CHAPTER XII 



THE HIPPOPOTAMUS 



AFRICA is the only portion of the world which produces this ex- 

 traordinary animal, and we find it distributed in almost all rivers 

 that are comprised within 26 degrees of latitude North and South. 

 It is supposed that in a remote age the hippopotamus of the Nile 

 extended its journey towards the north as far as Cairo, but it has 

 been driven towards the south by the increase of traffic, and is now 

 limited to the distant portion of the Soudan in the neighbourhood 

 of Dongola. Even there it is scarce, and no great numbers are to 

 be seen north of Khartoum, N. lat. 15 30', although the animals 

 actually exist, and take refuge upon the wooded islands of the Nile 

 throughout its course from Berber to Abou Hamed. 



It is curious to observe how a comparatively short interval of 

 time will effect a change in driving animals from a particular 

 neighbourhood, and compelling them to seek seclusion by travelling 

 distances that would to some persons appear incredible. I well 

 remember that twenty -eight years ago I saw crocodiles in con- 

 siderable numbers at Dendera upon the lower Nile, far to the north 

 of the cataracts at Assouan. These creatures have disappeared, 

 and the disturbance occasioned by steamers has not only exiled 

 them from their old haunts upon the lower river, but they are 

 become scarce where they were exceedingly plentiful twenty years 

 ago, between the first and second cataracts to Wady Haifa. 



When we have been ourselves eye-witnesses of such a change 

 within the short interval of a few years, it becomes easy to com- 

 prehend the disappearance of the hippopotamus during the last 

 thousand or fifteen hundred years. This animal, in like manner 

 with the crocodile, would not migrate suddenly to a distant point, 

 but would gradually recede before advancing civilisation, and would 

 disappear from a district by slow degrees that would hardly be 

 appreciated at the time of its retreat. 



R 



