HIPPO AT KODOK 189 tense and indescribable. Still, in for a penny in for a pound, and it seemed foolish to turn back.

Pushing, climbing, and struggling, falling often with one leg in a hippo's footprint, I burst my way into the centre where hippos wandered at night at their feed, and gave vent to the strange, grunting bellow which reached through the darkness to one's bed on the shore. To be charged in the midst of the tangle would be far too exciting for actual pleasure.

A peep on the shore showed that the unavoidable rusthng of grass had done its expected work presumably, a self-respecting hippo would not go ashore here at midday ; they had smelt danger, and had moved from the shallows where they would have afforded a most easy shot. One fronted me halfway over the river, his nostrils and ears above water. He sank dead as a doornail, and the river soon carried him north to be food for expectant Shilluks. Every black head disappeared at the shot, and full half an hour was spent on the grill before a second opportunity occurred. This time the bullet crashed through the skull, the impact causing a noise which sounded to listeners downwind almost like that of a second report. The strange habit of the hippo, unlike any other animal I know of, is to dive backward. Time after time, while waiting and watching, I was reminded that two can play at that game, for often the upper surface of a long, scaly body in mid-stream could be seen taking stock of position and reckoning chances.