l66 THE GAME OF BRITISH EAST AFRICA. 



and graceful in tusk, and of hard quality, not so valuable as the soft Uganda ivory. 

 In these parts there is also a forest-hog, but I do not know if it is the forest-hog of the 

 Ituri or that of East Africa. The usual common buck as well as buffalo are found 

 here and in Buddu also. 



The East African hunter in search of new species will find the Nile far more 

 productive of specimens, for from Nimule to Gondokoro, and especially near the latter 

 place, the shooting is good, and several kinds of animals are found which are not met 

 with in the ordinary shooting-grounds of East Africa. There may be had white-eared 

 kob and likewise Mrs. Gray's kob,* also the Abyssinian buffalo, Abyssinian oribi, 

 Rothschild's gazelle, besides giraffe, ostrich, and elephant. 



There is a large herd of female elephants which make the neighbourhood of 

 Gondoroko their breeding-grounds. In the Nile (especially in the Bahr-al-Gebel) 

 numbers of hippos are found, and are in this part very dangerous to canoes, accidents 

 being constantly reported. I have never met with them in any other place quite so 

 formidable. On the Zambezi River they occasionally upset canoes, but in most places 

 hippos are looked upon as genial and good-tempered old fellows, mildly curious as to 

 the doings of mankind. The natives of the Bahr-al-Gebel, however, are constantly 

 molesting and hunting them with arrows, harpoons, and muzzle-loaders, and this no 

 doubt has the effect of making them fierce, for it by no means serves to make them 

 shy or fearful of mankind. At sight or smell of a canoe they will, as often as not, 

 approach to investigate at close quarters, rearing head, neck, and chest out of the 

 water. When one of them wishes to upset a canoe it will approach under water, and 

 if not fired at during its preliminary inspection no other chance for a shot will offer. 

 They seem, as a rule, to content themselves with simply upsetting a canoe, but 

 occasionally will maul the occupants in the water. I attended to a native on the 

 Bahr-al-Gebel who had nearly had his arm severed by one of these animals. It had 

 upset his canoe and then caught him by the arm, inflicting two enormous gashes back 

 and front, each several inches long and about two inches deep. 



A native of this locality told me that lions occasionally killed young hippos when 

 on land at night, and added that he had heard of two such cases near his own 

 village, and moreover had himself once seen the body of a hippo with the spoor of 

 a lion about it. Very possibly he was telling the truth, as he volunteered the informa- 

 tion, and had no object in making the story up. Lions, too, at certain seasons do 

 inhabit both banks of the Bahr-al-Gebel, and are often heard at night. They appear 

 to roam over large areas, after the manner of bush-lions, and feed, as in Uganda, 

 mostly on pig. 



* I should have said on Nile North of Gondokoro for these two kob. 



