SOUTHAFRICA’S PETS

Hokitika Guardian, 31 August 1931, Page 8

SOUTHAFRICA’S PETS

THE PASSING OF HU BERTA. VAGRANT HIPPO’S ESCAPADES. South Africa is mourning the recent passing of Huberta, the hippo, adopted as the national pet. Flags have stood at half-mast in many towns, for ■Huberta, the great traveller, was known far and wide, and the Minister of Justice, after a question in Parliament, has ordered an investigation into the hippo s death. Jtiuberta’s life story from the time she was struck with wanderlust was full of interest. She left her small herd in Zululand nearly two and a half years ago, owing perhaps, to family trouble. She then began a tour of South Africa, visiting towns and villages which had not been associated with hippos for a century. To-day the hippo herds arc north of the Transvaal, and Huberta was a thousand miles south of the Zambesi. VISITS DURBAN. Hers was a leisurely tour. Her first large city was Durban, where a high spot in her career took place. One night she appeared in West Street, a thoroughfare lined with four and fivestoreyed buildings and crowded with tramcars and automobiles. She was quietly persuaded to leave the city and for a week disappeared from the news. Then came ti story from Port St. Johns relating how Huberta had put the town council to flight and investigated the council chamber.

Huberta was evidently sophisticated, for the lights of every city on the coast attracted her. She entered East London for the summer season and then, feeling the need for recuperation in the country, filled up on prize antirrhinums and dahlias and set out for King Williams Town.

Hubreta was certain “copy” for newspapers every week, and ranked second only to the Prince of Wales as the subject of sustained publicity wherever she went. Although her absence from the more populous centres temporarily dethroned her from the main news pages, she was never long out of the papers. natives’ prrrßOx saint.

Before her death, it seemed that Huberta’s status had been raised to that of patron saint of an good natives. This lumbering, pachyderm—more of a genial old lady than a jungle beast—plodded 400 miles through Africa and was adopted by the natives of the Eastern Province as an emblem of their own strivings toward freedom and emancipation. Huberta’s knowledge ol tbe country was not confined to pleasant glades and cool rivers. Once she stumbled aci oss :> railway track and settled down there for a siesta. A train approached. The driver, recognising • something familiar about ’ the hulk head, slowed down and gently prodded Huberta in the ribs with the cowcatcher. The' hippo, regarding the enemy with a calculating eye, decided that discretion was the better part of valour and ambled off If the train driver had not seen Huberta he would have been the most unpopular man in South Africa.^