t distinguishes the conduct of all hunting parties,
whether white or black, while on the way to the chase or the hunt.
Pleasures unlimited are anticipated, and happy sport is expected, and
this anticipation and expectation are what produce so many good jokes,
and wit, and fun, and raillery, or, as the English call it, "chaff,"
when the hunting-field has not yet been reached and all feel bright and
fresh. The hours that precede the chase or the hunt form the
flower-time which men's minds love to remember and dwell upon for the
unalloyed happiness which it furnished.

It is needless to describe in detail the ground the party traversed.
Once out of the corn-fields, the pastoral plains spread before them,
where young Watuta boys were seen indulging in the excitement of a mimic
battle or hunt while they tended their fathers' flocks. Here and there
were little tracts of cultivation where women were at work hoeing the
corn; and as they passed some isolated village, near the gate, under the
trees, sat the nursing mothers, lullabying their babes to sleep, or the
snowy crisp-haired elders sat on short three-legged stools retailing to
each other the experiences of their lives, dwelling with fondness on
some particular episode of their generally uneventful lives; while
chubby, abdominous little children listened in wonder at what they
heard, as chubby, abdominous little boys of white men's lands do when a
particularly interesting tale is told.

Beyond the plains and corn-fields, the cultivated tracts and villages,
heaved into view the dark-blue line of forest--that forest which Selim
knew, where he suffered, where he fainted, and laid unconscious.
Finally, the party entered it, and they were involved in its twilight
gloom.

A week's, marching through the forest brought the party to the elephant
hunting-grounds of the Watutu. The broad tracks, pounded and pressed,
trodden compact and smooth as an asphalte pavement by the elephants'
broad, heavy feet, indicated too clearly that this was a common resort
for the ponderous beasts.

Lengthy sinuous hollows, overgrown with thicket and shrub, tufted grass,
and tall cane, spoke of clear but stagnant water being plentiful here,
their ridges, clad with dense brush, ran in serpentine directions, and
separated these swampy hollows from each other. Overhead were the leafy
crowns of gigantic columnar trees, forming as they met close together a
thorough shade for the locality, under which,