them, in 
cafe they iliould be near enough to hear me, 
I was much aftoniihed when I faw them all 
four come out of the elephant's belly, into 
which they had entered to detach the interior 
fibres : thefe, next to the feet and the trunk, 
are the moft delicate morfels. 
I difpatched my fifth Hottentot to tell 
Swanepoel to fend me a yoke of oxen and a 
chain. As we had cut off the four heads when 
they arrived, we began by putting the chain 
through them ; but it required no little art 
and 
