83^ EFFICIENT PREPARATION IN AMMUNITION AND ARMS. 
remained still, sitting for a few moments on the same spot. On 
hearing the report of my rifle, two of the others took up stream, 
and the fourth dashed down the river. They rolled along like oxen, 
at a smart pace, as long as the water was shallow, 
'' I was now in a state of great anxiety about my wounded sea- 
cow, for I feared she would get down into deep water, and be lost, 
like the last one. Her struggles were still bearing her down stream, 
and the water was becoming deeper. To settle the matter, I 
accordingly fired another shot from the bank, which, entering the 
roof of her skull, passed out through her eye. She then kept con¬ 
tinually splashing round and round in a circle in the middle of the 
river. 
'' I had great fears of the crocodiles, and I did not know that 
the sea-cow might not attack me; my anxiety to secure her, how¬ 
ever, overcame all hesitation. So divesting myself of my leathers, 
and armed with a sharp knife, I dashed into the river, which at first 
took me up to my arm-pits, but in the middle was shallower. 
SPLASHED FURIOUSLY. 
'' As I approached Behemoth, her eye looked very wicked at 
me, but she was stunned, and did not know what she was doing; 
so running in upon her, and seizing her short tail, I attempted to 
incline her course to land. It was extraordinary what enormous 
strength she still had in the water. I could not guide her in the 
least, and she continued to splash, and plunge, and blow, and make 
her circular course, carrying me along with her as if I was a fly on 
her tail. 
Finding her tail gave me but a poor hold, as the only means 
of securing my prey, I took out my knife, and cutting two deep 
parallel incisions through the skin on her rump, and lifting this skin 
from the flesh, so that I could get in my two hands, I made use of 
^ this as a handle, and after some desperate hard work, sometimes 
pushing, sometimes pulling, the sea-cow continuing her circular 
course all the time, and I holding on her rump like grim death, 
eventually I succeeded in bringing this gigantic and most powerful 
animal to the bank. 
