They Rolled It Over And Over Towards
The Land, And, Finding The Rope We Had Made Fast To It, As They Said,
An Encumbrance, It Was Unloosed.
All were shouting and talking as
loud as they could bawl, when suddenly our expected feast plumped
into a deep hole, as the Banyai intended it should do.
When sinking,
all the Makololo jumped in after it. One caught frantically at the
tail; another grasped a foot; a third seized the hip; "but, by
Sebituane, it would go down in spite of all that we could do."
Instead of a fat hippopotamus we had only a lean fowl for dinner, and
were glad enough to get even that. The hippopotamus, however,
floated during the night, and was found about a mile below. The
Banyai then assembled on the bank, and disputed our right to the
beast: "It might have been shot by somebody else." Our men took a
little of it and then left it, rather than come into collision with
them.
A fine waterbuck was shot in the Kakolole narrows, at Mount
Manyerere; it dropped beside the creek where it was feeding; an
enormous crocodile, that had been watching it at the moment, seized
and dragged it into the water, which was not very deep. The mortally
wounded animal made a desperate plunge, and hauling the crocodile
several yards tore itself out of the hideous jaws. To escape the
hunter, the waterbuck jumped into the river, and was swimming across,
when another crocodile gave chase, but a ball soon sent it to the
bottom.
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