II 
ON THE JAMBENI RANGE 
33 
for convenience. Some of the old men are never without their 
mouths full of this green stuff. They carry a quantity of the 
tender shoots in a dirty old skin satchel slung from their 
shoulders, together with bits of tobacco, bananas, and other 
treasures, and every now and then strip the bark and leaves 
from several of these soft twigs and, throwing away the woody 
interior, cram the handful into their capacious mouths. This 
inelegant custom with its somewhat disgusting evidences about 
the lips does not add to the enjoyment of a long “shauri” with 
several such old gentlemen ; at least it did not to mine, though 
it was apparently indispensable to theirs. These natives are 
very numerous and there is no game of any kind. 
After winding about among the hills and crossing several little 
purling brooks which rise near the highest peak—the actual 
Njambeni—we bore to the west, keeping along the edge of the 
high land, and then gradually descended by a zigzag course 
towards the low country on the northern side of the range, 
passing on the way the kraals of some natives who had “ eaten 
blood ” with Chanler (that is, entered into the bonds of “ blood 
brotherhood ”). These people were very friendly and seemed 
really pleased to meet a white man. They took me down the 
slopes and helped me to find a nice place to camp on the 
banks of a stream and just above open level country dotted 
with thorn trees. There is a patch of bush here which the 
elephants sometimes haunt and from where they make raids at 
night on the natives’ crops. Some had lately been there, but 
the owners of the shambas (cultivated ground) had managed to 
drive them out though they had not succeeded in killing any. 
They are no hunters, and the only way they ever kill elephants 
is by setting traps consisting of javelins (poisoned) in heavy 
shafts suspended over their paths, with a cord to release the 
impending harpoon stretched across, so that when a large 
animal passes along it falls on its head or back after the 
manner of a school “ booby trap.” 
I walked down into the flats to look for game in the after- 
D 
