76 LIFE WITH THE HAMRAN ARABS. 



This is an important day in our calendar, for we have 

 had the first ocular demonstration of the fact that we 

 have actually arrived in the country of some of those 

 animals against which we have come specially to wage 

 war. After leaving the Settite, where we saw numerous 

 crocodiles in the distance silently gliding into the water 

 on our approach, we at once were pointed out innume- 

 rable tracks of elephants, besides other unmistakable 

 evidences that they frequented the neighbourhood. Now, 

 although we could not claim as the chief cause of our 

 expedition to shoot elephants and lions the disinterested 

 motives suggested facetiously before leaving England, 

 that it was to protect the natives from their natural 

 enemies, this was without doubt a most refreshing sight 

 in a purely sportsman's point of view. Farther on we 

 saw a large troop of dog-faced baboons keeping at 

 some distance ahead of us, with thick dark manes, and 

 much bigger than our Kassala friends. Our horses 

 showed a most positive objection to approaching them, 

 though our hunters told us they were as common as 

 the pebbles. After luncheon we went to the river to 

 look for a hippopotamus (an animal that for the future 

 shall have the more convenient term of hippo applied to 

 it). To get to their pool we had to wade across the 

 river three times, and in one place the stream was so 

 strong as well as deep, that it very nearly carried us off 

 our legs, and reached up to or beyond our hips. Pro- 



