HIPPOPOTAMI. 
45i 
considerable speed, and it was reported to him that another had completely smashed 
a canoe with a single blow from its hind foot. On another occasion a female 
hippopotamus, whose young had been speared the previous day, rose suddenly 
beneath the canoe containing Livingstone and seven natives, and with her head 
lifted one half of it completely out of the water, so as nearly to overturn it. On 
the White Nile one of these animals boldly charged one of Sir S. Baker’s steamers, 
and, not content with breaking several floats from one of the paddle-wheels, actually 
knocked two large holes with its tusks in the bottom of the vessel. The same 
writer also relates that a hippopotamus once struck the bottom of a “ dug-out 
canoe measuring twenty-seven feet in length with such force as to lift it partially 
out of the water. The most extraordinary incident of wanton maliciousness on 
HIPPOPOTAMI AT HOME. 
Hunting. 
the part of these animals is, however, one also recorded by Sir S. Baker. His 
natives were swimming a herd of about twenty cattle across the Nile, when they 
were suddenty attacked by a party of hippopotami, some of which seized with open 
jaws several of the cows and dragged them beneath the water, never to reappear. 
As already mentioned, the ancient Egyptians were in the habit 
of harpooning the hippopotamus, and this custom is still kept up by 
the Sudanis on the upper Nile. The usual plan when a party of these animals 
has been observed in the river, is for a couple of hunters, each armed with a 
harpoon to which a line is attached, to enter the river some distance above, and 
swim cautiously down on the herd. When within striking distance, both men hurl 
their weapons at the same time. To each line is attached a wooden float, which 
marks the position of the animal while below the surface, and the chase is taken 
up by other hunters on the bank armed with harpoons and lances. By an ingenious 
