1776. January. my Hottentots ventured to feize the calf and hold it faft by its hind legs, till the reft of the hunting party came to his affiftance. Upon which the calf was faft bound, and with the greateft joy borne in triumph to our waggons; though while they were taking it over a fhallow near the river, the Hottentots were very much alarmed, left the M ounded mother and the other fea-cows, ihould be induced by the cries o f the calf to come to its refcue; the creature, as long as it was bound, making a noife a good deal like a hog that is going to be killed, or has got faft between two polls. The found, however, proceeding from the hippopotamus calf, was more thrill and harih. It iliowed like- wife a confiderable fhare of ftrength in the attempt it made to get loofe, and was found to be quite unmanageable and unwieldy ; the length of it being already, three feet and a half, and the height two fe e t; though the Hottentots fup- pofed it to be no more than a fortnight, or at moft three weeks old. When at iaft it was turned loofe, it ceafed crying ; and when the Hottentots had paired their hands feveral times over its nofe, in order to accuftom it to their effluvia, began diredlly to take to them. While the calf was yet alive, I made a drawing o f it, a copy o f which may be feen in the Swediih Tranfadtions for 17 78 , and likewife in Plate IV. o f this volume. After this it was killed, diffedled, and eaten up in lefs than three hours time. The reafon of this quick difpatch was partly the warmth of the weather, and partly our being in abfo- iute want of any other freih provifions. The dried ikin, which I brought home with me, is of the thicknefs of the foie o f a thin ilioe, and at the fame time was very ftiff. Not-, Notwithftanding thefe difadvantages, I have had it fluffed for the cabinet of the Royal Academy, fo as to bear a tolerable refemblance to the living animal, excepting that the belly could not be fufficiently diftended. On this account, the drawing given by M. A llam a n d from a fluffed hippopotamus’s calf, and afterwards copied in M. de B u f fo n s Supplement, could not but be incomplete, in refpedt that it is too lean, and the toes or hoofs too far diftant from each other. The eyes, moreover, are made too large, and juft the fame, may doubtlefs be faid of the figures given o f the adult hippopotamus in the fame place. We found the flefh and fat of this calf, as flabby as one might have expedted from its want of age, and confequently not near fo good as that of the old fea-cows; of which U found the flefh tender, and the fat of a tafte like marrow, or at leaft not fo greafy and ftrong as other fat. It is for this reafon, likewife, that the colonifts look upon the flefh and fat of the fea-cow, as the wholefomeft meat that can be eaten , the gelatinous part of the feet in particular, when properly dreffed, being accounted a great delicacy. The dried tongues o f thefe animals are alfo confidered, even at the Cape, as a rare and favory difli. On my return to Sweden, I had the honour to furniih his Majefty’s table with a dried fea-cow’s tongue, two feet and eight inches long. With refpedt to form, the tongue of a full-grown hippopotamus is very blunt at the tip, and is, in fadt, broadeft at that part ; if, at the fame time, it is flanted off towards one fide, and marked with lobes, as I was informed it is, this circumltance may, perhaps, proceed from the fridtion ft fuffers againft the teeth, towards the fide oh which the V o l . II. O o animal in 6- January. '«✓wJ
27f 72-2
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