THE HIPPOPOTAMUS 
HIPPOPOTAMUS AMPHIBIUS 
F ROM time to time bones and skulls have been dug up from the 
valley of the Thames and other places in Southern Britain which 
osteologists have pronounced to have belonged to an animal 
which apparently differed in no way from the existent hippo- 
potamus. These huge creatures, therefore, probably retreated 
southwards from Europe in pleistocene times before the advance 
of the last glacial period, and entered Africa before that continent had 
become entirely separated from Europe by the Mediterranean Sea as it 
now exists. 
By way of the valley of the Nile, possibly, the species spread southwards, 
and in course of time established itself in every lake and river throughout 
Africa. However long it may have taken these huge, unwieldy creatures 
to occupy every portion of so vast a continent, wherever the conditions 
suitable to their requirements were to be found, that occupation must 
have been accomplished at a very remote period, for on the Umfuli River 
in Southern Rhodesia I have seen myself footpaths worn deep in the solid 
rock by the feet of countless generations of these animals following always 
on the same track between one deep pool and another. 
When I first visited South Africa, now more than forty years ago, an old 
hippopotamus bull still survived in the Berg River, not very far from Cape 
Town. This animal, however, had to be destroyed, as in its old age it 
became very savage. It was said that on the approach of any human being 
it would leave the water and drive him or her off. Finally it killed a boy, 
and, though this exploit was no doubt very soothing to its feelings, it 
excited so much animosity against it that an order was given for its 
execution, and it was shot. 
The last of the hippos in the Berg River was not, however, the last 
survivor of its species in the Cape Colony, for at the time of its death a 
small number of these animals were still living in the St John’s River, 
near East London, as also it was reported in the lower reaches of the 
great Orange River. In the former locality hippos have long ceased to 
exist, and I have never heard any reliable evidence of their presence in 
modern times anywhere in the latter. The pioneer missionary, Robert 
Moffat, met with them there nearly a hundred years ago, and I have seen 
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