Travels Of Richard And John Lander Into The Interior Of Africa For The Discovery Of The Course And Termination Of The Niger By Robert Huish
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They paddled along the banks at a distance of not less than thirty
miles, every inch of which they had attentively examined, but not a
bit of dry land could anywhere be discovered, which was firm enough
to bear their weight.
Therefore, they resigned themselves to
circumstances, and all of them having been refreshed with a little
cold rice and honey, and water from the stream, they permitted the
canoe to drive down with the current, for their men were too much
fatigued with the labours of the day to work any longer. But here a
fresh evil arose, which they were unprepared to meet. An incredible
number of hippopotami arose very near them, and came plashing and
snorting and plunging all round the canoe, and placed them in
imminent danger. Thinking to frighten them off, they fired a shot or
two at them, but the noise only called up from the water, and out of
the fens, about as many more of their unwieldy companions, and they
were more closely beset than before. Their people, who had never in
all their lives been exposed in a canoe to such huge and formidable
beasts, trembled with fear and apprehension, and absolutely wept
aloud; their terror was not a little increased by the dreadful peals
of thunder, which rattled over their heads, and by the awful darkness
which prevailed, broken at intervals by flashes of lightning, whose
powerful glare was truly awful.
However, the hippopotami did them no kind of mischief whatever; no
doubt at first when they interrupted them, they were only sporting
and wallowing in the river for their own amusement, but had they
upset the canoe, the travellers would have paid dearly for it.
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