While Engaged On This Hunt I Felt The Earth Quiver Under My Feet,
And Heard A Soft Big Soughing Sound, And Looking Round Saw I Had
Dropped In On A Hippo Banquet.
I made out five of the immense
brutes round me, so I softly returned to the canoe and shoved off,
stealing along the bank, paddling under water, until I deemed it
safe to run out across the lake for my island.
I reached the other
end of it to that on which the village is situated; and finding a
miniature rocky bay with a soft patch of sand and no hippo grass,
the incidents of the Fan hut suggested the advisability of a bath.
Moreover, there was no china collection in that hut, and it would be
a long time before I got another chance, so I go ashore again, and,
carefully investigating the neighbourhood to make certain there was
no human habitation near, I then indulged in a wash in peace.
Drying one's self on one's cummerbund is not pure joy, but it can be
done when you put your mind to it. While I was finishing my toilet
I saw a strange thing happen. Down through the forest on the lake
bank opposite came a violet ball the size of a small orange. When
it reached the sand beach it hovered along it to and fro close to
the ground. In a few minutes another ball of similarly coloured
light came towards it from behind one of the islets, and the two
waver to and fro over the beach, sometimes circling round each
other. I made off towards them in the canoe, thinking - as I still
do - they were some brand new kind of luminous insect. When I got on
to their beach one of them went off into the bushes and the other
away over the water. I followed in the canoe, for the water here is
very deep, and, when I almost thought I had got it, it went down
into the water and I could see it glowing as it sunk until it
vanished in the depths. I made my way back hastily, fearing my
absence with the canoe might give rise, if discovered, to trouble,
and by 3.30 I was back in the hut safe, but not so comfortable as I
had been on the lake. A little before five my men are stirring and
I get my tea. I do not state my escapade to them, but ask what
those lights were. "Akom," said the Fan, and pointing to the shore
of the lake where I had been during the night they said, "they came
there, it was an 'Aku'" - or devil bush. More than ever did I regret
not having secured one of those sort of two phenomena. What a joy a
real devil, appropriately put up in raw alcohol, would have been to
my scientific friends!
Wednesday, July 24th. - We get away about 5.30, the Fans coming in a
separate canoe.
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