264 A JOURNEY UP THE RIVER CONGO. 
water and goes to feed amid the great rank grass-fields, 
where he remains until after sunrise; indeed, if you are 
smart, you may intercept him there, cut off his retreat, 
kill him easily, for he offers a huge mark, and then go- 
tranquilly to your breakfast, having first spoilt his. As 
to shooting them froma canoe on the water, it is a 
question the utility of which it is difficult to decide. If 
you do not fire at- Hippo, he may come and just wreck 
you in a spirit of pure play; on the other hand, if you hit 
and do not kill outright, he will certainly make for you 
with a vengeance. Fortunately they do not swim very 
fast, and may easily be out-distanced by a skilfully- 
paddled canoe. The female hippopotamus is passionately 
attached to her young, and during the first few weeks of 
its life lives almost isolated from her fellows, generally on 
land ; | imagine that this is because the baby hippopotam1 
at an early age might form an easy prey to the voracions 
crocodiles. The males are much given to quarrelling even 
in the day-time, and, when fighting, utter strange boar- 
like squeals and erunts. It very often happens that an 
unfortunate bull, unable to obtain a mate, turns rogue, 
and lives a solitary life, seeking to wreak his spite on 
whatever may come in his way. There was one such 
beast that haunted the neighbourhood of Msuata. This 
malicious creature was the terror of the natives in the 
adjoining villages, for he would lie in wait, amid the 
rushes, for the canoes returning home with the fishermen 
at dusk, and then swim out silently under water and 
wreck them. When I was staying here we sent a canoe 
with letters to Stanley, who was farther down the river. 
The canoe started at early dawn, was wrecked close to the 
station by the demon hippopotamus, and one of its occu- 
pants was carried off by a crocodile. On the whole, the 
hippopotamus may be called the most dangerous animal 
to man on the river Congo. 
The rhinoceros is nowhere heard of in this district, nor 
is he, properly speaking, found in West Africa at all, 
merely penetrating into Southern Angola from the Zambezi 4 
and South African regions. The red ‘tiver-hog g (Sus porcus) 
aes | 
