188 LARGE GAME. chap. iv. 



well-worn game-path, such as elephants make, and which 

 I determined to follow, as I believed it to be used by them 

 when going to and returning from the outside. I had not 

 been on it for five minutes before I heard the heavy tread 

 of some wild animal approaching, and at once stepped to 

 the side and concealed myself in the reeds. A few seconds 

 sufficed to bring its head into sight, and I was somewhat 

 disappointed, though perhaps at the same time rather re- 

 lieved, to find that it was a hippopotamus instead of an 

 elephant that I had to deal with. As it got opposite to me 

 I broke a reed, causing it to stop and look round inquiringly. 

 I had never fired at one before out of the water, and had 

 expected that it would have afforded me a certain mark 

 when it turned its face towards me, but I saw at once that 

 at this angle the ball would almost certainly glance, so, 

 waiting till it gave me the opportimity, I aimed at the 

 eye, and could tell, despite the pall of smoke that hung 

 over it, that it had fallen. Stealing, therefore, a little on 

 one side to enable me to see clearly, I put another bullet 

 into its shoulder, having seen so many rhinoceroses only 

 stunned with similar wounds that I half expected it, like 

 them, to rise again. I saw, however, a second afterwards, 

 that I had fired into a dead carcase, and whipping out my 

 knife, I severed its pig-like tail, glad to have killed some- 

 thing in these famous reeds, even though it was not an 

 elephant, and also by no means despising the supply of 

 food which I had thus secured. 



Although I had not yet by any means effected my 

 escape, twenty-four hours' abstinence from food rendered 

 my going further impossible before I had satisfied my 

 hunger, and so a repetition of the evening's fire-kindling 



