10 SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF MAMMALIA. 



owing to the latter peculiarity, they are often to be found 

 wandering in localities on which but little grass exists, 

 when they might have it in the neighbourhood in great 

 abundance, but without the accompaniment of wood." 



We learn from Mr. Salt, that in the district of Abys- 

 sinia w^atered by the Tacazze, a tributary to the Nile, 

 hippopotami are very numerous. The Abyssinians term 

 the animal Gomari. As Mr. Salt travelled along the 

 line of the river, he found it interrupted by frequent 

 overfalls and shallow fords. Between these shallows are 

 holes or pits of vast depth, resembling the lochs and 

 tarns in the mountain districts of Scotland and England. 

 It is to these depths that the hippopotami delight to 

 resort ; and here Mr. Salt and his companions observed 

 their actions, which he compares to the rolling of a gram- 

 pus in the sea. 



" It appears," observes the same traveller, " from 

 what we have witnessed, that the hippopotamus cannot 

 remain more than five or six minutes at a time under 

 water, being obliged to come up to the surface at some 

 such interval for the purpose of respiration." 



It has generally been asserted that this huge, power- 

 ful, and, it should seem, inoffensive animal has no enemy 

 in the brute creation audacious enough to contend with 

 it. Some travellers, however, have attributed this bold- 

 ness to the crocodile, describing combats between them, 

 which in truth never take place, no enmity subsisting 

 between the two animals. While Mr. Salt and his party 

 were engaged shooting at the hippopotami, they fre- 

 quently observed several crocodiles of an enormous size 

 rise together to the surface of the same stream, appa- 

 rently regardless of and disregarded by their still more 

 enormous neighbours. Captain Tuckey, in his expedi- 

 tion to explore the Zaire or Congo, observed immense 

 numbers of hippopotami and alligators in the same water 

 — an association inconsistent with hostility. 



Burckhardt (see his 'Travels in Nubia ') informs us 

 that lower down the Nile, in Dongola, where there are 

 neither elephants nor rhinoceroses, the hippopotamus is 

 very common. The Arabic name for it is Barnik. It 



