240 WILD ANIMALS. 



very inaccurate descriptions of the animal, sufficiently so to prove 

 tliat they never saw it, although the portraits of it on the coins of 

 the period are almost without exception fairly good representa- 

 tions of the animal. 



Schweinfurth also gives some information regarding the eating 

 qualities of the hippopotamus flesh, and the uses to which the 

 skin is put ; for he states in his travels that, on a certain occasion 

 after killing one of these animals ; " We were hard at work on 

 the following day in turning the huge carcase of a hippopotamus 

 to account for our domestic use. My people boiled down great 

 flasks of the fat which they took from the layers between the ribs, 

 but what the entire produce of grease would have been I was 

 unable to determine, as hundreds, of natives had already cut off 

 and appropriated pieces of the flesh. When boiled, hippopotamus- 

 fat is very similar to pork-lard, though, in the warm climate 

 of Central Africa, it never attains a consistency firmer than that 

 of oil. Of all animal fats it appears to be the purest, and at 

 any rate never becomes rancid, and will keep for many years 

 without requiring any special process of clarifying ; it has, 

 however, a slight flavour of train oil, to which it is difficult for a 

 European to become accustomed. It is stated in some books that 

 hippopotamus-bacon is quite a delicacy, but I can by no means 

 concur in the opinion ; I always found it unfit for eating, and 

 when cut into narrow strips and roasted, it was as hard and tough 

 as so much rope ; the same may be said of the tongue, which I 

 often had smoked and salted. The meat is remarkably fibrous, 

 and is one continuous tissue of sinews. 



" Several hundred mule-whips, or kurbatches, can be made from 

 the hide of a single animal ; and afterwards, in Egypt, my servants 

 made a profitable little market by selling the whips, for which 

 they found a ready demand. By a proper application of oil, heat, 

 and friction, they may be made as flexible as gutta-percha. The 

 fresh skin is easily cut cross- wise into long quadrilateral strips, 

 and when half dry the edges are trimmed with a knife, and the 

 strips are hammered into the round whips as though they were 

 iron beaten on an anvil. The length of these much dreaded 

 " knouts " of the south is represented by half the circumference 



