would soon be the destruction of their nets and canoes. When they go a fishing in their canoes, and meet with an hippopotamus, they throw fish to him, and then he passes on without disturbing their fishery any more. He does the most injury when he can rest himself against the earth, but when he floats in the water he can only bite. Once, when our boat lay near the shore, I saw one of them get underneath, lift her above water upon his back, and overset her with six men aboard, but fortunately they received no hurt."----"We dare not, says another traveller, irritate the hippopotamus in the water, since an adventure that had nearly proved fatal to three men; they had proceeded in a small canoe to attack one in a river where there was about ten feet water; they discovered him walking at the bottom, according to his usual custom, and wounded him with a long lance, upon which he rose immediately to the surface of the water, looked at them with a dreadful aspect, and, at one bite, took a great piece out of the side of the canoe, which had very nearly overturned it, and it was with difficulty they could make the shore." These two examples are sufficient to give an idea of the strength of these animals; and a number of like facts are to be met with in the General History of Voyages, by the Abbé Prevost, who has given a summary of whatever travellers have reported concerning the hippopotamus. [P] Dampier, vol. II. These animals are not numerous, except in particular places, and it even appears that they are confined to the rivers of Africa. The greatest part of naturalists have said, that the hippopotamus is to be found also in the Indies, but the evidence they have of this circumstance is very equivocal; the most positive would be that of Alexander, in his letter to Aristotle, if we could assure ourselves, that the animals of which Alexander speaks, were really hippopotami. What occasions me to have some doubts on this head is, that Aristotle, in describing the hippopotamus in his history of animals, must have said, that they were natives of India, as well as Egypt, if he had thought that the animal, of which Alexander speaks in his letter, had been the true hippopotamus. Onesicritus, and some other authors, say the hippopotamus is to be found in the river Indus, but modern travellers, at least those who merit most confidence, have not confirmed this fact; they all agree, that this animal is found in the Nile, the Senegal, or Niger, the Gambia, the Zara, and other great rivers and lakes of Africa, especially in the southern and eastern parts. Father Boyn is the only one who seems to insinuate that the hippopotamus is to be met with in Asia, but his recital appears suspicious, and I think only proves that he is common in Mosambique, and all the eastern parts of Africa. At present the hippopotamus, which is called the _Nile-horse_, is so rare in the lower Nile, that the inhabitants of Egypt have no idea of the name. He is equally unknown in