The Cutting Up Of An Elephant Is Quite A Unique Spectacle.
The men
stand remind the animal in dead silence, while the chief of the
travelling party declares that, according
To ancient law, the head
and right hind-leg belong to him who killed the beast, that is, to
him who inflicted the first wound; the left leg to bins who delivered
the second, or first touched the animal after it fell. The meat
around the eye to the English, or chief of the travellers, and
different parts to the headmen of the different fires, or groups, of
which the camp is composed; not forgetting to enjoin the preservation
of the fat and bowels for a second distribution. This oration
finished, the natives soon become excited, and scream wildly as they
cut away at the carcass with a score of spears, whose long handles
quiver in the air above their heads. Their excitement becomes
momentarily more and more intense, and reaches the culminating point
when, as denoted by a roar of gas, the huge mass is laid fairly open.
Some jump inside, and roll about there in their eagerness to seize
the precious fat, while others run off, screaming, with pieces of the
bloody meat, throw it on the grass, and run back for more: all keep
talking and shouting at the utmost pitch of their voices. Sometimes
two or three, regardless of all laws, seize the same piece of meat,
and have a brief fight of words over it.
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