176 LEAVES FROM THE 



about the eyes, muzzle, and ears, and the good-natured 

 animal lazily lay down like a dog or a pig to enjoy the 

 operation. When I ceased and retired, he rose with play- 

 fully open mouth to follow me ; and his keeper, Hamet, 

 who was then with him — a fine young man, with a Nubian 

 or Egyptian cast of countenance — was obliged to shut 

 the door of his apartment to keep him in, notwithstand- 

 ing his remonstrating snort. 



The first parts of his organization that struck me were 

 the eyes and the nostrils. The former have, at first 

 sight, a very extraordinary appearance, and convey the 

 idea of enormous projection of the eye-ball ; as if such 

 protrusion was the result of some inj ury or disorder, ex- 

 ternal or internal. But no. Here is another instance of 

 the most beautiful adaptation. The muscles of the eye 

 must be most powerful, and must be endowed with great 

 versatility, capable of protruding or withdrawing the eye- 

 ball, which can be either projected remarkably or sunk 

 within the orbit considerably, so as to adapt it for vision 

 in the different media where it is to act, whether the 

 animal be on land, just under the water, or far down be- 

 neath its surface. It brought to my mind a similar 

 adaptation in birds, where the bony ring and muscles form 

 a telescopic apparatus, in eagles and other birds of prey. 



The nostrils, which are so placed that they appear 

 above the surface of the water first when the animal 

 rises from below, can be closed like those of a seal when 

 the animal descends into the deep, and opened when it 

 comes up for the purpose of taking in a supply of air. 

 But though the nostrils can be closed like those of a seal, 

 the machinery for working them must be more compli- 

 cated than the muscles, which enable that animal merely 

 to close or open these gates of breath at pleasure. In 

 the hippopotamus the nostrils, which appeared to me to 

 be situated more vertically than those of the seal, can 

 be mounted up, as it were, by a process indicating the 



