I was given by my hosts at the lodge a very general warning about the hippos in the dam. I think though, that at the same time the hippos were warned about me; none was spotted during my stay there, and I could even take a thrilling ride with the boat for a short oar there and back in the afternoon. This kid was then the only living creature I saw on the banks of the water in that amazingly-quite place, a forty minutes walk distance from the downtown of Tzaneen, interrupted only by the occasional screams of the monkeys from the tops of the mango trees in the adjacent plantation.