14 
WILD BEASTS AND THEIR WA YS 
CHAP. 
witnessed occurred in the Bahr Giraffe, at a 
time when we were cutting a passage for the 
flotilla of fifty-seven vessels through the obstruc¬ 
tion caused by aquatic vegetation, which had 
accumulated to an extent that blocked the navi¬ 
gation of the river. During the middle of the 
night a bull hippopotamus charged our diahbeeah, 
and sank a small boat that was fastened to the 
side. The infuriated beast then bit the side out 
of a boat that was 17 feet in length, and the 
crash of splintered wood betokened its destruc¬ 
tion. Not satisfied with this success, it then 
charged the iron vessel, and would assuredly have 
sunk her if I had not stopped the onset by a 
shot in the skull with a No. 8 rifle. This hippo¬ 
potamus was evidently a desperate character, and 
I concluded that it must have been attracted to 
our vessel by the smell of blood, as the small 
boats destroyed had contained flesh that had been 
cut into strips from the body of a hippo which 
I had shot on the previous day. There was 
an additional provocation in the presence of a 
dead hippo, which I had fastened to the rudder, 
as we had no time to prepare the flesh; this was 
floating astern, and assisted in arousing the fury 
of the ill-tempered bull. When I succeeded in 
killing this animal, after an exciting defence, we 
discovered that it had been frequently scored 
by the tusks of antagonists of its own species; 
one wound was several feet in length along the 
flank, and was recently healed. The scars of 
