"Mike Resnick - Between the Sunlight and Thunder (2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Resnick Mike)

night I went to the ablution block at about midnight. While I was there, a hippo came out of the
swamp and began rubbing his sides against the reed wall. Hippos have killed more tourists in
Africa
during the past quarter century than any other animal, and the reason is simple: they panic when
they
are cut off from water...and the very best time to photograph a hippo is when he goes inland to
eat,
as otherwise all you're likely to see are his eyes, ears, and nostrils. (They stay in the water to
protect
their sensitive skins from the sun all day, but at night they leave the water and consume up to
300
pounds of vegetation.) Stand between a hippo and water and his first inclination is to run through
--
not around -- you to get back to the safety of his pond or river. Now, Jedibe is a very small
island,
perhaps 300 yards in diameter. So I reasoned it out and concluded that if I left the ablution
block, all
the hippo had to do was turn around and he could make a beeline to the water. Then I got to
thinking, and decided that if he was an exceptionally stupid hippo, then no matter where I stood,
he
would conclude that I was between him and the water (and in a way, he'd be right). So I stayed
another half hour until he want away, and promptly bumped into a bushbuck on the way back to the
tent. Bushbucks are much more intelligent than hippos; he took one look and me and ran like hell.

September 3: Our bush pilot, Lee, picked us up in mid-morning and flew us to Tsaro Lodge in the
Moremi Reserve. (Pam remarked that Lee had stuck it out much longer than most bush pilots --
something like seven years now -- because he liked the social life in Maun. I am still mulling
over this
remark, because to my way of thinking, Maun is the kind of place you leave in order to have a
social
life. Oh, well...) Tsaro is a luxurious camp nestled on the Khwai River, composed of eight large,
spotlessly-clean chalets, each equipped with beds, chairs, couches, fireplaces, tiled bathrooms,
and
electricity -- all rarities in the bush. The current manager, Jack, used to be a game warden in
Zimbabwe, and I gather the place has undergone massive renovations since he arrived. There were
three couples from Cape Town there when we arrived, and they turned out to be the friendliest and
most interesting people we met on the entire safari; in fact, when we go to South Africa, which we
plan to do in a couple of years, each of them has insisted that we stay with them and let them
show us
around. We took a game run (a three-hour drive through the reserve in a 4-wheel-drive vehicle) in
the afternoon, and were actually charged by an irate cow elephant, a hell of an exciting ten
seconds
that I managed to capture on videotape.

September 4: After a morning game run, Carol and I and two of our Cape Town friends decided to
take a walk through the hunting concession that borders the reserve. We saw some birds, and a herd


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