246 WILD BEASTS AND THEIR WAYS CHAP. 



their heads were above the surface. There are two certain shots 

 with a powerful rifle one behind the ear when the animal is 

 looking in an opposite direction, the other exactly beneath the eye 

 when you are vis-ft-vis; both of these shots reach the brain. I 

 had fired with great rapidity, and the breechloader had been very 

 fatal ; the channel being narrow, and perhaps only 9 or 10 feet 

 deep, a great commotion was caused by fifteen or twenty 

 hippopotami, some of which were wounded, others, that were 

 killed, had sunk to the bottom, and the remainder were in a frantic 

 state of excitement. Presently a wounded bull rose to the surface, 

 and snorting a jet of bloody spray, it rose several feet out of the 

 water : immediately another bull appeared upon the scene, and 

 with open jaws it seized its comrade by the neck and held on like 

 a bull-dog. The fight continued for two or three minutes, and 

 although I was standing unconcealed upon the bare and open bank 

 not 3 feet above the channel, the two animals fought and wrestled 

 together until, coming within 4 or 5 yards of my position, I put a 

 ball behind the ear of one, and into the head of the other with the 

 left-hand barrel, which settled the affair. I had more than 1500 

 men to feed, therefore I was not in the humour to lose an 

 opportunity. 



There is no animal that I dislike more than the hippopotamus, 

 if I am compelled to travel at night upon an African river in an 

 ordinary boat. There is no possibility of escape should a hippo 

 take the idea into his head that your vessel is an enemy. The 

 creature's snort may be heard at a few yards* distance in the 

 darkness, and the next moment you may be overturned by an 

 attack from beneath, where the enemy was unseen. I have some- 

 times been benighted when in an open boat, having been exploring 

 throughout the day; in returning across a lake, guided by the 

 well-known signal (a red light hoisted at the masthead of my 

 diahbeeah), I have heard the snorts and the threatening splashing 

 of hippopotami around our dinghy, momentarily expecting a blow 

 from below that would send us flying, and capsize us helplessly 

 in the dark. All of my boats were more or less damaged by 

 hippopotami in the course of three years' work upon the upper 

 Nile. On one occasion there was a boat full ol sheep being towed 

 astern of the diahbeeah, which was going 6 or 7 knots before a 

 favourable wind, when a hippopotamus suddenly charged from 

 beneath, threw the boat completely out of the water, knocked a 

 big hole in her bottom, and capsized her with all the sheep, every 

 one of which was drowned. On another occasion we were in a 

 very large flat-bottomed canoe, cut out of a single tree. The floor 



