GLORIOUS GORDON GUMMING. 



plaoad ; tlie charge scatters, and the brute, un- 

 hurt, slips down like a seal. This will make the 

 herd wary. Vexed by the poor result of our 

 trial, we pole up the rippling and swirling sur- 

 face that shows the enemy to be swimming under 

 water towards the further end of a deep pool. 

 Our guns are at our shoulders ; we know that, 

 after a w^eary time, he must rise and breathe. 

 As the smooth water undulates, swells, and 

 breaks a way for the large square head, eight 

 ounces of lead fly in the right direction. There 

 is a splash, a struggle; the surface foams, and 

 Behemoth, with open mouth like a butcher's 

 stall, and bleeding like a gutter-spout, plunges 

 above the surface. Wounded in the cerebellum, 

 he cannot swim straight, he cannot defend him- 

 self. I thought how easy it would have been, 

 but for the crocodiles, to have done with him as 

 the late Gordon Gumming did, and related amidst 

 universal incredulity. In such matters the reader 

 unconsciously asks himself ' Could I ? ' A nega- 

 tive is instinctively suggested, and hence his be- 

 lief revolts at the story — spernit et odit. But all 

 men cannot — in fact, very few men can — boast 

 the eye, the nerve, and muscle of glorious Gordon 

 Gumming. 



Beturning to Kiboke, the Baloch are excited, 



