100 
HIPPOPOTAMUS. 
of which, however, we shall not pretend to warrant). 
He tells us that the natives lay a great heap of 
pease in the places which the hippopotamus fre- 
quents : he eats greedily; then growing thirsty, 
drinks immoderately ; the pease in his belly swell, 
the animal bursts, and is found dead. 
When the hippopotamus is in danger, he seems 
to place all his dependence on the water ; where, 
if he happens to be wounded, he becomes a very 
savage and formidable enemy. One of these ani- 
mals has been known (if we may credit Dampier) 
to open his jaws, and, seizing a boat between his 
teeth, at once to bite and sink it to the bottom. 
When Dr. Thunberg visited CafFraria in the year 
1773, he met with an elderly man (a keen sports- 
man) who had made long journeys at various times 
into the interior part of the country. This man 
related to him, upon his honour, several circum- 
stances to which he had been an eye witness, and 
which a traveller is very seldom fortunate enough 
to have himself an opportunity of seeing. Once, 
for instance, when he was out a-hunting, having 
observed a sea-cow ( hippopotamus amphibius ) that 
had gone a little way up from a neighbouring river 
in order to calve ; he, with his suite, lay still and 
concealed in the bushes till the calf made its ap- 
pearance, when one of them fired, and shot the 
mother dead on the spot. The Hottentots, who 
imagined that after this they could catch the calf 
alive, immediately ran out of their hiding-places to 
