142 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 



rifle is good enough. The determining factor is the man 

 behind the gun. 



In the afternoon of the day on which we killed the rhino 

 Judd took me out again to try for hippos, this time in the 

 Rewero, which ran close by the house. We rode upstream 

 a couple of miles. Then we sent back our horses and 

 walked down the river bank as quietly as possible, Judd 

 scanning the pools, and the eddies in the running stream, 

 from every point of vantage. Once we aroused a crocodile, 

 which plunged into the water. The stream was full of 

 fish, some of considerable size; and in the meadow-land on 

 our side we saw a gang of big, black wild-geese feeding. 

 But we got within half a mile of McMillan's house with- 

 out seeing a hippo, and the light was rapidly fading. 

 Judd announced that we would go home, but took one last 

 look around the next bend, and instantly sank to his knees, 

 beckoning to me. I crept forward on all-fours, and he 

 pointed out to me an object in the stream, fifty yards off, 

 under the overhanging branch of a tree, which jutted out 

 from the steep bank opposite. In that light I should not 

 myself have recognized it as a hippo head; but it was one, 

 looking toward us, with the ears up and the nostrils, eyes, 

 and forehead above water. I aimed for the centre; the 

 sound told that the bullet had struck somewhere on the 

 head, and the animal disappeared without a splash. Judd 

 was sure I had killed, but I was by no means so confident 

 myself, and there was no way of telling until next morning, 

 for the hippo always sinks when shot and does not rise to 

 the surface for several hours. Accordingly, back we walked 

 to the house. 



At sunrise next morning Cuninghame, Judd, and I, 

 with a crowd of porters, were down at the spot. There was 

 a very leaky boat in which Cuninghame, Judd, and I 

 embarked, intending to drift and paddle downstream while 

 the porters walked along the bank. We did not have far 

 to go, for as we rounded the first point we heard the por- 

 ters break into guttural exclamations of delight, and there 



