HIPPOPOTAMI. 451 



considerable speed, and it was reported to him that another had completely smashed 

 a canoe with a single blow from its hind foot. On another occasion a female 

 hippopotamus, whose young had been speared the previous day, rose suddenly 

 beneath the canoe containing Livingstone and seven natives, and with her head 

 lifted one half of it completely out of the water, so as nearly to overturn it. On 

 the White Nile one of these animals boldly charged one of Sir S. Baker's steamers, 

 and, not content with breaking several floats from one of the paddle-wheels, actually 

 knocked two large holes with its tusks in the bottom of the vessel. The same 

 writer also relates that a hippopotamus once struck the bottom of a " dug-out " 

 canoe measuring twenty-seven feet in length with such force as to lift it partially 

 out of the water. The most extraordinary incident of wanton maliciousness on 



HIPPOPOTAMI AT HOME. 



Hunting. 



the part of these animals is, however, one also recorded by Sir S. Baker. His 

 natives were swimming a herd of about twenty cattle across the Nile, when they 

 were suddenly attacked by a party of hippopotami, some of which seized with open 

 jaws several of the cows and dragged them beneath the water, never to reappear. 



As already mentioned, the ancient Egyptians were in the habit 

 of harpooning the hippopotamus, and this custom is still kept up by 

 the Sudanis on the upper Nile. The usual plan when a party of these animals 

 has been observed in the river, is for a couple of hunters, each armed with a 

 harpoon to which a line is attached, to enter the river some distance above, and 

 swim cautiously down on the herd. When within striking distance, both men hurl 

 their weapons at the same time. To each line is attached a wooden float, which 

 marks the position of the animal while below the surface, and the chase is taken 

 up by other hunters on the bank armed with harpoons and lances. By an ingenious 



