BEHEMOTH EMERGES 61 vestigate. So a shady bush was sought and an hour passed, while the sun mounted higher and higher. I fell to watching the multitude of birds arriving on fresh-burnt ground on the far side. The gravely deliberate marabout stork, with swallow-tail coat and bald head, seriously regarded the ground, as if with an interest scientific rather than predatory. Kites hovered incessantly over the flames, which crackled viciously in our ears, and dashed carelessly through the smoke on to some scorched mouse. Crows and cranes joined gaily in the sport, and the air was full of the burnt fragments of black ash.

In the midst of my lazy reverie, a breathing, bubbling sound burst oddly on my hearing, the water stirred, and a huge, black head rose from the depths of the pool beneath ; cumbrously it turned and opened its jaws in a vast, phlegmatic yawn.

Others became visible around it, and the hippo herd we had almost mourned as absent was before our eyes.

It is poor sport to shoot the beasts in water from the bank thus, and can only be justified by the desire for a specimen head, by their ravages in native crops, or by imperative need of meat for natives.

Certainly an old bull is no mean antagonist ; he will charge determinedly if he sees the opportunity, and is a desperate enemy to the small boats or canoes which may designedly or otherwise approach too near. But civilization is against him ; the heavy rifle has robbed him of his chances, and he is dis-