The soil is exhausted by maize in two years, or three at the most; after that new ground is broken up, and the old is planted with beans and other less important crops for another year or two. This seems to have gone on for centuries, the forest closing up again over the deserted gardens, as if they had never been; it is this repeated cutting down, together with the bush-fires, which has changed so much of the primeval forest into straggling scrub. HUNTING None of the tribes of British Central Africa can be said to live by hunting, or even to make it one of their principal occupations. The nearest approach to a hunting tribe are the Apodzo, or Akombwi, of the Lower Zambezi, who are professional hippopotamus-hunters, and are sometimes spoken of as a clan, but as they speak a language of their own, they should perhaps be reckoned as a separate people. Forty-five years ago, game seems to have been scarce in the Shiré Highlands proper, though abundant near the Lake and west of the Shiré. The subsequent wars and famine allowed it to increase again; and of late years some of the protected kinds have actually come back to their old haunts. The native who wishes to hunt now has to take out a gun-licence, and can no longer dig pitfalls for elephants, or set snares for buck, as he did in the old days. No close time was recognised, but nature took care of that, for it is impossible to see or pursue animals through the thick grass of the spring and summer. Where game was at all abundant, hunting parties were organised: a long line of men would advance in a semicircle on the patch of grass or bush to be surrounded. The leader, who carried the ‘medicines’ for luck, was in the middle, and with those on either side of him would wait till the ends of the two ‘wings’ had met on the other side. When the circle was complete, the signal was given by whistling, and the hunters advanced all at once. These men would probably be armed with spears; perhaps a few of them with guns. The Chipetas and Mang’anja shoot a great deal with bows; they do not seem to be first-class marksmen, though I have heard that some of the boys from the Katunga’s district were very expert in bringing down birds flying. The only archer whose exploits I ever had the opportunity of witnessing seemed unable to hit a bird which I suppose to have been a white heron at a moderate distance. But it may have been an unlucky day with him. The bow was used as a weapon of war (with or without poisoned arrows) before the Angoni introduced the shield and stabbing spear. War arrows are a yard long and tipped with iron; blunt cane or wooden arrows are used for shooting birds. The iron arrow-heads are of a great many different patterns; some are smooth, others have as many as half a dozen barbs below the point. [Illustration: BOY WITH BOW]