322 



The Living Animals of the World 



to her was forty seconds, and the longest four minutes and twenty seconds the usual time 

 being from two to two and a half minutes. She always remained a long time under water 

 after having been fired at. 



The capsizing of canoes by these animals is quite a common occurrence on most African 

 rivers, and the great pains the natives will take in certain districts to give these animals a 

 wide berth seem to prove that they have good reason to dread them. Solitary bulls and 

 cows with young calves are the most feared. Such animals will sometimes, I have been 

 assured by the natives, tear out the side of a canoe with their teeth, and even crunch up 

 some of its occupants whilst they are trying to save themselves by swimming. Sipopo, a 

 chief of the Barotse tribe, who was deposed by his nephew Mona Wena in 1876, was said 

 to have been attacked and killed by a hippopotamus whilst lying wounded amongst the reeds 

 on the southern bank of the Zambesi, but I cannot vouch for the truth of the story. 



Bull hippopotamuses must be rather quarrelsome, as I have shot several whose hides were 



deeply scored with wounds, no doubt 

 inflicted by the tusks of their rivals. 

 Once I killed a hippopotamus in a 

 shallow lagoon amongst the swamps 

 of the Chobi, whose enormously thick 

 hide had been literally cut to pieces 

 from head to tail. The entire body 

 of this animal was covered with deep 

 white scores, and we were unable to 

 cut a single sjambok from its skin. 

 We found, on examination, that this 

 poor beast had been wounded by 

 natives, and then in its distress most 

 cruelly set upon by its fellows, and 

 finally expelled from their society. It 

 was in the last stage of emaciation, 

 and a bullet through the brain must 

 have been a welcome relief. On 

 another occasion a hippopotamus bull, 

 which I had wounded in the nose, 

 became so furious that it dived down 

 and attacked one of its fellows which 

 had already been killed and was 

 lying dead at the bottom of the pool. 

 Seizing this latter animal by the 

 hind leg, it brought it to the surface 



of the water with such a furious rush that not only half the body of the dead animal it had 

 attacked was exposed, but the whole of its own head and shoulders came above the water. 

 A bullet through the brain killed it instantly, and it sank to the bottom of the pool, still 

 holding its companion's hind leg fast in its jaws. 



When a hippopotamus is killed in the water, the carcase sinks to the bottom, and in the 

 cold water of the rivers of Mashonaland will not rise to the surface till six hours after death. 

 In the warmer water of the Lower Zambesi a dead hippopotamus will come up in about half 

 that time. When it rises, the carcase comes up like a submerged cork, with a rush as it were, 

 and then settles down, only a small piece of the side showing above the surface. As decom- 

 position sets in, it becomes more and more swollen, and shows higher and higher above the 

 water. When the body of a dead hippopotamus has been taken by the wind or current to 

 the wrong side of a river, I have often climbed on to it and paddled it with a stout stick 

 right across the river to a spot nearer camp. A dead hippopotamus is not the easiest or the 



DENTAL OPERATIONS ON A HIPPOPOTAMUS KO. I. 



This and the next two photographs probably constitute the most remarkable 

 series of animal photographs ever seen. No 1 shows a hippopotamus about to be 

 trapped, preparatory to having its teeth attended to. 



