To the African traveller the hippopotamus is a species of game particularly desirable, for its ivory and its hide are both valuable, while the not inconsiderable danger involved in its pursuit provides the delicious emotion without which every kind of hunting is tame and insipid. Moreover, the obligation under which the leader of the expedition lies to feed his servants and carriers adequately makes one of these enormous beasts, twelve feet long or so and disproportionately wide, a perfect godsend. Not only does the hippopotamus furnish a formidable amount of meat, but that meat has the inestimable merit of keeping fresh much longer than any other, principally owing to the fact that flies seem to have an insurmountable horror for it. I must admit that for a long time I thoroughly sympathized with the flies! Alive, the hippopotamus has a very peculiar odour, somewhat resembling musk, which discloses the presence of the animal from afar, when he happens to be to windward of one. In the flesh of the dead animal this odour--or the taste of it, rather--persists, and is much appreciated by the natives, though Europeans take a long time to get accustomed to it; some are never able to support it. Once, when I was in the neighbourhood of the Chari River, my men informed me that a herd of hippopotami were in possession of a series of ponds not far from our camp. I immediately marched in their direction. As we approached the water we heard the trumpeting of the leader of the herd, and almost simultaneously caught sight of him. Erect on a small bank, his formidable mouth widely opened, he was uttering that characteristic neighing sound in which there are notes that remind one both of the lowing of a cow and the roar of a lion. On the surface of the ponds, moving quickly from place to place, were to be seen what appeared to be large balks of some kind of dark wood; these were the muzzles of the remaining members of the herd. I succeeded in getting round the water unobserved to a spot where I was concealed from the animals by a small islet which occupied the middle of the pond. To this island I transported myself by means of a small and primitive canoe, which two of my men had brought on the chance of its being required. By this time the old male had taken to the water again. The whole herd were now vaguely alarmed, for from my place of ambush I could obtain only fleeting glimpses every now and then of a muzzle momentarily showing itself on the surface of the water--just long enough for the animal to take breath--and then disappearing. After waiting some time I grew impatient and began to salute each of these distant apparitions with a shot from my Express rifle. Nothing, however, is so deceptive as to shoot across water, especially when situated, as I then was, facing the sun; and I was not successful in lodging even one bullet in the targets I aimed at.