SFOIi T IN ABYSSINIA. 1 5 7 



Feb. 10. — To-day we rested most of the morning. 

 In the afternoon I went down to the pool where the 

 hippopotami were, but they had got much more shy, 

 and showed only just the tops of their heads and their 

 wicked-looking little ears above water. As one 

 opened his jaws I hit him smack in the mouth ; this 

 sounded just as if a bullet had gone into a stack of 

 faggots. He sank immediately, and I could not in the 

 least tell whether I had killed him or not. As these 

 hippopotami had got so shy, I commenced to-day, 

 with the help of Brou, to make a raft on which to try 

 and go down the river to them. Some of the dome- 

 palms had fallen down from old age and from the 

 effects of the floods that svveejj by during the rainy 

 season ; I proposed to lash these together with raw 

 hide, but I had nothing except a hand-saw to cut the 

 logs the proper length, and the palm wood was very 

 hard and the weather very hot. 



Feb. II. — We had arranged with Barrakec to go for 

 three days and sleep out, or bivouac, and hunt 

 elephants ; we accordingly started straight inland 

 towards the mountains of Walkait. After we had 

 crossed the hills, under which the Tackazzee ran, we 

 came upon a sort of open plain with little hills crop- 

 ping up here and there, and we had been following 

 fresh elephant tracks the whole time. I must not 

 forget to mention that during the night a large herd of 



