538 Great and Small Game of Africa 



are very noisy at nights, their loud grunting bellow being one of the most 

 familiar sounds on an African river. Towards the end of the rainy season, 

 about March or April in South Africa, hippopotami become excessively 

 fat, and the meat of a young cow in good condition is exceedingly good ; 

 in my own opinion better than that of any antelope. 



An old bull is, of course, always very tough and usually very lean. 

 Hippopotamus meat is dark red in colour, and in flavour more resembles 

 beef than pork. Hippopotami are usually killed by Europeans by a shot in 

 the brain as they raise their heads above the surface of the water to breathe. 

 It is as well to take time and try and make sure of the first shot, as, where 

 they have been much persecuted, hippopotami do not give very easy chances 

 after the first shot has been fired, as they then know what to expect. 

 Sometimes they will not show any part of their heads but their great square 

 snouts, as they draw in their breath through their nostrils ; and sometimes 

 they will disappear altogether after the first shot, and never show themselves 

 again, though the pool in which they are may be watched for hours. In 

 such cases I believe that they raise their nostrils above the water in the 

 shelter of some overhanging bush, and lie there breathing noiselessly until 

 dark, when they will leave the pool in which they have been molested 

 and travel up or down the river to a safer locality, perhaps 20 or 25 miles 

 away, a distance which they can cover in the course of the night. Once 

 whilst trying to shoot a hippopotamus in the Zambesi — the very animal 

 which capsized my canoe, as related above — I took the times with my watch, 

 during more than an hour, that it remained under water in the intervals 

 of breathing. The shortest time was forty seconds, and the longest four 

 minutes and twenty seconds ; the usual time being from two to two and a 

 half minutes. It always remained longest under water after having been 

 fired at, though on such occasions it must have gone down without having 

 taken a full breath. When killed by a shot in the brain, a hippopotamus 

 at once sinks to the bottom, and if the water is cold and deep the carcase 



