108 CHIEFS & CITIES OF CENTRAL AFRICA 



breasts; geese, herons, fish -eagles, fish -hawks, and 

 duck that rose in clouds of 1500 to 2000 at a time, 

 and out of which some dozen would fall to a single shot. 

 There were many others that remain nameless to us, 

 for though Mr Talbot shot and skinned them and sent 

 them home to the Natural History Museum, they were 

 detained at Yola for so many months that beetles got 

 in and destroyed them utterly. Dust, a few feathers, 

 and rapacious insects were all that reached England. 

 Indeed, their arrival at the Natural History Museum 

 was immediately followed by a telegram asking 

 whether I wished to see the dehf'is, or whether it 

 might instantly be burned. It was very bitter, for 

 the birds had died in vain, we might have been 

 saved much labour, and the carriers need not have 

 carried. Mr Talbot did the skinning, but we all 

 suffered from the sight and smell, and in the narrow 

 confines of a canoe there was no chance of escape 

 for any one. If by any chance he could not overtake 

 all the work in one day the penalty was heavy 

 indeed. 



We passed such large numbers of hippopotami that 

 there was grave danger of our getting blase, and we 

 almost had to force ourselves to take an interest in them 

 as we paddled by. Once we saw nine together in 

 apparently shallow water, where it would have been 

 an easy matter to retrieve their bodies. Mr Talbot 

 shot four of them, and they all nine sank out of 

 sight, but five rose again, and, with the glitter of 

 vengeance in their eyes, swam straight for our canoe. 

 It was an unpleasant moment, for, though two rifles, 

 Mr Talbot's and mine, were ready to repel the attack, 

 the polers, in a panic of terror, had flung themselves 



