THE HIPPOPOTAMUS.
Behemoth--Its Diminishing Number and Contracting Empire--Its
Ugliness--A Rogue Hippopotamus or Solitaire--Dangerous Meeting--
Intelligence and Memory of the Hippopotamus--Methods employed for
Killing the Hippopotamus--Hippopotamus-Hunting on the Teoge.
‘Behold now Behemoth, which I made with thee; he eateth grass as an ox;
his bones are as strong pieces of brass; his bones are like bars of
iron; he lieth under the shady trees, in the covert of the reeds and
fens. The shady trees cover him with their shadow; the willows of the
brook compass him about. Behold he drinketh up a river: he trusteth
that he can draw up Jordan into his mouth.’
Thus, in the book of Job, we find the Hippopotamus portrayed with few
words but incomparable power.
According to the inspired poet, this huge animal seems anciently to
have inhabited the waters of Palestine, but now it is nowhere to
be found in Asia; and even in Africa the limits of its domain are
perpetually contracting before the persecutions of man. It has entirely
disappeared from Egypt and Cape Colony, where Le Vaillant found it in
numbers during the last century. In many respects a valuable prize; of
easy destruction, in spite, or rather on account of its size, which
betrays it to the attacks of its enemies; a dangerous neighbour to
plantations, it is condemned to retreat before the waves of advancing
civilisation, and would long since have been extirpated in all Africa,
if the lakes and rivers of the interior of that vast den of barbarism
were as busily ploughed over as ours by boats and ships, or their banks
as thickly strewn with towns and villages.
For the hippopotamus is not able, like so many other beasts of the
wilderness, to hide itself in the gloom of impenetrable forests, or
to plunge into the sandy desert; it requires the neighbourhood of the
stream, the empire of which it divides with its amphibious neighbour
the crocodile. Occasionally during the day it is to be seen basking
on the shore amid ooze and mud, but throughout the night the unwieldy
monster may be heard snorting and blowing during its aquatic gambols;
it then sallies forth from its reed-grown coverts to graze by the light
of the moon, never, however, venturing to any distance from the river,
the stronghold to which it retreats on the smallest alarm. It feeds on
grass alone, and where there is any danger only at night. Its enormous
lips act like a mowing machine, and form a path of short cropped grass
as it goes on eating.
In point of ugliness the hippopotamus might compete with the rhinoceros
itself. Its shapeless carcase rests upon short and disproportioned
legs, and, with its vast belly almost trailing upon the ground, it
may not inaptly be likened to an overgrown ‘prize-pig.’ Its immensely
large head has each jaw armed with two formidable tusks, those in the
lower, which are always the largest, attaining at times two feet in
length; and the inside of the mouth resembles a mass of butcher’s meat.
The eyes, which are placed in prominences like the garret windows of a
Dutch house, the nostrils, and ears, are all on the same plane, on the
upper level of the head, so that the unwieldy monster, when immersed
in its favourite element, is able to draw breath, and to use three
senses at once for hours together, without exposing more than its
snout. The hide, which is upwards of an inch and a half in thickness,
and of a pinkish-brown colour, clouded and freckled with a darker
tint, is destitute of covering, excepting a few scattered hairs on
the muzzle, the edges of the ears and tail. Though generally mild and
inoffensive, it is not to be wondered at that a creature like this,
which when full-grown attains a length of eleven or twelve feet, and
nearly the same colossal girth, affords a truly appalling spectacle
when enraged, and that a nervous person may well lose his presence
of mind when suddenly brought into contact with the gaping monster.
Even Andersson, a man accustomed to all sorts of wild adventure, felt
rather discomposed when one night a hippopotamus, without the slightest
warning, suddenly protruded its enormous head into his bivouac, so that
every man started to his feet with the greatest precipitation, some of
the party, in the confusion, rushing into the fire and upsetting the
pots containing the evening meal.
As among the elephants and other animals, elderly males are sometimes
expelled the herd, and, for want of company, become soured in their
temper, and so misanthropic as to attack every boat that comes near
them. The ‘rogue-hippopotami’ frequent certain localities well known
to the inhabitants of the banks, and, like the outcast elephants,
are extremely dangerous. Dr. Livingstone, passing a canoe which had
been smashed to pieces by a blow from the hind foot of one of them,
was informed by his men that, in case of a similar assault being made
on his boat, the proper way was to dive to the bottom of the river,
and hold on there for a few seconds, because the hippopotamus, after
breaking a canoe, always looks for the people on the surface, and if
he sees none, soon moves off. He saw some frightful gashes made on the
legs of the people who, having had the misfortune to be attacked, were
unable to dive.
In rivers where it is seldom disturbed, such as the Zambesi, the
hippopotamus puts up its head openly to blow, and follows the traveller
with an inquisitive glance, as if asking him, like the ‘moping owl’ in
the elegy, why he comes to molest its ‘ancient solitary reign’? but in
other rivers, such as those of Londa, where it is much in danger of
being shot, it takes good care to conceal its nose among water-plants,
and to breathe so quietly that one would not dream of its existence
in the river, except by footprints on the banks. Notwithstanding its
stupid look--its prominent eyes and naked snout giving it more the
appearance of a gigantic boiled calf’s head than anything else--the
huge creature is by no means deficient in intelligence, knows how to
avoid pitfalls, and has so good a memory that, when it has once heard
a ball whiz about its ears, it never after ceases to be wide-awake at
the approach of danger. Being vulnerable only behind the ear, however,
or in the eye, it requires the perfection of rifle-practice to be
hit; and when once in the water, is still more difficult to kill,
as it dives and swims with all the ease of a walrus, its huge body
being rendered buoyant by an abundance of fat. Its flesh is said to
be delicious, resembling the finest young pork, and is considered as
great a delicacy in Africa as a bear’s paw or a bison’s hump in the
prairies of North America. The thick and almost inflexible hide may be
dragged from the ribs in strips, like the planks from a ship’s side.
These serve for the manufacture of a superior description of _sjambok_,
the elastic whip with which the Cape boor governs his team of twelve
oxen or more, while proceeding on a journey. In Northern Africa it is
used to chastise refractory dromedaries or servants; and the ancient
Egyptians employed it largely in the manufacture of shields, helmets,
and javelins.
But the most valuable part of the hippopotamus is its teeth (canine and
incisors), which are considered greatly superior to elephant ivory,
and, when perfect and weighty, will fetch as much as one guinea per
pound, being chiefly used for artificial teeth, since it does not
readily turn yellow. All these uses to which the hippopotamus may be
applied are naturally as many prices set upon its head; and the ravages
it occasions in the fields are another motive for its destruction.
On the White Nile the peasantry burn a number of fires, to scare the
huge animal from their plantations, where every footstep ploughs deep
furrows into the marshy ground. At the same time, they keep up a
prodigious clamour of horns and drums, to terrify the ruinous brute,
which, as may well be imagined, is by no means so great a favourite
with them as with the visitors of the Zoological Gardens.
They have besides another, and, where it succeeds, a far more
efficacious method of freeing themselves from its depredations. They
remark the places it most frequents, and there lay a large quantity of
pease. When it comes on shore, hungry and voracious, it falls to eating
what is nearest, and fills its vast stomach with the pease, which soon
occasion an insupportable thirst. The river being close at hand, it
immediately drinks whole buckets of water, which, by swelling the
pease, cause it to blow up, like an overloaded mortar.
The natives on the Teoge, and other rivers that empty themselves into
Lake Ngami, kill the hippopotamus with iron harpoons, attached to
long lines ending with a float. A huge reed raft, capable of carrying
both the hunters and their canoes, with all that is needful for the
prosecution of the chase, is pushed from the shore, and afterwards
abandoned to the stream, which propels the unwieldy mass gently and
noiselessly forward. Long before the hippopotami can be seen, they
make known their presence by awful snorts and grunts whilst splashing
and blowing in the water. On approaching the herd--for the gregarious
animal likes to live in troops of from twenty-five to thirty--the most
skilful and intrepid of the hunters stands prepared with the harpoons,
whilst the rest make ready to launch the canoes should the attack prove
successful. The bustle and noise caused by these preparations gradually
subside: at length not even a whisper is heard, and in breathless
silence the hunters wait for the decisive conflict. The snorting and
plunging become every moment more distinct; a bend in the stream still
hides the animals from view; but now the point is passed, and monstrous
figures, that might be mistaken for shapeless cliffs, did not ever and
anon one or the other of them plunge and reappear, are seen dispersed
over the troubled waters. On glides the raft, its crew worked up to the
highest pitch of excitement, and at length reaches the herd, which,
perfectly unconscious of danger, continue to enjoy their sports.
Presently one of the animals is in immediate contact with the raft. Now
is the critical moment; the foremost harpooner raises himself to his
full height to give the greater force to the blow, and the next instant
the iron is buried deep in the body of the bellowing hippopotamus. The
wounded animal plunges violently and dives to the bottom, but all its
efforts to escape are as ineffectual as those of the seal when pierced
with the barbed iron of the Greenlander.
As soon as it is struck, one or more of the men launch a canoe from
off the raft, and hastening to the shore with the harpoon line, take
a round turn with it about a tree, so that the animal may either be
brought up at once, or should there be too great a strain on the line,
‘played,’ like a trout or salmon by the fisherman. Sometimes both line
and buoy are cast into the water, and all the canoes being launched
from off the raft, chase is given to the poor brute, who whenever he
comes to the surface is saluted with a shower of javelins. A long trail
of blood marks his progress, his flight becomes slower and slower, his
breathing more oppressive, until at last, his strength ebbing away
through fifty wounds, he floats dead on the surface.
But as the whale will sometimes turn upon his assailants, so also the
hippopotamus not seldom makes a dash at his persecutors, and either
with his tusks, or with a blow from his head, staves in or capsizes the
canoe. Sometimes even, not satisfied with wreaking his vengeance on the
craft, he seizes one or other of the crew, and with a single grasp of
his jaws, either terribly mutilates the poor wretch or even cuts his
body fairly in two.
The natives of Southern Africa, also resort to the ingenious but cruel
plan of destroying the hippopotamus by means of a trap, consisting of
a beam, four or five feet long, armed with a spear-head or hard wood
spike, covered with poison, and suspended to a forked pole by a cord,
which coming down to the path, is held by a catch, to be set free when
the beasts tread on it. On the banks of many rivers these traps are set
over every track which the animals have made in going up out of the
water to graze; but the hippopotami, being wary brutes, are still very
numerous. While Dr. Livingstone was on the River Shine, a hippopotamus
got frightened by the ship, as she was steaming close to the banks. In
its eager hurry to escape from an imaginary danger, the poor animal
fell into a very real one, for rushing on shore, it ran directly under
a trap, when down came the heavy beam on its back, driving the poisoned
spear-head a foot deep in its flesh. In its agony, it plunged back into
the river, where it soon after expired.
[Illustration: RHINOCEROS.]