In a short time I heard louder splashing. I again got up, and I perceived him about eighty yards distant, walking slowly across the river in the shallows. Having a fair shot at the shoulder, I fired right and left with the No. 8 Reilly rifle, and I distinctly heard the bullets strike. He nevertheless reached the right bank, when he presently turned round and attempted to re-cross the shallow. This gave me a good chance at the shoulder, as his body was entirely exposed. He staggered forward at the shot, and fell dead in the shallow flat of the river.
He was now past recovery. It was very cold: the thermometer was 54 degrees Fahrenheit, and the blankets were very agreeable, as once more all hands turned in to sleep.
On the following morning I made a post-mortem examination. He had received three shots in the flank and shoulder; four in the head, one of which had broken his lower jaw; another through his nose had passed downward and cut off one of his large tusks. I never witnessed such determined and unprovoked fury as was exhibited by this animal—he appeared to be raving mad. His body was a mass of frightful scars, the result of continual conflicts with bulls of his own species; some of these wounds were still unhealed. There was one scar about two feet in length, and about two inches below the level of the surface skin, upon the flank. He was evidently a character of the worst description, but whose madness rendered him callous to all punishment. I can only suppose that the attack upon the vessels was induced by the smell of the raw hippopotamus flesh, which was hung in long strips about the rigging, and with which the zinc boat was filled. The dead hippopotamus that was floating astern lashed to the diahbeeah had not been molested.
We raised the zinc boat, which was fortunately unhurt. The dingy had lost a mouthful, as the hippopotamus had bitten out a portion of the side, including the gunwale of hard wood; he had munched out a piece like the port of a small vessel, which he had accomplished with the same ease as though it had been a slice of toast.
I sent the boat to the English shipwrights for repair, and these capital workmen turned it out in a few days nearly as good as new.
The success of the dam was most complete. The river rose so as to overflow the marshes, which enabled us to push all the vessels up the channel without the necessity of deepening it by spade labour.
"March 14.—Should we succeed in reaching Gondokoro without serious loss, it will be the greatest possible triumph over difficulties, which no one can understand who has not witnessed the necessities of the journey.
"A diahbeeah arrived in the lake, breaking her yard in a sudden shift of wind, and giving a man a fall from aloft, which was fatal.
"The steamer and fleet are coming through the sudd as fast as the troops clear the channel.
"March 15.—The steamer arrived in the lake at 3.30 P.M.