322 Incidents of Foreign Field Sport. 



vultures. Leaving the men to carry home the spoil, 

 I hurried ahead, had pegs prepared, bathed and 

 dined. It took us over an hour to flay and then to 

 peg out the skin. The head I put into a large 

 earthenware pot and left it simmering on the fire 

 all night ; in the morning the flesh peeled off, and I 

 had as fine and white a skull as one could wish to 

 see. The teeth were loosened a bit, but these can 

 easily be fastened in with beeswax as a temporary 

 measure, and afterwards with plaster of Paris. After 

 drying the skull thoroughly in the sun, I wound 

 twine round the jaws to keep them together, and 

 then made one of the " boys " sew it up in a piece of 

 gunny. 



Next day I determined to visit the " Hippoos' 

 Rest," and ascertain if they were at home and as 

 savage as reported. Three of the Africans accom- 

 panied me. I took my '577 loaded with six and a half 

 drams of powder and a solid hardened bullet in each 

 barrel, also a single elephant gun, 1 and lucky it was 

 that I did so. I also had the "Paradox." It took us 

 over two and a half hours' walking to get to the big 

 pool. Before we reached it the ground was a mass 

 of dents and pitfalls, as if a herd of elephants had 

 been wandering about there for a month. The " vley " 

 in the monsoon had approached the dimensions of 

 a lake, and as the waters subsided during the dry 

 season, the soil had cracked, and much resembled the 

 "cotton soil" of India. Besides the tracks of the 

 hippoos, there were marks of elephants, buffaloes, 

 giraffes, and of many kinds of antelopes, from colossal 



1 Made by Messrs. Bland & Co., of the Strand, called the 

 Equatorial. 



