Chap. VIII. white hippopotamus. 225 



and blew from the dead buffalo to our sleeping-place ; and 

 a hungry lion, not at all dainty in his food, stirred up the 

 putrid mass, and growled and gloated over his feast, to 

 the disturbance of our slumbers. Game of all kinds is in 

 most extraordinary abundance, especially from this point 

 to below the Kafue, and so it is on Moselekatse's side, 

 where there are no inhabitants. The drought drives all 

 the game to the river to drink. An hour's walk on the 

 right bank, morning or evening, reveals a country swarm- 

 ing with wild animals : vast herds of pallahs, many 

 waterbucks, koodoos, buffaloes, wild pigs, elands, zebras, 

 and monkeys appear ; francolins, guinea-fowls, and 

 myriads of turtledoves attract the eye in the covers, with 

 the fresh spoor of elephants and rhinoceroses, which had 

 been at the river during the night. Every few miles 

 we came upon a school of hippopotami, asleep on some 

 shallow sandbank ; their bodies, nearly all out of the water, 

 appeared like masses of black rock in the river. When 

 these animals are hunted much, they become proportionably 

 wary, but here no hunter ever troubles them, and they 

 repose in security, always however taking the precaution 

 of sleeping just above the deep channel, into which they 

 can plunge when alarmed. When a shot is fired into a 

 sleeping herd, all start up on their feet, and stare with 

 peculiar stolid looks of hippopotamic surprise, and wait 

 for another shot before dashing into deep water. A few 

 miles below Chikumbula's we saw a white hippopotamus 

 in a herd. Our men had never seen one like it before. 

 It was of a pinkish white, exactly like the colour of the 

 Albino. It seemed to be the father of a number of others, 

 for there were many marked with large light patches. 

 The so-called white elephant is just such a pinkish Albino 

 as this hippopotamus. A few miles above Kariba we 

 observed that, in two small hamlets, many of the inhabit- 

 ants had a similar affection of the skin. The same in- 



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