Page:A voyage to Abyssinia (Salt).djvu/284

 though either side of its bed bore evident marks of the tremendous torrents which pour down in the rainy season. At this point the river divides the two districts of Avergale and Samen; so that the moment we had passed over, we might be considered as having entered the latter province.

Having soon found a place adapted to the purpose we had in view, we stationed ourselves on a high overhanging rock, which commanded the depth I have before mentioned, and had not long remained in this spot before we discovered an hippopotamus, not more than twenty yards distant, rising to the surface. At first it came up very confidently, raising its enormous head out of the water, and snorting violently in a manner somewhat resembling the noise made by a porpus. At this instant three of us discharged our guns, the contents of which appeared to strike on its forehead; when it turned its head round with an angry scowl, made a sudden plunge, and sunk down to the bottom, uttering a kind of noise between a grunt and a roar. We for some minutes entertained very sanguine hopes, that we had either killed or seriously wounded the animal, and momentarily expected to see the body float on the surface; but we soon discovered, that an hippopotamus is not so easily killed; for, shortly afterwards, it again rose up close to the same spot, with somewhat more caution than before, but apparently not much concerned at what had happened. Again we discharged our pieces, but with as little effect as at the first shot; and, though some of the party continued on their posts constantly firing at every hippopotamus that made its appearance, yet I am not sure that we made the slightest impression upon a single one of them. This can only be attributed to our having used leaden balls, which are too soft to enter the impenetrable skulls of these creatures, as we repeatedly observed the balls strike against their heads. Towards the latter part of the day, however, they began to come up with extreme wariness, merely thrusting their nostrils out of the stream, breathing hard, and spouting up the water like a fountain.

It appears from what we witnessed, that the hippopotamus cannot remain more than five or six minutes at a