436 THE HIPPOPOTAMUS 



and uses to which the hippopotamus may be applied are 

 naturally as many prices set upon its head ; and the ravages it 

 occasions in the fields are another motive for its destruction. 

 On the White Nile the peasantry burn a number of fires, to 

 keep the huge animal away from their plantations, where every 

 footstep ploughs deep furrows into the marshy ground, to the 

 great injury of the harvest. At the same time, they take care 

 to keep up a prodigious clamour of horns and drums, to scare 

 away the ruinous brute, which, as may well be imagined, is by 

 no means so great a favourite with them as with the visitors of 

 the Zoological Grardens. 



They have besides another, and, where it takes effect, far more 

 efl&cacious method of freeing themselves from the depredations 

 of this animal. They remark the places it most frequents, 

 and there lay a large quantity of pease. When it comes on 

 shore hungry and voracious, it falls to eating what is nearest, 

 and fills its vast stomach with the pease, which soon occasion an 

 insupportable thirst. The river being close at hand, it immedi- 

 ately drinks whole buckets of water, which, by swelling the 

 pease, cause it to blow up, like an overloaded mortar. 



The natives on the Teoge, and other rivers that empty 

 themselves into Lake Ngami, kill the hippopotamus with iron 

 harpoons, attached to long lines ending with a float. A huge 

 reed raft, capable of carrying both the hunters and their canoes, 

 with all that is needful for the prosecution of the chase, is pushed 

 from the shore, and afterwards abandoned to the stream, which 

 propels the unwieldy mass gently and noiselessly forward. 

 Long before the hippopotami can be seen, they make known 

 their presence by awful snorts and grants whilst splashing and 

 blowing in the water. On approaching the herd, for the gre- 

 garious animal likes to live in troops of from twenty-five to 

 thirty, the most skilful and intrepid of the hunters stands pre- 

 pared with the harpoons, whilst the rest make ready to launch 

 the canoes should the attack prove successful. The bustle and 

 noise caused by these preparations gradually subside: at length not 

 even a whisper is heard, and in breathless silence the hunters 

 wait for the decisive conflict. The snorting and plunging 

 become every moment more distinct ; a bend in the stream still 

 hides the animals from view ; but now the point is passed, and 

 monstrous figures, that might be mistaken for shapeless cliffs. 



