-Back, although, the elephant was out of sight. Yaseen
was, of course, nowhere; but after a quarter of an
hour’s shouting and whistling, he reappeared, and I
mounted Filfil, ordering Tetel to be led home.
The sun had just sunk, and the two Latookas who
now joined me refused to go farther on the tracks,
saying, that the elephant must die during the night,
and that they would find him in the morning. "We
were at least ten miles from camp; I therefore fired
a shot to collect my scattered men, and in about half
an hour we all joined together, except the camels and
their drivers, that we had left miles behind.
No one had tasted food since the previous day, nor
had I drunk water, although the sun had been burning
hot; I now obtained some muddy rain water from a
puddle, and we went towards home, where we arrived
at half-past eight, every one tired with the day’s work.
The camels came into camp about an hour later.:
My men were all now wonderfully brave; each had
some story of a narrow escape, and several declared
that the elephants had run over them, but fortunately
without putting their feet upon them.
The news spread through the town that the elephant
was killed; and, long before daybreak on the following
morning, masses of natives had started for the jungles,
where they found him lying dead. Accordingly, they
stole his magnificent tusks, which they carried to the
town of Wakkala, and confessed to taking all the flesh,
but laid the blame of the ivory theft upon the Wakkala
tribe.
There was no redress. The questions of a right
of game are ever prolific of bad blood, and it was
necessary in this instance to treat the matter lightly.
Accordingly,- the natives requested me to go^ out and
shoot them another elephant ; on the condition of
obtaining the meat, they were ready to join in any
hunting expedition.
The elephants in Central Africa have very-superior
tusks to those of Abyssinia. I had shot a considerable
number in the Basé country on the frontier of Abyssinia,
and few tusks were above 30 lbs. weight ; those
in the neighbourhood of the White Nile average about
50 lbs. for each tusk of a bull elephant, while those of
the females are generally about 10 lbs. I have seen
monster tusks of 160 lbs. and one was in the possession
of a trader, Mons. P., that weighed 172 lbs.
I t is seldom that a pair of tusks are alike. As
a man uses the right hand in preference to the left, so
the elephant works with a particular tusk, which is
termed by the traders “ el Hadâm” (the servant); this
is naturally more worn than the other, and is usually
about ten pounds lighter : frequently it is broken, as the
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