422 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 



the fisherman. Sometimes both line and buoy are cast into 

 the water, and all the canoes being launched from off the raft, 

 chase is given to the poor brute, who whenever he comes to 

 the surface is saluted with a shower of javelins. A long trail 

 of blood marks his progress, his flight becomes slower and 

 slower, his breathing more oppressive, until at last, his strength 

 ebbing away through fifty wounds, he floats dead on the 

 surfa(3e. 



But as the whale will sometimes turn upon his assailants, so 

 also the hippopotamus not seldom makes a dash at his perse- 

 cutors, and either with his tusks, or with a blow from his head, 

 staves in or capsizes the canoe. Sometimes evei), not satisfied 

 with wreaking his vengeance on the craft, he seizes one or 

 other of the crew, and with a single grasp of his jaws, either 

 terribly mutilates the poor wretch or even cuts his body fairly 

 in two. 



The natives of Southern Africa, also resort to the ingenious 

 but cruel plan of destroying the hippopotamus by means of a 

 trap, consisting of a beam, four or five feet long, armed with a 

 spear-head or hard wood spike, covered with poison, and sus- 

 pended to a forked pole by a cord, which coming down to the 

 path, is held by a catch, to be set free when the beasts tread on 

 it. On the banks of many rivers these traps are set over every 

 track which the animals have made in going up out of the 

 water to graze ; but the hippopotami, being wary brutes, are 

 still very numerous. While Dr. Livingstone was on the Eiver 

 Shine, a hippopotamus got frightened by the ship, as she was 

 steaming close to the banks. In its eager hurry to escape from 

 an imaginary danger, the poor animal fell into a very real one, 

 for rushing on shore, it ran directly under a trap, when down 

 came the heavy beam on its back, driving the poisoned spear- 

 head a foot deep in its flesh. In its agony, it plunged back 

 into the river, where it soon after expired. 



