CHAPTER IV

AN ELEPHANT HUNT

Now I do not propose to narrate at full length all the incidents of
our long travel up to Sitanda's Kraal, near the junction of the
Lukanga and Kalukwe Rivers. It was a journey of more than a thousand
miles from Durban, the last three hundred or so of which we had to
make on foot, owing to the frequent presence of the dreadful "tsetse"
fly, whose bite is fatal to all animals except donkeys and men.

We left Durban at the end of January, and it was in the second week of
May that we camped near Sitanda's Kraal. Our adventures on the way
were many and various, but as they are of the sort which befall every
African hunter--with one exception to be presently detailed--I shall
not set them down here, lest I should render this history too
wearisome.

At Inyati, the outlying trading station in the Matabele country, of
which Lobengula (a great and cruel scoundrel) is king, with many
regrets we parted from our comfortable wagon. Only twelve oxen
remained to us out of the beautiful span of twenty which I had bought
at Durban. One we lost from the bite of a cobra, three had perished
from "poverty" and the want of water, one strayed, and the other three
died from eating the poisonous herb called "tulip." Five more sickened
from this cause, but we managed to cure them with doses of an infusion
made by boiling down the tulip leaves. If administered in time this is
a very effective antidote.