The north-west wind is against us; we go therefore over N. easterly to N.E. These windings depend principally on how we sail round the islands. The main direction of the stream is, and remains from the present, N., with slight deviations to E. and W. The shores encompassing the long island-sound, are generally invisible; an accurate map, therefore, could be only drawn up by a longer stay here. In the afternoon we halt for a moment at the right shore, and near the large island of Aba, and hear from the Hassaniës and people of El Aes that a large hippopotamus had been struck by three harpoons close at hand. We navigate, therefore, to the left, at the island of El Gamùss, which has its name partly from the number of Nile buffaloes taking up their abode in their neighbourhood; and we see, at its head, the mighty snorting beast half out of water; but he soon, however, drew back, and swam into the Nile arm, between the island and the left shore. The sàndal was towed near him, and after the sürtuk had twice upset, yet without confounding the experienced swimmers, and the beast had tried in vain to escape, it occurred to our men, as the hippopotamus was obliged from want of breath to come up constantly to the surface, to fasten the towing-rope to the three harpoon, and thus to drag him ashore like a vessel. Before, however, they got so far, the beast collected his last strength, and shortly before arriving at the shore, sprung up with such force that several of the heroes jumped back. I thought that I should see a national hunt, and the hippopotamus killed with the spear; but the Turks did not wait for him to gain _terra firma_, but shot at him where he was, half out of water, and certainly, had he landed, he might have trod several men under his feet, and torn them with his respectable tusks. Nine shots were fired one after the other, Suliman Kashef’s was the last, and it hit the animal behind the ear: the blood spouted up, and the monster fell, slain by man’s art, not by his courage. We had him dragged by the tow-rope of the sàndal to our landing-place, and I then found that the balls had pierced his neck and back, which might well happen, when we consider that the distance was only fifteen paces and that the beast had a fat hide, with no other shield than the yielding rumples, extending crossways over the back. The inside of the holes perforated by the bullets, felt like the body of a fat hog. The monster might be even compared in his clumsy form to a small elephant, and both correspond just as little as the crocodile, to our usual ideas of beauty in animals, which are generally reduced to the standard of the noble horse. The skin of the hippopotamus displays a dirty pink hue, from the back to the belly, and the dark green of the upper part of the body runs into this other colour. The skin, in drying, changes to a dark grey.