XII 
THE HIPPOPOTAMUS 
5 
Nature can only have added it as the termination of 
the ugliest of her handiworks. The nose of the 
hippopotamus is an enormous protuberance, which 
includes a firm and cartilaginous upper lip. 
Stupidly ferocious when in the water, the bull 
will frequently attack a boat without the slightest 
provocation ; but if disturbed when on land, it will 
immediately retreat to the concealment of the 
river’s depths by plunging off the bank. I have 
seen them recklessly jump or tumble from a pre¬ 
cipitous bank 12 or 16 feet in height, and fall 
into the water with an extraordinary commotion, 
when suddenly intruded upon in a mid-day’s sleep 
beneath some shady trees. 
There are exceptions to all rules, and although 
this stupid animal will generally retreat from man, 
I have known two instances when fatal accidents 
occurred on shore. One of these was upon the 
Atbara river, during the dry season, when the 
Arabs cultivated water-melons upon the exhausted 
bed, near a large and deep pool, from which they 
obtained the water necessary for irrigation. The 
hippopotami amused themselves with munching 
ripe water-melons during the night, and when the 
proprietor appeared to drive them from his garden, 
he was immediately seized in the jaws of a well- 
known bull and destroyed by one crunch of the 
terrible rows of teeth. 
On another occasion I had wounded a very 
ferocious bull that was an old enemy of the natives, 
near a village on the borders of the White Nile. 
