down to the bone on his temple, and the other for two gaping holes on the top of his skull, we hurried on, fearing the Dinkas might return _en masse_. But they contented themselves with watching us, and when I dropped the topmost man of a bunch of five on an ant-hill at six hundred yards, they only made further observations at a distance of a mile. The news spread like wildfire, for, several miles further on, when passing within half a mile of a village, a band of ten old men came towards me, waving their arms in the air to show that they were unarmed. I went to meet them, and when quite close they started the old singing business, so I hurried off, after treating them to several arâms with an attempted pacific intonation. They then sent milk after me, but I waved them off, thinking it advisable to try by forced marches to break the line of communication. Shortly afterwards, crossing a swamp on a dangerous bridge of weed burnt to the water level, I saw a specimen of _Balæniceps rex_ standing quite close to me. I was on the point of firing, when a hippo put his head through the bridge at about ten yards, and regretfully I had to shoot him instead for his beef. Half a dozen Dinkas appeared, and, after making a great pacific demonstration, approached and helped to finish him off. He took several shots, and each time I fired they ran to a distance of at least two hundred yards, so they had evidently heard of the morning’s proceedings. After cutting off some meat we continued our march, and it was not till 4 p.m. that I found another place where it was possible to camp, having buried most of my beads on the road to further lighten the loads. For the same purpose, in the evening I made a distribution of cloth and burnt a quantity, together with all my boys’ rags. [Illustration: THERE WERE NUMBERS OF DINKAS FISHING HERE.]