238 A NATURALIST IN MID-AFRICA. 



high, and at the season when I passed yellow and 

 scorched by the sun. This is intersected in every 

 direction by the broad paths of hippopotami. 

 This animal is extraordinarily agile in Africa. I 

 have seen a regular road down the river banks, 

 so steep that I could not understand how so clumsy 

 a creature could manage to ascend. 



Yery often there is a narrow fringing wood just 

 at the edge of the bank, what is called in Germany 

 a " Galerie " wood. 



A stroll through one of these was always inte- 

 resting. One could obtain a glance through the 

 bushes and perhaps see an enormous crocodile 

 floating lazily on the surface. Some kind of water- 

 fowl would be running about the papyrus roots. If 

 there is a withered tree along the banks, a darter 

 will be sitting on a branch glancing sideways, 

 backwards and downwards at the water. This bird, 

 from mechanical reasons, has to keep its bill tilted 

 high in the air, which gives it a most supercilious 

 appearance. 



Perhaps an enormous python will glide out of 

 the brushwood and coil itself noiselessly into the 

 sluggish stream. 



Hippopotami heads are to be seen everywhere, 

 and every now and then one will give an enormous 

 yawn, exposing a- most capacious gullet. I used, 

 from a sense of duty, to sit down at the bank and 

 tii(> at them, but this was quite an innocuous 

 amusement on my part. The amount of nostril 



