THE HIPPOPOTAMUS. 173 



hensile tongue : " His mouth, but small, like a hart's ; 

 his tongue is near three feet long, and with that he 

 will so gather in his meat that the eyes of a man will 

 fail to behold his haste/' Topsel, also mentions the 

 peculiar gait of the animal, the legs of the same side 

 being moved together. Yet one hundred years after- 

 wards, the animal was considered as a myth, and any 

 travellers who mentioned it were denounced as liars. 



It is very remarkable, therefore, that Topsel, who 

 gave so accurate an account of the giraffe, should be 

 incredulous respecting the existence of the Hippopo- 

 tamus. For his figure of the animal he gives the well- 

 known allegorical painting in the Vatican, which repre- 

 sents a hippopotamus with a crocodile in its mouth, and 

 signifies the river Nile. His remarks on the subject 

 are worthy of notice. 



" The sea-horse, called in the Greek Hippotomos, 

 and in Latinae Equus fluviatilis. It is a most ugly 

 and filthy beast, so called because in his voyce and 

 mane he resembleth a horse, but in its head an oxe or 

 a calf, in the residue of his body a swine ; for which 

 cause some Grecians call him sometimes a sea-horse, 

 and sometimes a sea-oxe, which thing hath moved 

 many learned men in our time to affirm that a sea- 

 horse was never seen ; whereunto I could easily sub- 

 scribe (saith Bellonius), were it not that the antient 

 figures of a sea-horse altogether resembled that which 

 is here expressed, and was lately to be seen at Con- 

 stantinople, from where this picture was taken. 



" It liveth for the most part in Nilus ; yet it is of 

 a doubtful life, for it brings forth and breedeth on the 

 land, and by the proportion of the legs it seemeth 



