246 
RESIDENCE AT SOCCATOO AND MAGARIA. 
mile of the river, the woods were almost impenetrable, abounding in 
wild hogs and guinea-fowl : of the latter I shot some, but the hogs 
were forbidden fruits. I had no wish to kill them, except to eat, or 
to have their skins; and my own servants would have been the first 
to have held me up to abomination if I had done so, as the less 
these rogues know about their religion, the more they adhere to 
the less scrupulous points of it ; the whole they know being to 
repeat their prayers in Arabic, not a word of which they un- 
derstand ; abhor a Christian, a Kaffir, and a poor harmless pig. I 
saw five elephants, and the traces of a great many more. They 
hunt them, or set watch for them in their regular paths, sit- 
ting on the branch of some high tree which overhangs the 
path. Their weapon is a harpoon, with two moveable barbs, 
like our whale harpoons, but a shorter shaft, which is stuck into 
the end of the large wooden pestle with which the women beat 
the husks of the rice and millet in their mortars. The iron head 
is poisoned, and night being the time, they strike on the back as 
the animal passes under the branch. The hunter traces him for 
a little distance ; the wood of the harpoon drops off, and if the 
animal does not soon fall, the hunter returns home until next 
morning, when he is sure to find him dead near to where he had 
left him. They eat the flesh, and sometimes sell the tusks for a 
few cowries, or they are oftener brought to the sultan or Gadado, 
along with the trunk, as a proof of their victory ; the tusks they 
always give to the Arabs. Three have been killed since I have 
been here : they watch only in the evening. At sunset we re- 
turned to Magaria, all very tired, and I with my old dressing-gown 
torn to ribands. 
Monday, 12th.— I went out to hunt on the flats on foot, with 
a F ellata to drive in the game, my servants being all knocked up, 
and too tired to accompany me. After getting on the ground, 1 
lay down amongst the long grass, and sent out the Fellata, who 
