134 
ELEPHANT. 
they arrived, had been overlooking from the pre- 
cipice their servants training and managing their 
horses in the market-place below. Great bunches 
of the finest canes had been brought from Kaura 
for javelins ; and the whole house was employed 
in fitting heads to them in the most advantageous 
manner. For my part, though I should have been 
very well contented to have remained where I was, 
yet the preparations for sport of so noble a kind 
roused my spirits, and made me desirous to join 
in it. 
“ On the 6th, an hour before day, after a hearty 
breakfast, we mounted on horseback, to the num- 
ber of about thirty, belonging to Ayto Confu. But 
there was another body, both of horse and foot, 
which made hunting the elephant their particular 
business. These men dwell constantly in the woods, 
and know very little the use of bread, living en- 
tirely upon the flesh of the beasts they kill, chiefly 
that of the elephant or rhinoceros. They are ex- 
ceedingly thin, light, and agile, both on horseback 
and foot ; are very swarthy, though few of them 
black ; none of them woolly-headed, and all of 
them have European features. They are called 
. Agageer , a name of their profession, not of their 
nation, which comes from the word agar, and sig- 
nifies to hough or hamstring with a sharp weapon. 
More properly it means the cutting the tendon of 
the heel, and is a characteristic of the manner in 
which they kill the elephant, which is shortly as 
follows : 
