Suddenly, as though we had just awakened him, he turned round and bolted into a dense mass of thorns, about thirty paces before us.
In the mean time, the troops at the vessels, that were within about 300 paces, having heard the rapid and continued firing, supposed that I had been attacked by the natives. The "Forty Thieves" rushed to the rescue. I heard the bugle, and presently the voices of the men as they approached, running through the bush at full speed. The hippopotamus had moved from his thorny retreat, and was walking slowly forward, when he was stumbled against by "The Forty," some of whom literally ran against him.
The animal appeared quite stunned and stupid, and he merely stood and stared at his new assailants. The sight was perfectly ridiculous. Every rifle was fired into him; but the hollow bullets of the sniders had no penetration, and we might as well have peppered the stone bulls of Nineveh, in the British Museum. At length, after having been the centre of a blaze of fireworks, as every man did his best to kill him during the space of about a minute, he coolly approached the edge of the cliff, which was quite perpendicular and about eighteen feet high.
A tremendous splash was the end of the encounter, as the hippo committed himself to the deep, with a clumsy jump from the midst of the disappointed soldiers.
I was constantly annoyed by the want of penetration of the Boxer hollow bullets. The "Dutchman" carried three drachms of No. 6-grain powder, which should have driven a solid bullet through a large antelope; but the hollow Boxer projectile invariably disappeared in small fragments upon striking a bone; or it expanded, and had no further penetrating power after striking a thick hide.
The sniders, although admirable military weapons, possessed a very small power of penetration. I have frequently seen the bodies of natives with only one bullet-mark; and I have extracted bullets that ought to have passed completely through.
My "Forty Thieves" were now proud of themselves as experienced in various sports, and they were terribly disgusted at the escape of the hippopotamus. They were never idle for a single day. If no other work was on hand, I practised them at the target, or they were treated to a few hours' drill.
Sometimes I took them fishing: this was always a great amusement, as the expedition was well furnished with nets.
There was a small lake near my station that abounded in fish. One of my sailors belonging to the diahbeeah was a professional fisherman, descended from a race of this calling. I had therefore intrusted him with the charge of the nets. All the sailors of the diahbeeah were good men, but the fisherman, Howarti, was the best of the picked crew. He was a Nubian, born in Khartoum, and of an exceedingly light colour. His style of beauty was rather spoiled by the loss of one eye, and altogether his personal appearance was not attractive; but he was very strong, although a small man, and in any case of emergency he was the most active and intelligent sailor. Howarti was always the first man to leap overboard with the tow rope, when it became necessary to drag the vessel against wind and stream: he was, like all Nubians, an admirable swimmer.
Our comfort had depended much upon this man throughout the expedition, as he was the only person who could properly throw a casting-net. Thus he had always supplied us with excellent fish. I often admired his perseverance, when, after twenty or thirty barren casts, he rested for a while, cleaned his net, and waded, in spite of crocodiles, to seek a more likely spot to catch fish for breakfast, at a time when this meal would depend entirely upon his success. At such times I frequently advised him as a good Mohammedan to say "Bismillah" (in the name of God) before he threw the net. On the first occasion, before I gave him this advice, he had had extremely bad luck, and he told me that "something was wrong with the fish;" as he had thrown his net for an hour without catching anything, except a few uneatable spike-fish.