4o8 
EASTERN ETHIOPIA 
XXXII 
attack and overturn a canoe or a boat ; it will also 
perforate tlie boat with its teeth, and sometimes bite 
pieces out of it. 
Hippopotamus-ivory was formerly used for making 
artificial teeth. Sportsmen often keep the incisors and 
canines as trophies, and natives split large tusks and 
wear them as ornaments or as charms. 
On land the hippopotamus is an ugly and apparently 
awkward brute ; its legs are very short in proportion to 
its body, which resembles a black hogshead on short 
supports. The feet are short and broad ; the toes, 
unequal in length, are furnished with rounded hoofs, 
all of which reach the ground in walking and leave 
easily recognised marks in soft, sticky mud. The broad 
feet do immense damage to the growing crops of the 
natives, especially as hippopotamuses live in herds 
consisting of twenty to forty individuals. They eat 
grass in enormous quantities, which they are able to 
crop quite close. The stomach is complex, and capable 
of bolding five or six bushels of grass and aquatic 
plants. 
In sj3ite of apparent clumsiness the hippopotamus 
can make its way up a steep bank with remarkable 
quickness. In the favourite haunts a hippopotamus 
track is often a tunnel through reeds, papyrus and 
brushwood on the banks of a river, lake, or back-water. 
These animals feed principally at night, and sportsmen 
take advantage of this fact to shoot them, for when 
killed in deep water they sink, but after two hours 
or more, when the gases of decomposition accumulate 
in the belly, the carcase fioats, and can be towed into 
the shallows and rolled ashore. 
The body of a hippopotamus is useful to the natives. 
Its fiesh is eaten, often uncooked. The skin is thick, 
and almost hairless. There are tufts of hair on the 
lips, around the margin of the ears, and at the tip 
of the tail. The hide is often two inches thick ; it is 
used for making whips, bridles, hobbles, etc. The 
