BEHEMOTH AND THE UNICORN. 601 



exhibits its prodigious* strength in a more formidable light 

 than any thing else we have yet heard of it. He says, 

 speaking of the black rhinoceros : 



They fear no enemy but man, and are fearless of him when 

 wounded and pursued. The lion flies before them like a cat ; 

 the mohohu, the largest species, has been known even to kill 

 the elephant, by thrusting his horn into his ribs. 



But Harris's account of behemoth is too graphic to be 

 omitted or amended. Here it is : 



Of all the mammalia, whose portraits, drawn from ill-stuffed 

 specimens, have been foisted upon the world, the Behemoth 

 has perhaps been the most ludicrously misrepresented. I 

 sought in vain for the colossal head for those cavern-like 

 jaws, garnished with elephantine tusks or those ponderous 

 feet with which " the formidable and ferocious quadruped" is 

 wont " to trample down whole fields of corn during a single 

 night." Defenceless and inoffensive, his shapeless carcass is 

 but feebly supported upon short and disproportioned legs, and 

 his belly almost trailing upon the ground, he may not inaptly 

 be likened to an overgrown " prize pig." The color is pinkish 

 brown, clouded and freckled with a darker tint. Of many 

 that we shot, the largest measured less than five feet at the 

 shoulder'; and the reality falling so lamentably short of the 

 monstrous conception I had formed, the "river horse" or 

 "sea cow," was the first, and indeed the only South African 

 quadruped in which I felt disappointed. 



Our next movement brought us to the source of the Oori 

 or Limpopo the gareep of Moselekatse's dominions. Led 

 by many fine streams from the Cashan range, this enchanting 

 river springs into existence as if by magic ; and rolling its 

 deep and tranquil waters between tiers of weeping willows, 

 through a passage in the mountain barrier, takes its course 

 to the northward. Here we enjoyed the novel diversion of 

 hippopotamus shooting, that animal abounding in the Lim- 

 popo ; and dividing the empire with its amphibious neighbor, 



