210 
TO LAKE NA1VASHA 
[CH. IX 
there is no sport whatever in killing them. But the 
brain is small and the skull huge, and if they are any 
distance off* and especially if the shot has to be taken 
from an unsteady boat, there is ample opportunity to 
miss. 
On the day we spent with the big row-boat in the 
lagoons both Kermit and I had shots ; each of us hit, 
but neither of us got his game. My shot was at the 
head of a hippo facing me in a bay about a hundred 
yards off, so that I had to try to shoot very low between 
the eyes ; the water was smooth, and I braced my legs 
well and fired offhand. I hit him, but was confident 
that I had missed the brain, for he lifted slightly, and 
then went under, nose last; and when a hippo is shot in 
the brain the head usually goes under nose first. An 
exasperating feature of hippo-shooting is that, save in 
exceptional circumstances, where the water is very 
shallow, the animal sinks at once when killed outright, 
and does not float for one or two or three hours, so that 
one has to wait that length of time before finding out 
whether the game has or has not been bagged. On this 
occasion we never saw a sign of the animal after I fired, 
and as it seemed impossible that in that situation the 
hippo could get off* unobserved, my companions thought 
I had killed him. I thought not, and, unfortunately, 
my judgment proved to be correct. 
Another day, in the launch, I did much the same 
thing. Again the hippo was a long distance off, only 
his head appearing, but unfortunately not in profile, 
much the best position for a shot; again I hit him, 
again he sank, and, look as hard as we could, not a sign 
of him appeared, so that everyone was sure he was dead ; 
and again no body ever floated. But on this day Kermit 
got his hippo. He hit it first in the head, merely a flesh 
