NATIVES OF BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA 435 
them passed on to the Roman world, remains undomesticated to this day 
in Negro Africa. 
The donkey, though derived from the wild ass of Abyssinia, Nubia, and 
Galaland, is really only tamed by people of Hamitic or Semitic stock or inter¬ 
mixture, and by these is passed on in a domesticated state to East Africa. The 
negroes, who may have herds of these tame asses, cannot domesticate the zebra. 
They may be devoted to cattle-keeping, yet it never enters their heads to utilise 
the buffalo or eland of their own land. The wild dogs and cats of Tropical 
Africa, the gazelles, antelopes, wild swine, giraffe, elephant; the guinea fowl, 
francolin, turtle doves, cranes, hawks, duck, geese, and ostrich are all capable 
of domestication, but the negro makes no effort, expresses no desire to under¬ 
take this task, though by subduing and utilising these beasts and birds he 
might add enormously to his material wealth and comfort. 
Hunting in this part of Africa is not carried on with quite the same vigour 
as in the countries to the south of the Zambezi or west of the River Ivafue: 
no doubt because it is more densely wooded. Before guns were introduced in 
the last century the natives usually dug large pits along the elephant tracks 
which they skilfully covered with branches and grass. The elephants were 
then driven in that direction by shouts or bush fires, and one or more of the 
huge beasts would fall into the pit and remain at the mercy of its captors who 
killed it with spears. Or bolder hunters might steal up to a drowsy elephant in 
the noonday and ham-string him by cutting the tendons of the heel. Then he 
would be done to death with spears and arrows. Others again might be killed 
by poisoned arrows : but with all these ways (similar no doubt to those which 
primeval man employed with the mammoth and mastodon) no large number 
of elephants were killed until guns were introduced, and then the steady 
diminution of the elephants commenced. 
Lions and leopards would not (in those days before guns) be tackled except 
under great provocation. The buffalo and rhinoceros were let alone (the 
rhinoceros was and is much dreaded), the larger antelopes and zebras were 
driven by huge numbers of men (“ Bua,” the hunt, as it was called) towards 
converging hedges of stout wattles often built for miles, and when massed 
together in a cul-de-sac (which sometimes ended in a huge pit) were speared or 
clubbed. The smaller antelope and rodents were and are pursued by dogs and 
are also netted. [Nets are put up like a converging fence and the bushbuck or 
other small antelopes are driven into them and become entangled.] Birds 
were shot with arrows or were limed. [Bird-lime is made from sticky sap 
and is used not only for catching birds but large insects.] But as a rule the 
natives cared and care still little for the flesh of birds. 
The hippopotamus is harpooned by some tribes. 1 They pursue him in 
canoes with a long heavy spear, the base of the blade being prolonged into 
spikes on either side of the haft so that it enters the body easily but cannot 
be drawn out. This harpoon is of course attached to a stout rope. But the 
sport is a dangerous one. The hippopotamus is also killed in traps. A sharp, 
heavy spear is poised (weighted with a big beam) over the path along which 
he goes to feed, and is held up in such a way by ropes that when the hippo¬ 
potamus moves a rope the spear falls and usually severs the spine or penetrates 
1 There are certain castes of Zambezi people who make hippopotamus hunting a profession and 
travel far and wide for the purpose. They are a very civil folk, always careful to ask permission from 
the " lord of the manor,” from the chief of the waterside, to whom they scrupulously hand over a proportion 
of the flesh and the ivory. 
