2 9 o ADVENTURES OF AN ELEPHANT HUNTER ch. 
sion caps, but that I could give him a specific 
for killing elephants, which, he would find an 
equitable exchange for the three slave girls. The 
prescription was, I said, a simple one, yet, if 
followed out to the letter, most potent and effectual. 
He must, if ever he desired to be a successful 
elephant hunter, indulge in two cold baths per day 
to strengthen his heart, and as weak or unsteady 
nerves might mean death at any moment in the 
excitement of the chase, it was necessary to tone 
them up with a goodly consumption of tobacco, than 
which there was no better solace to be found. This 
advice, I insisted, was worth its weight in ivory, but 
just to show that I was by no means a skinflint, I 
would throw in, for luck, a bundle of blue calico and 
some native kangas—pieces of cloth about two 
square yards in size, which the native women wind 
round their bodies as robes. 
Next day, Mperembe’s men (laden with my 
presents to their chief) set out for their homes, and 
I can only conjecture that Mperembe was satisfied 
with his deal and the ‘elephant medicine,’ for not 
long after this incident, when I was on safari to the 
coast, he sent me a load of rice as an expression of 
his good-will. 
After the departure of their guardians, I told the 
slave girls that they were at liberty to return to 
their homes should they wish to do so ; but they 
