CH. v] ON THE REWERO 119 



matter of personal idiosyncrasy as the choice of a friend. 

 The above must be taken as merely the expression of 

 my personal preferences. It will doubtless arouse as 

 mucli objection among the idtra champions of one type 

 of gun as among the ultra-champions of another. The 

 truth is that any good modern riHe is good enougli. 

 The determining factor is the man behind the gun. 



In the afternoon of the day on which we killed the 

 rhino Judd took me out again to try for hippos, this 

 time in the Rewero, which ran close by the house. We 

 rode upstream a couple of miles. Then we sent back 

 our horses, and walked down the river bank as quietly 

 as possible, Judd scanning the pools and the eddies in 

 the running stream from every point of vantage. Once 

 we aroused a crocodile, which plunged into the water. 

 The stream was full of fish, some of considerable size ; 

 and in the meadow land on our side we saw a flock of 

 big, black wild-geese feeding. But we got within half 

 a mile of MclMillan's house without seeing a hippo, and 

 the light was rapidly fading. Judd announced tliat we 

 would go home, but took one last look around the next 

 bend, and instantly sank to his knees, beckoning to me. 

 I crept forward on all-fours, and he pointed out to me 

 an object in the stream, fifty yards off, under the over- 

 hanging branch of a tree, which jutted out from the 

 steep bank opposite. In that liglit I should not myself 

 have recognized it as a hippo head : but it was one 

 looking toward us, with the ears up and the nostrils, 

 eyes, and forehead above water. I aimed for the centre ; 

 the sound told that the bullet had struck somewhere on 

 the head, and the animal disappeared without a splash. 

 Judd was sure I had killed, but I was by no means so 

 confident myself, and there was no way of telling until 

 next morning, for the hippo always sinks when shot, 



