212 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 



it flew. Most plentiful of all were the coots, much resem- 

 bling our common bald-pate coot, but with a pair of horns 

 or papillae at the hinder end of the bare frontal space. 



There were a number of hippo in these lagoons. One 

 afternoon after four o'clock I saw two standing half out of 

 water in a shallow, eating the water-lilies. They seemed 

 to spend the fore part of the day sleeping or resting in the 

 papyrus or near its edge; toward evening they splashed 

 and waded among the water-lilies, tearing them up with 

 their huge jaws; and during the night they came ashore 

 to feed on the grass and land plants. In consequence those 

 killed during the day, until the late afternoon, had their 

 stomachs rilled, not with water plants, but with grasses 

 which they must have obtained in their night journeys on 

 dry land. At night I heard the bulls bellowing and roar- 

 ing. They fight savagely among themselves, and where 

 they are not molested, and the natives are timid, they 

 not only do great damage to the gardens and crops, tram- 

 pling them down and shovelling basketfuls into their huge 

 mouths, but also become dangerous to human beings, at- 

 tacking boats or canoes in a spirit of wanton and ferocious 

 mischief. At this place, a few weeks before our arrival, a 

 young bull, badly scarred, and evidently having been mis- 

 handled by some bigger bull, came ashore in the daytime 

 and actually attacked the cattle, and was promptly shot 

 in consequence. They are astonishingly quick in their 

 movements for such shapeless-looking, short-legged things. 

 Of course they cannot swim in deep water with anything 

 like the speed of the real swimming mammals, nor move 

 on shore with the agility and speed of the true denizens of 

 the land; nevertheless, by sheer muscular power and in 



