ALONG THE TRAIL 113 
his disposition one day as we were crossing Lake 
Naivasha. I was sitting at the tiller in the stern of 
the boat about half asleep in the hot sun of midday 
when there was a sudden explosion and our boat was 
lifted well out of the water. The keel had struck 
the back of a submerged hippopotamus. He came 
up thirty yards away with his mouth open, but he 
made no attempt to attack. We had the good luck 
to come down right side up, shipping only a little 
water. I hope he was as badly frightened as I was. 
Because he is so little sport, even the pot hunters 
have left the hippo alone. However, most of the 
African tribes consider hippopotamus meat good eat- 
ing and he is frequently killed by the natives for food. 
The fact is that in times of famine this animal is a 
valuable source of supply. In 1906, when we were 
on the Tana River, I found a bone yard with the 
bones of a great number of hippopotami along with 
various human bones. In a famine some fifteen or 
twenty years earlier, so the story goes, the natives 
had gravitated toward the Tana River to kill hippo- 
potami to keep from starving and there had fought 
over this last source of food. 
Double rows of tracks with grass growing between 
them, like those made by a wagon, trail along the 
Tana and are cut deep into the river’s banks, where 
through long years the hippos have come up at night 
to graze and browse. His is a double track, because 
in travelling he does not place one foot before the 
other. He finds no food in the water, but he is at 
home there, and sometimes travels long distances 
