When I saw them thus floating with only the very top of the head
and snout out of water, I for the first time appreciated why the
Greeks had named them hippopotamuses-the river horses. With the
heavy jowl hidden; and the prominent nostrils, the long
reverse-curved nose, the wide eyes, and the little pointed ears
alone visible, they resembled more than a little that sort of
conventionalized and noble charger seen on the frieze of the
Parthenon, or in the prancy paintings of the Renaissance.
There were hippopotamuses of all sizes and of all colours. The
little ones, not bigger than a grand piano, were of flesh pink.
Those half-grown were mottled with pink and black in blotches.
The adults were almost invariably all dark, though a few of them
retained still a small pink spot or so-a sort of persistence in
mature years of the eternal boy-, I suppose. All were very sleek
and shiny with the wet; and they had a fashion of suddenly and
violently wiggling one or the other or both of their little ears
in ridiculous contrast to the fixed stare of their bung eyes.
Generally they had nothing to say as to the situation, though
occasionally some exasperated old codger would utter a grumbling
bellow.
The ground vegetation for a good quarter mile from the river bank
was entirely destroyed, and the earth beaten and packed hard by
these animals.
