272 BIG GAME SHOOTING 



in South and East Africa, not only as a splendid shot, but also 

 a most careful one, when on his way to Uganda with a large 

 caravan shot four hippos in four consecutive shots, and, what 

 is perhaps still better, with the next seven shots, fired a little 

 further on, he killed five elephants. In the same river Nzoia, 

 in 1889, when 500 men depended on our rifles for food, on 

 November 10 I killed nine hippos in ten consecutive shots, 

 only one of them requiring a second bullet. Should hippos, 

 however, detect the sportsman or get a whiff of his wind, 

 they display the most extraordinary cunning, rarely rising 

 twice in the same place, and then only showing for so short a 

 time that he, not knowing where a head will next appear, has no 

 time to bring his rifle to bear on a vital spot and fire before the 

 head again disappears. More often than not, they pop up the 

 top of their snouts, the two nostrils only appearing above the 

 surface, when it is useless to fire at them. If the water is 

 deep enough to allow of it, they will often swim up to the 

 bank and put up their nostrils under an overhanging ledge, or 

 anything floating on the surface of the water, such as reeds, 

 &c., and as they will breathe very silently under such circum- 

 stances, and do not make the slightest disturbance in the 

 water, it is often quite impossible to tell where they have 

 gone to. I once had a first-rate opportunity of watching a 

 hippo, and observing how he managed to raise his nostrils 

 above water without showing the rest of his head. As I came 

 round a bend of the river in sight of the pool he was in, I saw 

 him floating on the surface, but, having got my wind, he never 

 afterwards showed more than his nostrils. The water being 

 quite clear and the surface like a sheet of glass, I sat down on 

 the bank opposite to and within 15 yards of him and watched 

 him for a long time. Each time he rose I could see him some 

 little time before he came slowly to the surface, and saw 

 that he raised his body at an angle until his two nostrils only 

 appeared above water and almost instantly disappeared again, 

 as I could distinctly see his head, the fore part of his body 

 and forelegs, but not his hind-quarters. In fact, he reared up t 



