DEATH IN THE PATH.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume I, Issue 288, 25 November 1911, Page 4 (Supplement)

DEATH IN THE PATH.

•‘Tho natives,” says the ‘'lllustrated London News.” “have various ways of killing th<* hippopotamus. On occasion. tlicv will attack it with harpoons, to which are attached linos ending in floats. '1 ho wounded beast, its position marked by these floats, will then bo followed up in canoes, and finnllv snearod to death. At other times they will arrange great pitfalls:

at others, some'such device as that boro illustrated. This particular method call': for the use of a strong spearhead fixed in a heavy block of wood, which is bung from a lino passed over a branch of a tree in the animal’s path. The. cord by which the spear is suspended is made to run across tho path, a few inches above the ground, and is so r.ri'nngcd that when the bea-.t slum!.les against it the spear and wood .'Nall bo released, to fall and strike it. \V< II knowing that their quarry, though Badly wounded, may yet take to the water and escape, tho natives attach to the wood holding tho spear ;* long lin" which ends in a float: rhur. the great boast can always lie located, whether it be dead er alive.”