404 
BONES OF THE HIPPOPOTAMUS. 
29, SO Oct. 
enjov the feast ; since, not being able to carry the meat to their 
houses, they had removed their houses to the meat. 
These bones, which exceeded in size all that I had hitherto 
seen, struck me with astonishment, and, for a long while, fixed 
my attention. On first arriving in the country inhabited by crea- 
tures so monstrous, and actually beholding their gigantic remains, 
the mind cannot avoid surprise and wonder, however familiar the 
idea of the magnitude and unwieldy bulk of a hippopotamus may 
have been from the days of one's youth. Yet, until that magnitude 
be rendered, as it were, tangible, it can never make that forcible and 
just impression which properly belongs to the object. The thigh- 
bone appeared like the stem of a tree just barked ; and the skull, 
which had been much chopped and disfigured, might have been 
mistaken for a large mass of rock. The Bushmen had left nothing 
but the bones ; and even these had been picked perfectly clean. 
30th. The Yellow Rive?- is much narrower than the Gariep ; 
but it is here apparently very deep, gliding with a smooth and clear 
stream, between moderately high banks, thickly clothed with woods, 
consisting of willows in the front rank, and behind them Acacias, in- 
termixed with the Black-harli, Red-leaf, Karree-tree, and Buffalo- 
thorn, entangled and rendered almost impenetrable, with the Aspa- 
ragus already mentioned. At the water's edge, and in the water 
itself, grew abundance of reeds, and a tall species of Cyperus. 
No situation could be more pleasant than that which we had 
chosen : in the midst of trees and shade, enlivened by the notes of a 
variety of birds, with the ever-charming river before us, the opposite 
banks of which were reflected by a limpid glassy surface ; while 
a fervid cloudless sky rendered the view of the water doubly re- 
freshing. Clumps of Acacias, with a countless multitude of st3ms, 
formed vistas and mazes, through which it was delightful to ramble, 
shielded sufficiently from the mid-day sun by their soft airy foliage. 
Along the grassy bank, an open path, trodden by the natives or by 
the river-horse, afforded a pleasant walk by the side of the water, 
sometimes winding through thickets of green reeds, or over swelling 
