THE HIPPOPOTAMUS. 87 



only devour an immense quantity of vegetable produce, but de- 

 stroy still more by their feet, which support so enormous a pon- 

 derosity of body. 



Professor Thunberg was informed by a respectable person at 

 the Cape of Good Hope, that as he and a party were on a hunt- 

 ing expedition, they perceived a female hippopotamus come out 

 of one of the rivers, and retire to a little distance, in order to 

 calve. They concealed themselves among some bushes till the 

 c;ilf and its mother made their appearance, when one of them 

 fired, and shot the latter dead on the spot. The Hottentots, sup- 

 posing they might now seize the calf alive, immediately ran from 

 their hiding-place; but the young animal, though only just 

 brought into the world, eluded their pursuit, and plunged safely 

 into the river. This the professor justly observes, was a singular 

 instance of pure instinct ; for the creature unhesitatingly ran to 

 the river, as its proper place of security, without having received 

 any previous instructions from the action of its parent. 



The Egyptians have a curious method of freeing themselves, 

 in some measure, from this destructive animal. They lay a quan- 

 tity of peas about the places which he chiefly frequents ; and 

 when the creature comes ashore hungry and voracious, he begins 

 eating in the nearest place, and greedily devours the peas, till 

 they occasion the most insupportable thirst. He then rushes into 

 his favourite element, and drinks so copiously, that the peas in 

 his stomach swell so much as very soon afterwards to terminate 

 his existence. 



It is said, that these creatures are capable of being tamed; 

 and Belori asserts, that he has seen one so gentle as to be let out 

 of a stable, and led by its keeper, without attempting to injure 

 any one. 



Tho flesh of the hippopotamus is tender and well tasted, and 

 by the colonists of the Cape settlement, esteemed exceedingly 

 wholesome. The gelatinous parts of the feet and tongue, when 

 dried, are considered as great delicacies. 



THE LONG-NOSED TAPIIR 



Ts the hippopotamus of the new world, and is by some con- 

 sidered as a species of that animal, to which, in its habits and 

 disposition, it indeed bears a striking resemblance ; but is much 

 inferior in size, being no larger than a small cow, as well as dif- 

 ferent from it in the shape of its head, and especially its nose, 

 which is long and slender, forming a sort of proboscis, capable 

 of voluntary contraction and extension. 



It is found in the woods and rivers, in that part of South 

 America which extends from the isthmus of Darien to the river 

 Amazon. It is a solitary animal, mild and inoffensive : it sleeps 



