CHAPTER XIII 



HIPPOPOTAMUS 



ARABIC Grinti 



IT was one of these delicious cool nights that in the 

 tropics one so appreciates after the furnace-like heat of 

 the day. The North wind that in winter blows all day 

 but often dies down after sunset, to-night held strong 

 exorcising mosquitoes. Hence I sat on the poop smoking 

 the final pipe and enjoying the eerie sounds of an African 

 night, while our gyassa sped along at six or seven knots 

 through the dark waters. Suddenly the ship was brought 

 up, all standing, with a shock that shivered her whole 

 frame and sent my deck-chair flying. We might have 

 struck a rock . . . but there are no rocks there and we 

 were right in mid-stream, a mile wide. A hippopotamus 

 had come up under our "forefoot," and I felt the con- 

 tinuous scraping and scrunching as the keel passed over his 

 back. Fifty yards astern he came up snorting and blowing. 



This was no hostile attack. The Pleistocene amphibian, 

 mindless of passing ages and the advent of gyassas and 

 stern-wheelers, had merely come up to the surface without 

 taking thought of possible modern obstructions thereon. 



This occurred near Jebelein on my first voyage in 1913 

 and is not an unusual incident. 1 From that point onwards 

 the hippopotamus is a constant companion. 



Our generation has witnessed the (often senseless) 

 extirpation of so many unique animal-forms, and the 



1 Petherick records a similar incident, but attributes it to a female 

 hippo, apprehensive for the safety of her young (Travels in Central Africa, 

 i., p. 94). Baker gives two instances both with enraged bulls. 



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