w title also, that meant "Eater-up-of-Elephants"; he allowed
one of his men to "bonga"--that is, praise--him all through the night,
preventing us from getting a wink of sleep, until at last the poor
fellow dropped in a kind of fit from exhaustion, and so forth. It really
was very amusing until it became a bore.

Besides the elephants we killed lots of other things, including two
lions, which I got almost with a right and left, and three white
rhinoceroses, that now, alas! are nearly extinct. At last, towards the
end of the third week, we had as much as our men could carry in the
shape of ivory, rhinoceros horns, skins and sun-dried buckflesh, or
biltong, and determined to start back for Umbezi's kraal next day.
Indeed, this could not be long delayed, as our powder and lead were
running low; for in those days, it will be remembered, breechloaders had
not come in, and ammunition, therefore, had to be carried in bulk.

To tell the truth, I was very glad that our trip had come to such a
satisfactory conclusion, for, although I would not admit it even to
myself, I could not get rid of a kind of sneaking dread lest after
all there might be something in the old dwarf's prophecy about a
disagreeable adventure with a buffalo which was in store for me. Well,
as it chanced, we had not so much as seen a buffalo, and as the road
which we were going to take back to the kraal ran over high, bare
country that these animals did not frequent, there was now little
prospect of our doing so--all of which, of course, showed what I already
knew, that only weak-headed superstitious idiots would put the slightest
faith in the drivelling nonsense of deceiving or self-deceived Kafir
medicine-men. These things, indeed, I pointed out with much vigour to
Saduko before we turned in on the last night of the hunt.

Saduko listened in silence and said nothing at all, except that he would
not keep me up any longer, as I must be tired.

Now, whatever may be the reason for it, my experience in life is that it
is never wise to brag about anything. At any rate, on a hunting trip, to
come to a particular instance, wait until you are safe at home till you
begin to do so. Of the truth of this ancient adage I was now destined to
experience a particularly fine and concrete example.

The place where we had camped was in scattered bush overlooking a great
extent of dry reeds, that in the wet season was doubtless a swamp fed by
a small river which ran into it on