364 THE HIPPOPOTAMUS. 



tail is short, flat, and pointed ; the hide is amaz- 

 ingly 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 scat- 

 tered hairs, of a whitish colour. The whole 

 figure of the animal is something between that 

 of an ox and a hog, and its .cry is something 

 between the bellowing of the one and the grunt- 

 ing of the other. 



This animal, however, though so terribly fur- 

 nished for war, seems no way disposed to make 

 use of its prodigious strength against an equal 

 enemy: it chiefly resides at the bottom 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 seldom disposed for ac- 

 tion, 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, forming 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 ; they 

 swim with much force, and remain at the bottom 

 for thirty or forty minutes without rising to take 

 breath. They traverse the bottom of the stream, 

 as if walking upon land, and make a terrible 

 devastation where they find plenty of prey. But 

 it often happens that this animal's fishy food is 

 not supplied in sufficient abundance ; it is then 

 forced to come upon land, where it is an awk^ 

 ward and unwieldy stranger : it moves but slowly, 

 and, as it seldom forsakes the margin of the river, 



