As we had heard and also read much about the excellence of baked elephant’s foot, we thought we would give it a trial. To that end El Hakim had preserved one of the feet of the elephant he had shot two days previously. To the best of our knowledge, the proper way to cook this alleged delicacy was to dig a hole in the earth and build a fire in it. When there was a sufficient quantity of hot ashes, the foot was placed in the hole among them, covered up with earth, and left for a few hours. Ramathani was therefore instructed to dig a hole and build a fire, which he accordingly did, and when the ashes were ready the foot was placed inside. It was disinterred in time for supper, after it had been cooking some eight hours, but to our intense disgust and disappointment it was quite uneatable. It was of the most indiarubber-like consistency, and after blunting my hunting-knife on the knuckle-bones in our efforts to carve it, we gave it up as a bad job. I tried to cut it afterwards with an axe, but could make no impression on it worth mentioning, as the axe bounced off. We concluded that it was not sufficiently cooked, and determined that there should be no such mistake in our next attempt—always supposing that we caught another elephant. Some smart showers of rain made their appearance during the evening, which did not tend to improve the condition of the sheep. They had experienced no rain for three years, and we were very doubtful of the effect of the wet and the attendant cold on their constitutions.