ROGUE HIPPOPOTAMI, OR SOLITAIRES 433 



of easy destruction, in spite, or rather on account of its size, 

 which betrays it to the attacks of its enemies; a dangerous 

 neighbour to plantations, it is condemned to retreat before the 

 waves of advancing civilisation, and would long since have been 

 extirpated in all Africa, if the lakes and rivers of the interior of 

 that vast den of barbarism were as busily ploughed over as ours 

 by boats and ships, or their banks as thickly strewn with towns 

 and villages. 



For the hippopotamus is not able, like so many other beasts 

 of the wilderness, to hide itself in the 

 gloom of impenetrable forests, or to 

 plunge into the sandy desert, traversed 

 by the Bedouin on his dromedary ; 

 it requires the neighbourhood of the 

 stream, the empire of which it divides 

 with its amphibious neighbour the Hippopotamus. 



crocodile. Occasionally during the day it is to be seen basking 

 on the shore amid ooze and mud, but throughout the night 

 the unwieldly monster may be heard snorting and blowing 

 during its aquatic gambols ; it then sallies forth from its reed- 

 grown coverts to graze by the light of the moon, never, how- 

 ever, venturing to any distance from the river, the stronghold 

 to which it betakes itself on the smallest alarm. 



In point of ugliness the hippopotamus, or river-horse, as it 

 has also very inappropriately been named, might compete with 

 the rhinoceros itself. Its shapeless carcase rests upon short 

 and disproportioned legs, and, with its vast belly almost trail- 

 ing upon the groimd, it may not inaptly be likened to an 

 overgrown " prize-pig." Its immensely large head has each jaw 

 armed with two formidable tusks, those in the lower, which are 

 always the largest, attaining at times two feet in length ; and the 

 inside of the mouth is said to resemble a mass of butcher's meat. 

 The eyes, which are placed in prominences like the garret win- 

 dows of a Dutch house, the nostrils, and ears, are all on the same 

 plane, on the upper level of the head, so that the unwieldy 

 monster, when immersed in its favourite element, is able to draw 

 breath, and to use three senses at once for hours together, with- 

 out exposing more than its snout. The hide, which is upwards 

 of an inch and a half in thickness, and of a pinkish brown 

 colour, clouded and freckled with a darker tint, is destitute of 



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