198 A SPORTING TRIP THROUGH ABYSSINIA chap. 



most of its inhabitants, brought in a sheep, jars of tej 

 and tala, sour and sweet milk, and a mess of red pepper 

 which the natives eat with their thin cakes of bread. 



At about nine o'clock two hippos came and snorted 

 opposite camp, and, as I saw one starting to walk ashore, 

 I seized the .400 and crawled down to the water's 

 edge, but something disturbed them and they went off 

 The night was very hot, and I was glad to lie on my 

 bed with the tent wide open at either end. Only the 

 night before, at Jarso, I slept under eight thin blankets 

 and with the tent laced up ! The country I was now in 

 had an evil reputation. My Abyssinians said that a devil 

 lived here and would give them headaches, and, as a 

 measure of precaution, they smeared their heads with 

 butter. The only satisfactory feature was the total 

 absence of mosquitoes. Next morning, before the sun 

 was up, I was off down-stream past the ford, and on 

 rounding a bend of the river heard the snort of a 

 hippo and saw the head of one floating in a big pool. 

 Keeping out of sight among the trees on the bank, I 

 reached the spot and found a herd of seven or eight ; 

 sometimes three or four heads would be visible at once ; 

 then there would be a long pause, followed by one beast 

 after the other rising for a few seconds in quick succes- 

 sion, but never quite in the same place as before. There 

 appeared to be three or four full-grown animals, so, wait- 

 ing my chance, I ran across the shingle to the water's 

 edge and sat down. I was just ready when two came up, 

 and aiming for the orifice of the right ear of the largest, I 

 fired. The animal rolled and kicked about, churning the 

 water into foam all round it, sometimes makino; for one 



