THE HUXT. 



245 



human biped than a wild bull or an antelope. It 

 was probably a rogue hippopotamus that caused 

 the death of Menes, ancient king, and the modern 

 Africans from Abyssinia southwards still lose 

 many a life. Captain Owen's officers when 

 ascending these streams had their boats torn by 

 Behemoth's hard teeth. In the Panga-ni river 

 ' Sultan Mamba,' a tyrant of the waters, thus 

 dubbed by the Baloch in honour of their friend 

 the Kohode chief, delighted to upset canoes in 

 rude waggishness, and once broke a negro's leg. 

 Eor this reason men were careful to skirt the 

 banks by day when he was supposed to be in 

 mid-stream, and to avoid them during the dark 

 hours when he was scrambling up and down the 

 sides. During a subsequent battue off Wale 

 Point we had two accidents in one day ; a dug- 

 out was smashed by a blow with the Kiboko's 

 forehand, and the corvette's gig, suddenly uplifted 

 upon the tusk-points, showed a pair of corre- 

 sponding holes in her bottom. 



Behold us now, O brother in St Hubert ! mer- 

 rily dropping down stream in a monoxyle some 

 40 feet long, at early dawn, when wild beasts are 

 hungriest and tamest. The Jemadar and his 

 brother, cloaked in scarlet and armed with their 

 slow matchlocks, sit in the stern ; the polers, 



