Forcing their way, with some difficulty, through this jungle, they obtained their first near view of the river, a “deep volume of turbid water,” covered with drift wood, and rolling, at the rate of three miles an hour, between clayey walls twenty-five feet in height.  The breadth fell short of sixty yards, but the flood was not yet at its maximum.  Willows, drooping over the stream, were festooned with recent drift, hanging many feet above the level of the banks; and it was evident that the waters had lately been out, to the overflowing of the country for many miles.  The river, now upwards of 2200 feet above the level of the ocean forms, in this quarter, the nominal boundary of the kingdom of Shoa.

They were now on “the spot which exhibited the forest life of Africa.”  In a lake adjoining the river, the hippopotamus “rolled his unwieldy carcass to the surface, and floating crocodiles, protruding his snout to blow a snort that might be heard at the distance of a mile.”  An unfortunate donkey, which had been partly drowned and partly strangled, was thrown out of the camp.  No sooner had night fallen, than this prey roused the appetites of the whole forest, the howl and growl of wild beasts was heard at their banquet on the donkey throughout the night.  Lightening played over the woods; the “violent snapping of the branches proclaimed the nocturnal movements of the elephant and hippopotamus;” the loud roar and startling snort were constantly heard; and by morning every vestige of the dead animal, even to the skull, had disappeared.

Africa, in all its provinces, is the scene of the boldest field sports in the world—­India and its tigers, perhaps, excepted.  But Africa excels even India in the variety and multitude of its mighty savages—­lions, elephants, panthers, and hippopotami; the sands, the forests, the jungles, the rivers, the marshes, every thing and place abounds with brute life, on the largest, the boldest, and the fiercest scale.  Africa, with the human race on the lowest grade, has the brute on the highest, and its true name is the great kingdom of savage nature.

A two-ounce ball had been lodged in the forehead of hippopotamus on the evening of reaching the Hawash; but the animal having dived, the natives, in some jealousy of the skill of the British rifle, declared that it had not been mortally struck.  The next dawn, however, decided the question, for the “freckled pink sides of a dead hippopotamus were to be seen high above the surface, as the distended carcass floated like a monstrous buoy at anchor.”  Hawsers were carried out with all diligence, and the “colossus” was towed ashore amidst the acclamations of the whole caravan.  Then came a native scene.  A tribe of savages, who had waited, squatting, to see the arrival of the monster, threw aside their bows and arrows, and, stripping its thick hide from the ribs, attacked it with the vigour of an African horde.  Donkeys and women were laden with incredible despatch, and, “staggering under huge flaps of meat,” the savages went their way.