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Dr. Edward Riippell, who partook of the sport of harpooning the Hippopotamus in Dongola, gives the most appalling 
description of the death of the largest he met with.* “One of those which we killed,” he writes, “was a very old fellow, 
and of an enormous size, measuring thirteen and a half French feet, from the nose to the extremity of the tail. His incisor 
teeth were twenty-six French inches long, measured from the root to the point, along the oyter bending, We fought him for 
good four hours at night, and were very near losing our large boat, and probably our lives too, owing to the fury of the animal. 
As soon as he spied the huntsmen in the large canoe, whose business it was to fasten the long rope to the float, he dashed at 
them with all his might, dragged the canoe with him under the water, and smashed it to pieces. The two huntsmen with 
difficulty escaped. Of twenty-five musket-balls aimed at the head from a distance of about five feet, only one pierced the 
skin and the bones of the nose, At each snorting the animal spouted out large streams of blood on the boat. The rest of 
the halls stuck in the thick hide, At last we availed ourselves of a swivel, but it was not until we had discharged five balls 
from it at the distance of a few feet, and had done most terrible damage to the head and body, that the colossus yielded up 
the ghost. The darkness of the night increased the danger of the contest, for this gigantic animal tossed our boat about in 
the stream at his pleasure; and it was at a fortunate moment indeed for us that he gave up the struggle, as he had carried 
us into a complete labyrinth of rocks, which, in the midst of the confusion, none of our erew had observed.” 
But the most usual, as well as the most effectual method of disposing of the Hippopotamus, is by the aid of pitfalls, 
which, when cunningly excavated on the river bank, and daily covered with fresh grass, so that no withered appearance may 
excite the animal's suspicion, not only prove fatal to the river-horse, during his exeursions on shore, but frequently also to the 
rambling eattle of the traveller, In the paths trodden by Hippopotami, boards armed with sharp teeth like a harrow, are also 
sometimes concealed, and the heavy beasts striking the spikes into their feet, are rendered so incapable of exertion, as to 
become in the morning the yictims of a horde of assailants. Hasselquist has, however, recorded a still more ingenious plan 
by which the Egyptians were wont to relieve themselves in some degree from this destructive animal. “They remark the 
places,” he says, “which they frequent most, and there lay a large quantity of peas. When the beast comes ashore, hungry 
and voracious, he falls to eating what is nearest him, and filling his belly with the peas, they occasion an insupportable thirst. 
He then returns immediately into the river, and drinks wpon these dry peas large draughts of water, which suddenly cause 
his death; for the peas soon begin to swell with the water, and bursting his belly, the Egyptians not long after find him 
dead on the shore, blown up as killed by the strongest poison.” 
Shortly after the establishment of the Dutch Colony at the Cape, Governor Plettenberg transmitted to His Highness the 
Prince of Orange, the spoils of a Hippopotamus, which had been shot near the Mountains of Snow, by a peasant of French 
extraction, named Charles Marais. This man stated, that in consequence of the great speed of the animal on land, the hun- 
ters durst fire at him nowhere but in the water; for which reason it is usual to lie m wait for him about sunset, when 
the animal being in the habit of raising his head above the water, his small ears are kept im perpetual agitation in order to 
hear if any danger is near. While he is listening in this manner, and floating on the surface of the water, they shoot him 
in the head; and when he feels that he is wounded, he plunges below the water, and walks or swims about till he loses 
both motion and life. Then, by means of about twenty oxen, he is dragged on shore, and dissected. “An adult Hippo- 
potamnus,” adds Dr. Klockner of Amsterdam, “usually yields about two thousand pounds of fat or lard, which when salted 
and sent to the Cape, sells very dear, as in relish it excels all others. Besides his usual cry, the animal, when asleep, 
makes a kind of snoring noise which betrays him at a distance. To counteract the danger arising from this peculiarity, 
he generally lies among the reeds that grow upon marshy ground, which it is difficult to approach. THe is extremely tena- 
cious of life, and the hunters therefore endeavour to break his legs by large blunderbusses charged with iron wedges; and 
whenever they succeed in this, they are fully masters of his person.” 
All the larger rivers of the Cape were once teeming with Hippopotami; but the terror inspired by the Dutch invasion 
of their hereditary domains, and by the introduction of gunpowder, soon operated to clear the streams of the small remnant 
that escaped the bullets of the Colonists. The great value attached to the fat as a dainty relish—to the thick hide for the 
manufacture of whips, and to the teeth as an article of trade,—have combined to render the brawny animal an object so 
coveted by the hunter, that at the present day scarcely a single individual exists in any of the Colonial rivers, or eyen in 
those lying within a moderate distance af the border. The only surviving specimens, two in number, are females, and reside 
in the Berg river, under the special protection of Government. One remaining male was shot by some evil disposed poacher, 
a few years ago, in spite of the edict prohibiting their destruction. In regions more exempted from the white man’s intru- 
sions, however, they occur in the greatest abundance; and there, living im a state of comparative security, they are still generally 
prepared to welcome with curiosity the trespasser upon their wild haunts — exhibiting themselves with the same familiarity that they 
probably did some two centuries ago, towards the Southern extremity of the continent. Swarming in all the rivers in our route, 
from the Likwa to the Tropic of Capricorn, the unwieldy monsters divided the aquatic sovereignty with their amphibious and 
sealy neighbours, and might often be heard snorting and blowing during their uncouth gambols, within pistol shot of our 
encampment—the banks of every stream being deeply stamped with their singular footprints, and strewed with huge cylindrical 
> 
* T'ravels in Nubia, 1824-25, &c. Frankfort on the Maine, 1829, German, 
