I saw many of these
creatures, of very large size; and, as I strolled along the banks
of the river, I found a herd of hippopotami, of which I shot two,
to the great delight of my people, who had been much disappointed
at the absence of game throughout our journey from Gallabat. We
had travelled upwards of 200 miles without having seen so much as
a gazelle, neither had we passed any tracks of large game,
except, upon one occasion, those of a few giraffes. I had been
told that the Dinder country was rich in game, but, at this
season, it was swarming with Arabs, and was so much disturbed
that everything had left the country, and the elephants merely
drank during the night, and retreated to distant and impenetrable
jungles. At night we heard a lion roar, but this, instead of
being our constant nightingale, as upon the Settite river, was
now an uncommon sound. The maneless lion is found on the banks of
the Dinder; all that I saw, in the shape of game, in the
neighbourhood of that river and the Rahad, were a few hippopotami
and crocodiles. The stream of the Dinder is obstructed with many
snags and trunks of fallen trees that would be serious obstacles
to rapid navigation: these are the large stems of the soont
(Acacia Arabica), that, growing close to the edge, have fallen
into the river when the banks have given way.
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