Hippopotamus 



shouting, and squabbling (that's all the verbs I 

 can make use of at present) without reason. They 

 were only savages ! 



The bank was very steep and the stench rose, 

 but the head did not ; because every man, woman, 

 or child was trying to secure a piece of meat, 

 chiefly stomach. After standing this for an hour 

 or so under a broiling African sun in the noon- 

 day heat, you can imagine the state of my temper. 

 One of the promiscuous bits of stomach, that 

 were being continually hurled up the bank to no 

 one in particular, but the whole women folk of the 

 tribe in general, caught me in the face, and in 

 sheer self-defence I had to figuratively wade in 

 with a stick. The head had just been severed, 

 and luckily my orderlies had hold of it ; but a 

 stern order for the remainder of the carcase to be 

 shoved off and let go, so that I might obtain my 

 small wants, met with a howl of disgust. 



The animal was fast putrefying, and they had 

 got piles of stinking meat. What they wanted 

 with more no one knows, but I eventually suc- 

 ceeded in getting some twenty or thirty able- 

 bodied men to attend to my requirements. I 

 managed to secure the four teeth all right, though 

 it took me till four o'clock in the afternoon before 

 I had them back in camp. 



The savages — poor devils ! — must have their 

 filthy food, and as a result, at lo p.m. on the same 

 evening more than half the village was stupefied 

 p 209 



