A BOAT VOYAGE ON THE ZAMBESI. 57 



Snider bullet which had flattened on the hard skull, and only penetrated the skin of 

 one of them. 



I passed a Portuguese fort on the south bank which the boatmen told me was 

 Nacolu. I suppose the Portuguese here have target practice on the poor hippos, 

 and the presence of the Snider bullet show^sd that at least one man had been trying 

 his skill. 



The boat now being heavily laden with heads, hides, and meat, we did not make 

 such good progress, and did not get very far that day. Two natives who overtook us 

 in a dugout said that the hippo I had shot in the morning before starting had come 

 up dead, so I am glad it was not wounded. That made five with consecutive bullets, 

 and I suppose it will be some time before the natives here get such another good 

 and cheap feed. 



The 14th found me as far as a place named Bandar, which is a small telegraph 

 station situated close to the eastern entrance of the Lupata gorge. Here the river 

 flows between precipitous rocks, where the current during the rainy season must be 

 very swift. 



That night I slept on a sandbank close to a place I spent a night in the previous 

 December, and where I had eaten my Christmas dinner, which consisted of a slice of 

 hippo with a little rice and tea. I remember thinking it was not quite as good as 

 roast turkey, plum pudding, and other luxuries, but it was eaten amidst wilder and 

 more romantic surroundings. 



I reached Tete on October i6th, and in the following chapter will describe 

 my march to Fort Jameson in Northern Rhodesia. 





NATIVE DUGOUT ON THE ZAMBRSI. 



