The skull and tusks can generally be left on the spot for some time, as the hunters respect each other’s marks, and will not, as a rule, take the tusks from an elephant that has been killed and marked by another. The object in allowing the head to remain untouched is, that putrefaction may take place, and render the task of extracting the tusks easier than is the case when they are taken out at once. It must be remembered that the tusks of an elephant are imbedded in the skull for a considerable portion of their length, and that the only mode of extracting them is by chopping away their thick, bony sockets, which is a work of much time and labor. However, in that hot climate putrefaction takes place very readily, and by the time that the hunters have finished the elephant the tusks can be removed. Sometimes the flesh becomes more than “high,” but the Kaffirs, and indeed all African savages, seem rather to prefer certain meats when in the incipient stage of putrefaction. Careless of the future as are the natives of Southern Africa, they are never wasteful of food, and, unlike the aborigines of North America, they seldom, if ever, allow the body of a slain animal to become the prey of birds and beasts. They will eat in two days the food that ought to serve them for ten, and will nearly starve themselves to death during the remaining eight days of famine, but they will never throw away anything that can by any possibility be eaten. Even the very blood is not wasted. If a large animal, such as a rhinoceros, be killed, the black hunters separate the ribs from the spine, as the dead animal lies on its side, and by dint of axe blades, assagai heads, and strong arms, soon cut a large hole in the side. Into this hole the hunters straightway lower themselves, and remove the intestines of the animal, passing them to their comrades outside, who invert them, tie up the end, and return them. By this time a great quantity of blood has collected, often reaching above the ankles of the hunters. This blood they ladle with their joined hands into the intestines, and so contrive to make black puddings on a gigantic scale. The flesh of the rhinoceros is not very tempting. That of an old animal is so very tough and dry that scarcely any one except a native can eat it; and even that of the young animal is only partly eatable by a white man. When a European hunter kills a young rhinoceros, he takes a comparatively small portion of it,--namely, the hump, and a layer of fat and flesh which lies between the skin and the ribs. The remainder he abandons to his native assistants, who do not seem to care very much whether meat be tough or tender, so long as it is meat. The layer of fat and lean on the ribs is only some two inches in thickness, so that the attendants have the lion’s share, as far as quantity is concerned. Quality they leave to the more fastidious taste of the white man.