THE HIPPOPOTAMUS 393 



its power to see, hear, and breathe. The mouth is a 

 cavernous opening fitted with formidable teeth. The jaws 

 possess terrific power, sufficient to crunch a canoe into 

 pieces at a single bite. The enormous curved canine teeth 

 in the lower jaw are sometimes thirty inches in length, with 

 a circumference of nine inches at the base. The largest 

 known tusk was thirty-eight inches over the curve. The 

 lower incisors project in such a manner as to enable the 

 animal to cut grass and reeds as though with a pair of 

 shears ; and it has been known to sever a man in two at a 

 single bite. 



The Hippopotamus feeds upon riverside herbage and 

 water-plants and roots. From the stomach of a dead 

 animal have been taken six bushels of chewed grass, giving 

 a good idea of the bulk of the fodder required to form a 

 meal. Consequently, if but one animal wanders into a 

 native plantation to satisfy its appetite, it makes a consider- 

 able hole in a crop, omitting what it beats down in its 

 ungainly progress. 



On land the animal is slow and heavy, though it can 

 travel swiftly for a short distance ; but in the river it is per- 

 fectly at ease, swimming, diving, or walking along the 

 bottom with the utmost facility and comfort. It is more 

 aquatic than any other of the Ungulates ; it can swim at 

 about ten knots an hour, and can remain under water for 

 as long as five minutes, although more generally it is but 

 two. 



The hide is of enormous thickness and will weigh as 

 much as five hundredweights when freshly stripped. It is 

 thickest on the back. It is largely used to make the terrible 

 sjambok whips, a blow from which will make a groove in a 

 deal board. In the early days of South African settlement, 

 refractory slaves were often whipped with the terrible 

 scourge. The tusks were formerly greatly prized by dentists, 

 who utilised them in the manufacture of artificial teeth. 



The hide and tusks alone make the huge animal well 

 worth capture ; and the natives often boldly chase it, and 

 with spears and harpoons kill it by sheer skill and courage. 

 Very often peculiar traps are set in the paths which the 

 animals are known to use on their way to the water. The 



