"We now," says Bruce, "wanted only the presence of Ayto Confu to make our happiness complete; he came about four, and with him a great company. There was nothing but rejoicing on all sides. Seven ladies, relations and companions of Ozoro Esther, came with Ayto Confu, and I confess this to have been one of the happiest moments of my life. I quite forgot the disastrous journey I had before me, and all the dangers that awaited me. I began even to regret being so far on my way to leave Abyssinia for ever." Confu having come to Tcherkin on purpose to hunt, Bruce was easily persuaded to join in the amusement, particularly as he learned that there was a great quantity of all sorts of game, elephants, rhinoceroses, buffaloes, &c. On the 6th, an hour before daybreak, the party mounted their horses, attended by a number of people who made hunting the elephant their particular occupation. These men dwell constantly in the woods, and subsist principally on the flesh of the enormous animals which they slay. They are thin, slight, active people, of a swarthy complexion, but with European features, and are called Agageer, from the word Agar, which means "to hamstring." The manner in which they kill the elephant is as follows: two men, entirely naked, mount a single horse; one has nothing in his hand but a switch or a short stick, which he uses to manage the animal, while his comrade, armed with a broadsword, sits patiently behind him. As soon as the elephant is discovered feeding, the horsemen ride before him, as near his face as possible, and, crossing him in all directions, they each vauntingly exclaim, "I am such a man, and such a man; this is my horse, that has such a name; I killed your father in such a place, and your grandfather in such another place, and now I am come to kill you, who are but an ass in comparison to them!" This nonsense (which is used by the Abyssinians to almost every description of enemy) the man actually fancies is understood by the enormous beast, who, getting at last vexed and angry at being so pestered, rushes at the horse, following and turning after him, and endeavouring to seize him with his trunk, or, by a single blow with it, to level him with the dust. While the elephant is thus occupied, the horseman suddenly wheels about, and then, rapidly riding past him, the swordsman slips off and cuts his tendon just above the heel of the hind leg. The horseman now wheels again, and, returning at full gallop, his companion vaults up behind him. The mischief being done, and the poor victim, as it were, tethered to the ground, the horsemen leave him to look for another of the herd, while a party on foot attack him with lances, and at last put an end to his sufferings and his life.