GIRLS AFTER BIG GAME.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 59, 22 March 1907, Page 4

GIRLS AFTER BIG GAME.

SHOOTING A HIPPOPOTAMI'S IX RHODESIA. ■Viol, t" writes as follows to the Field : I had my own rifle and F ol, y, and always went shooting with Dad. I wore an ordinary short skirt, bloomers, with a. cotton shirt and a grey felt hat. A regulation habit would have 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 caval cade of horsemen and boys with the provision waggon brought up the rear. A buckboard 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 viigin country, guiltless of roads, we made our first c:>mn 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 lef\ when presently we hoard two shot-;. In .a tiice we spiting to our feet, and rushed towards the sound, and there, round an enormous pool (really a lake formed by the overflow of the. Umgczi river), we saw the men of our party. There were si.; hippopotami in the pool, and every thr e minutes, as they came up to blow.

THEIR ENORMOUS HEALS 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 tliick as a stone wall. We all returned to cc.mp, driven thereto by the shades of night, and slept quite comfortably, in spite of the weird howling of the hyenas and the constant bellowing of the'hippos. l T p betimes in the morning, in a pool three miles off one of the men espied a big bull with some cows, and after breakfast off we went to try our luck again. As the huge hoads ro.se 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 straggled ! madly before at sank. Then, with our ! nerves strung to their highest pitch, excitedly talking, wo all went back to camp, for it would be five hours before the body would float again. It is all very well to snoot a liippopotamus, but how to land it is quite another matter. All hands 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, tool; the rope in his month, and, swimrring out with a dog-like action and much splashing, reached the object safely. Scrambling on (o the enormous body, he tied the rope firmly to its back legs, and, clinging like a monkey, nas 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 hippopotamus plunged and rolled like a ship in a storm; but to get the body up the bank was another story. It wok two hours to do it, with the help of seven white men, ten black men, six oxen and the team of mules. The bank 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 aJom 4001b, while in length she measured 15(t Numbers of natives, suddenly appearing fiom goodness knows where, swarmed lita flies for there was meat to be liad, and in a few hours nothing of the hippopotamus was left but bare tones. The hide was kept for jamboks (round leather thongs much prr/od by the Dutch), her fine tusks and teeth became Dad's perquisite, while the choicest morssls of the flesh were carried to tamp by the boys. Tired, sunburnt, but full of the day's events, we arrived at our camp at sunset, quite ready for our eveniug 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, wc sat talking, spin ning yarns, exchanging reminiscences, and, of course, arguing about the Boer war. As everyone knew how it should have been managed, and no tico agieed, some irreooncilables tamed in, an example Molly and I qnickly followed. It was a perfect moonlight night, the lagoon lying before us like a silver sea, the hippopotamus paths gleaming wlrite among 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 would venture near my danger signal.