142 Wild Life in Central Africa, 



he and his people were very hungry. I relented, and he got 

 his hippo, and I gave the trousers to my capitao (headboy). 



Then the excitement began, as the men belonging to 

 each hippo owner went in, and got the hippos out on a 

 small sandbank, all in line. Unfortunately I had no films 

 for my camera on this trip, so I lost some very interesting 

 pictures.. The natives had promised to keep the best of the 

 hides, and all the teeth, for me, and they were soon busy 

 hacking away at the meat, which they carried to the bank, 

 where there was plenty of timber to make fires. Some of 

 them busied themselves making stands to cook the meat on, 

 and quite 1000 natives must have collected for the feast; 

 and the owners of the hippos, who, except to their own 

 families, do not believe in giving something for nothing, 

 were busy bargaining for prime lumps of sea cow. 



Another memory that comes back is a day's sport near 

 the Rukusi stream in North-Eastern Rhodesia, where I had 

 gone after elephants. On September 29, 1908, I had been 

 out early looking for spoor fresh enough to follow, and I 

 only found the tracks of a few cow elephants, which I did 

 not want. 



When travelling along the dried up bed of the Rukusi, 

 we found the spoor of a big bull rhino which took us along 

 the banks of the waterless bed for some distance. At last 

 it lead us to the higher country, over undulating hills with 

 many thorn trees here and there. At this time of year big 

 game does not seem to care, if not harried much, to travel 

 far, as the heat of the sun is tremendous and it makes the 

 animals lazy. About 10 a.m. I sat down to make a cup of 

 tea and eat a little food ; and as I always carry a big gourd 

 of water, and often a lump of dried meat for my men, they 

 also had some refreshment. 



After smoking a pipe of tobacco we took up the spoor 

 again. Machila, a fairly good tracker, was spooring, and 

 I w r as walking to one side keeping my eyes ahead and to 

 the flanks. Suddenly I saw a grey object just like a big 

 rock, and snapped my fingers to draw the attention of the 

 men. At first I was not sure whether it was not a big 



