Hippias

“ The hippo now rose to the surface, about ten yards from the hunters, and, jumping half out of the water, he snapped his great jaws together, endeavouring to catch the rope, but at the same instant two harpoons were launched into his side. ”

“ In trying to skirt round the arm of water and sudd that stretches to the south, we soon found ourselves in an apparently boundless sea of one of Nature's truly African inventions, a tall grass, 8 to 10 ft. high, the roots forming a hopeless tangle of matted whipcord reaching 2 ft. from the ground, and effectually hiding the honeycomb of old hippo and elephant-holes 2 ft. deep below, while the stems and leaves are covered with myriads of invisible spines, which detach themselves in one's skin and clothes, and set up the most intense irritation. ”

“ The hippo, roaring frightfully, pulled one way, Bartlett and the keepers pulled the other, and at last out came the tooth, and Hippo soon got well again.
No animal in this world is made without a purpose, and we always find that the structure of an animal is admirably adapted to its mode of life. I believe that one of the principal duties which the elephant and rhinoceros unconsciously perform, is to cut paths through the dense forests and jungles in which they live. The home of the hippopotamus is among the aquatic forests at the bottoms of large rivers such as the Upper Nile. ”

“ He was short and tubby; if he had been any shorter he would have been a human Humpty-Dumpty. He was so obviously enjoying himself and getting the best out of his gambols in the water that my heart went out to him. He was ducking and splashing about, rolling and wallowing in a way that reminded me of a hippopotamus I had once shot at—and missed—in happier if not more spacious days spent on the lower Nile. "The Hippo" I christened him, and then chuckled to myself at the singular appropriateness of the name.
Even his bathing dress seemed designed expressly to add to his rotundity. ”

“ At 10 p.m. we decide to take the big iron boat of the steamer and go hunting. The natives are exceedingly skilful and know all the likely places for hippo. They first paddle hard up stream and having arrived at the hunting ground allow the boat to drift down with the current in perfect silence. It is clear moonlight, but it is necessary to cover the fore sight of the rifle with white paper in order to see it clearly. After a time, up rises a great head with a great pant and there is just time for a shot before it sinks again. Hippos frequent shallow water and are indifferent swimmers. ”

“ This was a hippopotamus, or rather several; for since leaving the foot of the rapids, numbers of these amphibia had been observed, some waddling about upon the banks, others swimming to and fro in the water, the cows with calves on their backs; still others at rest on the surface as if asleep, with white birds—a species of sea-gull—perched upon their shoulders. Even those moving about had each its quota of such perchers, now and then affording an amusing spectacle, as the unwieldy quadrupeds sank under water, forcing the birds to take wing with an odd air of bewilderment. ”

“ LXXVII. Hippocrene.—To reach the far-famed Hippocrene (‘the Horse’s Fount’) from the sanctuary of the Muses we ascend the steep eastern side of Helicon over moss-grown rocks, through a thick forest of tall firs. After a toilsome ascent of about two hours we emerge from the wood upon a tiny open glade of circular shape, covered with loose stones and overgrown with grass and ferns. All around rises the dark fir-wood. Here, in the glade, is Hippocrene, now called Kryopegadi, or ‘cold spring.’ It is a well with a triangular opening, enclosed by ancient masonry. ”

“ It is the habit of the hippo to loll in the water showing only his eyes and the tips of his ears, and perhaps now and again a glimpse of his nose, and thus concealed his silhouette is, at three hundred yards, almost indistinguishable from the floating vegetation. ”

“ Sometimes when a hippo is attacked at short range it will climb out of the water and charge its enemies on land. It is a very unwise movement for the poor creature is then much easier to kill for it is clumsy and cannot turn quickly. The natives plaster its eyes with clay or sand and then they have it at their mercy.
Hippos are wonderfully good swimmers and moreover they are able to walk along the river beds in search of food. When they sleep they float in the water with nothing but their nostrils sticking out. ”

“ Hippo is very good eating when you cannot get anything better; it has a strong, rather musky flavor which I do not like, and I find that most other white men have tastes similar to mine in this respect. But a Kafir, or any other black-skinned native of Africa, is not at all particular, and you might empty a bottleful of musk over his dinner without interfering with his appetite.
I did not say a word to Harry and Jack until dinner about the hunter I met in the forest. I told them briefly about my elephant-hunt, but we all were too busy for anything else until we got seated at the table ”

“ At the same time we wanted to do something, and so it was proposed that we go down to the river—about two miles—and try for a hippopotamus. The hippo is a difficult beast to shoot, as he sticks pretty closely to the water, and it is very unusual to find him on land. The time he spends out of the water is nearly always at night. The natives take advantage of this peculiarity of the beast, and make traps and pitfalls for him ”

“ The hippocampus of our public aquariums, a bony pipefish some six or eight inches in length, swimming upright, his favourite position in the water, with the general resemblance of his head to that of a horse, is very striking; anchored to the seaweed stems by their tails they dart on their prey with great quickness.
[Pg 232] Hippocampus (ἵππος, hippos, a horse; κάμπη, campe, a bending) , the steed of Neptune, had only the two forelegs of a horse, the hinder quarter being that of a dolphin. The word means “coiling horse.” ”

“ A certain hunter tells a story of surprising a hippo asleep in the shade of some bushes. The creature was so alarmed that it rushed away as quickly as it could and plunged off a bank twenty feet high into the river making a tremendous splash. In any country where hippos are not constantly hunted they will come out into the meadows to feed and wander far afield. They are not often attacked by other creatures for they are big and powerful and owing to their thick skins very difficult to wound. ”

“ The hippopotamus or hippo as it is generally called, is another mighty animal that is rapidly being exterminated by man. At one time it was a common sight to see many hippos feeding together on the banks of the Nile as far north as Cairo but now they are never found beyond Khartoum, which if you will look at the atlas you will find is many miles to the south of the Mediterranean Sea. ”

“ The Hippo is certainly not handsome. He has a huge barrel body submerged in fat mounted on short stumpy legs and a gigantic head with a mouth of such enormous size and capacity as to be positively terrifying. The huge, horse-like nose is covered with stiff bristles, the nostrils flare like fans, the eyes bulge, and the forehead is low and flat, with two foolish looking ears sticking up on either side of it.
The weight of this great beast averages from four thousand to eight thousand pounds. ”

“ The hunter next goes to the handle and hauls on the rope until he knows that he is right over the beast. When he feels the line suddenly slacken, he is prepared to deliver another harpoon the instant that hippo's enormous jaws appear, with a terrible grunt, above the water. ”

“ As a rule, each is known to us only by small fragments of its skeleton, so that we can have no assurance as to what the whole animal was really like, or even that all parts assigned to one creature really belonged to him. We can accordingly feel no certainty that if we could see any of these as a whole we should find it possible to suppose that the horse descended from it. Thus in Hippidium, an American genus closely allied to Equus, it is at least doubtful whether the digits did not terminate in claws. [285] One species of Hippidium is known only by a solitary tooth. ”

“ It is now time to glance at the general economy of the Hippopotamus, as he is seen in his native rivers and wilds. In early days, as his Roman name imports, it was usual to consider him as a [Pg 116] species of horse, inhabiting rivers and marshy grounds, and, in a more especial manner, the denizen of the Nile. The genus is placed by Linnæus among his belluæ, between equus and sus. The skeleton approaches that of the ox and of the hog, but it presents differences from that of any other animal. ”

“ Hippo belonged to a herd consisting of from twenty to thirty hippopotami—mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, relations of all kinds, and several little baby calves. They agreed well together, on the whole.
The only time they grew quarrelsome was when they were selecting new wives, or when one of them had discovered a field of corn or rice, and found that the others wanted to explore it, too. Then some nasty things were said, and some terrible fights took place; for, although a hippopotamus is such a heavy and ungainly creature, he can move swiftly when he is angry. ”

“ The settlers tell me the animals come in and root up their gardens, and that it is almost impossible to fence against them.
Both rhinos and hippos are hard to kill. Each has a skin about half an inch thick, and there are only a few places upon them where a ball will go through. Hippos can be hunted in boats on the lakes, but they swim rapidly and dive deep, remaining under the surface a long time. They move along through the water, showing only their ears and nose. They are so wary that it is difficult to get a shot at just the right place. ”

“ She that follows her adulterer has no qualms. The one is sick all over her husband. The other dines among the sailors and walks the quarter-deck, and delights in handling the hard ropes. And yet what was the beauty that inflamed, what the prime of life that captivated Hippia? ”

“ It is a strange amphibious existence in these simmering wastes of weed and water, the stillness of which is only broken by the occasional blow of a hippo, the splash of a fish or crocodile, the wild cry of the numerous flights of wild-fowl, and the everlasting plaint of the fish-eagle. ”

“ The Sea Horse (Hippocampus) is a small creature about the size of the engraving (Fig. 362) ; its head has a singular resemblance to that of the horse. The rings which constitute the integument of the body and tail have a close resemblance to the rings of some caterpillars. This curious combination of forms originated the name, Hippocampus, from ἵππος, horse, κάμπος, fish, adopted in very ancient times to designate this creature. It is found in the Atlantic, round the coast of Spain, the south of France, in the Mediterranean, and in the Indian Ocean. ”

“ Hippocrene, faithful to its ancient renown, runs cool and bright, that whoso will may drink therefrom and pause to meditate on Time’s concurrent freshness, ever-passing: the ear is charmed with sounds, the winds waken the soft susurrus from the pine-forests on the heights, it wanders down the pathways of the hills to mingle with the drowsy hum of bees, and the tinkling of the goats bells, and with luscious song of hidden nightingales in pale green olive groves. ”

“ There is the big flying beetle, purblind and stupid, that comes in the evening and looks the size of a bat; that circles around the table several times, with a noisy boom, tumbles at length into the gravy and then flops into your face. There is the hippo fly, like an enormous horsefly, that thrusts a stiletto into one through his clothing. 105In the upper part of the Gaboon River, where navigation with a launch was dangerous and I stood constantly by the engine, I had a boy, sometimes two boys, standing beside me with fly-brushes to keep them off. ”

“ Just as the march started, old Fisheye Gleason, a seasoned old retainer who cleaned out cages, fed the animals, and who claimed he was with Noah when he landed his animal collection on Mount Ararat; old Fisheye was climbing down from the top of a cage when he stumbled and fell right on the back of a hippo. Now a hippo isn't classed with the smart animals. He makes up in bulk what he lacks in brains. ”

“ As you know, there was no trace of the genus horse on our island continent before the coming of the white man. In America, on the other hand, although there was no horse as we know him, before the advent of the Conqueror Cortez, in 1518, yet the fossilised remains of the Eohippus, the Protohippus and Hipparion are so numerous and well distributed on the great American continents that these wide lands seem to have been the most favoured home of the great race of equidae, in the far-off days before the ice. ”

“ In the bow of the boat is the hunter's assistant, armed with a rope made lasso-wise into a noose, which he is throwing over the head of the hippopotamus, whose attitude and expression show evidently, in spite of the rudeness of the drawing, the impotent anger of the weakened animal.
Behind the hippopotamus are the tall and dense reeds and papyrus under the shelter of which the animal loves to lie, and on the surface of the water float the beautiful white flowers of the lotus. ”

“ Remains of the Hipparion have been found in various regions in Europe and in India; and from the immense quantities of their bones found in certain localities, it may be safely inferred that these Middle Tertiary ancestors of the Horses lived, like their modern representatives, in great herds, and in open grassy plains or prairies.
Amongst the Even-toed or Artiodactyle Ungulates, we for the first time meet with examples of the Hippopotamus, with its four-toed feet, its massive body, and huge tusk-like lower canine teeth. ”