We Were Close To The Reeds, And Could Listen To The Strange Sounds
Which Are Often Heard There.
By day I had seen water-snakes
putting up their heads and swimming about.
There were great
numbers of otters (`Lutra inunguis', F. Cuvier), which have made
little spoors all over the plains in search of the fishes,
among the tall grass of these flooded prairies; curious birds, too,
jerked and wriggled among these reedy masses, and we heard
human-like voices and unearthly sounds, with splash, guggle, jupp,
as if rare fun were going on in their uncouth haunts. At one time something
came near us, making a splashing like that of a canoe or hippopotamus;
thinking it to be the Makololo, we got up, listened, and shouted;
then discharged a gun several times; but the noise continued
without intermission for an hour. After a damp, cold night we set to,
early in the morning, at our work of exploring again, but left the pontoon
in order to lighten our labor. The ant-hills are here very high,
some thirty feet, and of a base so broad that trees grow on them;
while the lands, annually flooded, bear nothing but grass.
From one of these ant-hills we discovered an inlet to the Chobe;
and, having gone back for the pontoon, we launched ourselves on a deep river,
here from eighty to one hundred yards wide. I gave my companion
strict injunctions to stick by the pontoon in case a hippopotamus
should look at us; nor was this caution unnecessary,
for one came up at our side and made a desperate plunge off.
We had passed over him.
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