THE P((i AND HIPPOPOTAMUS 



285 



on if Hire Carl Hagirtbuk'] 



BABY HIPPOPOTAMUS, AGED SIX MONTHS 



[H.,;,tur, 



The flesh of a young hippopotamus is said to have an excellent flavour. Natives often follow shooting expeditions in order t secure some 



of its meat 



hippopotamus is smooth and hairless, and in adult animals quite i\ inch in thickrfess on the 

 upper parts of the body. 



Hippopotamuses are said to be capable of remaining under water for ten or twelve 

 minutes. Should, however, a herd of these animals be watched but not tired at hum the 

 bank of a river in which they are passing the day, they will all sink below the surface of 

 the water as soon as they become aware of and more or less alarmed by the presence of 

 the intruder, but each member of the herd will come up to breathe at intervals of from one 

 totw" minutes. I have seen hippopotamuses so tame and unsuspicious of danger that they 

 allowed mc — the first human being probably with any kind of hat or clothes on him that 

 the_\' had ever seen — to take up a position within fifty yards of them on the edge of the deep 

 rock-bound pool in which the}- were resting without showing any signs of alarm. The}- simply 

 stared at me in an inquisitive sort of way, raising their heads higher out of the water, and 

 constantly twitching their little rounded ears; and it was not until a number of natives came 

 up and began to talk loudly that they took alarm, and, sinking out of sight, retreated to the 

 farther end of the pool. I once took the length of time with my watch for more than an hour 

 that a hippopotamus which I was trying to shoot remained underwater. This animal, a cow 

 with a new-born calf, had made an attack upon one of my canoes. It first came up under the 

 canoe, tilting one end of it into the air and almost filling it with water. Then it made a 

 rush at the half-swamped craft, and, laying its huge head over it, pressed it down under the 

 water and sank it. There were four natives in the canoe at the time of the attack, all of 

 whom swam safely to an island in the river — the Zambesi. After the accident — which caused 

 me a good deal of loss and inconvenience — I tried to shoot this unprovoked aggressor, but 

 unsuccessfully, as the river was too broad to allow me to get anything but a long shot at her. 

 The shortest time she remained under water during the seventy minutes I was paying attention 

 10 



