BEARS & WATER-HOLE SHOOTING 



bund right along. This little glade had often been used as 

 a camping place by me, and is also a good deal used by 

 natives, having been quite evidently recently occupied by 

 them, as we found a meat-drying " grid " (a sort of long 

 frame of small sticks placed close together across a main 

 frame, the whole raised on forked sticks about 2 feet above 

 the ground, whilst underneath a slow fire is lighted, and 

 deer meat is dried over it by being spread in strips on the 

 "grid" frame) in the middle of it, and, quite close by, a 

 tiny single-sloped roof of grass as a sort of shelter shed. 



Before we got on the stage, having sent our men back 

 to camp 3 miles away, I collected all the dry firewood lying 

 around and put it under the little shed, as the weather 

 looked threatening and dull. About 5 P.M. we got on the 

 stage, but the only thing that came to water before dark 

 was a big mongoose, which, after a drink, went sniffing 

 around on the half-dry mud, every now and then grubbing 

 about, excavating and eating something. I investigated 

 this next morning, and found it had been digging out and 

 eating small fish buried in the drying mud. The filthy 

 puddle was full of fish, principally that known as hunga^ 

 a slimy-looking beast with long feelers pendent from its 

 mouth, and this fish can sting very painfully. I saw some 

 in the puddle 9 inches to a foot long. 



These drying puddles often contain quite big fish, such 

 as the lula or walleya, both of which grow to several pounds 

 in weight, and I am not romancing when I say I have re- 

 peatedly seen these bigger fish jumping at the pigeons 

 whilst drinking at the edge of a puddle in the evening. 

 The pigeons seemed quite to expect it, and merely jumped 

 or fluttered out of the way, and went on drinking at another 

 spot until again disturbed. I once also saw a crocodile make 

 a dart at an imperial green pigeon drinking at a pool in the 



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