4866 Tue ZooLoctst—APRIL, 1876. 
eagerly exchanged by the more settled people for grain. They are 
not stingy, and are everywhere welcome guests. I never heard of 
any fraud in dealing, or that they had been guilty of an outrage 
on the poorest: their chief characteristic is their courage. Their 
hunting is the bravest thing I ever saw. Each canoe is manned by 
two men; they are long light craft, scarcely half an inch in thick- 
ness, about eighteen inches beam, and from eighteen to twenty feet 
long. They are formed for speed, and shaped somewhat like our 
racing-boats. Each man uses a broad short paddle, and as they 
guide the canoe slowly down stream to a sleeping hippopotamus 
not a single ripple is raised on the smooth water; they look as if _ 
holding in their breath, and communicate by signs only. As they 
come near the prey the harpooner in the bow lays down his paddle 
and rises slowly up, and there he stands erect, motionless, and 
eager, with the long-handled weapon poised at arm’s length above 
his head, till coming close to the beast he plunges it with all his 
might in towards the heart. During this exciting feat he has to 
keep his balance exactly. His neighbour in the stern at once 
backs his paddle, the harpooner sits down, seizes his paddle, and 
backs too to escape: the animal surprised and wounded seldom 
returns the attack at this stage of the hunt. The next stage, how- 
ever, is full of danger. 
“The barbed blade of the Puen is secured by a long and 
very strong rope wound round the handle: it is intended to come 
out of its socket, and while the iron head is firmly fixed in the 
animal’s body the rope unwinds and the handle floats on the 
surface. The hunter next goes to the handle and hauls on the 
rope till he knows that he is right over the beast: when he feels 
the line suddenly slacken he is prepared to deliver another harpoon 
the instant the hippo’s enormous jaws appear with a terrible grunt 
above the water. The backing by the paddles is again repeated, 
but hippo often assaults the canoe, crunches it with his great jaws 
as easily as a pig would a bunch of asparagus, or shivers it with a 
kick by his hind foot. Deprived of their canoe, the gallant com- 
rades instantly dive and swim to the shore under the water: they 
say that the infuriated beast looks for them on the surface, and 
being below they escape his sight. When caught by many har- 
poons the crews of several canoes seize the handles and drag 
him hither and thither, till, weakened by loss of blood, he 
succumbs. 
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