Lake Victoria to Khartoum 



walk along the beach in full view of the animals. 

 Some men were posted well back out of view to 

 keep anyone from approaching our place of con- 

 cealment, and we settled ourselves down to a long 

 wait. 



As the sun got hotter the hippo came closer in 

 to the bay, and began rising to blow at intervals 

 and falling again, partially asleep. At length 

 they seemed close enough. I fired at one of 

 them and heard the bullet " tell " with a loud 

 smack on his head ; this was followed imme- 

 diately by a tremendous surging and boiling of 

 the waters. Up came his head again in appa- 

 rently the same spot, and he sank hit again, 

 turning a somersault in the water, showing his 

 little stout legs wagging hard. " And then a 

 dreadful thing happened ! " I found I had shot 

 an unfortunate baby hippo. So little of them 

 show when they are asleep that it is extremely 

 difficult to know what you are shooting at, and it 

 is only when they see you, and therefore show 

 themselves higher out of the surface, that you are 

 able to pick out a big one. All you have got to 

 go by is the length of their heads. I can only 

 conclude that my victim must have come up in 

 the same line — bearing to me — as one of his 

 parents. Another difficulty was that they all 

 appeared to be sleeping with one eye lazily fixed 

 on the shore as though they feared danger, so 

 that they were all head on. If they had been 



234 



