Nobody disturbs hippos, save for trophies and an occasional
supply of meat for the men or of cooking fat for the kitchen.
Therefore they wax fat and sassy, and will long continue to
flourish in the land.
It takes time to kill a hippo, provided one is wanted. The mark
is small, and generally it is impossible to tell whether or not
the bullet has reached the brain. Harmed or whole the beast sinks
anyway. Some hours later the distention of the stomach will float
the body. Therefore the only decent way to do is to take the
shot, and then wait a half day to see whether or not you have
missed. There are always plenty of volunteers in camp to watch
the pool, for the boys are extravagantly fond of hippo meat. Then
it is necessary to manoeuvre a rope on the carcass, often a
matter of great difficulty, for the other hippos bellow and snort
and try to live up to the circus posters of the Blood-sweating
Behemoth of Holy Writ, and the crocodiles like dark meat very
much. Usually one offers especial reward to volunteers, and
shoots into the water to frighten the beasts. The volunteer
dashes rapidly across the shallows, makes a swift plunge, and
clambers out on the floating body as onto a raft.
Then he makes fast the rope, and everybody tails on and tows the
whole outfit ashore. On one occasion the volunteer produced a
fish line and actually caught a small fish from the floating
carcass! This sounds like a good one; but I saw it with my own
two eyes.
It was at the hippo pool camp that we first became acquainted
with Funny Face.
Funny Face was the smallest, furriest little monkey you ever saw.
I never cared for monkeys before; but this one was altogether
engaging. He had thick soft fur almost like that on a Persian
cat, and a tiny human black face, and hands that emerged from a
ruff; and he was about as big as old-fashioned dolls used to be
before they began to try to imitate real babies with them. That
is to say, he was that big when we said farewell to him. When we
first knew him, had he stood in a half pint measure he could just
have seen over the rim. We caught him in a little thorn ravine
all by himself, a fact that perhaps indicates that his mother had
been killed, or perhaps that he, like a good little Funny Face,
was merely staying where he was told while she was away. At any
rate he fought savagely, according to his small powers. We took
him ignominiously by the scruff of the neck, haled him to camp,
and dumped him down on Billy.
