64 SPORT BY THE RIVER the Dinder ; willing hands helped to pull the lassoed hippo ashore, and towed him a mile along the steep, shelving bank, and across the far end of the pool, to our camp.

Up the bank we, on the other hand, returned for the purpose of diving through the long grass we had passed through, and to search the country for other game. But the sight that met the eye was surprising. In the interval the whole landscape had undergone an almost theatrical " quick change."

For hundreds of acres, save for a belt through which we had passed when coming, in place of the rank, hay-coloured grass half smothering the stunted trees, the ground was bare and black, smouldering and smoking, little clouds rising from still live patches of fire. At the sides and extremities of the area, still extending to the riverbank, the vermilion flames leapt 30 feet into the air, running up the trees and devouring the dry creeping plants which enswathed them. For the time we were cut off from retreat, and nothing remained but to wait, sheltering from the heat, and to spend the time watching other hippos carefully rise to take stock of us, and the birds wheeling excitedly through the smoke cloud.

At one spot the flames died down for the moment ; in another instant they might burst out again and rage at their fiercest. We sprang over the line of fire into the opening of a game track, and, with Gehenna now at our heels, walked smartly through