HUNTING THE HIPPOPOTAMUS. 251 



me ; but she 'vas stunned, and did not know what she was doing ; 

 so, running :'a *ipon her, and seizing her short tail, I attempted to 

 incline her course to land. It was extraordinary what enormous 

 strength she still had in the water. I could not guide her in the 

 slightest, and she continued to splash, and plunge, and blow, and 

 make her circular course, carrying me along with her as if I was 

 a fly on her tail. Finding her tail gave me but a poor hold, as thp 

 only means of securing my prey, I took out my knife and cut two 

 deep parallel incisions through the skin on her rump. Lifting 

 this skin from the flesh so that I could get in my two hands, I 

 made use of this as a handle ; and after some desperate hard work, 

 sometimes pushing, sometimes pulling, the sea-cow continuing her 

 circular course all the time, and 1 holding on at her rump like 

 grim Death, eventually I succeeded in bringing this gigantic and 

 most powerful animal to the bank. Here the Bushman quickly 

 brought me a stout buffalo rheim from my horse's neck, which I 

 passed through the opening in the thick skin, and moored Behe- 

 moth to a tree. I then took my rifle and sent a ball through the 

 center of her head, and she was numbered with the dead. 



At this moment my wagons came up within a few hundred 

 yards of the spot, where I outspanned, and by moonlight we took 

 down a span of select oxen and a pair of rheim chains, and 

 succeeded in dragging the sea-cow high and dry. We were all 

 astonished at her enormous size ; she appeared to be about five 

 feet broad across the belly. I could see much beauty in the 

 animal, which Nature has admirably formed for the amphibious 

 life it was destined to pursue. 



We were occupied all the morning of the 19th cutting up and 

 salting the select parts of the sea-cow ; of the skull I took particular 

 charge. She was extremely fat, more resembling a pig than a 

 cow, or a horse. In the evening I rode down the river, and shot 

 a brace of water-bucks, after which I left the river-bank and rode 

 to the summit of an adjacent hill, from which I obtained a fine 

 view of the surrounding country. Many bold blue mountain ranges 

 stood to the north and no-** 1 west ; to the east and southeast were 

 *Iso ""^untain ranges. 



