GIRLS AFTER BIG GAME.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 53, 2 March 1907, Page 13

GIRLS AFTER BIG GAME.

SHOOTING A. HIPPOPOTAMUS Dt BBODESIA. "Violeif -writes as follows to "THe Field":— I had my own rifle and pony, and always went shooting with Dad. I wore an ordinary ehort skirt, bloomers, with a cotton snirt and a grey felt hat. A regulation habit -would nave been quite unsuitable. Forty miles from Belingwe was a wellknown hippopotamus pool, and one day we arranged a big hunt. How exciting it was! Molly, Dad, and I packed into the buckboard with the driver, while a calvacade of horsemen and boys with the provision waggon brought up the rear. A buekboard is something like an American spider, with canvas hood, and very light and springy. It is drawn by six mules, and can go over any country. After a day's drive over virgin country, guiltless of roads, we made our first camp in the pouring rain. Dad had the buck sails thrown over the waggon, and under it, on heaps of cut grass, we spread our blankets and rested. The guns all went off exploring, and Molly and I were left, when presently we heard two shots. In a trice we sprang to our feet and rushed towards the sound, and there, round an enormous pool (really a lake formed by the overflow of the Umgezi River), we saw the men of our party. There were sis hippopotami in the pool, and every three minutes, as they came up to blow. THEIR ENORMOUS HEADS became visible. Molly and I each had a shot, but were not successful in hitting either of the vulnerable parts—through the eye or behind the ear; the rest of the animal is as hard and thick as a stone wall. We all returned to camp, driven thereto t>y the shades of night, and slept quite comfortably, in spite of the weird howling of the hyenas and the constant of the hippos. Tip betimes next morning, in a pool three miles off one of the men espied a big bull with some -cows, and after breakfast, bag and baggage, off we went to. try our luck again. As the huge heads rose above the water Dad's bullet found its billet through the eye of a big cow. In a few minutes the whole of the lake was a churning mass of foam, as the wounded beast struggled madly before it sank. Tien, with tneir nerves strug to their highest pitch, excitedly talking-, we all went back to camp, for it would be five hours before the body would float again. It is all very well to shoot a hippopotamus; but how to land it is quite another matter. All bands at the appointed time repaired to the pool, and there, floating in the centre, was what looked like an enormous rock. The pool was infested with crocodiles, and who would venture a swim to fix a tow-rope, with the chance of losing a limb, or even life itself? Nobody would. At last a native boy, tempted by the shining silver of a "Scotchman" a two-shilling piece), so called by the natives because a Sandy once paid his boys in florins instead of half-crowns, trading on their ignorance of the difference in the two coins), took the rope in his mouth, and, swimming out with a dog-like action and much splashing, reached the object safely. Scrambling on to the enormous body, he tied the rope firmly to its back legs, and, clinging like a monkey, was towed in by all hands. It was a sight-to see that little black imp, scared to death and holding on for dear life, as the body of the liippopotamns plunged and rolled like a ship in a storm; but to get the body up the bank was another story. It took two hours to do it, with the help of seven white men, ten black men, six oxen, and the team of mnles. The baak was cut away as much as possible, and at last, with THE QUIVERING ROPE TAUT TO BREAKING, the carcase was drawn inch by inch to terra firma. She weighed 50001b, her head alone 4001b, while in length she measured 15ft. * Numbers of natives, suddenly appearing from goodness knows where, swarmed like flies, for there was meat to be had, and in a few hours nothing of the hippopotamus was left but bare bones. The hide was kept for jamboks (round leather thongs much prized by the Dutch), her fine tusks and teeth became Dad's perquisite, while the choicest morsels of the flesh were carried back to camp by the boys. Tired, sunburnt, but full of the day's events, we arrived at our camp at sundown quite ready for our evening meal. And what a meal it was! Wild duck, partridge, buck, and hippopotamus—all equally delicious to such hungry hunters. Two huge fires were built, one for the natives and one for us, to keep off wild animals, for it is a lion country. Round it, as the cloak of night fell softly on forest and koppie, we sat talking, spinning yarns, exchanging reminiscences, and, of course, arguing about the Boer war. As everyone knew just how it should have been managed, and no two agreed, some irreconellables turned in, an exampfe Molly and I quickiy followed. It was a perfect moonlight night, the lagoon lying before us like a silver sea, the hippopotamus paths gleaming white aming the wooded growth on either side of the river. I was loth to close my eyes; but hunters are weary people, and. with a bull's-eye lantern placed inside my scarlet sunshade, I slept' as one does with only the stars above, assured that no marauding beast wonld venture near my danger signal.