4o6 SWINE GROUP 



and till December 1893 ^ large herd frequented the deep pools of the 

 Umzingwani river, about 40 miles south of Bulawayo. These were 

 protected for many years by Lo Bengula and his father Umziligazi 

 before him, and although one or two were occasionally shot, and their 

 dismembered carcases brought by waggon to the head kraal of the 

 king, none of his people were allowed to molest them without orders, 

 under pain of death ; they thus became very tame and confiding, and 

 committed great havoc in the corn-fields of the natives living near the 

 pools they frequented. Within a few months of the conquest of 

 Matabililand in 1893, all, or nearly all, were destroyed by white men 

 for the sake of their hides. 



" Hippopotamuses are thoroughly nocturnal, and seldom feed except 

 during the hours of darkness. They eat nothing but grass and reeds. 

 In the day-time they retire to the deep pools of the rivers, or lie 

 basking in the sun at the tail of a sand-bank, usually half immersed in 

 the water, but sometimes lying high and dry on the warm sand. They 

 are capable of standing a considerable amount of cold ; the deep 

 reaches on the upper courses of the Hanyani, Umfuli, and Umgezi 

 rivers being formerly frequented by them all the year round, though the 

 surrounding country is over 4500 feet above sea-level, and in winter 

 the nights are so cold that if a basin of water be taken from the 

 river in the evening there will often be a thick skin of ice on it the 

 next morning. 



" Unwieldy as the hippopotamus appears, it is a far more active 

 animal than might be supposed ; I have seen one gallop at a consider- 

 able speed, and at night they habitually travel long distances in some 

 parts of the country in search of food. In walking, the hippopotamus 

 moves the front and hind foot of each side in parallel lines, thus 

 forming in soft or muddy ground two parallel tracks, divided from one 

 another by a little ridge of sand or mud. The same paths are 

 followed year after year, and often lead one in a bee-line across a bend 

 in a river, from one deep pool to another, through miles of dense jungle, 

 or over rocky, broken hills, into which one would imagine that no 

 hippopotamus would ever venture. On the lower Umfuli river in 

 northern Mashonaland there are places where the stream has cut a 

 channel through beds of hard rock, enclosed between ranges of low 

 stony hills, and in such situations the hippopotamuses have, in the 

 course of ages, worn well-defined paths in the rock leading from one 

 pool to another. These paths worn into the stone present exactly the 

 appearance of a hippopotamus-track freshly made in soft ground, there 

 being a low ridge of stone running down the middle corresponding to 



