356 BANKS OF THE TACAZZE. 
on its forehead ; wlien it turned its head round with an angry 
scow]/ made a sudden plunge, and sunk down to the bottom, 
uttering a kind of noise between a grunt and a roar. We for some 
minutes entertained very sanguine hopes, that we had either 
killed or seriously wounded the animal, and momentarily expected 
to see the body float to the surface; but we soon discovered^ 
that an hippopotamus is not so easily killed ; for, shortly after- 
wards, it again rose up close to the same spot with somewhat 
more caution than before, but apparently not much concerned at 
what had happened. Again we discharged our pieces, but with 
as little effect as at the first shot ; and, though some of the party 
continued on their posts constantly firing at every hippopotamus 
that made its appearance, yet I am not sure that we made the 
slightest impression upon a single one of them. This can only be 
attributed to our having used leaden balls, which are too soft to 
enter the impenetrable skulls of these creatures, as we repeatedly 
observed the balls strike against their heads. Towards the latter 
part of the day, however, they began to come up with extreme 
wariness, merely thrusting their nostrils out of the stream, breath- 
ing hard and spouting up the water like a fountain. 
It appears from what we witnessed, that the hippopotamus can- 
not remain more than five or six minutes at a time under water, 
being obliged to come up to the surface in the course of some such 
intervals for the purpose of respiration. One of the most interest- 
ing parts of the amusement was to observe the ease w ith which 
these animals quietly dropped down to the bottom ; for the water 
being very clear, we could distinctly see them so low as twenty 
feet beneath the surface. I should conceive, that the size of 
