58 BEASTS AND MEN 
themselves on the sand-banks, and the hippopotamiare floating 
dreamily at the surface of the water. Once the animal has 
been harpooned, it is surrounded by swimmers and pushed 
ashore, where it is quickly despatched by lances. When it is 
desired to take the beasts alive a slight variation on this 
procedure is adopted. The young, of course, are alone 
selected ; and the harpoons are hurled so as to inflict as small 
a wound as possible. With constant attention this will prob- 
ably soon heal up. Although this mode of harpooning calls 
for much skill and experience, no less than three-quarters of 
the hippopotami formerly brought to Europe used to be caught 
in this fashion. 
If one is to believe the comic journals, all that has to be 
done to catch a lion is to throw a bag of pepper in his face, 
and then proceed to chain him up in safety. To catch a 
monkey they suggest that one need only leave a pair of 
boots, well smeared with lime, in the grass, when the creature 
will come of his own accord and pull them on, and remain 
stuck fast till the hunter arrives to take him home. Very 
different from these facile methods is the reality. 
In one of our regular hunting-grounds, in the neighbour- 
hood of the Mareb or Gash, lives the great brown baboon, 
known as the Atbara baboon (Cynocephalus doguera). The 
rugged and barren rocks of this picturesque region resound 
with the cries and grunts of these baboons, who wander about 
in herds of a hundred or more. They often come down for 
food to the palm-woods which border the banks of the river, 
or pay a highly unwelcome visit to the natives’ doura’ 
plantations. Our station here was situated on the Gash, a 
rain-stream which contains water during the rainy season, 
while during the rest of the year its course is marked by a 
streak of glistening sand. Our camp lay just beneath the 
Sahanei mountains, and close to a great cluster of rocks which 
swarmed with baboons. Here and there pools of water were 
1A kind of corn, Sorghum vulgare. 
