Just before they all left, the tortoise asked the hippo, what he would do if the tortoise managed to guess the hippo’s name at the next feast. The hippo replied, “If you can find out my name before the next feast, I would leave the land along with my seven wives and dwell in the water forever.”
The tortoise was aware that every day the hippo and his seven wives went to the river to drink water and wash themselves. The hippo walked first with the seven wives following him. One such day, when the hippo along with his seven wives had gone for a bath in the nearby river, the tortoise made a small hole in the ground and waited for them.