In short, to give a just idea of the size of the hippopotamus we shall make use of Zerenghi’s measures, increasing them one third, because his measures were taken from the female, who was one third less than the male in all her dimensions. This male hippopotamus was consequently sixteen feet nine inches long, from the extremity of the muzzle to the beginning of the tail; fifteen feet in circumference, and six feet and a half in height; his legs were about two feet ten inches long; the length of the head three feet and a half, and eight feet and a half in circumference ; the width of the mouth two feet four inches, and the largest teeth more than a foot long.
Thus powerfully armed, and with such prodigious strength of body, he might render himself formidable to every animal; but he is naturally gentle, and is besides so heavy and slow that he could not outrun any other quadruped. He swims quicker than he runs, pursues the fish, and makes them his prey. He delights much in the water, and lives in it as freely as upon land, yet he has no membranes between his toes like the beaver and otter, and it is plain, that the great ease with which he swims is owing to the great capacity of his body, which makes his specific gravity nearly equal to the water. Besides, he remains a long time under water, and walks at the bottom as well as in the open air; and when he quits it to graze upon land he eats sugar-canes, rushes, millet, rice, roots, &c. of which he consumes great quantities, and does much injury to cultivated lands; but as he is more timid on land than in the water he is very easily driven away, and his legs are so short that he cannot save himself by flight, if he be far from any water. His resource, when in danger, is to plunge into the water, and proceed under it to a great distance before he reappears. He commonly retreats from his pursuers, when hunted, but if wounded he becomes irritated, and faces about with great fury, rushes against the boats, seizes them with his teeth, tears pieces off, and sometimes sinks them. “I have seen, says a traveller,[P] an hippopotamus open his mouth, fix one tooth on the gunnel of a boat, and another on the second plank under the keel (that is at least four feet distant), pierce the side through and through, and in this manner sink the boat. I have seen one lying by the side of the sea-shore, upon whom the waves tossed a Dutch boat heavily laden, and then retreating left it dry on his back, and which was afterwards carried off again by another wave, without the animal appearing to have received the least injury. I could not discover the exact arrangement of his teeth, but they appear to form the figure of a bow, and were about sixteen inches long. We fired several times at one of them, but the shot rebounded from his skin. The natives consider him as a kind of deity, and that he cannot be destroyed, and frequently declare, if they were to use him as we do he would soon be the destruction of their nets and canoes. When they go a fishing in their canoes, and meet with an hippopotamus, they throw fish to him, and then he passes on without disturbing their fishery any more. He does the most injury when he can rest himself against the earth, but when he floats in the water he can only bite. Once, when our boat lay near the shore, I saw one of them get underneath, lift her above water upon his back, and overset her with six men aboard, but fortunately they received no hurt.”——“We dare not, says another traveller, irritate the hippopotamus in the water, since an adventure that had nearly proved fatal to three men; they had proceeded in a small canoe to attack one in a river where there was about ten feet water; they discovered him walking at the bottom, according to his usual custom, and wounded him with a long lance, upon which he rose immediately to the surface of the water, looked at them with a dreadful aspect, and, at one bite, took a great piece out of the side of the canoe, which had very nearly overturned it, and it was with difficulty they could make the shore.” These two examples are sufficient to give an idea of the strength of these animals; and a number of like facts are to be met with in the General History of Voyages, by the Abbé Prevost, who has given a summary of whatever travellers have reported concerning the hippopotamus.
[P] Dampier, vol. II.
These animals are not numerous, except in particular places, and it even appears that they are confined to the rivers of Africa. The greatest part of naturalists have said, that the hippopotamus is to be found also in the Indies, but the evidence they have of this circumstance is very equivocal; the most positive would be that of Alexander, in his letter to Aristotle, if we could assure ourselves, that the animals of which Alexander speaks, were really hippopotami. What occasions me to have some doubts on this head is, that Aristotle, in describing the hippopotamus in his history of animals, must have said, that they were natives of India, as well as Egypt, if he had thought that the animal, of which Alexander speaks in his letter, had been the true hippopotamus. Onesicritus, and some other authors, say the hippopotamus is to be found in the river Indus, but modern travellers, at least those who merit most confidence, have not confirmed this fact; they all agree, that this animal is found in the Nile, the Senegal, or Niger, the Gambia, the Zara, and other great rivers and lakes of Africa, especially in the southern and eastern parts. Father Boyn is the only one who seems to insinuate that the hippopotamus is to be met with in Asia, but his recital appears suspicious, and I think only proves that he is common in Mosambique, and all the eastern parts of Africa. At present the hippopotamus, which is called the Nile-horse, is so rare in the lower Nile, that the inhabitants of Egypt have no idea of the name. He is equally unknown in all the northern parts of Africa, from the Mediterranean to the Bamboo river, which flows at the foot of Mount Atlas; the climate which the hippopotamus actually inhabits, therefore extends only from Senegal to Ethiopia, and from thence to the Cape of Good Hope.
As most authors have called the hippopotamus the sea-horse, or sea-cow, it has sometimes been confounded with the latter, which is a very different animal, and which only inhabits the northern seas. It appear, then, to be certain, that the hippopotami, which the author of the description of Muscovy says are found upon the borders of the sea of Petzora, are no other than sea-cows, and Aldrovandus merits reproach for adopting this opinion without examination, and asserting that the hippopotamus is found in the northern seas: for he not only does not inhabit the north seas, but it appears that he is rarely found in those of the south. The testimonies of Odoardus, Barbossa, and Edward Wotton, recounted by Aldrovandus, and which seem to prove that the hippopotamus inhabits the Indian seas, appear to be almost as equivocal as that in the description of Muscovy; and I am inclined to believe that the hippopotamus is not to be found, at least at present, but in the greatest rivers of Africa. Kolbe, who says, he has seen many of them at the Cape of Good Hope, affirms, that they equally plunge themselves into the sea and rivers, and which is asserted by other authors. Although Kolbe appears to be more exact than common in his description of the hippopotamus, yet it is doubtful whether he saw it so often as he says, since the figure he has joined to his description is worse than those of Columna, Aldrovandus, and Prosper Alpinus, which are all drawn from stuffed skins. It is easy to discover that the figures and description in Kolbe’s works, have neither been made on the spot, nor taken from Nature. His descriptions are written from memory, and most of the figures been copied from those of other naturalists; the figure which he gives of the hippopotamus, in particular, bears a great resemblance to the cheropotamus of Prosper Alpinus.
Kolbe, therefore, in affirming, that the hippopotamus lives in the sea, might possibly have copied Pliny, and not spoken from his own observations. Most other authors tell us, that this animal is only to be found in the fresh water lakes and in rivers, sometimes at their mouths, but oftener at a great distance from the sea. There are even travellers, who, like Merollo, are surprised, that the hippopotamus should have been called the sea-horse, because, say they, this animal cannot bear salt water. He commonly remains all day under water, and only quits it at night to graze upon land. The male and female rarely separate. Zerenghi caught both male and female the same day, and in the same ditch. Dutch travellers say, that they bring forth three or four young at a time, but this fact appears to me very suspicious from the evidence which Zerenghi has mentioned. Besides, as the hippopotamus is of an enormous bulk, he is in the class of the elephant, rhinoceros, whale, and all other large animals, who bring forth but one at a time; and this analogy appears to me more certain than all the suppositious testimonies of different travellers.
SUPPLEMENT.