POISON-SPEARS. 
381 
that the elephants have all left the country and gone 
where rain has fallen. I should much like myself to 
change my route, and hunt to the east of where I 
now am, in Mosilikatse’s country, but that old tyrant 
is almost sure to forbid me leave; at any rate, I will 
leave him as my final resource. 
I have just lost one of my best oxen (Kaffir by 
name) at the Simouani; a spiked poison-spear fell 
on him as he was grazing under the tree, and pene¬ 
trated through his back, and he swelled up to a great 
size. Seeing no chance of his recovery, I shot him. 
The Masaras set these spears (stells) for rhinoceros 
and other game. They are hung in the branches 
of a tree, high up, and supported by a line, which 
comes under a forked stick and across the path, and 
stuck loosely into the ground with a peg; and any 
beast running against the line, or pushing it away, 
brings this great post, four feet long and as thick as 
a man’s thigh, with a poisoned head of a barbed 
assegai stuck loosely in it, right into the unfortunate 
beast’s back, where the assegai remains, driven, as in 
this case, right through the body by the weight of 
the post, and the post falls to the ground. 
I hope sincerely my casualties may be few this 
year, as I can no longer afford very heavy losses. My 
wagons are getting perceptibly fighter from the con¬ 
sumption of food — ten men feeding daily, besides 
always a sprinkling of Masaras and six hungry curs; 
and the carelessness and recklessness of the idle vaga¬ 
bonds, who have already lost and broken the greater 
