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. 



