450 A HUNTER'S WANDERINGS ch. 



These pools must have harboured many herds of 

 hippopotami at no very distant date, for the broad, 

 well-beaten, double footpaths made by these bulky 

 beasts (the hippopotamus always forms a double 

 footpath with a little ridge in the centre, as it moves 

 its feet along in parallel lines), and leading from one 

 pool to another, sometimes up and down very steep 

 and rocky hillsides, were to be met with all along 

 the river. The hippopotami had, however, dis- 

 appeared from the scene, and betaken themselves to 

 more secure retreats farther down the stream. This 

 day we made a sad mess with a black rhinoceros, 

 which, at some distance from the river, as we were 

 going down a sloping hillside, I descried about loo 

 yards in advance of us, slowly making his way 

 through some short scrub. We soon crept down 

 to within fifty yards of him, and then waited till he 

 came past us. When almost opposite he stood with 

 his shoulder just behind a tree about a foot in 

 diameter ; here he remained for some seconds, then 

 took another step, and stood again, evidently listen- 

 ing. I was afraid that he suspected something, and 

 might wheel rounci at any moment, so, as he had 

 enough of his shoulder beyond the tree, to allow a 

 bullet to reach his heart, I nuciged Jameson, and 

 fired, and, sad to tell, instead of putting my bullet 

 into his shoulder, I struck the tree. I hurried my 

 friend's shot too, so that he only hit the brute too 

 far back as it sprang forward, and in fact we lost the 

 rhinoceros. What we said and the oaths we swore 

 are fortunately not written in any book of Chronicles. 



This disgracefully bad shot, I have reason to 

 believe, was not my fault, for, after making a few 

 more failures for which I could not account, I fired 

 at a mark, and found that the bullets fell all over the 



