THE HIPPOPOTAMUS.

    Behemoth—Its Diminishing Number and Contracting Empire—Its Ugliness—A Rogue Hippopotamus or Solitaire—Dangerous Meeting—Intelligence and Memory of the Hippopotamus—Methods employed for Killing the Hippopotamus—Hippopotamus-Hunting on the Teoge.

‘Behold now Behemoth, which I made with thee; he eateth grass as an ox; his bones are as strong pieces of brass; his bones are like bars of iron; he lieth under the shady trees, in the covert of the reeds and fens. The shady trees cover him with their shadow; the willows of the brook compass him about. Behold he drinketh up a river: he trusteth that he can draw up Jordan into his mouth.’

Thus, in the book of Job, we find the Hippopotamus portrayed with few words but incomparable power.

According to the inspired poet, this huge animal seems anciently to have inhabited the waters of Palestine, but now it is nowhere to be found in Asia; and even in Africa the limits of its domain are perpetually contracting before the persecutions of man. It has entirely disappeared from Egypt and Cape Colony, where Le Vaillant found it in numbers during the last century. In many respects a valuable prize; of easy destruction, in spite, or rather on account of its size, which betrays it to the attacks of its enemies; a dangerous neighbour to418 plantations, it is condemned to retreat before the waves of advancing civilisation, and would long since have been extirpated in all Africa, if the lakes and rivers of the interior of that vast den of barbarism were as busily ploughed over as ours by boats and ships, or their banks as thickly strewn with towns and villages.

For the hippopotamus is not able, like so many other beasts of the wilderness, to hide itself in the gloom of impenetrable forests, or to plunge into the sandy desert; it requires the neighbourhood of the stream, the empire of which it divides with its amphibious neighbour the crocodile. Occasionally during the day it is to be seen basking on the shore amid ooze and mud, but throughout the night the unwieldy monster may be heard snorting and blowing during its aquatic gambols; it then sallies forth from its reed-grown coverts to graze by the light of the moon, never, however, venturing to any distance from the river, the stronghold to which it retreats on the smallest alarm. It feeds on grass alone, and where there is any danger only at night. Its enormous lips act like a mowing machine, and form a path of short cropped grass as it goes on eating.

In point of ugliness the hippopotamus might compete with the rhinoceros itself. Its shapeless carcase rests upon short and disproportioned legs, and, with its vast belly almost trailing upon the ground, it may not inaptly be likened to an overgrown ‘prize-pig.’ Its immensely large head has each jaw armed with two formidable tusks, those in the lower, which are always the largest, attaining at times two feet in length; and the inside of the mouth resembles a mass of butcher’s meat. The eyes, which are placed in prominences like the garret windows of a Dutch house, the nostrils, and ears, are all on the same plane, on the upper level of the head, so that the unwieldy monster, when immersed in its favourite element, is able to draw breath, and to use three senses at once for hours together, without exposing more than its snout. The hide, which is upwards of an inch and a half in thickness, and of a pinkish-brown colour, clouded and freckled with a darker tint, is destitute of covering, excepting a few scattered hairs on the muzzle, the edges of the ears and tail. Though generally mild and inoffensive, it is not to be wondered at that a creature like419 this, which when full-grown attains a length of eleven or twelve feet, and nearly the same colossal girth, affords a truly appalling spectacle when enraged, and that a nervous person may well lose his presence of mind when suddenly brought into contact with the gaping monster. Even Andersson, a man accustomed to all sorts of wild adventure, felt rather discomposed when one night a hippopotamus, without the slightest warning, suddenly protruded its enormous head into his bivouac, so that every man started to his feet with the greatest precipitation, some of the party, in the confusion, rushing into the fire and upsetting the pots containing the evening meal.

As among the elephants and other animals, elderly males are sometimes expelled the herd, and, for want of company, become soured in their temper, and so misanthropic as to attack every boat that comes near them. The ‘rogue-hippopotami’ frequent certain localities well known to the inhabitants of the banks, and, like the outcast elephants, are extremely dangerous. Dr. Livingstone, passing a canoe which had been smashed to pieces by a blow from the hind foot of one of them, was informed by his men that, in case of a similar assault being made on his boat, the proper way was to dive to the bottom of the river, and hold on there for a few seconds, because the hippopotamus, after breaking a canoe, always looks for the people on the surface, and if he sees none, soon moves off. He saw some frightful gashes made on the legs of the people who, having had the misfortune to be attacked, were unable to dive.

In rivers where it is seldom disturbed, such as the Zambesi, the hippopotamus puts up its head openly to blow, and follows the traveller with an inquisitive glance, as if asking him, like the ‘moping owl’ in the elegy, why he comes to molest its ‘ancient solitary reign’? but in other rivers, such as those of Londa, where it is much in danger of being shot, it takes good care to conceal its nose among water-plants, and to breathe so quietly that one would not dream of its existence in the river, except by footprints on the banks. Notwithstanding its stupid look—its prominent eyes and naked snout giving it more the appearance of a gigantic boiled calf’s head than anything else—the huge creature is by no means deficient in intelligence, knows how to avoid pitfalls, and has so good a memory that, when it has once heard a ball whiz about its ears, it never after420 ceases to be wide-awake at the approach of danger. Being vulnerable only behind the ear, however, or in the eye, it requires the perfection of rifle-practice to be hit; and when once in the water, is still m............