54 2 Great and Small Game of Africa 



the surrounding district declared that the " Nzoi " (Tragelaphus spekei) 

 had killed them out. Another of these shallow, swampy places, more marsh 

 than open water, inhabited by hippos is Ngiri, lying to the north of 

 Kilimanjaro. Here huge papyrus reeds come up to the edge of the dryer 

 ground, and amongst this tangled mass the grunting of these creatures may 

 be heard by day ; while at night they leave their cover to wander about in 

 the open space round the camping ground. 



British East Africa having been opened to sportsmen only in compara- 

 tively recent times, the species is still abundant there, and is likely to 

 remain so, as the natives have few or no guns, and possess few means of 

 killing it. They are abundant in Lake Jipe near Kilimanjaro, but are said 

 to be inferior in size and in teeth to those met with in the rivers. Mr. 

 Jackson, who has had more experience of East African game than any other 

 sportsman, considers that the hippos on the Athi River north of Machato's 

 have finer teeth than those from any other locality in that part of Africa. 

 The same authority found them more plentiful in the river Nzoia in 

 Northern Kavirondo than in any other place he visited. 



In every other lake in East Africa — Naivasha, Baringo, Victoria, Rudolf, 

 and Stephanie — hippos are to be found in abundance, as well as in all the 

 rivers, so far as the country has been explored, as far north as the Guaro 

 Nyiro. Between this and the Shebeyli River, which runs south of the 

 Agaden, the country is little known to Europeans, but in that river they 

 again appear. 



From our earliest schooldays the fact that the hippopotamus dwells in 

 the Nile has been impressed on us, and the same still holds good. It is 

 doubtful if any exist in the main stream below Khartum, but in the Abys- 

 sinian tributaries, such as the Atbara, and again in its tributaries the Sittite, 

 Salaam, Royan, etc., the species is (or was) still to be found ; but the Soudan 

 has been so long closed to Europeans that there is little or no late informa- 

 tion as to the amount of game now existing there. f. E. Buckley. 



