ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 



HOWARD RAPIUS IN THK I m 1 A Kl\ll;, 



OF THE PYljMV HIPPO 



naked body. A few .straiglit hits from the 

 shoulder on the jaws of those who did not move, 

 and quicker than I can tell it I drove the 

 mutinous crowd before me like a herd of sheep ! 

 The result of the rebellion for the boys was that 

 I stopped their rations for three days, and their 

 allowance of gin for a month. 



The same day I reached Taquema, the forti- 

 fied town of the paramount chief of the Golah, 

 Tawe Dadwe. I had reckoned greatly on the as- 

 sistance of this omnipotent native king, but to my 

 great sorrow he declared openly that he could 

 not help me, because the war pressed him too 

 hard. He even expected an attack from the 

 Pesse daily. Against my usual custom, I had to 

 submit to the entreaties of the 

 chief, and pitch my tent in the 

 middle of the town. 



During my staj' at Taquema the 

 scouts of the enemy approached 

 the town, but hearing that a white 

 man with a big caravan and guns 

 had arrived, they thought discre- 

 tion the better part of valor. Here 

 I had an opportunity to study the 

 most secret sacrificial rites of this 

 unknown tribe. 



The Lofa River, one of the big- 

 gest rivers in Liberia, flows within 

 an hour of Taquema. For two 

 months I hunted on the small 

 tributaries of this river, the course 

 of which will appear entirely dif- 

 ferent from what it has been 

 thought, when my map of the 

 hinterland of Liberia is finished. 



In spite of the greatest en- 

 deavors and the hardest work 

 which I have done during my long 

 hunting career in Africa, I did 

 not even manage to shoot one of 

 these shy and secretive animals, 

 in order that I might send home 

 jjositive proof of its existence. 



The greatest difficult}' in hunt- 

 ing the Liberian Hippopotamus is 

 that, unlike their big cousins, they 

 do not frequent the rivers. They 

 make their home deep in the in- 

 hos])itable forest, in the dense 

 vegetation, on the banks of the 

 small forest streams ; but, not 

 satisfied with the protection the 

 forest affords them, they enlarge 

 the hollows which the water has 

 washed out under the banks, and 

 in tliese tunnels, where they are 

 invisible from the bank, they sleep during the 

 heat of the day. 



Day after day I patrolled the streams, con- 

 tinually in water up to my hips, frequently to 

 my shoulders. At last, as I was nearly des- 

 jjairing, on the 27th of February, Diana, the 

 goddess of the hunters, smiled on me, and the 

 first Liberian Hippopotamus fell a victim to 

 my gun. It was a nearly full grown cow. I 

 was following the spoor of a small herd of the 

 newly-by-me discovered dwarf elephant, when 

 a fresh track of a Mwe (Golah name for the 

 Pygmy Hippo), made me leave the elephants. 

 I followed this spoor down to a small streamlet 

 with hardlv two inches of water, where it led 



THE FIRST BULL HIPPO CAUGHT 

 Photographed in Africa 



