248 WILD KEASTS AND THEIR WAYS CHAP. 



It was some time before we actually gained upon it, but when 

 the engineer put on full steam, there could be no doubt of our 

 superiority in speed. The wave in the river was close under our 

 bows, and in another moment the steamer of 108 tons gave a leap, 

 as we rose over the body of the hippopotamus, in water that was 

 too shallow to permit it to pass beneath our keel. We had no 

 means of ascertaining the fate of this animal. 



The most ferocious attack that I have ever witnessed occurred 

 in the Bahr Giraffe, at a time when we were cutting a passage for 

 the flotilla of fifty-seven vessels through the obstruction caused by 

 aquatic vegetation, which had accumulated to an extent that 

 blocked the navigation of the river. During the middle of the 

 iiight a bull hippopotamus charged our diahbeeah, and sank a 

 small boat that was fastened to the side. The infuriated beast 

 then bit the side out of a boat that was 17 feet in length, and the 

 crash of splintered wood betokened its destruction. Not satisfied 

 with this success, it then charged the iron vessel, and would 

 assuredly have sunk her if I had not stopped the onset by a shot 

 in the skull with a No. 8 rifle. This hippopotamus was evidently 

 a desperate character, and I concluded that it must have been 

 attracted to our vessel by the smell of blood, as the small boats 

 destroyed had contained flesh that had been cut into strips from 

 the body of a hippo which I had shot on the previous day. There 

 was an additional provocation in the presence of a dead hippo, 

 which I had fastened to the rudder, as we had no time to prepare 

 the flesh ; this was floating astern, and assisted in arousing the 

 fury of the ill-tempered bull. When I succeeded in killing this 

 animal, after an exciting defence, we discovered that it had been 

 frequently scored by the tusks of antagonists of its own species ; 

 one wound was several feet in length along the flank, and was 

 recently healed. The scars of numerous conflicts were a sufficient 

 evidence of a vicious character. 



The Hamran Arabs and some other tribes attack the hippo- 

 potamus with the harpoon. I have witnessed these hunts, which 

 are intensely exciting. 



When a small herd of these animals are floating upon the sur- 

 face, basking half asleep in the mid-day sun, a couple of hunters 

 enter the river about 200 yards up-stream, and swim cautiously 

 with the current in their favour until they arrive within 5 or 6 

 yards of the nearest hippo. They hurl the harpoons simultane- 

 ously, and at the same instant they dive beneath the surface, 

 and swim in an opposite direction, making direct for the nearest 

 shore. 



