I told the havildar when I came up to him at Metaba what I had done, and that I was very much displeased with the sepoys for compassing my failure, if not death; an unkind word had never passed my lips to them: to this he could bear testimony.

He thought that they would only be a plague and trouble to me, but he "would go on and die with me." Stone boiling is unknown in these countries, but ovens are made in anthills.

Holes are dug in the ground for baking the heads of large game, as the zebra, feet of elephants, humps of rhinoceros, and the production of fire by drilling between the palms of the hands is universal.

It is quite common to see the sticks so used attached to the clothing or bundles in travelling; they wet the blunt end of the upright stick with the tongue, and dip it in the sand to make some particles of silica adhere before inserting it in the horizontal piece.

The wood of a certain wild fig-tree is esteemed as yielding fire readily.
In wet weather they prefer to carry fire in the dried balls of elephants' dung which are met with--the male's being about eight inches in diameter and about a foot long: they also employ the stalk of a certain plant which grows on rocky places for the same purpose.
We bought a senze, or _Aulacaudatus Swindernianus_, which had been dried over a slow fire.