From diary of February 28th, 1907.
When just going up for coffee, saw what was so big,
looking at it against horizon, thought it must be an elephant.
Was a young hippo. Captain Jensen brought boat within eighty
yards of him, and both Anstrossi and I fired, apparently
knocking him off his legs, for he rolled on his side as though
his back was broken. I missed him the second shot, which
struck the water just in front of him. The other three shots
caught him in the head, in the mouth and ear. He
lay quite still, and the boys rushed out a gang plank and
surrounded him singing and shouting and cutting his tail to
make him bleed and weaken him. They don't die for an hour but
he seemed dead enough, so I went to my cabin to re-load my gun
and my camera. In three minutes I came out, and found the
hippo still quiet. Then he began to toss his head and I shot
him again, to put him out of pain. In return for which he
rolled over into the water and got away. I was mad. Later
saw four more. Just at sunset while taking bath another was
seen on shore. We got within sixty yards of him and all of us
missed him or at least did not hurt him. He then trotted for
the river with his head up and again I must have missed,
although at one place he was but fifty yards away, when he
entered the water, a hundred. I stepped it off later in the
sand. I followed him up and hit him or some one of us hit him
and he stood up on his hind legs. But he put back to land for
the third time. Captain said wait until moon came out. But
though we hunted up to our waists saw none. One came quite
close at dinner. Seven on the day.
