Page:Seven Years in South Africa v2.djvu/168

 disposed to believe that to an unarmed man the hippopotamus is the most dangerous. In its normal state it can never endure the sight of anything to which it is unaccustomed or which takes it by surprise. Let it come upon a horse, an ox, a porcupine, a log of wood, or even a fluttering garment suddenly crossing its path, and it will fly upon any of them with relentless fury; but let such object be withdrawn betimes from view, and the brute in an instant will forget all about it and go on its way entirely undisturbed. Although in some cases it may happen that an unprotected man may elude the attacks of a lion, a buffalo, or a leopard except they have been provoked, he cannot indulge the hope of escaping the violence of a hippopotamus that has once got him within reach of its power.

When out of several hippopotamuses in a river one has been wounded, the rest are far more wary in coming to the surface; and should the wound have been fatal, the carcase does not rise for an hour, but drifts down the stream. The Marutse have a very simple but effectual way of landing their dead bodies; a grass rope with a stone attached is thrown across it, and by this means it is easily guided to the shore. The whole river-side population is most enthusiastic in its love of hippopotamus-hunting, and it is owing to the skill of the Marutse natives in this pursuit that they have been brought from their homes in the Upper Zambesi, and established in villages down here, where they may help to keep the court well supplied