THE HIPPOPOTAMUS. 487 



terrible nuisance to the owners of cultivated lands that happen to be near 

 the river in which the animal has taken up his abode. During the day 

 it is comfortably asleep in its chosen hiding-place, but as soon as the 

 shades of night deepen it issues from its den, and treading its way into 

 the cultivated lands makes sad devastation among the growing crops. 

 Were the mischief to be confined to the amount which is eaten by the 

 voracious brute, it would still be bad enough, but the worst of the matter 

 is that the Hippopotamus damages more than it cats by the clumsy man- 

 ner of its progress. The body is so large and heavy, and the legs are so 

 short, that the animal is forced to make a double track as he walks, and 

 in the grass-grown plain can be readily traced by the peculiar character 

 of the track. It may therefore be easily imagined that when a number 

 of these hungry, awkward, waddling, splay-footed beasts come blunder- 

 ing among the standing crops, trampling and devouring indiscriminately, 

 they will do no slight damage before they think fit to retire. 



The Hippopotamus is a gregarious animal, collecting in herds of 

 twenty or thirty wherever food is plentiful, and never straying far from 

 its feeding-place. In favorable spots where woods clothe the banks of 

 the stream and aquatic vegetation is abundant in the water, the monsters 

 of the river are soon discovered. At intervals of three or four minutes 

 the traveler observes a vapory column rising about a yard above the 

 surface, and hears a peculiar snort or bellowing, and beholds the shape- 

 less head of the creature appear, a reddish or reddish-brown mass with 

 two points, the ears, and four protuberances, the eyes and nostrils ; often 

 indeed only the latter are visible. The rest of the huge carcass is seldom 

 exhibited. The approach of even a large boat does not disturb or alarm 

 the animal, which stares with stupid astonishment at the intruders with- 

 out interrupting its ascent and descent in the waters. In the narrower 

 and shallower streams where the dry season leaves much of the channel 

 dry, the hippopotami form deep troughs in the bed of the river, in which 

 they can dive and hide themselves. Sometimes several of these troughs, 

 each of which can contain four or five, are united by channels. They 

 never leave the water except in utterly unfrequented spots, where they 

 come to land and lie, half asleep, in the reed-beds, as happy and com- 

 placent as so many swine wallowing in the mud. Small birds, such as 

 the Hyas Egyptiacus, walk over the huge bodies and pick off sundry para- 

 sites, and, according to the Arabs, act as guardians to the slumbering 

 monsters. It is a fact that at the slightest cry of these birds they retire 



