THE BIG GAME OF AFRICA 



above described, he will often swim a good distance in 

 the water, until he suddenly " bobs up " where the hunter 

 least expects him. Sometimes when the river or lake 

 shores are overgrown with trees and bushes, overlapping 

 the water's edge, the big pachyderm will try to hide under 

 such cover, or in the deep shadow of overhanging rocks, 

 where he lies absolutely motionless, with eyes, ears, and 

 nostrils just above water, and is thus seldom detected. 



Once I came upon a hippo — in fact, the first I ever saw 

 outside of a zoological garden — in the Athi River, which, 

 at that particular place, is only about one hundred and 

 fifty feet across, and where the length of the still flowing 

 " hippo pool " could not have extended more than eight 

 hundred to one thousand yards. The wary " river horse " 

 saw me at the same moment that I discovered him. Our 

 eyes met for a second, but as soon as I moved to lift the 

 gun up to my shoulder, he instantly sank out of sight. 

 With eager curiosity I waited with the gun ready to fire, 

 expecting the hippo to come up somewhere near the place 

 where he had disappeared. Instead of that, I suddenly 

 heard his peculiar " snorting " and " puffing " at least 

 some three hundred yards farther upstream, while I was 

 looking in the opposite direction. 



I had sent some of my men to a place above the 

 ** hippo pool," where the river was very shallow, to watch 

 so that the hippo should not be able to get up and disap- 

 pear that way, and I also dispatched some men to go to 

 a similar place below the pool, while a dozen or so of the 

 rest of the porters were strung along on both sides of the 

 pool, a few yards away from the water. There they could 

 not be seen by the hippo, while they could watch him, so 



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