te, and it is well for us, Mashallah! that it
should be so; for if the elephant, or the lion, or the gorilla possessed
but cunning equal to their strength, what would become of us!"

And each man retired to his hut, congratulating himself that he was born
a man-child, and not a thick, muddle-headed beast.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

THE CITY OF THE ELEPHANTS.

"Master," said Kassim, one of the Basoko boys, "Baruti's tales have
brought back from among forgotten things a legend I once knew very well.
Ah, I wish I could remember more, but little by little the stories that
I used to hear in my childhood from my mother and the old woman who
would come and sit with her, will perhaps return again into the mind. I
should never have thought of this that I am about to repeat to you now
had it not been that Baruti's legends seem to recall as though they were
but yesterday the days that came and went uncounted in our Basoko
village. This legend is about the City of the Elephants that one of my
countrymen and his wife came across in the far past time, in the manner
that I shall tell you."

A Bungandu man named Dudu, and his wife Salimba, were one day seeking in
the forest a long way from the town for a proper redwood-tree, out of
which they could make a wooden mortar wherein they could pound their
manioc. They saw several trees of this kind as they proceeded, but
after examining one, and then another, they would appear to be
dissatisfied, and say, "Perhaps if we went a little further we might
find a still better tree for our purpose."

And so Dudu and Salimba proceeded further and further into the tall and
thick woods, and ever before them there appeared to be still finer trees
which would after all be unsuited for their purpose, being too soft, or
too hard, or hollow, or too old, or of another kind than the useful
redwood. They strayed in this manner very far. In the forest where
there is no path or track, it is not easy to tell which direction one
came from, and as they had walked round many trees, they were too
confused to know which way they ought to turn homeward. When Dudu said
he was sure that his course was the right one for home, Salimba was as
sure that the opposite was the true way. They agreed to walk in the
direction Dudu wished, and after a long time spent on it, they gave it
up and tried another, but neither took them any nearer home.

The night overtook them and they slept at the foot of a tree. The next