THE RHINOCEROS OF THE LADO 433 



There was always something interesting to do or to 

 see at this camp. One afternoon I spent in the boat. The 

 papyrus along the channel rose like a forest, thirty feet high, 

 the close-growing stems knit together by vines. As we 

 drifted down, the green wall 'was continually broken by 

 openings, through which side streams from the great river 

 rushed, swirling and winding, down narrow lanes and 

 under low archways, into the dim mysterious heart of 

 the vast reedbeds, where dwelt bird and reptile and water 

 beast. In a shallow bay we came on two hippo cows with 

 their calves, and a dozen crocodiles. I shot one of the 

 latter as I always do, when I get a chance and it turned 

 over and over, lashing with its tail as it sank. A half-grown 

 hippo came up close by the boat and leaped nearly clear of 

 the water; and in another place I saw a mother hippo 

 swimming, with the young one resting half on its back. 



Another day Kermit came on some black and white 

 Colobus monkeys. Those we had shot east of the Rift 

 Valley had long mantles, and more white than black in 

 their coloring; west of the Rift Valley they had less white 

 and less of the very long hair; and here on the Nile the 

 change had gone still further in the same direction. On the 

 west coast this kind of monkey is said to be entirely black. 

 But we were not prepared for the complete change in hab- 

 its. In East Africa the Colobus monkeys kept to the dense 

 cool mountain forests, dwelt in the tops of the big trees, and 

 rarely descended to the ground. Here, on the Nile, they 

 lived in exactly such country as that affected by the smaller 

 greenish-yellow monkeys, which we found along the Guaso 

 Nyero for instance; country into which the East African 

 Colobus never by any chance wandered. Moreover, instead 



