218 ADVENTURES OF AN ELEPHANT HUNTER ch. 
quarry before firing, the hunter in question at once 
returns to his home, saying the safari is logoed 
(bewitched), probably because his wife is proving 
herself a disciple of Messalina Valeria. On reach¬ 
ing his village, he puts his suspected wife or female 
slave through the poison ordeal, which is so 
arranged that some one is ultimatelv made the 
scapegoat, and as wives and slaves are generally 
considered much too precious to lose, the poison is, 
in most cases, administered to an unoffending fowl. 
If the fowl dies, the accused is at once punished ; 
if it lives, the accused, to put it in hackneyed 
phrase, ‘ leaves the court without a stain on her 
character.’ Now, some one is certainly guilty of 
misbehaviour and she must be found, so another 
wife is accused and the fowl house is called upon 
to supply another martyr to justice. Probably, 
though it can never be asserted as an incontro¬ 
vertible fact, the native hunter has predetermined 
which wife is to receive punishment, and when her 
turn for trial comes round, gives a more potent dose 
of poison to the fowl that is to serve as an index to 
her probity or guilt. 
Some years ago, at the Lumasuli River, I 
engaged an elephant hunter of the name of 
Makabuli to take me to the haunts of elephants in 
this district, and one evening, having encamped 
near a water-hole, we heard, near by, the smashing 
