84 THE HIPPOPOTAMUS 



position, though it may be regarded as rather 

 far-fetched, is heightened by the fact that, having 

 overturned you, the huge, humorous amphibian 

 makes no effort to do you any further harm. He 

 simply raises his head out of the water a few yards 

 away, and watches you struggle up the muddy 

 river-bank, with a grave yet playful expression 

 which seems to say, " I hope you don't mind, but 

 it was a lark." 



Sir Samuel Baker in one of his books recounts 

 an instance of extraodinary ferocity on the part 

 of one of these beasts which I should be inclined 

 to regard as rare even for the Nile, in which 

 it occurred. After charging the paddle-wheel 

 steamer which was engaged in towing his daha- 

 beah, and breaking off a number of floats, it 

 dropped astern and rammed the vessel with its 

 projecting tusks, a dangerous leak being only 

 stopped with great difficulty. I have never heard 

 of any similar instance on the Zambezi, where, so 

 far as I am aware, steamers of all kinds have been 

 from the beginning entirely tree from attack. 



Judging by my personal experience of the 

 hippopotamus — and I have seen many hundreds 

 of these animals during the last twenty years — I 

 cannot share the opinions of other writers who 

 describe them as being fierce and dangerous 

 animals in the water or out. Its so-called attacks 

 upon boats and canoes are, in my opinion, in the 

 majority of cases, the outcome of either curiosity 

 or stupidity, leavened perhaps with more than a 

 suspicion of practical joking. Still, no doubt 

 instances have occurred where the beast meant 



