Sooner than stop in
Boma, I urged Cecil to take that boat. So, if I catch it, we
will return together. It is a five weeks journey, and rather
long to spend alone. In any event my letters will go by a
faster boat. I have had a most wonderfully interesting visit,
at least, to me. I hope I can make it readable. But, much of
its pleasure was personal.
I have just had to stop writing this, for what when I get back
to New York will seem a perfectly good reason for interrupting
a letter to even you. A large hippopotamus has just pushed
past us with five baby hippos in front of her. She is shoving
them up stream, and the papa hippo is in the wake puffing and
blowing. They are very plenty here and on the way up stream,
I saw a great many, and every morning and evening went hunting
for them on shore. I wanted the head of a hippopotamus
awfully keenly for the farm. But of the only two I saw on
land, both got away from me. I did not shoot at any I saw in
the water, although the other idiot on board did, because if
you kill them, you cannot recover them, and it seems most
unsportsmanlike.
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