"With a view of obtaining an hippopotamus, (says Zerenghi) I suborned the people about the Nile, (who had seen two of these animals come from the river) to dig a large pit in the place where they passed over, and to cover it with light wood, earth, and grass. Returning in the evening to the river, they both fell into the pit. The people came immediately and acquainted me with the event, and I hastened thither with my Janissary. We killed both the animals by firing three charges from a large arquebuse into each of their heads. They expired immediately, uttering a doleful cry, which more resembled the bellowing of a buffalo, than the neighing of a horse. This exploit was performed on the 20th of July, 1600. The following day I had them drawn out of the pit, and skinned with care; the one was a male and the other a female. I had both the skins salted, and filled with the leaves of the sugar cane, in order to transport them to Cairo, where I had them salted a second time with greater attention and more convenience. In doing of which we used near 400lbs. of salt to each skin. At my return from Egypt, in 1601, I brought these skins to Venice, and from thence to Rome. I shewed them to many learned physicians. Doctor Jerome Aquapendente and the celebrated Aldrovandus, were the only persons who knew them to be the skins of the hippopotamus; and as the work of Aldrovandus was then printing, he had (with my consent) a figure drawn from the skin of the female, which he has given with his book. "The hippopotamus has a very thick and hard skin; it is impenetrable, unless it be soaked some time in water: the mouth is not, as the ancients have said, of a moderate size, but enormously large; neither are his feet as they say, divided into two hoofs, but into four. His size is not that of an ass, for he is much bigger than the largest horse, or buffalo; he has not a tail like that of the hog, but rather that of the tortoise, except being incomparably larger; his mouth or nose is not elevated, but resembles that of the buffalo, and is much larger; he has no mane like the horse, but only some short hairs; he does not neigh like the horse, but his voice is between the bellowing of the buffalo, and the neighing of the former. His teeth do not jut out of his mouth, for when it is shut, the teeth, although extremely large, are all hid under the lips. The inhabitants of this part of Egypt call him _foras l'bar_, which signifies a _sea-horse_. Belon is much deceived in his description of this animal, he attributes to him teeth like those of a horse, which would induce me to think he had never seen him, although, as he tells us he had, for the teeth of the hippopotamus are very large and very singular. To clear up every doubt and uncertainty, continues Zerenghi, I have here given the figure of the female hippopotamus; every proportion has been taken exactly after nature, as well as the measure of its body and limbs.