HIPPOPOTAMI HUNTERS. 385 



At Ma Titi they remained for a short time to recover from the fatigues 

 of the land journey, and here one of the party had a narrow escape from a 

 crocodile. Mr. Young says, " I have alluded before to the extreme audacity 

 of the crocodiles. As our men were standing on the shore, a few yards from 

 the river, to their dismay a huge crocodile rushed from the water open- 

 mouthed at them. Most fortunately, the man at whom he darted had his 

 rifle in his hand, and literally drove a ball through its head at his very feet." 

 The same man, John Gaitty, was tossed and terribly mauled by an elephant 

 further down the Shire, and notwithstanding that several of his ribs were 

 broken and he was otherwise dreadfully bruised, he recovered. Near Malo 

 they came upon a party of hippopotami hunters called Akombwi, and arrived 

 just in time to see a most exciting display of their courage and skill in cap- 

 turing these denizens of the Shire marshes. " There were not less than twenty 

 harpoons sticking into a half-grown hippopotamus, and his exertions to tear 

 himself away from the men who were hauling him bodily ashore was truly 

 frightful. To add to the effect, another huge animal, exasperated at his 

 sufferings, dashed boldly in and crushed up one of the canoes as if it had 

 been a bundle of matches." 



"I do not know that there is anything in the way of sport that requires 

 such consummate courage and coolness as their mode of hunting. The 

 hunter has to trust entirely to his activity with the paddle to escape the claws 

 of the animal, and a touch from the monster upsets the frail canoes as easily 

 as a skiff would be capsized by a touch from a steamer. It requires, in fact, 

 that the harpooner should keep his balance exactly as he stands in the bow 

 of his long slim canoe, and that during the utmost excitement. The moment 

 the weapon is lodged in the hippopotamus, he has to sit down, seize his paddle, 

 and escape, or he is instantly attacked ; nor is the next stage of proceedings 

 less fraught with danger. 



"It now becomes necessary to get hold of the pole, which floats on the 

 water ; the iron head of the harpoon, which has come out of its socket, re- 

 mains attached to this pole by a long and very strong rope. The hunter 

 hauls upon this till he knows that the hippopotamus is under water, just ' up- 

 and-down' beneath his canoe. To feel for the moment when the line suddenly 

 slackens — a sure sign he is rising to the surface — and to prepare to deliver 

 another harpoon the instant his enormous jaws appear with a terrible roar 

 above water within a few feet of him, is about as great a trial of nerve as 

 can very well be imagined. Constantly are the canoes crushed to atoms. 

 The only escape then is to dive instantly, and gain the shore by swimming 

 under water, for the infuriated animal swims about looking on the surface 

 for his enemies, and one bite is quite enough to cut a man in two. When I 

 add, where the presence of blood in the water is the sign for every crocodile 

 within hail to lick his lips and make up stream to the spot, I am sure it re- 



