SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT 119 



me a very powerful witch-doctor, because I succeeded in taming 

 the much-feared Mwe. 



The Pigmy Hippo is distributed not only through the coast 

 belt of Liberia, but right back to the boundary of the French 

 Sudan. In fact it is found all through the forest region. It 

 is known everywhere, but does not seem to be frequently met 

 with in any locality. How far its distribution stretches into 

 the bordering Sierra Leone and French Ivory Coast, I am un- 

 able to state. I believe that near Cape Mount is the point 

 where it is found nearest to the coast. I have been assured by 

 Liberians and natives that sometimes it even enters the planta- 

 tions belonging to Robertsport, right at Cape Mount. 



During my first travels in Liberia I intended to catch the 

 Pygmy Hippo with nets in the rivers; but very soon I had to 

 abandon that plan. In the first place, the animals are rarely 

 met with actually in the water; and secondly, there is too much 

 dead wood and rocks in the Duquea River. On my second 

 trip I relied solely on pits. These pits had to be \ery care- 

 fully laid out. Three or four animals escaped from my pits 

 before I discovered the right way to dig them. 



The little brutes are so active that they can get out of a 

 pit seven feet deep. My new system was as follows : When a 

 pit had been dug, about 7 feet deep, 2 1-2 feet wide and 

 5 feet long, I made slanting steps about a foot broad, on both 

 sides at the bottom. As an animal stood in a pit these sloping 

 steps prevented it from reaching the top, and when it tried to 

 mount the steps, it would invariably slide back again. Out 

 of these new "patent" pits I never lost another animal. 



How very easy it must be to catch a young Hippo in East 

 Africa, where they are found lying in shoals in the pools of the 

 rivers, and where deeply-cut paths show where they leave the 

 water to feed on shore during the night! 



The Liberian Hippo has no regular resting places. Roam- 

 ing through the woods like an elephant, it hardly uses the 

 same path twice, and sometimes it took me several days be- 

 fore I could find a place where I could dig a pit with any 

 chance of success. 



While with the big Hippo the trouble commences when 

 it has been caught, the troubles are practically over when the 

 Pigmy Hippo is taken prisoner. The transport of the big 

 Hippo is one of the hardest things imaginable. The animal is 

 so stupid and vicious that he will run his head against any- 



