guns opened fire wildly upon the mass; it was like a battle
and through the smoke I caught sight of the riverside natives who were
acting as beaters, advancing far away, fantastically dressed, screaming
with excitement and waving spears, or sometimes torches of flaming
reeds. Most of these were scrambling along the banks, but some of
the bolder spirits advanced over the lagoon in canoes, driving the
hippopotami towards the mouth of the channel by which alone they could
escape into the great swamps below and so on to the river. In all my
hunting experience I do not think I ever saw a more remarkable scene.
Still, in a way, to me it was unpleasant, for I flatter myself that I am
a sportsman and a battle of this sort is not sport as I understand the
term.

At length it came to this; the channel for quite a long way was
literally full of hippopotami--I should think there must have been a
hundred of them or more of all sorts and sizes, from great bulls down to
little calves. Some of these were killed, not many, for the shooting of
our gallant company was execrable and almost at hazard. Also for every
sea-cow that died, of which number I think that Captain Robertson and
myself accounted for most--many were only wounded.

Still, the unhappy beasts, crazed with noise and fire and blood, did not
seem to dare to face our frail barricade, probably for the reason that
I have given. For a while they remained massed together in the water, or
under it, making a most horrible noise. Then of a sudden they seemed to
take a resolution. A few of them broke back towards the burning reeds,
the screaming beaters and the advancing canoes. One of these, indeed,
a wounded bull, charged a canoe, crushed it in its huge jaws and killed
the rower, how exactly I do not know, for his body was never found. The
majority of them, however, took another counsel, for emerging from the
water on either side, they began to scramble towards us along the steep
banks, or even to climb up them with surprising agility. It was at this
point in the proceedings that I congratulated myself earnestly upon
the solid character of the water-worn rock which I had selected as a
shelter.

Behind this rock together with my gun-bearer and Umslopogaas, who, as
he did not shoot, had elected to be my companion, I crouched and banged
away at the unwieldy creatures as they advanced. But fire fast as I
might with two rifles, I could not stop the half of them--they were
drawing un