they were found to be excellent
food.

Human beings were also observed, but those first encountered fled at the
sight of the white men, as if they had met with their worst foes; and
such was in very truth the case,--if we may regard the Portuguese
half-castes of that coast as white men,--for these negroes were runaway
slaves, who stood the chance of being shot, or drowned, or whipped to
death, if recaptured.

Other animals they saw--some queer, some terrible, nearly all strange--
and last, though not least, the hippopotamus.

When Disco first saw this ungainly monster he was bereft of speech for
some minutes. The usual "Hallo!" stuck in his throat and well-nigh
choked him. He could only gasp, and point.

"Ay, there goes a hippopotamus," said Harold, with the easy nonchalance
of a man who had been to the Zoological Gardens, and knew all about it.
Nevertheless it was quite plain that Harold was much excited, for he
almost dropped his oar overboard in making a hasty grasp at his rifle.
Before he could fire, the creature gaped wide, as if in laughter, and
dived.

"Unfortunate!" said Harold, in a philosophically careless tone; "never
mind, we shall see lots more of them."

"Ugliness embodied!" said Disco, heaving a deep sigh.

"But him's goot for eat," said Antonio, smacking his lips.

"Is he?" demanded Disco of Jumbo, whose enjoyment of the sailor's
expressive looks was so great, that, whenever the latter opened his
lips, the former looked back over his shoulder with a broad grin of
expectation.

"Ho yis; de hiputmus am fust-rate grub for dis yer boy," replied the
negro, rolling his red tongue inside his mouth suggestively.

"He never eats man, does he?" inquired Disco.

"Nevair," replied Antonio.

"He looks as if he might," returned the seaman; "anyhow, he's got a
mouth big enough to do it. You're quite sure he don't, I 'spose?"

"Kite sure an' sartin; but me hab seen him tak mans," said Antonio.

"Tak mans, wot d'ee mean by that?"

"Tak him," repeated Antonio. "Go at him's canoe or boat--bump with
him's head--dash in de timbers--capsize, so's man hab to swim shore--all
as got clear ob de crokidils."

While Disco was meditating on this unpleasant trait of character in the
hippopotamus, the specimen which they had just seen, or some other
member of his family, having compassion, no doubt, on the seaman's
ignorance, proceeded to illustrate its method of attack then and there
by rising suddenly under