CHAPTER XIII 
HIPPOPOTAMUS 
Arabic —Grinti 
It was one of these delicious cool nights that in the 
tropics one so appreciates after the furnace-like heat of 
the day. The North wind that in winter blows all day 
but often dies down after sunset, to-night held strong— 
exorcising mosquitoes. Hence I sat on the poop smoking 
the final pipe and enjoying the eerie sounds of an African 
night, while our gyassa sped along at six or seven knots 
through the dark waters. Suddenly the ship was brought 
up, all standing, with a shock that shivered her whole 
frame and sent my deck-chair flying. We might have 
struck a rock . . . but there are "no rocks there and we 
were right in mid-stream, a mile wide. A hippopotamus 
had come up under our “forefoot,” and I felt the con¬ 
tinuous scraping and scrunching as the keel passed over his 
back. Fifty yards astern he came up snorting and blowing. 
This was no hostile attack. The Pleistocene amphibian, 
mindless of passing ages and the advent of gyassas and 
stern-wheelers, had merely come up to the surface without 
taking thought of possible modern obstructions thereon. 
This occurred near Jebelein on my first voyage in 1913 
and is not an unusual incident. 1 From that point onwards 
the hippopotamus is a constant companion. 
Our generation has witnessed the (often senseless) 
extirpation of so many unique animal-forms, and the 
1 Petherick records a similar incident, but attributes it to a female 
hippo, apprehensive for the safety of her young (Travels in Central Africa , 
i., p. 94). Baker gives two instances—both with enraged bulls. 
