118 ADVENTURES OF AN ELEPHANT HUNTER ch. 
that exists. In by-gone days, they used to regard 
the thickly-populated and fertile country fringing 
the lake shore, and that forming the basin of 
the Shire River as their happy hunting grounds ; 
for in these districts were to be obtained all 
that their hearts coveted—cattle and slaves and 
concubines ! Hunting and slaving along the Shire 
River, however, ceased to exist on the advent 
of British rule, and now the operations of these 
lawless chieftains are confined to the territory 
running from the eastern shore of Lake Nyassa 
westwards to the Lu^enda River, and far northwards 
to where the Rovuma divides Portuguese from 
German East Africa. I know, for an absolute fact, 
that Mataka’s people still combine with Malinganiro’s 
and carry out pillaging expeditions against the 
natives in Melanji’s country, their forays extending 
even to Unangu, where the University Mission has 
a station in charge of one of its native missionaries. 
And that the reader may thoroughly appreciate the 
enormity of such a horror, I shall endeavour to 
describe a typical raid, which actually came 
under my own personal observation and that of my 
friend, R. Battley, at Kisumba, some five or six 
miles from the Portuguese Collectorate at Matengula 
on Lake Nyassa. 
It is night, as dark as an African night can be, 
and over all the hush of a wonderful peace, broken 
