Eccentricities of the Animal Creation.

by John Timbs

Professor Smith and Captain Tuckey, in exploring the Congo River, in South Africa, saw in a beautiful sandy cove, at the opening of a creek, behind a long projecting point, an immense number of Hippopotami; and in the evening a number of alligators were also seen there; an association hardly consistent with the hostility related by Hasselquist.

Captain Tuckey observed Hippopotami with their heads above the water, "snorting in the air." In another part of his narrative he says:—"Many Hippopotami were visible close to our tents at Condo Yanga. No use firing at these animals in the water; the only way is to wait till they come on shore to feed at night."

Le Vaillant had an opportunity of watching the progress of a Hippopotamus under water at Great River, which contained many of these animals. On all sides he could hear them bellow and blow. Anxious to observe them, he mounted on the top of an elevated rock which advanced into the river, and he saw one walking at the bottom of the water. Le Vaillant killed it at the moment when it came to the surface to breathe. It was a very old female, and many people, in their surprise, and to express its size, called it the Grandmother of the River.

The traveller Lander tells us that, on the Niger. Hippopotami are termed water-elephants. One stormy night, as they were sailing up this unexplored current, they fell in with great numbers of Hippopotami, who came plashing, snorting, and plunging all round the canoe. Thinking to frighten them off, the travellers fired a shot or two at them, but the noise only called up from the water and out of the fens about as many more Hippopotami, and they were more closely beset than before. Lander's people, who had never, in all their lives, been exposed to such formidable beasts, trembled with fear, and absolutely wept aloud; whilst peals of thunder rattled over their heads, and the most vivid lightning showed the terrifying scene. Hippopotami frequently upset canoes in the river. When the Landers fired, every one of them came to the surface of the water, and pursued them over to the north bank. A second firing was followed by a loud roaring noise. However, the Hippopotami did the travellers no kind of mischief whatever.

Captain Gordon, when among the Bakalahari, in South Africa, bagged no fewer than fifteen first-rate Hippopotami; the greater number of them being bulls.

In 1828, there was brought to England the head of a Hippopotamus, with all the flesh about it, in high preservation. The animal was harpooned while in combat with a crocodile in a lake in the interior of Africa. The head measured nearly four feet in length, and eight feet in circumference; the jaws opened two feet, and the cutting teeth, of which it had four in each jaw, were above a foot long, and four inches in circumference.

The utility of this vast pachydermatous, or thick-skinned animal, to man is considerable. That he can be destructive has already been shown in his clearance of the cultivated banks of rivers. The enormous ripping, chisel-like teeth of the lower jaw fit him for uprooting. The ancient Egyptians held the animal as an emblem of power, though this may have arisen from his reputed destruction of the crocodile. The flesh is much esteemed for food, both among the natives and colonists of South Africa. The blood of the animal is said to have been used by the old Indian painters in mixing their colours. The skin is extensively employed for making whips.

But there is no part of the Hippopotamus more in request than the great canine teeth, the ivory of which is so highly valued by dentists for making artificial teeth, on account of its keeping its colour better than any other kind. This superiority was not unknown to the ancients Pausanias mentions the statue of Dindymene, whose face was formed of the teeth of Hippopotami, instead of elephants' ivory. The canine teeth are imported in great numbers into England, and sell at a very high price. From the closeness of the ivory, the weight of the teeth, a part only of which is available for the artificial purpose above mentioned, is great in proportion to its bulk; and the article has fetched about thirty shillings per pound.

The ancient history of the Hippopotamus is extremely curious, and we have many representations of him in coins, in sculpture, and in paintings, which prove, beyond question, that the artists, as well as the writers, had a distinct knowledge of what they intended to represent.

The earliest notice which occurs in any author, and which has been considered by many to be a description of the Hippopotamus, is the celebrated account in the fortieth and forty-first chapter of the Book of Job of Behemoth and Leviathan. Many learned men have contended that "Behemoth" really means "Elephant," and thus the Zurich version of the Bible translates the Hebrew by "Elephas."