THE HIPPOPOTAMUS, OR RIVER HORSE 



had a chance to fire he had upset the Httle craft with his 

 big head. Fortunately, both the white men and the na- 

 tives knew how to swim, so they all made for the shore as 

 quickly as they could. Immediately one of the men gave 

 a tremendous scream, and Mr. Schmidt, turning to see 

 what was the trouble, was horrified to behold the big hippo 

 just closing his enormous mouth over one of the unfortu- 

 nate natives, whom he almost cut in two. All the shoot- 

 ing paraphernalia of the two friends — their guns, cartridge 

 bags, and hunting knives — were lost when the boat was 

 upset, and as the river at that place was very deep and had 

 a muddy bottom, they were never able to recover even the 

 guns. The natives were so frightened that the two sports- 

 men could not induce them to go out in another boat of 

 larger size to righten the upset craft and tow ashore the 

 two dead hippos. 



In Uganda these monsters are so ferocious and so dan- 

 gerous both to native crops and *' shipping " that they had 

 been declared a " vermin," the government encouraging 

 the killing of them as widely as possible. It has repeatedly 

 happened in the waters of Uganda, particularly in the Nile 

 and in the Albert Nyanza, that native canoes of good size, 

 and even small steam launches, have been upset by these 

 powerful beasts. They seem to have found out that sugar 

 canes and other " hippo delicacies " are often shipped in 

 these crafts. Even if the natives, when their boats were 

 thus capsized, have escaped from the hippos, they have 

 often been killed and eaten by crocodiles, which are very 

 numerous in these waters. In British East Africa, how- 

 ever, the hippopotamus is not so numerous ; there is no lake 

 or river shipping to be imperiled by them, and the ordi- 



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