ous huge creatures that were lying so near him.

It says much for Tom's powers of wood-craft that he managed to advance
as near as he did to these animals without disturbing them. Few hunters
could have done it; but it must be remembered that our hero, like all
other heroes, was a man of unusual and astonishing parts!

While he hesitated for a few moments, undecided whether to fire at the
crocodiles or the hippopotami, one of the latter suddenly uttered a
prolonged snort or snore, and opened a mouth of such awful dimensions
that Tom's head and shoulders would have easily found room in it. As he
gazed into the dark red throat he felt that the wild fictions of
untravelled men fell far short of the facts of actual life, in regard to
grandeur and horribility, and it struck him that if the front half of a
hippopotamus were sewed to the rear half of a crocodile there would be
produced a monster incomparably more grand and horrible than the
fiercest dragon St. George ever slew! While these ideas were passing
quickly through his excited brain, the boat, which he had totally
forgotten, came quietly round the bend of the river above him. But the
sharp-eared and quick-eyed denizens of the wilderness were on the alert;
it had scarcely shown its prow round the point of land, and the
hippopotamus had not quite completed its lazy yawn, when the entire
winged host rose with a rushing noise so thunderous, yet so soft and
peculiar, that words cannot convey the idea of the sight and sound. At
the same time, many grunts and snorts and heavy plunges told that sundry
amphibious creatures had been disturbed, and were seeking safety in the
clear stream.

Tom hesitated no longer. He aimed at the yawning hippopotamus and
fired, hitting it on the skull, but at such an angle that the ball
glanced off. If there was noise before, the riot and confusion now was
indescribable! Water-fowl that had not moved at the first alarm now
sprang in myriads from reeds and sedges, and darkened the very air. The
two alligators just under Tom's nose spun their tails in the air with a
whirl of awful energy that seemed quite incompatible with their sluggish
nature, and rushed into the river. The hippopotami dived with a splash
that covered the water around them with foam, and sent a wave of
considerable size to the shore. The sudden burst of excitement, noise,
splutter, and confusion was not less impressive than the previous calm
had been, but Tom had no