The hippopotamus has a body as long as the elephant's. It is from ten to fifteen feet around the middle, but the animal's thick legs are so short that he stands only five or six feet from the ground. Really his legs are better for swimming than for walking. He has the small, dull eyes of the pig sunk in folds of skin, small ears, a wrinkled, scowling forehead, a mouth two feet wide, and a bulging upper lip. He can use his sharp-edged tusks for rooting and for fighting, as the wild boar uses his tusks. He has a mustache of feeler hairs on his upper lip—like a cat? No, it is more like the bristles around the mouths of some whales—especially baby whales. But he doesn't breathe through holes in his head and spout water when he comes up to breathe, as the whale does. He has nostrils like other land animals. When he dives, he shuts his nose holes to keep out water, as the camel and giraffe shut theirs, to keep out sand.
Like other hoofed animals, the hippopotamus lives in herds and feeds on plants. From two to three dozen live together on the banks and in the beds of the warm rivers of Africa. They are not as bright as elephants, neither are they stupid. Not more than one or two of a herd are ever caught in the same kind of trap. Where hunters are about, the hippopotamus does not snort and blow when he comes up to breathe. Sometimes a herd leaves a place that is much hunted. They are rather timid and peaceable animals. When they hear a sound, or smell something they do not understand, they sink under water with only their noses above, and stand motionless, hidden among water plants. Maybe you have seen mud turtles do the same thing.
If attacked, a hippopotamus fights ferociously A big bull hippopotamus will swim under a boat and tip it over, or bite a big piece out of the side, with his huge bark-cutting teeth. He chases the men in the water and gores them with his tusks. There are terrible "rogue," or tramp hippos, too, as there are among elephants.
A mother hippopotamus is the fiercest of all, if anything threatens her baby. She has only one at a time, and she makes it her chief business to look after him. He isn't born a swimmer, so for a long time he lives mostly on his mother's back. If caught young the baby hippopotamus is easily tamed, but he isn't bright enough to learn tricks. When his keeper comes to his cage he opens his two-foot wide mouth and begs for food in the most comical way. He asks for it much as a pig does. At home a herd of hippopotamuses at play shout with loud, harsh voices, but in a cage they creak and groan and squeal like very rusty hinges of a door.
