A HUNTER’S TRIUMPH. 349 bank of the khor, and is usually known by the name of its overseer, Rahmet Allah, who occupies it with about ten to fifteen armed slaves. Just at the entrance to his zerida were several neatly carved poles, each separating into two branches, which were tipped with buffalo horns.

In the Béli district it is customary, as soon as a young man has killed a buffalo, an elephant, a lion, or a leopard, for his nearest relations to give a dance, at which the mother of the successful hunter dances in a perfectly nude condition. “I gave birth to this hunter,’ she cries to her audience, whilst her son, stretching forth his right arm, seems to impress upon the spectators that it 1s not advisable to come too near it. The people then erect a post before the village, and -decorate it with the skull or horns of the slain animal, so that every stranger visiting the place may ask the name of the brave hunter. In all the villages are carved poles on which to hang the great drum, and withered trees upon which trophies of the chase, such as the skulls of antelopes, are fastened ; also bow-shaped traps used in hunting game.

This station is celebrated for the splendid ice-cold water which is found in the khor. A lion had done us the favour of killing a buffalo and then permitting itself to be driven off, and an elephant had been killed in the morning, so that there was meat for every one. When we left, however, next morning all that remained of the buffalo was its splintered bones.

After passing through the corn-fields of Lobaledé, and then through brushwood and over a savannah, we crossed several small swampy streams which flow into the Chongo, and then rested in an Anogeissus wood in the district of Lori. We next passed through deserted fields and large plantations of Hibiscus sabdariffa, as far as a broad swamp named Mabollo, upon the other side of which, under the shade of high tamarinds, was a well containing very good water. Our guides, however, had arranged to halt at the Dokurru wells, which contain bad water, and were disappointed at being compelled to march farther on in the blazing sun, although we reached the Lulunyi swamp shortly after midday, and halted there. A low chain of hills running from east to south lay before us, shutting out all view. Late at night we received a visit from