216 
THE KILIMA NJARO EXPEDITION. 
to find a subsistence, and many of tliem had taken to 
hunting the big game in the vicinity of the forest 
country. They went out all night and concealed 
themselves in the branches of trees overhanging the 
well-known drinking-places of the animals. Thence 
they discharged their arrows and lances into the body 
of a buffalo or rhinoceros. The wounded animal was 
long in dying, and sometimes lions intervened and 
carried him off. Sometimes the Wa-taita kept up a 
running fight, as it were, till the late morning, harass¬ 
ing the wounded quarry with their clog-like pursuit 
until it fell exhausted with loss of blood and fatigue. 
Then they threw themselves on its dead body, skinned 
it, cut it up, had a glorious feast on the half-cooked 
flesh, which they grilled on hot stones in hastily made 
fires, and brought the remainder into Taveita to sell 
or exchange for vegetable food. 
Some of these gentry offered to take me one day to 
a good place in which to shoot game. Soon after 
dawn I went, under their guidance, first through the 
belt of magnificent forest which engirdles Taveita, and 
then emerged on a tract of country similar in aspect 
to all the dry, bushy plains in Africa. Footprints of 
game began to show themselves, nearly always, how¬ 
ever, in beaten tracks and runs converging towards the 
distant river. The spoor of rhinoceros, buffalo, zebra, 
giraffe, warthog, lion, and many antelopes was dis¬ 
tinctly visible, and on the leafless trees great vultures 
perched in somnolent satiety. So heavy were they 
with their recent meal, and so evidently unused to man, 
that I was able to approach as close as I pleased to 
them, and very much disgusted the Taita guides by 
taking out my sketch-book to draw some of their 
attitudes, which I did with as much ease as if I had 
