The aggageers were delighted, and they determined to search for the wounded elephants on the following day, as the evening was advancing, and we were about five miles from camp.
At daybreak the next morning the aggageers in high glee mounted their horses, and with a long retinue of camels and men, provided with axes and knives, together with large gum sacks to contain the flesh, they quitted the camp to cut up the numerous elephants.

As I had no taste for this disgusting work, I took two of my Tokrooris, Hadji Ali and Hassan, and, accompanied by old Abou Do, the father of the sheik, with his harpoon, we started along the margin of the river in quest of hippopotami.
The harpoon for hippopotamus and crocodile hunting is a piece of soft steel about eleven inches long, with a narrow blade or point of about three quarters of an inch in width and a single but powerful barb.

To this short and apparently insignificant weapon a strong rope is secured, about twenty feet in length, at the extremity of which is a buoy or float, as large as a child's head, formed of an extremely light wood called ambatch (Aanemone mirabilis) that is of about half the specific gravity of cork.

The extreme end of the short harpoon is fixed in the point of a bamboo about ten feet long, around which the rope is twisted, while the buoy end is carried in the left hand.
The old Abou Do, being resolved upon work, had divested himself of his tope or toga before starting, according to the general custom of the aggageers, who usually wear a simple piece of leather wound round the loins when hunting; but, I believe in respect for our party, they had provided themselves with a garment resembling bathing drawers, such as are worn in France, Germany, and other civilized countries.

But the old Abou Do had resisted any such innovation, and he accordingly appeared with nothing on but his harpoon; and a more superb old Neptune I never beheld.