Year: 1878

The Schaumann-Reiche party took
twenty Homrans with them last sep
tember, and pushed on to the region of
the Atbara the Setith, and the Salam
rivers, tributaries of the Nile. When
ever they met a native they inquired
about the Assints, the native name for
the hippopotamus. Whenever they
were told that males and solitary females
were in the pools near by the party
pushed on. They were of no use to the
hunters except for flesh meat for the
natives. The meat is similar to beef,
and without any disagreeable flavor,
in company with young ones. They
saw many hippos in the rivers, either
swimming in the centre or wading in
the reeds near the shores, feeding on
the reeds or on the roots of the same,
digging for them with their large pro-
tuding horn. In the night they were
seen going into the woods, where they
feed Oh the young and tender leaves of
the trees, or their tracks were found
where they had come up out of the
water on their way to the fields of corn
or dhurra, cultivated by the Nubians
near their hut towns. The paths made
by the hippo when coming out of the
water is longitudinal groove, with
holes at the sides one foot and half
Il nj ah IN, Tho
holes are the impression of the clumsy
feet of the beast, the groove of its slid
ing belly.


But while the hunters saw the hippos
at distance and tracked them almost
every day, it was found very difficult to
attack one. They once watched a
female hippo three weeks but so wary
was the creature that, knowing it was
watched, it evaded the hunters in
the adrOitest manner, leaving no trace
when it came out of the water, and
keeping quiet with its baby when in the
bushes. At last a Homran got within
ten PAGES of the animal as it showed its
back above the water of the river. He
threw hippo lance into it, and then
the sport began. The hippo lance,
or harpoOn is composed of soft steel,
and falls out of the groove as soon as
the instrument has penetrated the skin
of the hippo and the animal moves, bat
long rope fastened in holes in the
harpoon below the grapnal hook is held
i'm the hunters hand, and allowed to
run out of the coil to its full length of
twenty-five feet or more. At the other
end of the rope is a piece of ambatch
wood lighter than cork-the lightest of
all known substances in fact-and this
floats on the water when all of the rope
is out of the hunters hand in the frantic
gyrations and racings up and down the
river of the wounded hippo. All this
took place quicker than it takes to tell
the story. When the female hippo was
wounded by the Homran hunter of the
Reiche porty. The old hippo first dash
ed into the water, but soon rose to the
surface, and the Homrans pursued 1t
with harpoons and the Germans with
elephant guns, When the hippo was
fired at it first it tried to escape, but
large ball striking against the softer
part of the skull, it became infuriated.
seemed to lose all sense of danger.
rushed up the bank out of the river,
attacked Homran, tearing a piece OF
flesh out of his thigh with its great pro-
tubing teeth, and would have killed
Schaunann, who had fired the ball, if
the Homrans had not closed around it
and despatched it with their swords


But when the Homrans hunt the hippo
alone they do not use firearms at all.
When the animal makes off with the