128 MAMMALS 



was nothing particularly tempting for them to eat they 

 must have gone there expressly for sleeping. 



I once found among some reeds near the water's edge 

 a well marked bed place, with a mud wallow beside it ; 

 one was reminded of a house agent's advertisement, 

 " bath room adjoining " ! 



Hippos wander about over the smallest islands ; thus, 

 the central conical grass clad hill of Isentwa Isle, rising 

 steeply from the water to a height of a hundred feet or 

 more, had a definite track across the top ; but why they 

 should visit an island apparently so unprofitable from a 

 gastronomic point of view it is difficult to say. 



The wealth of vegetation that springs up in deserted 

 banana plantations on the islands is very attractive to 

 these animals, whose tracks always lead to the plant- 

 ations. On a very sandy stretch of shore on Damba, 

 I saw tracks of a large hippo with a baby, leading from 

 the water into the forest, and quite close by were the same 

 tracks leading back into the water. It was quite obvious 

 that on the return journey the poor baby had been very 

 tired, for when he got on to the soft sand he had not lifted 

 his feet sufficiently to clear it, and a furrow between each 

 footprint showed how his weary toes had dragged over the 

 sand. However, he very soon got into the water for a 

 rest. It was quite possibly this same mother that I saw 

 one morning when on the way to the day's work on the 

 fly beach. As the canoe drew near we saw, lying oflE 

 shore, a large hippo lying on one flank in the water, with 

 the whole of the other flank exposed. 



We naturally concluded it was a corpse, but as the 

 canoe came nearer there was much difference of opinion 

 among the men ; finally, when we came closer still, the 

 hippo proved to be very much alive, for she rolled over 

 and sank, and then we saw the heads of two babies also 

 in the water. None of us had ever before seen a hippo 

 take up this attitude in the water ; it seems possible 

 that she was giving her babies milk. 



