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generally managed to expend their ammunition in vain. Their balls whizzed about at random—cutting ducks and drakes as 
they ricochetted along the glassy surface of the stream; and if, accidentally, they did strike the object at which they had 
been projected, the huge animal, more frightened than hurt, simply dived its ugly head, resolved to afford the ambushed marks- 
man no opportunity of repeating the salute, In short, the performances of these very ordinary marksmen, always reminded 
me of Sparrmann’s graphic account, which had previously afforded me many a hearty laugh. ‘On my journey homewards,” he 
writes, ‘many of these animals, thrusting their queer heads up above the water, blowed themselves in broad daylight; antl one 
of them in particular, which had been wounded by an ill-directed shot on the nose, neighed from anger and resentment!” 
No scenery could surpass in beauty that of the wood-clothed borders of the larger rivers, that form, towards the Tropic, 
the chief haunts of the Hippopotami. An unbroken tier of weeping willows, clad in a soothing robe of vernal freshness, lean 
their fragile and trembling forms over the placid stream, as it rolls majestically along, and dipping their slender pendant branches 
into the water, are reflected back from the limpid mirror. Here the wreck of some stately tree rears its dilapidated head — 
a mouldering monument to the resistless violence of the flood, by which, during some vast inundation, it has been up-torn from 
its rock of ages— 
There the Chaldee willow weeps 
Drooping o'er the dangerous steeps, 
Where the torrent in his wrath 
Has rifted out a rugged path 
Like fissures cleft by carthquake’s shock 
Through mead and jungle, mound and rock. 
Beyond, clumps of airy acacias, with a countless multitude of stems, form vistas and mazes, overshadowing grassy banks, which, 
under a fervid and cloudless sky, are doubly refreshing to the eye, Gay flowers deck the path of the hunter, as he wanders 
down the shady labyrinth of these delightful groves greeted at one momeut by the noisy cackling of a troop of loquacious 
Guinea fowls—at the next, by the recent footprints of the Lion, the Rhinoceros, or the stately Water-Buck. Winding on 
amongst the grass-grown ravines, his progress is presently obstructed by a chain of yawning sepulchres, especially constructed 
for the empalement of the mighty River Horse, and surrounded, perhaps, by the bleaching bones of some unwary victim that 
has recently been entrapped and eaten. That shapeless skull, despoiled of its ivory armament, resembles a huge mass of rock 
—and those picked thigh bones, are like the trunks of trees, newly stripped of their bark. Emerging with a snort and a 
splash from beneath yon belt of Babylonian willows that fringe the opposite shore, behold Behemoth suddenly cast his unwieldy 
circumference into the flood. Next see him warily lifting out his visual organs, to steal a glance at the intruder — and then, 
erack! he is treated to two ounces of hard lead through his attic story. Blowing and floundering, down he pops his tiny 
ears again, sending a thousand bubbling circlets eddying round the spot where his fanny snout has disappeared —while the 
outposts and head quarters of an encampment of clamorous baboons, are heard to challenge all down their line, as the vibra- 
tions of the echo prolong the report of the rifle along that chain of mountains which flank the river. A few seconds more, 
and Fisetiage bubbles, dyed with a crimson tide, rising rapidly to the surface of the stream, attest the aceuracy of the aim, 
and tell of the giant’s death-struggles. They are presently followed by the enormously fat carease, slimy and cylindrical, which 
having been towed and floated to the bank, and hauled ashore with considerable difficulty, appears perfeetly black —the colour 
gradually waxing fainter as it becomes dry. Now the cutting up has commenced —eyery knife and assagai is at work, and the 
barely fiexible hide, fully an inch and a half in thickness, is being dragged in long strips from off the ribs, like the planks from 
a ship’s side. Beneath them appears a deep layer of fat, known to the epicures in the colony by the appellation of zeekoe spec, 
(sea-cow's pork) and esteemed so great a rarity, that to obtain it, the utmost influence is exerted with the traders and border 
colonists. As this delicacy would at once be turned into oil by exposure to the sun, it can only be preseryed by salting ; 
for which purpose a vat having been formed of the immoderately thick hide, the choicest morsels are laid in pickle ; a number 
of self-invited guests, by whom the death of such a beast is esteemed the greatest of jubilees, then proceeding to help themselves 
liberally from the mowntain of fat and lean. Like a flesh market, banks and bushes are presently garnished with flaps and fids of 
meat, nor is anything to be seen, but hacking, carving, slicing, and gnawing—whole hordes of indigent and starving wan- 
derers removing their domicile to the shambles, in order to admit of their feasting more entirely at leisure, Resembling the finest 
pork in flavour, the flesh is so surpassingly delicious, that none who have once partaken of a steak, can fail to unite with 
Burchell in recommending the English lovers of good eating not to rest, until they shall have caused “fine lively Hippopotami” 
to be an artiele of regular importation. 
Our wild camp on the Molopo was one dark night thrown into the greatest consternation by an obtrusive visit from a 
River-Horse, whose heavy footsteps caused the vigilant Coeur de Lion to scramble up to the top of the baggage waggon, and 
there scream for assistance; whereupon, each Hottentot, springing from his slumbers, imstantly discharged his loaded piece in 
any direction that the muzzle might happen to have assumed! Im the course of one afternoon, five goodly carcases were 
hauled out of a small pool near the source of the osier-fringed Limpopo, to be stripped of their tough panoply; and had we 
not been weary of the occupation, the list of casualties might have been doubled without difficulty. So abundant was the 
species in the Likwa, that when we reached its banks on our return from the Cashan mountains, more than forty of the 
amphibious monsters, like demons of the river, protruded their waggish countenances at the same moment, blowing aloft a 
tremendous spout of muddy water, as if in honour of our arrival. Well might the savage loneliness of that spot have consti- 
