plantations I had come to see, were nine days
journey distant. In this land where time and distance are so
differently regarded than with us, a man tells you to go to Dima to see
rubber. He means after getting to Dima, you must catch a steamer that
leaves every two weeks and travel for five days. But he forgets that
that fact is important to visitors. As he is under contract to stay
here three years, it does not much matter to him how he spends a month,
or so. Dima was two hundred yards square, and then the jungle. In
half an hour, I saw it all, and met every one in it. They gave me a
grand reception, but I could not spend ten days in Dima. The only
other thing I could do was to take a canoe to the Jesuit Mission where
the Fathers promised me shooting, or, try to catch the boat back to
England that stops at interesting ports. 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. Besides, I
was so grateful to them for being so proud and pompous, and real
aristocrats dating back from the flood. But I was terribly
disappointed at losing both of those I saw on land. One I dropped at
the first shot, and the other I missed, as he was running, to get back
into the water. The one I shot, and that everyone thought was dead,
AFTER THE "BOYS" BEGAN TO CUT HIM UP, decided he was not going to stand
for that, and to our helpless dismay suddenly rolled himself into the
water. If that is not