CHAPTER VIII. 
HIPPOPOTAMUS HUNTING.—WE KILL ONE.—THE MEN EAT 
IT.—POOR BEEF.—WHAT THE TUSKS ARE FOR. 
It was night; the moon had just risen, and threwa 
strange glare on every thing round; I was in the prairie, 
and had been there since ten o’clock in the morning, 
looking for wild beasts. 
At last I saw five hippopotami grazing. I approached 
with cautious steps, or rather I crawled on the ground 
toward the huge beasts, till I came near enough to see the 
shadows their immense bodies threw around them. 
The question was how to get within gunshot without 
being seen. There was nothing to protect me from their 
view, for the grass had been burned; there was nothing - 
either to protect me against their assault. Supposing that 
I killed the one I should shoot at, the others might take 
it into their heads to charge upon me. Not a tree was 
within reach. Now TI had been so accustomed to hunt 
wild beasts that I was not afraid of any of them, but I 
knew that I could not kill five hippopotami at once. 
Suddenly the animals turned round and gradually 
approached a grove of trees; but what was to be done? 
the wind almost. blew from that grove toward them! 
“At any rate I will try,” said Ito myself, ‘to go there, 
