THE RHINOCEROS OF THE LADO 433 
There was always something interesting to do or to 
see at this camp. One afternoon I spent in the boat. The 
papyrus along the channel rose like a forest, thirty feet high, 
the close-growing stems knit together by vines. As we 
drifted down, the green wall was continually broken by 
openings, through which side streams from the great river 
rushed, swirling and winding, down narrow lanes and 
under low archways, into the dim mysterious heart of 
the vast reedbeds, where dwelt bird and reptile and water 
beast. In a shallow bay we came on two hippo cows with 
their calves, and a dozen crocodiles. I shot one of the 
latter—as I always do, when I get a chance—and it turned 
over and over, lashing with its tail as it sank. A half-grown 
hippo came up close by the boat and leaped nearly clear of 
the water; and in another place I saw a mother hippo 
swimming, with the young one resting half on its back. 
Another day Kermit came on some black and white 
Colobus monkeys. Those we had shot east of the Rift 
Valley had long mantles, and more white than black in 
their coloring; west of the Rift Valley they had less white 
and less of the very long hair; and here on the Nile the 
change had gone still further in the same direction. On the 
west coast this kind of monkey is said to be entirely black. 
But we were not prepared for the complete change in hab¬ 
its. In East Africa the Colobus monkeys kept to the dense 
cool mountain forests, dwelt in the tops of the big trees, and 
rarely descended to the ground. Here, on the Nile, they 
lived in exactly such country as that affected by the smaller 
greenish-yellow monkeys, which we found along the Guaso 
Nyero for instance; country into which the East African 
Colobus never by any chance wandered. Moreover, instead 
