The Waters
Of The Wet Season When They Rise Drown Off The Grass; But When They
Fall, Up It Comes Again From The Root, And So Gradually The Sandbank
Becomes An Island And Persuades Real Trees And Shrubs To Come And
Grow On It, And Its Future Is Then Secured.
We skirt alongside a great young island of this class; the sword
grass some ten or fifteen feet high.
It has not got any trees on it
yet, but by next season or so it doubtless will have. The grass is
stabbled down into paths by hippos, and just as I have realised who
are the road-makers, they appear in person. One immense fellow,
hearing us, stands up and shows himself about six feet from us in
the grass, gazes calmly, and then yawns a yawn a yard wide and
grunts his news to his companions, some of whom - there is evidently
a large herd - get up and stroll towards us with all the flowing
grace of Pantechnicon vans in motion. We put our helm paddles hard
a starboard and leave that bank.
Our hasty trip across to the bank of the island on the other side
being accomplished, we, in search of seclusion and in the hope that
out of sight would mean out of mind to hippos, shot down a narrow
channel between semi-island sandbanks, and those sandbanks, if you
please, are covered with specimens - as fine a set of specimens as
you could wish for - of the West African crocodile.
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