198 
SAVAGE SUDAN 
opposite, and these lingerers, preferring a short-cut, 
reached the river by taking clean “headers” off the 
5 -foot bank—-and a mighty splash they made! 
Twice we sojourned for a few days at a spot we called 
Hippo-basin, by reason of a herd of these animals which 
shared with us a broad backwater full of shallows and 
sand-banks whereon they loved to lie basking, careless of 
our frequent passing to and fro. Here, the shelving shore 
being firm, the hippos were not restricted to a single 
carefully prepared causeway through the fringing papyrus 
swamp; they could go ashore wherever they chose, but 
nevertheless used several landing-places on either bank. 
Shilluk Harpoon for Hippopotamus. 
Each of these was distinctly recognisable, and week by 
week a hippo or two fell a victim to the harpoons of 
Shilluks on north, Nuers on south bank. These savage 
hunters lie concealed at dusk close alongside the tracks 
leading inland from these various exits, and as the huge 
beast waddles past within arm’s length, drive a barbed 
harpoon deep into his side. An old and crusty bull full 
oft makes short work of his hand-to-hand assailant; but 
usually the stricken beast retreats to the water, dragging 
after him the attached rope with its tell-tale float of 
ambatch faggots. The annexed sketch illustrates better 
than words this apparatus; but the system, after all, is 
exactly as described by Baker fifty years ago. Wherever 
he goes, his sub-aquatic course is betrayed by the floating 
ambatch, and the luckless hippo eventually succumbs to 
the spears of scores of converging pursuers—not always 
