EAST AFRICA AND ITS BIG GAME. 
“gentle art” until the smooth surface of the water 
was broken by a small round disc, the first appearance 
of a dead hippo. 
We towed this carcass at the end of the raft as far as 
we could towards the shore, and left half of it, high 
and dry on the shallows, about a hundred yards 
from the edge of the lake, intending to send back 
men, later on, to cut it up. The next morning C- 
embarked on the raft and killed two hippos, while I 
took a stroll back to the carcass of my prize, which I 
found surrounded by swarms of alligators. I lay up 
for some time in the reeds, hoping to get a shot at 
one, but they were too cunning to exhibit any portion 
of their body more vital than the tips of their snouts, 
through which they drew in breath with a curious 
hissing noise. 
In the afternoon I went out and shot another hippo, 
who, instead of sinking after receiving the bullet, 
went through the most extraordinary gyrations, chiefly 
consisting of a series of somersaults, which, while 
exposing the whole of his giant proportions, were so 
rapid that it was some little time before I could give 
him his quietus. I suppose my first bullet had torn 
up the brain tissue without causing a sufficient amount 
of blood extravasation to produce death. 
After this, we gave up the pursuit of hippos, as there 
were no very large ones on the lake. The two hulls 
and two cows we killed, though the largest we saw, 
had only small tusks, and I believe the lake hippos 
are always inferior in size to those found in rivers. 
