Page:In brightest Africa.djvu/138

 One of those whose "huge ungainliness is like that of a shape in a nightmare" is the hippopotamus. The small dugout in which the native makes his way up and down the Tana River is just a nice mouthful for him. He can splinter one between his great jaws in no time if he is sufficiently stirred up, but fortunately for the natives he is not easily enraged. He is more or less like the rhinoceros except that, while he is equally stupid, he rarely gets mad and so is not often dangerous.

Along the Tana River in 1906 the hippos were still very abundant, and I presume that a hunter passing along that stream to-day might shoot all he could possibly want. Although I saw probably only a small proportion of all I actually passed, I counted more than two hundred in a ten-mile march along the Tana. Sheltered by the rather high and precipitous banks of the river, the hippopotami if undisturbed bask quietly on the sand-bars during the day. If one is disturbed, he takes to the water, leaving exposed only the top of his head, his eyes, and nostrils, so that if he remains motionless one usually has to spend some time to determine whether the object protruding from the water is a hippo's head or a slate-coloured rock. If really frightened, he submerges entirely, exposing only his nostrils and those just long enough to blow and take in a fresh supply of air. Then down he goes, not to appear again for several minutes, frequently in quite a different place.

Cuninghame and I had a good opportunity to test