530 
African Game Trails 
the land; nevertheless, by sheer muscular 
power and in spite of their shape, they 
move at an unexpected rate of speed both 
on dry land and in deep water; and in 
shallow water, their true home, they gallop 
very fast on the bottom, under water. Or¬ 
dinarily only their heads can be seen, and 
they must be shot in the brain. If they are 
found in a pool with little cover, and if the 
shots can be taken close up, from firm 
ground, 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 oppor¬ 
tunity 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 be¬ 
tween 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 un¬ 
fortunately 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 un¬ 
fortunately 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 
every one 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 wound; but the 
startled creature then rose high in 
the water and he shot it in the 
lungs. It now found difficulty in 
staying under, and continually 
rose to the surface with a plunge like a por¬ 
poise, going as fast as it could toward the 
papyrus. After it we went, full speed, for 
once in the papyrus we could not have fol¬ 
lowed it; arid Kermit finally killed it, just 
before it reached the edge of the swamp, 
and, luckily, where the water was so shallow 
that we did not have to wait for it to float, 
but fastened a rope to two of its turtle-like 
legs, and towed it back forthwith. 
