Hubert Keeps On Wandering

<p class="articletext">Hubert the Wandering Hippo from Zululand continued his strange journey across the continent. Waddling ahead unconcernedly as usual, he ignored the gaping crowd lined the way, and for some reason—or none, more likely—went straight to the sacred building of theirs; the temple, which stood in holy seclusion apart from the other buildings. The Indians were filled with awe. For them the matter of Hubert's divinity was now settled beyond doubt. Appropriate ceremonies had at once to be arranged, While Hubert was snuffling and poking around the temple they hurried away and slaughtered a lamb, as an appropriate offering to the visiting god-incarnation. They got a severe setback. For he is the strictest of vegetarians, spurned their sacrifice, and forthwith turned and left the temple and settlement, his snout to the air.<br />
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The story of Hubert the Wandering Zululand Hippo had now reached the front pages of nearly every newspaper in South Africa. He was news, the kind of news that kept front pages always open. Correspondents all along his route kept the wires humming with bulletins recording his daily movements. Wherever people met, he and his as yet unrevealed objective were subjects of animated argument and conjecture. And, since his undeviating southward course seemed to point to some kind of goal, there were all sorts of guesses, arguments, theories, mixed with the more or less authoritative dicta of big game hunters who knew the hippo and his ways—although they were willing to admit that they knew him only in his native haunts. <br />
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So widespread was his notoriety that Hubert achieved even the unique distinction of a poem all to himself in the pages of London Punch. Pondoland and Cape Province gladly accorded him the freedom and the rights conferred on him by Natal. No longer altogether jocular, the papers began to speculate seriously about his objective. Few now doubted that so sustained and oriented a trip had a definite objective. Curiosity on that point became so strong that concern for his safety began to be voiced. One paper urged railway men to watch their tracks to avoid the risk of hitting him. To which the railway men replied dryly that Hubert's 6,000 pounds of potential obstruction were safeguard enough for him. <br />
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Southward, ever southward, he wandered. Beyond helping himself to the odd few hundredweight of cabbages, or other green stuffs cultivated by men, Hubert had damaged nothing on his way.</p>

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