“About half a mile below this spot, as we clambered over the intervening rocks through a gorge which formed a powerful rapid, I observed, in a small pool just below the rapid, an immense head of a hippopotamus close to a perpendicular rock that formed a wall to the river, about six feet above the surface. I pointed out the hippo to old Abou Do, who had not seen it.
“At once the gravity of the old Arab disappeared, and the energy of the hunter was exhibited as he motioned us to remain, while he ran nimbly behind the thick screen of bushes for about a hundred and fifty yards below the spot where the hippo was unconsciously basking, with his ugly head above the surface. Plunging into the rapid torrent, the veteran hunter was carried some distance down the stream, but, breasting the powerful current, he landed upon the rocks on the opposite side, and, retiring to some distance from the river, he quickly advanced toward the spot beneath which the hippopotamus was lying. I had a fine view of the scene, as I was lying concealed exactly opposite the hippo, who had disappeared beneath the water.
“Abou Do now stealthily approached the ledge of rock beneath which he had expected to see the head of the animal; his long, sinewy arm was raised, with the harpoon ready to strike as he carefully advanced. At length he reached the edge of the perpendicular rock, the hippo had vanished, but, far from exhibiting surprise, the old Arab remained standing on the sharp ledge, unchanged in attitude.
“No figure of bronze could have been more rigid than that of the old river-king, as he stood erect upon the rock with the left foot advanced, and the harpoon poised in his ready right hand above his head, while in the left he held the loose coils of rope attached to the ambatch buoy. For about three minutes he stood like a statue, gazing intently into the clear and deep water beneath his feet.
“I watched eagerly for the reappearance of the hippo; the surface of the water was still barren, when suddenly the right arm of the statue descended like lightning, and the harpoon shot perpendicularly into the pool with the speed of an arrow. What river-fiend answered to the summons? In an instant an enormous pair of open jaws appeared, followed by the ungainly head and form of the furious hippopotamus, who, springing half out of the water, lashed the river into foam, and, disdaining the concealment of the deep pool, he charged straight up the violent rapids. (See [engraving No. 1], on the next page.) With extraordinary power he breasted the descending stream; gaining a footing in the rapids, about five feet deep, he ploughed his way against the broken waves, sending them in showers of spray upon all sides, and upon gaining broader shallows he tore along through the water, with the buoyant float hopping behind him along the surface, until he landed from the river, started at full gallop along the dry shingly bed, and at length disappeared in the thorny nabbuk jungle.”
During one of these flights, the hippopotamus took it into his head that the ambatch float was the enemy that was damaging him, and attacked it furiously. Taking advantage of his pre-occupation, two hunters swam across the river, carrying with them a very long and tough rope, and holding one end on each bank and “sweeping,” as the sailors say, they soon caught the float in the centre of the rope and brought it ashore. The hippopotamus then made a charge, and the slackened line was immediately coiled round a rock, while two hunters fixed additional harpoons in the animal; and though he made six charges at his foes, bit one of the ropes asunder, and crushed the lance-shafts between his teeth like straws, the hardy hunters got the better of him, and his death was a mere matter of time.
The hippopotamus is nearly as great a prize as the rhinoceros, as it affords an almost unlimited supply of food, and the hide is extremely valuable, being cut into strips two inches in width, which are used in the manufacture of the koorbash, or hide whip, so universally employed throughout Africa.
In the water, the crocodile is even a more dangerous antagonist than the hippopotamus, and yet the Hamrans attack it with their harpoons, boldly entering the water, and caring no more for crocodiles than for so many frogs.
