The spots at which to aim in order to penetrate the brain are various, and depend entirely on the position of the beast’s head when fired at. If it should be facing the sportsman, he should aim between the eyes or at the eye; if broadside on, in a line between the eye and the ear; if diagonally towards him, at the eye; if diagonally away from him, behind the ear; and if straight away from him, at the base of the big lump of flesh that shows up at the back of the head between the ears. Either an accurate Martini or a .450 Express with a solid bullet is a first-rate weapon for this sport. When killed, hippos always sink, and the time that elapses before they rise may vary considerably from one to as much as six hours, depending both on the temperature and depth of the water and also on the condition of the animal. Hippos, when shot in the head and not killed outright, often behave in an extraordinary way. They will rear up out of the water, fall backwards, and float, belly upwards, on the surface, lashing out with their short stumpy legs, or rolling over and over, churning up the water in a marvellous manner, and will drown through being unable to raise their heads, in this stunned condition, above water. Their movements are, however, so rapid that it is seldom they offer a chance for a shot at the head, though they often expose the greater part of the body. The sportsman should therefore always have a heavy rifle with him to enable him to dispatch them with a shot through the lungs, as the beasts, being only stunned by the bullet passing close to the brain, will often recover sufficiently to enable them to escape for the time, though they will probably die in the end. I have only once had a wounded hippo attempt to get out of the water at me, but as I was on the river bank, a foot or two above it, it never had a chance, and dropped dead to a shot between the eyes. My friend Mr. Gedge was once charged in a most determined manner by a wounded cow. As it was only stunned by the first shot, and went floundering and plunging down stream, he ran along the bank, a little below the beast, and got on to a rock, in order to have a better shot with his 8-bore as it passed him. It, however, recovered itself before it got to him, and seeing him so close to the water’s edge, came straight at him, but he dropped it dead with a bullet in the head when within a few feet of him. The only case I know of a man being killed by a hippo was at Mumia’s, in Kavirondo. This man was an envoy, sent by Mwanga of Uganda to meet us, and he was so severely hurt that he died next day. He had gone out with other men, one of whom managed to wound a hippo, and, as it kicked and plunged about, he waded out into the water waist deep, when, having recovered, it charged him with open mouth, catching him by the face in its jaws, and crushing it to such a frightful extent that he was quite unrecognisable.