Alexandria Gazette & Daily Advertiser

From the National Advocate.
THE HIPPOPOTAMUS.
The Courier Francais contains the following interesting notice:
Lalande, a distinguished naturalist, sent by the French government to Africa, has returned in the Panther, lately arrived at Bordeaux, and has brought with him among other objects of value, a hippopotamus, of the largest size, an adult rhinoceros, and three whales, of 75, 36, and 18 feet in length. He himself obtained the hippopotamus and rhinoceros; the whales were stranded on the shore. It was he also that prepared the skeletons and skins of these monsters. Of these achievements, which all do equal honor to the courage, address, and activity of the intrepid naturalist, the most important acquisition to science, is that of the hippopotamus. We had no whole skeleton of this animal, and a scale of comparison was wanting, by which to judge of its fossil remains, such as they are found in France. After waiting for six months in the Savannas, Mr. Lalande at last met with the monster, 6 feet high, and 12 feet long. His walk made a noise similar to four washer-women alternately beating linen against stones. But no language can express the frightful tumult of his direct and rapid course when mortally wounded; he endeavored precipitately to gain the water, overturning every thing in his way; his eyes swimming in blood, seemed to dart fire: his throat was agitated with convulsive motions; he gnashed his grinders, and vomited frothy blood, while two long jets of blood started from his nostrils. His bellowing and roaring rolled in the woods like thunder, and the ground trembled under his feet. A second shot fired close at his ear, stretched him lifeless. Ten yoke of oxen were unable to draw his gigantic body out of the woods. Lalande was obliged to cut it to pieces on the spot, and to construct hastily around it a rampart of reeds and bamboos, to protect it in the night from wild beasts. Great strength of mind was certainly requisite to preserve a necessary sang-froid at sight of this animal; but much greater must have been the firmness and impassiveness of Lalande to have dissected such a mass of flesh with all the care and precaution necessary to the operation, under a burning sun, and in so torrid a climate, that putrefaction in twenty-four hours occurs, in all its most hideous and disgusting stages.