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smaller quadrupeds abound in the rocky wilds and forests. The 

 hippopotamus, rhinoceros, zebra, and camelo-pardalis, animate 

 the distant solitudes. I not only delineated all these animals, but 

 endeavoured to obtain the best information I could respecting 

 their natural history and local habits, from the farmers who visited 

 the Cape-town, from the inland provinces; but so many excellent 

 accounts have been since published by English travellers, who 

 had still better means of obtaining information, that I need not 

 introduce my own remarks; indeed the farmers and planters 

 seemed to deal so much in the marvellous, not only respecting the 

 savage race, but the Hottentots and their brother farmers in the 

 remote districts, that it is necessary to be very cautious in credit- 

 ing their narrations; I shall therefore confine myself to a very few 

 particulars. 



The hippopotamus, although in size next to the elephant, is a 

 a mild and gentle animal, heavy and slow in its motions by land, but 

 more active in the water; and, when irritated by the huntsmen, it 

 sometimes does mischief in that element: it feeds principally on 

 grass, and is caught in pits which the Hottentots dig on the banks 

 of the rivers, where it comes to graze. These pits are ten or twelve 

 feet deep, concealed by green turf and boughs, from whence this 

 ponderous animal can never extricate himself. Its flesh is 

 esteemed a delicacy, and the ivory of the tusks preferable to that 

 of the elephant; the planters obtain much oil from the hippopot- 

 amus, the rhinoceros, and the elephant, both for medicinal and 

 domestic use. The feet and trunk of these animals are thought 

 excellent by the Hottentots and colonists, who make them into a 

 rich stew; the rest of their flesh, which is seldom all devoured 



