The bee., 1883-11-10
The HippopOtamus.

DIR. Emil HOueb, in his Seven Years in
South Africa says:
After re-embarking we kept close to the
shore with the object of avoiding the hippo-
potamuses that in the daytime frequent
the middle of the stream, only rising from
time to time to breathe. Whenever the
current made it necessary for us to change
to the opposite side of the river, I could see
that the boatmen were all on the Qui rire to
get across as quickly as possible, and / soon
alter learned from experience what good
reason they had to be cautious. We had
| occasion to steer outward so us to clear q
| papyruS island, when all at once the men
began to back water, and the one nearest to
| me whispered the word 'kubu' He was
pointing to spot hardly two hundred yards
ahead, and on looking / saw first one hip
pOpotamus head and then second raised
above the surface of the stream, both puff
fling out little fountains from the nOstriIs.
They quickly disappeared, and the men
padded Oh gently till they were tOlerably
close to the place where the brutes had been
seen. Both BlOckly and cooked our guns.
and had MT long to wait before the heads
oftwO young hippopOtamuses emerged from
beneath the water, followed first by the
head of the male and then by the head of
the female. We fired eight shots, of which
there is no doubt that two struck the old
male behind the ear. The men all main
tanned that it was mOrtally wounded, and
probably such was the case; but, although
we waited nearly an hour, we never saw
more than the heads of three Others again.
1t was only with reluctance that the men
were induced to be stationary so long; ex-
cept they are in very small boats and prop
erly armed with aSsegais they are always
anxious to give the hippOpOtamus as wide
q berth as they can.
Ofall the large mammalia in South Africa,
| am disposed to believe that to an unarm-
ed man the hippOpOtamus is the most dam
gerOuS. In its normal state it can endure
the sight of anything to which it is unac- |
eustomed, or which takes it by surprise !
Let it come upon horse, an OK, a pOrcu- |
pine, log of wood, or even a huttering |
garment suddenly crossing its path, and it |
will fly upon any of them with relentless |
fury but let such objects be drawn betimes /
from view, and the brute in an instant Will /
forget all about it and 90 ON its way entirely |
undisturbed. This popularity may, per
haps, be physiolOgically accounted by the
small weight of the brain as eOntrasted with |
the ponderous size of the body. Although
in some cases it may happen that an un-
protected man may elude the attacks of a
buffalo, lion, or leopard, except they have
been provoked, he cannot indulge in the
hope of escaping the violence of hippOpo-
tamus that has once got him within reach
of its power. When out of several hippo
potamuses in river, one has been wound
ed, the rest are far more wary in coming to
the surface and should the wound be fatal,
the carcass does not rise for an hour, but
drifts down the stream. The Marutse have
a very simple but ef1ectual way of landing
their dead bodies; grass rope, with stone
is thrown across it, and by this
means it is easily guided to the shore. The
whole riverside population is most enthu-
siastie in its lcveOf hippOpOtamus hunting,
and it is owing to the skill of the Marutse
natives in this pursuit that they have been
brought from their homes in the Upper
Zambezi and established in villages down
here, where they may help to keep the
court well supplied with fresh and dried
fish, but particularly with hippOpOtamus
flesh