I gave them permission to take the flesh, and in an
instant a hundred knives were at work: they fought over the spoil
like wolves. No sooner was the carcase flayed than the struggle
commenced for the meat; the people were a mass of blood, as some
stood thigh-deep in the reeking intestines wrestling for the fat,
while many hacked at each other's hands for coveted portions that
were striven for as a bonne bouche. I left the savage crowd in
their ferocious enjoyment of flesh and blood, and I returned to
camp for breakfast, my Turk, Hadji Achmet, carrying some
hippopotamus steaks.
That morning my wife and I breakfasted upon our first hippo, an
animal that was destined to be our general food throughout our
journey among the Abyssinian tributaries of the Nile. After
breakfast we strolled down to the pool to search for the
hippopotamus No. 1. This we at once found, dead, as it had risen
to the surface, and was floating like the back of a turtle a few
inches above the water. The Arabs had been so intent upon the
division of their spoil that they had not observed their new
prize; accordingly, upon the signal being given, a general rush
took place, and in half an hour a similar scene was enacted to
that of hippo No.
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