The
crack of the ball and the absence of any splash from the bullet
told me that he was hit; the ambatch float remained perfectly
stationary upon the surface. I watched it for some minutes--it
never moved; several heads of hippopotami appeared and vanished
in different directions, but the float was still; it marked the
spot where the grand old bull lay dead beneath.
I shot another hippo, that I thought must be likewise dead; and,
taking the time by my watch, I retired to the shade of a tree
with Hassan, while Hadji Ali and the old hunter returned to camp
for assistance in men and knives, &c.
In a little more than an hour and a half, two objects like the
backs of turtles appeared above the surface: these were the
flanks of the two hippos. A short time afterwards the men
arrived, and, regardless of crocodiles, they swam towards the
bodies. One was towed directly to the shore by the rope attached
to the harpoon, the other was secured by a long line, and dragged
to the bank of clean pebbles.
I measured the bull that was harpooned; it was fourteen feet two
inches from the upper lip to the extremity of the tail; the head
was three feet one inch from the front of the ear to the edge of
the lip in a straight line.
