Sixty yards from the stern of the _Deliverance_ was the basin I had
discovered; at an equal distance from her bow, a stream plunged into
the river. Anfossi argued the hippos would prefer to drink the clear
water of the stream, to the muddy water of the basin, and elected to
watch at the stream. I carried a deck chair to the edge of my basin
and placed it in the shadow of the trees. Anfossi went into our
cabin for his rifle. At that exact moment a hippopotamus climbed
leisurely out of the river and plunged into the stream. One of the
soldiers on shore saw him and rushed for the boat. Anfossi sent my
boy on the jump for me and, like a gentleman, waited until I had
raced the sixty yards. But when we reached the stream there was
nothing visible but the trampled grass and great holes in the mud
and near us in the misty moonlight river something that puffed and
blew slowly and luxuriously, as would any fat gentleman who had been
forced to run for it. Had I followed Anfossi's judgment and gone
along the bank sixty yards ahead, instead of sixty yards astern of
the _Deliverance_, at the exact moment at which I sank into my deck
chair, the hippo would have emerged at my feet. It is even betting
as to which of us would have been the more scared.
The next day, and for days after, we saw nothing but hippos. We saw
them floating singly and in family groups, with generally four or
five cows to one bull, and sometimes in front a baby hippo no larger
than a calf, which the mother with her great bulk would push against
the swift current, as you see a tugboat in the lee of a great liner.
Pages:
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102