On their journeys the same animal is very useful in discovering water, or, at all events, the babiana roots, which supply a modicum of moisture to the system, and serve to support life until water is reached. Under these circumstances, the baboon takes the lead of the party, being attached to a long rope, and allowed to run about as it likes. When it comes to a root of babiana, it is held back until the precious vegetable can be taken entire out of the ground, but, in order to stimulate the animal to further exertions, it is allowed to eat a root now and then. The search for water is conducted in a similar manner. The wretched baboon is intentionally kept without drink until it is half mad with thirst, and is then led by a cord as before mentioned. It proceeds with great caution, standing occasionally on its hind legs to sniff the breeze, and looking at and smelling every tuft of grass. By what signs the animal is guided no one can even conjecture; but if water is in the neighborhood the baboon is sure to find it. So, although this animal is an inveterate foe of the field and garden, it is not without its uses to man when its energies are rightly directed. If the gardens or fields should happen to be near the river side, there is no worse foe for them than the hippopotamus, which is only too glad to exchange its ordinary food for the rich banquet which it finds in cultivated grounds. If a single hippopotamus should once succeed in getting into a garden, a terrible destruction to the crop takes place. In the first place, the animal can consume an almost illimitable amount of green food: and when it gets among such dainties as cornfields and pumpkin patches, it indulges its appetite inordinately. Moreover, it damages more than it eats, as its broad feet and short thick legs trample their way through the crops. The track of any large animal would be injurious to a standing crop, but that of the hippopotamus is doubly so, because the legs of either side are so wide apart that the animal makes a double track, one being made with the feet of the right side, and the other with those of the left.