CHAP. vii. HUNTING WITH DOGS. 343 



There was a ford some little distance beyond, where I 

 thought it probable that they would attempt to cross, and 

 I started for it, running at full speed in the hope of cutting 

 them off. Before, however, I could reach it, I heard the 

 dogs yelping below me, and as from the sound they 

 seemed to be stationary, I turned off to see. 



I soon found myself on the top of a precipitous bank, 

 clothed with evergreens, and overhanging the river, which 

 here formed a vast horse-shoe of calm, still water, in which 

 several small sand-banks showed themselves above the 

 surface. Widening circles marked where the disturbed 

 crocodiles had plunged in, while a keen eye could dis- 

 tinguish a few of their log-like forms still resting on the 

 more distant shoals. Opposite lay a peninsula formed 

 by the river, the monotonous hue of the long waving 

 grass relieved by the flat-crowned mimosas, and here and 

 there by the more striking shape of the green cactus- 

 like euphorbia ; while nearer in, and bordering the river, 

 were a number of immense white-stemmed wild fig-trees, 

 crowded with paroquets and turtle-doves feeding on the 

 half-ripe fruit. Half a mile off was the narrow, rock- 

 guarded defile which the river, by the unceasing toil of 

 centuries, had worn through these mountains, which, 

 otherwise without a break, raised themselves wall-like 

 and impenetrable from the level plain, and stretched away 

 on either side into the dim distance ; and now and then 

 the booming call of the baboons, which inhabit the masses 

 of dense bush that clothes every hollow and fissure in 

 them, could be heard answering ^ to the shouts below, 

 while over all and above all was shed the glorious sun- 

 light of the tropics. 



