Landing Trails Had Been Made Leading Out From The
Water By Easy And Regular Grades.
These trails were about two
feet wide and worn a foot or so deep.
They differed from the
rhino trails, from which they could be easily distinguished, in
that they showed distinctly two parallel tracks separated from
each other by a slight ridge. In other words, the hippo waddles.
These trails we found as far as four and five miles inland. They
were used, of course, only at night; and led invariably to lush
and heavy feed. While we were encamped there, the country on our
side the river was not used by our particular herd of hippos. One
night, however, we were awakened by a tremendous rending crash of
breaking bushes, followed by an instant's silence and then the
outbreak of a babel of voices. Then we heard a prolonged
sw-i-sh-sh-sh, exactly like the launching of a big boat. A hippo
had blundered out the wrong side the river, and fairly into our
camp.
In rivers such as the Tana these great beasts are most
extraordinarily abundant. Directly in front of our camp, for
example, were three separate herds which contained respectively
about sixty, forty, and twenty-five head. Within two miles below
camp were three other big pools each with its population; while a
walk of a mile above showed about as many more. This sort of
thing obtained for practically the whole length of the
river-hundreds of miles.
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