Chap. XXVIII. ELEPHANTS’ TENACITY OF LIFE. 
579 
self, who had come to the village of Selole, led the brother of 
Mburuma to see at once that it was all a hoax. But for this, the 
foohsh fellow Selole might have given us trouble. 
We saw many of the liberated captives of this Italian among 
the villages here, and Sekwebu found them to be Matebele, The 
brother of Mburuma had a gun, which was the first we had seen 
in coming eastward. Before we reached Mburuma, my men 
went to attack a troop of elephants, as they were much in need 
of meat. When the troop began to run, one of them fell into a 
hole, and before he could extricate himself, an opportunity was 
afforded for all the men to throw thek spears. When he rose 
he was hke a huge porcupine, for each of the seventy or eighty 
men had discharged more than one spear at him. As they had 
no more, they sent for me to finish him. In order to put him 
at once out of pain, I went to within twenty yards, there being 
a banlc between us which he could not readily cHmb. I rested 
the gun upon an anthfil, so as to take a steady aim; but though 
I fired twelve 2-ounce bullets, all I had, into different parts, 
I could not kill him. As it was becoming dark, I advised my 
men to let him stand, being sure of finding liim dead in the 
morning; but though we searched all the next day, and went 
more than ten miles, we never saw him again. I mention 
this to young men who may think that they wid be able to hunt 
elephants on foot, by adopting the Ceylon practice of killing them 
by one ball in the brain. I beheve that in Africa the practice 
of standing before an elephant, expecting to kill lum with one shot, 
would be certain death to the hunter; and I would add, for the 
information of those who may think that, because I met with a 
gTeat abundance of game here, they also might find rare sport, 
that the tsetse exists all along both banks of the Zambesi, and 
there can be no hunting by means of horses. Hunting on foot in 
tliis climate is such excessively hard work, that I feel certain the 
keenest sportsman would very soon turn away from it in disgust. 
I myself was rather glad, when furnished with the excuse that I 
had no longer any balls, to hand over all the hunting to my men, 
who had no more love for the sport than myself, as they never 
engaged in it, except when forced by hunger. 
Some of them gave me a hint to melt down my plate, by asking 
if it were not lead. I had two pewter plates and a jfiece of zmc, 
2 p 2 
