IN THE MIDST OF THE VELT IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF THE GREAT NATRON LAKE I FOUND A SOLITARY OLD ACACIA. THE DISTRICT WAS NEARLY WATERLESS. THE TRUNK OF THE TREE SHOWED THE MARKS OF ELEPHANTS THAT HAD RUBBED THEMSELVES AGAINST IT.] [Illustration: _C. G. Schillings, phot._ A TYPICAL LANDSCAPE WITH ACACIAS AND SCATTERED BOULDERS--THE CAMPING PLACE OF MARAGO-KANGA NOT FAR FROM THE EASTERN ‘NJIRI SWAMPS. NEAR THIS CAMPING PLACE MY PEOPLE SHOWED ME THE ALMOST UNRECOGNISABLE GRAVE OF AN ENGLISH HUNTER WHO HAD BEEN KILLED BY A BUFFALO. I HAD IT PUT IN ORDER, AND MY ASKARI (ARMED FOLLOWERS) FIRED A VOLLEY OVER IT.] I remember with pleasure a certain gathering of hippopotami in one of the lakes that lie hidden away between Kilimanjaro and Mount Meru, and which were discovered some years ago by Captain Merker. When I saw them there were still living in them some hundreds of hippopotami, and it was easy to watch their doings in the water. Gathered in herds they played about in the water under the bright sunlight, showing little sign of timidity. Especially the young ones, that were still going about with their mothers, had so little fear that I sometimes saw them rising almost completely out of the water. They were also sometimes to be seen resting in the sunshine on the sandbanks by the lake margin. Some of these lakes were of such small extent that the animals had to come up to breathe at a distance of at most only some twenty yards from the observer. But all the same they were generally inhabited by quite a number of hippopotami. It was then a great pleasure to watch these beasts for hours at a time, from the lofty look-out place provided by the surrounding heights that rose steeply from the edge of the lake. They kept up good fellowship with the crowds of water and marsh fowl that give life to these lakes. All these animals displayed themselves to the spectator at as close quarters and as plainly as in a zoological garden. The rosy red pelicans fishing in flocks of hundreds at a time presented the most charming contrast to the uncouth quadrupeds. Even now in fancy these lakes come before my sight, lakes that lie far from all human ways and doings in a silent solitude. Dark clouds float over it. The proximity of the massive and dark Mount Meru often causes a cloudy veil to hang over that volcanic plateau with its crater lakes. Again I climb the steep cliffs that ring them round, and again my gaze sweeps over the level surface of the water. But though there has been no decrease in the numbers of the waterfowl that enliven the lakes, the hippopotami have, alas! disappeared. I found on the occasion of my last journey a small number still there, but I hear from Professor Sjöstedt,[34] the Swedish naturalist, who lately visited these lakes, that the hippopotami, who had made the lakes their home since dim far-off times, have almost disappeared. The Boers[35] have killed everything.