106 LIFE WITH THE HAMRAN ARABS. 



Encamped close to us are some Arabs, who are chiefly 

 ostrich-hunting. They have caught twelve, and one 

 is a very fine black bird. Albert and Emanuel tried to 

 purchase the feathers for twenty dollars, but thirty were 

 demanded, an amount they could not raise, nor that we 

 wished to give, not knowing at present whether our sup- 

 ply of dollars will more than meet our necessities. It was 

 a pity we could not so far help them, for Albert declares 

 the feathers would realise more than 100 dollars in 

 Cairo. One of the Arabs' ostriches escaped yesterday, so 

 they have begged us if we shoot one with a rope round 

 his leg, to give it up to them. So far as our present 

 experience goes, there is not much chance of our shoot- 

 ing one without a rope round the leg, for the only one 

 yet seen was by Coke 400 yards off, and nearer it would 

 not allow him to approach. 



Creeping under a bank to-day for some distance, I 

 managed to get a long shot at a hippo standing near 

 the river's edge ; but with no apparent result, for it suc- 

 ceeded in disappearing under water, and much to my 

 annoyance the report caused about forty or fifty more, 

 which must have been grazing quietly within a few 

 hundred yards of me, to rush headlong over the shingle 

 into the river. 



Following them up I gave one a parting shot 

 as he took his first breath, arid certainly hit him in 

 the head very severely ; but after sundry tremendous 



