286 THE LIVING ANIMALS OF THE WORLD 
to her was forty seconds, and the longest four minutes and twenty seconds —the usual time 
being from two to two and a half minutes. She always remained a long time under water 
after having been fired at. 
The capsizing of canoes by these animals is quite a common occurrence on most African 
rivers, and the great pains the natives will take in certain districts to give these animals a 
wide berth seem to prove that they have good reason to dread them. Solitary bulls and 
cows with young calves are the most feared. Such animals will sometimes, I have been 
assured by the natives, tear out the side of a canoe with their teeth, and even crunch up 
some of its occupants whilst they are trying to save themselves by swimming. Sipopo, a 
chief of the Barotse tribe, who was deposed bv his nephew Mona Wena in 1876, was said 
to have been attacked and killed by a hippopotamus whilst lying wounded amongst the reeds 
on the southern bank of the Zambesi, but I cannot vouch for the truth of the story. 
Bull hippopotamuses must be rather quarrelsome, as I have shot several whose hides were 
deeply scored with wounds, no doubt 
inflicted by the tusks of their rivals. 
Once I killed a hippopotamus in a 
shallow lagoon amongst the swamps 
of the Chobi, whose enormously thick 
hide had been literally cut to pieces 
from head to tail. The entire body 
of this animal was covered with deep 
white scores, and we were unable to 
cut a single sjambok from its skin. 
We found, on examination, that this 
poor beast had been wounded by 
natives, and then in its distress most 
cruelly set upon by its fellows, and 
finally expelled from their society. It 
was in the last stage of emaciation, 
and a bullet through the brain must 
have been a welcome relief. On 
another occasion a hippopotamus bull, 
which I had wounded in the nose, 
2 became so furious that it dived down 
No. I and attacked one of its fellows which 
DENTAL OPERATIONS ON A HIPPOPOTAMUS had already been killed and was 
This and the next two photographs probably constitute the most remarkable series lying dead at the bottom of the pool. 
of animal photographs ever seen. No. 5 shows a hippopotamus about to be trapped, Seizing this latter animal by the 
preparatory to having its teeth attended to ind leg: it brogelit bo eee ee 
of the water with such a furious rush that not only half the body of the dead animal it had 
attacked was exposed, but the whole of its own head and shoulders came above the water. 
A bullet through the brain killed it instantly, and it sank to the bottom of the pool, still 
holding its companion’s hind leg fast in its jaws. 
When a hippopotamus is killed in the water, the carcase sinks to the bottom, and in the 
cold water of the rivers of Mashonaland will not rise to the surface till six hours after death. 
In the warmer water of the Lower Zambesi a dead hippopotamus will come up in about half 
that time. When it rises, the carcase comes up like a submerged cork, with a rush as it were, 
and then settles down, only a small piece.of the side showing above the surface. As decom- 
position sets in, it becomes more and more swollen, and shows higher and higher above the 
water. When the body of a dead hippopotamus has been taken by the wind or current to 
the wrong side of a river, I have often climbed on to it and paddled it with a stout stick 
rigiit across the river to a spot nearer camp. A dead hippopotamus is not the easiest or the 
