Next day was Sunday but we went on. The African traveller, must sometimes find a difficulty in deciding how to act on the Lord’s day. With regard to the Jewish Sabbath the doubts would be fewer perhaps. Now we were far from any human dwelling, and to remain for a single day on the banks of the Elephant marsh with the thermometer above 100° would be to invite an attack of fever. We _might_ be none the worse, it is true, just as the ox that falls into the pit might sometimes be none the worse of being left in the pit till Monday morning. Hence although we claimed a fair share of the Scottish idea as to the strict observance of the Sabbath day, it seemed to dawn upon us without the severe sanctity that surrounds it in our native land. As we were quietly moving along, one of our natives startled us by firing his gun; and very soon it became my turn to break the sacred stillness of the day by following his example. At this spot the Chiri is full of islands. We took one side of an island while the canoe that accompanied us took the other, and had not proceeded far, before it had the misfortune to disturb some hippopotami. To clear a passage one of the canoe men fired upon them. Just at this moment we came down the other channel to find the huge beasts rounding the corner in their retreat. After the shot they had kept under the water so that we hardly thought of them. I was standing at the bow of the boat looking back on the beautiful hills we were leaving, when all of a sudden we received a shock which made us feel as if our little craft were going from under us. A hippopotamus had struck it and not satisfied with that, it seemed determined to come on board. One of our rowers received a severe wound from its tusks whereupon all the men at that side rushed over to the other with a violence which threatened to upset us. Again and again the enraged animal charged, till, finding my gun I fired upon it, when it ultimately withdrew after making two deep dents on the steel side of the boat, and leaving the point of one of its tusks beside me. The men were all much excited, but they were thankful that we were in deep water else, they said, the hippopotamus would have undoubtedly come in. They told us that one of the Mazaro men that had come up with us three years ago had been “cut in two and devoured by a hippopotamus”. “But,” I remarked, “the hippopotamus does not eat flesh!” “Oh yes,” said one, “it will devour a man very fast.” “But then,” replied another, “it has always its companion the crocodile (ngwena) with it.” That day we were beset with hippopotami at every other turning. In some herds we counted over 20. They detained us a long time; we had expected to sleep at the Ruo, but sunset found us considerably short of this, so that we had to spend another night in the Elephant Marsh. [Illustration: A VILLAGE OF THE ANYASA ON THE LOWER CHIRI.]