HUNTING THE HIPPOPOTAMUS. 



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as great a delicacy in Africa as a bear's paw or a bison's hump in the prairies of North 

 America. The thick and almost inflexible hide may be dragged from the ribs in strips, 

 like the planks from a ship's side. These serve for the manufacture of a superior de- 

 scription of sjambok, the elastic whip with which the Cape boer governs his team of 

 twelve oxen or more, while proceeding on a journey. In Northern Africa it is used to 

 chastise refractory dromedaries or servants ; and among the collection brought by Du 

 Chaillu from Equatorial Africa were several whips of hippopotamus-hide, which any 

 one who has had opportunity of examination would pronounce to be among the most 

 effective instruments of flagellation ; and the ancient Egyptians employed it largely in 

 the manufacture of shields, helmets, and javelins. But the most valuable part of the 

 hippopotamus is its teeth (canine and incisors), which are considered greatly superior 

 to elephant ivory, and when perfect and weighty, will fetch as much as one guinea per 

 pound, being chiefly used for artificial teeth, since it does not readily turn yellow. 

 Many a belle, whose fascinating *' ivories " are the wonder of her admirers, is in- 

 debted for them to the ugly river-horse. All these qualities and uses to which the 

 hippopotamus may be applied are naturally so many prices set upon its head ; and the 

 ravages it occasions in the fields are another motive for its destruction. On the White 

 Nile the peasantry burn a number of fires, to keep the huge animal away from their 

 plantations, where every footstep ploughs deep furrows into the marshy ground, to the 

 great injury of the harvest. At the same time, they take care to keep up a prodigious 

 clamor of horns and drums, to scare away the ruinous brute, which, as may well be 

 imagined, is by no means so great a favorite with them as with the visitors of the Zoologi- 

 cal Gardens. 



They have besides another, and, where it takes effect far more efficacious method of 

 freeing themselves from the depredations of this animal. They remark the places it 

 most frequents, and there lay a large quantity of pease. When it comes on shore 

 hungry and voracious, it falls to eating what is nearest, and fills its vast stomach with 

 the pease, which soon occasion an insupportable thirst. The river being close at hand, 

 it immediately drinks whole buckets of water, as if it were intent upon swallowing up 

 not merely the little Jordan, but the whole Nile itself, which, by swelling the pease, 

 cause it to blow up, like an overloaded mortar. 



The natives on the Teoge, and other rivers that empty themselves into Lake Ngami, 

 kill the hippopotamus with iron harpoons, attached to long lines ending with a float. 

 A huge reed raft, capable of carrying both the hunters and their canoes, with all that 

 is needful for the prosecution of the chase, is pushed from the shore, and afterwards 

 abandoned to the stream, which propels the unwieldy mass gently and noiselessly for- 

 ward. Long before the hippopotami can be seen, they make known their presence 

 by awful snorts and grunts, whilst splashing and blowing in the water. On approach- 

 ing the herd — for the gregarious animal likes to live in troops of from twenty-five to 

 thirty — the most skillful and intrepid of the hunters stands prepared with the harpoons, 

 whilst the rest make ready to launch the canoes should the attack prove successful. 

 The bustle and noise caused by these preparations gradually subside. At length not 

 even a whisper is heard, and in breathless silence the hunters wait for the decisive 

 conflict. The snorting and plunging become every moment more distinct ; a bend 

 in the stream still hides the animals from view ; but now the point is passed, and" 

 monstrous figures, that might be mistaken for shapeless cliffs, did not ever and anon 



