[94] As perhaps many of my readers are interested in philology, I may mention that in the “Geographical Journal” of this year I have introduced a short vocabulary of the Bayeye language. The words, though necessarily few in number, have been selected with a view to their utility, and consist chiefly of those denoting family relations, names of the different parts of the body, familiar objects, numerals, &c. I have, at the same time, given the corresponding terms in the Otjiherero (Damara) and the Chjlimanse (a tribe inhabiting the country west of the Portuguese settlement on the East Coast) to show the striking analogy existing between these languages. The nations here mentioned occupy a narrow strip of territory extending obliquely across the continent from the West Coast almost to that of the East.

[95] In an old painting at Hampton Court representing the Last Judgment, the mouth of the hippopotamus is said to be figured as the entrance of the “place of the wicked.”

[96] The object of having the connecting line to consist of a number of small cords instead of a single stout one is to reduce the chance of its being severed by the teeth of the hippopotamus.

[97] In some parts of ancient Egypt the hippopotamus was worshiped. It is also said to have been a representation of Typho (in connection with the crocodile) and Mars. According to Plutarch, it “was reckoned among the animals emblematic of the Evil Being.”

[98] Sir Gardner Wilkinson informs us further that the inhabitants at Sennaar still follow up the practice of their ancestors, and, like them, prefer chasing it in the river to an open attack on shore.

GENERAL INDEX.

LATIN INDEX.