58 
THE NEW AFRICA 
erratic boulders transported by ice action into this out-of-the- 
way corner of our creation. Judge of his surprise, while he was 
searching for a convenient corner to knock a piece off, when 
he discovered a movable ear attached to the unmistakable head 
of a vast sleeping hippo. Hammar made for his gun, which he 
had placed against a tree close by, and by the time he reached 
it, the hippo, who by this had also realised that something 
unusual was transpiring, got up and took a look at Hammar, who 
promptly fired, shooting a little high for the brain. The hippo, 
with a grunt worth a reputation to a comedian on the stage, 
made for the river close by, and so did several others of these 
large piggy animals, hitherto unobserved by Hammar, that were 
scattered about in the neighbouring brushwood, each with its 
own note of discontent at being disturbed, causing a harmony, 
Hammar said, compared to which ‘ new music ’ would have been 
like the piping of a canary. The whole thing passed so quickly 
that Hammar had no time to reload and get another shot in 
before they were all in the water splashing as only frightened 
hippo can. We waited in the vain hope that the wounded one 
was dead and would rise to the surface, as one expects every 
well-conducted hippo that has been properly shot to do after 
several hours’ immersion in the water. But whether Hammar’s 
shot did not take proper effect, or whether the hippo’s fright 
carried him beyond our reach below the reeds in the river, 
remains one of the secrets known only to the Chobe. However, 
Hammar set us the keynote to a good laugh, in which we all 
joined as only perfectly healthy men can. 
I wish once and for all here to do away with the fallacy that a 
hippo spouts like a whale. Several pictures, notably one painted 
by the amiable and kind-hearted T. Bains, depict the animal 
sending up spouts of water into the air. In my varied travels, 
having had opportunity to watch these beasts at close quarters 
for hours at a time, I never observed this phenomenon. The 
nearest approach to it is when the animals rise to the surface to 
respire, when often they blow out the air contained in their vast 
lungs, before actually reaching the surface of the water, with 
