The action of some of these poisons is so rapid that a man will die in from three to ten minutes after having been scratched. An elephant in one of our stations, which was scratched on the haunch by a poisoned spear, fell down dead before going a hundred yards; and on another occasion a poisoned arrow, which had passed through my corduroy coat at a distance of thirty yards, killed a fowl I scratched with it in about two minutes.

One trick the little forest people have in common with the bushman (which though often mentioned by travellers yet stated in black and white sounds impossible), namely, the shooting of three, or even four, arrows so rapidly that the last is discharged before the first reaches its mark. They are also able to throw a lance so that it goes in at one side of a man and out at the other.