THE HIPPOPOTAMUS. 



427 



this animal's palate, and may answer the same 

 grateful ends in seasoning its banquet that 

 spices do in heightening ours. 



In some parts of the kingdom of Asia, where 

 the natives are more desirous of appearing 

 warlike than showing themselves brave, these 

 animals are tamed, and led into the field to 

 strike terror into the enemy; but they are 

 always an unmanageable and restive animal, 

 and probably more dangerous to the employ- 

 ers than those whom they are brought to op- 

 pose. 



The method of taking them, is chiefly watch- 

 ing them, till they are found either in some 

 moist or marshy place, where, like hogs, they 

 are fond of sleeping and wallowing. They 

 then destroy the old one with fire arms; for 

 no weapons that are thrown by the force of 

 man are capable of entering this animal's 

 hide. If, when the old one is destroyed, there 

 happens to be a cub, they seize and tame it: 



these animals are sometimes taken in pit-falls, 

 covered with green branches, laid in those 

 paths which the rhinoceros makes in going 

 from the forest to the river side. 



There are some varieties in this animal, as 

 in most others; some of them are Ibund in 

 Africa with a double horn, one growing above 

 the other. This weapon, if considered in it- 

 self, is one of the strongest and most danger- 

 ous that nature furnishes to any p;;rt of the 

 animal creation. The horn is entirely solid, 

 formed of the hardest bony substance, grow- 

 ing from the upper maxillary bone, by so 

 strong an apophyse, as seemingly to make but 

 one part with it. Many are the medicinal 

 virtues that are ascribed to this horn, when 

 taken in powder; but these qualities have 

 been attributed to it without any real founda- 

 tion, and make only a small part of the many 

 fables which this extraordinary animal has 

 given rise to. 



CHAPTER LXI. 



THE HIPPOPOTAMUS. 



THE hippopotamus is an animal as large, 

 and not less formidable, than the rhinoceros ; 

 its legs are shorter, and its head rather more 

 bulky than that of the animal last described. 

 We have had but few opportunities in Europe 

 of examining this formidable creature minute- 

 ly ; its dimensions, however, have been pretty 

 well ascertained, by a description given us 

 by Zerenghi. an Italian surgeon, who procur- 

 ed one of them to be killed on the banks of 

 the river Nile. By his account it appears, 

 that this terrible animal, which chiefly resides 

 in the wp^ters of that river, is above seventeen 

 feet long, from the extremity of the snout to 

 the insertion of the tail ; above sixteen feet 

 in circumference round the body, and above 

 seven feet high : the head is near four feet 

 long, and above nine feet in circumference. 

 The jaws open about two feet wide, and the 

 cutting-teeth, of which it hath four in each 

 jaw, are above a foot long. 



Its feet in some measure resemble those of 

 the elephant, and are divided into four parts. 

 The tail is short, flat, and pointed ; the hide 



" No. 37 & 38. 



is amazingly thick, and though not capable 

 of turning a musket ball, is impenetrable to 

 the blow of a sabre; the body is covered 

 over with a few scattered hairs of a whitish 

 colour. The whole figure of the animal is 

 something between that of an ox and a ho**, 

 and its cry is something between the bellow- 

 ing of the one and the grunting of the 

 other. 



This animal, however, though so terribly 

 furnished for war, seems no way disposed to 

 make use of its prodigious strength against 

 an equal enemy ; it chiefly resides at the bot- 

 tom of the great rivers and lakes of Africa, 

 the Nile, the Niger, and the Zara; there it 

 leads an indolent kind of life, and seems sel- 

 dom disposed for action, except when excited 

 by the calls of hunger. Upon such occasions, 

 three or four of them are often seen at the 

 bottom of a river, near some cataract, form- 

 ing a kind of line, and seizing upon such fish 

 as are forced down by the violence of the 

 stream. In that element they pursue their 

 prey with great swiftness and perseverance ; 

 35 



