XI 
THE WHITE TRAIL 
ii5 
to the pursuit and obliged us to pitch camp on 
his spoor. Next morning, we discovered, to our 
chagrin, that, after meeting with a couple of 
other bulls, he had in their company joined a herd 
of females, and as there was no blood spoor 
and his tracks were identical in size with those 
of his male companions, it was impossible to 
discriminate between them—factors which led to 
our subsequently losing him altogether. 
Naturally, such an incident, explicable enough in 
the licrht of reason when all the details are known, 
at once shrouds itself in a mist of fantasy to the 
native mind, and, even to a European, borrows some 
faint shadow of mystery from its setting in lonely 
bush in a land where mysteries are many. Such an 
effect had it on my tracker, Simba—at other times 
an unusually rational native—that on our return to 
camp he came up to me and said gravely :— 
‘ Bwana, that was no elephant ; he was majavie 
(wizard). In all our experience such a wonderful 
thing has never occurred. First of all, you shot him 
through the brain ; then, as he was lying groaning, 
you again shot him through the brain, and all his 
limbs trembled as if he were dying. I stood on his 
side and you sat on his head and not a tremor went 
through his frame. Then he gets up and goes 
away! No, bwana, he was not an elephant; he was 
certainly majavie! ’ 
