ORDER ARTIODACTYLA: EVEN -TOED UNGULATES 417 



cated by Ramecourt (1936), who states that in a recent year more 

 than a thousand of these animals besides a multitude of other species 

 were killed for food for workmen on the Brazzaville-Ocean railway. 



Westward, the Hippo is found still in the larger rivers of Nigeria 

 and the Gambia. About 1933, two reserves were created for them on 

 the Benue Donga and Katsina Rivers and within 15 miles of Aboli 

 (Observer, 1934, p. 53). In the Gambia, Haywood (1933) reports 

 them as locally "numerous/"' while in Sierra Leone he estimates 150 

 on Rokel River, Little and Great Scarcies River, and Mungo River. 

 Some damage to crops is done by them. 



In South Africa particularly, with settlement and agriculture, the 

 Hippo has everywhere receded before the onward course of white 

 occupation. W. L. Sclater (1900) summarizes the status of the 

 species in this area as follows: 



In South Africa it was originally found everywhere along the coasts and 

 rivers; Theal, in his history records from van Riebeck's diary that in 1652, 

 hippopotamuses disported themselves in the swamp now occupied by Church 

 Square, in the centre of Cape Town; even in the early part of the 18th 

 century Kolben speaks of them as being not uncommon in the neighbourhood, 

 but with the great expansion that took place in the middle of that century 

 the hippopotamus retreated, and Paterson, Sparrman, and the other travellers 

 had to go nearly as far as the Great Fish River before meeting these monsters ; 

 Burchell witnessed a ... hunt close to where the Vaal and Orange Rivers 

 meet, but Harris and Gumming, 1830-40, only came across them in the 

 upper waters of the Limpopo and its tributaries. 



A few individuals lingered for many years near the mouth of the Berg 

 River almost 70 miles north of Cape Town; and the head of one killed in 

 1856, is still preserved in the South African Museum, and the last is said 

 to have disappeared about 1874. 



Nowadays, except for a few said to be still surviving in the lower reaches 

 of the Orange River, the hippopotamus may be regarded as extinct in the 

 Colony; in Xatal there are a few strictly preserved in "Zeekoe lake" at the 

 mouth of the Umgeni River a few miles north of Durban; north of this, 

 especially in St. Lucia Bay, in the Komati and other rivers, in the eastern 

 Transvaal and Portuguese territory up to the Zambesi, they are still found 

 in reduced numbers in less frequented districts as also in the upper waters of 

 that river, the Okovango and the Ngami swamps. 



At the present time the Hippo is thus practically extinct south of 

 the eastern Transvaal and Zululand (Natal). In the Zambesi region 

 it is still fairly common, as well as in the Maputo and Inkomati 

 Rivers of Portuguese Southeast Africa (Haagner, 1920, p. 147). 

 A few may still be found at the mouth of the Orange River (Hobley) . 

 Under careful protection in Kruger Park, in the eastern Trans- 

 vaal, Stevenson-Hamilton (1933) reports that they are now "very 

 numerous" all along the Olifants River, and according to Hobley 

 there were estimated to be about 200 here within the Park. "A 

 good deal of damage was done by these animals to farmers' lands 

 across the Crocodile River, and arrangements were made in some 



