82 THE HIPPOPOTAMUS 



For three months young Jumbo, as he came to 

 be called, was the chief feature of Quelimane, and 

 my house became each evening the recognised 

 lounging-place for all the lazy and curious Portu- 

 guese in the district. He speedily became touch- 

 ingly tame, and took his three wash-hand basins 

 of warm, sweetened, preserved milk per day with 

 a relish which aroused hope of approaching inde- 

 pendence of the feeder. The drollery of his some- 

 what elephantine antics was perfectly irresistible, 

 whilst his grave imitations in the duck-pond, in 

 rear of the consular premises, of the habits and 

 manners of the mature beasts, was a spectacle it 

 was difficult to behold unmoved. I intended to 

 present him to the Zoological Society, but fate 

 decided otherwise, for in the end, to my great 

 regret, he faded away and died. 



One of the most remarkable features of the 

 hippopotamus is his mouth and its contents. 

 The principal teeth consist of four enormous 

 incisors above and below. The lower canine 

 teeth — so to term them — are curved into the 

 shape almost of a perfect semicircle, and placed 

 together will usually, in the case of a large bull, 

 span the waist of a full-grown man. The upper 

 teeth are by no means so impressive, either the 

 grinders or the incisors ; but between the lower 

 " canine " teeth two enormous straight tusks ap- 

 pear, sometimes fully 18 inches or more in length, 

 which I suppose are employed in digging out roots 

 in the same way as that in which the elephant 

 uses his tusks. These, and the two immense 

 curved teeth to which I have referred, are doubt- 



