Part 4

Duly, as expected, the Commander of the Nubian army arrives, and is announced, just as the repast is concluded. He is forthwith ushered into the presence of the sublime beard and turban. Coffee and pipes are being served. The Commander makes his grand salam, shutting his eyes before the royal pipe.

“Commander,” says the Pasha, without taking his pipe from his mouth, “I hear that you have hippopotami in your country.”

“It is true, your Highness; but——”

“Bring me a live hippopotamus—a young one. Now, go!”

This was actually the dialogue which took place on the occasion—and the whole of it. The Commander of the Nubian forces made his grand salam—retired—and returned as he came,—“big” with the importance of his errand,—but also not without considerable anxiety for its result.

Arriving at Dongola, the Commander summoned his chief officers and captains of the Nubian hosts to a council of war on the subject of the hippopotamus hunt, on the result of which—he intimated—several heads were at stake, besides his own. A similar communication was speedily forwarded to the chief officers of the right wing of the army, quartered in their tents at Sennaar. The picked men of all the forces having been selected, the two parties met in boats at an appointed village on the banks of the Nile, and there concerted their measures for the expedition.

The Commander divided the chosen body into several parties, and away they sped up the Nile. They followed the course of the river, beyond the point where it branches off into the Blue Nile, and the White Nile. Good fortune at length befel one of the parties; but this cost much time, and many unsuccessful efforts—now pursuing a huge savage river-horse, with rifle-balls and flying darts; now pursued by him in turn with foaming jaws and gnashing tusks—all of which may readily be conjectured, from the fact that they did not fall in with their prize till they had reached a distance, up the White Nile, of one thousand five hundred miles above Cairo. In the doublings and re-doublings of attack and retreat, of pursuit and flight, and renewed assault, they must of course have traversed in all, at least two thousand miles.

Something pathetic attaches to the death of the mother of “our hero,”—something which touches our common nature, but which such hunters as Mr. Gordon Cumming would not be at all able to understand. A large female hippopotamus being wounded, was in full flight up the river; but presently a ball or two reached a mortal part, and then the maternal instinct made the animal pause. She fled no more, but turned aside, and made towards a heap of brushwood and water-bushes that grew on the banks of the river, in order (as the event showed) to die beside her young one. She was unable to proceed so far, and sank dying beneath the water. The action, however, had been so evidently caused by some strong impulse and attraction in that direction, that the party instantly proceeded to the clump of water-bushes. Nobody moved—not a green flag stirred; not a sprig trembled; but directly they entered, out burst a burly young hippopotamus-calf, and plunged head foremost down the river banks. He had all but escaped, when amidst the excitement and confusion of the picked men, one of them who had “more character” than the rest, made a blow at the slippery prize with his boat-hook, and literally brought him up by burying the hook in his fat black flank. Two other hunters—next to him in presence of mind and energy—threw their arms round the great barrel-bellied infant, and hoisted him into the boat, which nearly capsized with the weight and struggle.

In this one circumstance of a hippopotamus being ordered by his Highness Abbas Pasha, has been pleasantly shown the ease and brevity with which matters are managed by a despotic government. We complain at home—and with how much reason, everybody knows too well—of the injurious and provoking slowness of all good legislative acts; but here we have a beautiful little instance, or series of little instances, of going rather too fast. Things are settled off-hand in the East by a royal mandate—from the strangling of a whole seraglio, to the suckling of a young hippopotamus.

Returning down the Nile with their unwieldy prize, for whose wounded flank the best surgical attendance the country afforded, was of course procured, it soon became a matter of immense importance and profound consultation as to how and on what the innocent young monster should be fed. He would not touch flesh of any kind; he did not seem to relish fruit; and he evidently did not, at present, understand grass. A live fish was put into his mouth, but he instantly gave a great gape and allowed it to flap its way out again and fall into the water. Before long, however, the party reached a village. The Commander of the army saw what to do. He ordered his men to seize all the cows in the village, and milk them. This was found very acceptable to their interesting charge, who presently despatched a quantity that alarmed them, lest they should be unable to keep up the due balance of supply and demand. The surplus milk, however, they carried away in gourds and earthen vessels. But they found it would not keep: it became sour butter, and melted into oil. They were, therefore, compelled, after a milking, to carry off with them one of the best cows. In this way they returned fifteen hundred miles down the Nile, stopping at every village on their way—seizing all the cows and milking them dry. By these means they managed to supply the “table” of the illustrious captive, whose capacities in disposing of the beverage appeared to increase daily.

The hunting-division of the army, headed by the Commander-in-Chief, arrived at Cairo with their prize on the 14th of November, 1849. The journey down the Nile, from the place where he was captured, _viz._, the White Nile, had occupied between five and six months. This, therefore, with a few additional days, may be regarded as the age of our hippopotamus on reaching Cairo. The colour of his skin, at that time, was for the most part of a dull, reddish tone, very like that (to compare great things with small) of a naked new-born mouse. The Commander hastened to the palace to report his arrival with the prize to his royal master, into the charge of whose officers he most gladly resigned it. His Highness, having been informed of the little affair of the succession of “cows,” determined to place the vivacious un-weaned “infant prodigy” in the hands of the British Consul without a moment’s delay.

The announcement was accordingly made with oriental formality by the chief officer of Abbas Pasha’s palace, to whom the Honorable Mr. Murray made a suitable present in return for the good tidings. A lieutenant of the Nubian army, with a party of soldiers, arrived shortly after, bringing with them the animal, whose renown had already filled the whole city. He excited full as much curiosity in Cairo, as he has since done here, being quite as great a rarity. This will be easily intelligible when the difficulties of the capture, and the immense distance of the journey are taken into consideration, with all the contingencies of men, boats, provisions, cows, and other necessary expenses.

The overjoyed Consul had already made all his preparations for receiving the illustrious stranger. He had, in the first place, secured the services of Hamet Safi Cannana, well known for his experience and skill in the care and management of animals. A commodious apartment had then been fitted up in the court-yard of the Consul’s house, with one door leading out to a bath. As the winter would have to be passed in Cairo, proper means were employed for making this a warm, or tepid bath. Here then our hippopotamus lived, “the observed of all observers,” drinking so many gallons of milk a day (never less than twenty or thirty quarts) that he soon produced a scarcity of that article in Cairo. Nor will this be so much a matter of surprise, when it is considered that they do not understand there the excellent methods of manufacturing enough milk to answer any demand, which obtains with us in London, where such an event as a scarcity of milk was never known by the oldest inhabitant.

Meanwhile active preparations were making for his arrival in Alexandria, to be shipped on board the Ripon steamer. The vessel was furnished with a house on the main-deck, opening by steps down into a tank in the hold, containing four hundred gallons of water. It had been built and fitted up at Southampton from a plan furnished by Mr. Mitchell, Secretary of the Zoological Gardens in the Regent’s Park, to whose energies and foresight we are indebted for the safe possession of this grotesque, good-tempered and unique monster. The tank, by various arrangements, they contrived to fill with _fresh_ water every other day. A large quantity was taken on board in casks; a fresh supply at Malta; and, besides this, which was by no means enough, they made use of the condensed water of the engines, which amounted to upwards of three hundred gallons per day. As there are some hippopotami who enjoy the sea on certain coasts of the world, it is not improbable but our friend would soon have got used to sea-water; but Mr. Mitchell was determined to run no risks, prudently considering that, in the first place, the strength of the salt water, to one whose mother had been accustomed, and her ancestors for generations, to the mild streams of Nilus, might disagree with “young pickle;” and secondly, if he chanced to take to it amazingly, how would he bear the change when he arrived at his mansion in the Regent’s Park. Fresh water, therefore, was provided for his bath every other day throughout the voyage.

The British Consul began to prepare for the departure of his noble guest at the end of April; and in the early part of May, the Consul took an affectionate leave of him, and would have embraced him, but that the extraordinary girth of his body rendered such a demonstration impossible.

So, our hippopotamus departed from Grand Cairo in a large padded cart. He had refused a very nice horse-box which the Consul had provided for him. Some feeling about his dignity, we suppose; though Hamet Safi Cannana considered the objection arose from a certain care of his skin, which might have got a little chafe or hard rub in the horse-box. It was a lesson to Mr. Murray for life. No effort, of course, was made to compel the great personage to enter this machine, because it is one of Hamet’s principles of management never to irritate an animal—always to keep him in good temper—never, directly and immediately to thwart his will in anything that is not injurious, impracticable, or particularly unreasonable. Very delightful all this! Who would not be a hippopotamus? Who that was not Caesar, would not wish to be Pompey?

On arriving at Alexandria, full ten thousand people rushed out into the streets to see our hippopotamus pass. If no one had ever seen the amphibious prodigy in Cairo, it is not to be wondered at that the mental condition of Alexandria was in the same lamentable degree of darkness.

The crowd was so great, that the British Consul (whose feelings had so mastered him on taking leave of his guest, that he had been obliged to follow the _cortége_) was under the necessity of applying to the Governor of Alexandria for an escort of troops. This was forthwith granted, and down they came galloping along the streets of Alexandria, with waving scimetars! It was well the hippopotamus did not see them from his padded cart, where he lay asleep—it might have caused a little misunderstanding.

Order being restored, and a great lane made in the crowd, Hamet Safi Cannana commenced the gradual and delicate process of awaking the great personage. In the course of an hour or so, during which time the escort of soldiers all “stood attention,” the excited feelings of the anxious lane of population were gratified by the sight of the Arab ceremoniously advancing in gentleman-usher fashion, while close behind him slowly lounged the hippopotamus.

He embarked on board the Ripon, where he was soon joined by his Excellency General Jung Bahadoor Ranajee, and the Nepaulese princes, his brothers. These latter personages would have been great objects of attraction under any other circumstances; but what could stand against such a rival as the occupant of the great house and bath on the main-deck?

During the voyage, “our fat friend” attached himself yet more strongly to his attendant and interpreter, Hamet; indeed, the devotion to his person which this assiduous and thoughtful person had manifested from his first promotion to the office, had been of a kind to secure such a result from any one at all accessible to kindly affections. Hamet had commenced by sleeping side-by-side with his charge in the house at Cairo, and adopted the same arrangement for the night during the first week of the voyage to England. Finding, however, as the weather grew warmer, and the hippopotamus bigger and bigger, that this was attended with some inconvenience, Hamet had a hammock slung from the beams immediately over the place where he used to sleep—in fact, just over his side of the bed—by which means he was raised two or three feet above his usual position. Into this hammock got Hamet, and having assured the hippopotamus, both by his voice, and by extending one arm over the side so as to touch him, that he was there as usual at his side, and “all was right,” he presently fell asleep. How long he slept Hamet does not know, but he was awoke by the sensation of a jerk and a hoist, and found himself lying on the bed in his old place, close beside our fat friend. Hamet tried the experiment once more: but the same thing again occurred. No sooner was he asleep than the hippopotamus got up—raised his broad nose beneath the heaviest part of the hammock that swung lowest, and by an easy and adroit toss, pitched Hamet clean out. After this, Hamet, acting on his rule of never thwarting his charge in anything reasonable, abandoned the attempt of a separate bed, and took up his nightly quarters by his side as before.

As for the voyage, it was passed pleasantly enough by the most important of the illustrious strangers on board. His Excellency the Nepaulese ambassador, together with the prince his brother, were uncommonly seasick; but as for our fat friend, he enjoyed himself all the way. He liked his bath, for which there was no lack of fresh water supplies, and his provisions were equally satisfactory. Two cows and ten goats had been taken on board for his sole use and service; these, however, not being found sufficient for a “growing youth,” the ship’s cow was confiscated for the use of his table; and this addition, together with we forget how many dozen sacks of Indian corn meal, enabled him to reach our shores in excellent health and spirits.

A word as to the title of “river-horse,” when taken in conjunction with his personal appearance, his habits, and his diet. The hippopotamus has nothing in common with the horse; he seems to us rather an aquatic pig, or a four-footed land porpoise. In fact, he appears to partake of the wild boar, the bull, and the porpoise—the latter predominating at present, but when he gets his tusks, we much fear there will be an alteration in his manners for the worse. As to his eventual size, the prospect is alarming. He is at present only seven months old, and he will continue growing till he is fifteen years of age. What news for the London cows!

Arrived at Southampton, our hippopotamus, house and all, with Hamet Safi Cannana at his side, was hoisted up at the vessel’s yard-arm, and gradually lowered upon a great iron truck, which was then wheeled off to the railway station. The whole concern was deposited in the special carriage of a special train, and on this he travelled from Southampton to London. He arrived at the Zoological Gardens in the Regent’s Park at ten o’clock at night, and found Lord Brougham, Professor Owen, Thomas Bell, and Mr. Mitchell all waiting (we believe they were not in court dresses) to receive him. They were presently joined by the learned Editor of the “Annals of Natural History,” the learned Editor of the “Zoologist,” in company with Mr. Van Voorst, and several artists who made sketches by the light of a lanthorn. Doyle, Wolff, Harrison Weir, Foster, (for the “Illustrated London News”) and others, were all in assiduous attendance, watchful of every varying outline. The illustrious stranger descended from his carriage, and entered the gardens. First went the lanthorn; then Hamet Safi Cannana with a bag of dates slung over his shoulder; and after him slowly lounged our uncouth treasure, with a prodigy of a grin such as he alone can give, expressive of his humorous sense of all the honours and luxuries that awaited him.

We understand it is a cabinet secret, that the Pasha has ordered a fresh party of hunting soldiers to proceed up the river, as far as the White Nile, to search for another young hippopotamus—a female! We may, therefore, look forward to the unrivalled fame of possessing a royal pair—“sure _such_ a pair” as were never yet seen in any collection of Natural History—to say nothing of the chance of a progeny. These are national questions,—why should they be cabinet secrets?

We are certainly a strange people—we English. Our indefatigable energies and matchless wealth often exhibit themselves in eccentric fancies. No wonder, foreigners—philosophers and all—are so much puzzled what to make of us. They point to the unaided efforts of a Waghorn, and to his widow’s pension-mite—and then they point to our hippopotamus! Truly, it is not easy to reply to the inference, and impossible to evade it. We have had a Chaucer and a Milton, a Hobbes, and a Newton, a Watt and a Winsor; and we have had other great poets, and philosophers, and machinists, and men of learning and science, and have several of each now living among us: but any amount of a people’s anxious interest, which the present state of popular education induces, is very limited indeed compared to that which is felt by all classes for a Tom Thumb, a Jim Crow, or our present Idol. Howbeit, as the last is really a great improvement on the two former fascinating exotics, it is to be hoped that we shall, in course of time, more habitually display some kind of discrimination in the objects of our devotion.

CHIPS.

RAILWAY COMFORT

In all the utilities of Railway travelling, England is supreme. Speed, represented by from thirty to sixty miles an hour, “just (to quote the words of Lubin Log) as the passenger pleases;” punctuality, that admits of the setting of watches by arrivals and departures; and safety, exemplified by the loss of no human life from any other cause than the carelessness of the sufferer, during the past two years, are proofs of British supremacy in locomotion. Yet—by a strange perversity not easily accounted for in a country known all over the rest of the world as the Kingdom of Comfort—the point apparently aimed at is to render the transit of the human frame as uncomfortable an operation as possible. Every elegance and luxury is bestowed upon waiting-rooms where extreme punctuality renders it unnecessary for people to wait; and upon refreshment-rooms in which travellers are allowed ten minutes to scald themselves with boiling coffee, or to choke themselves with impossible pork-pies; but carriages in which travellers have to be cramped up, often for hours, and sometimes for whole days, are apparently contrived to inflict as much torture as practicable. In order to force those who cannot afford it into the first-class, second and third-class carriages are only one and two degrees removed from cattle pens. And that these should not be too delicious, the humbler order of passengers will not easily forget that a director once proposed to hire a number of chimney-sweeps to render—what, with the best company, are nothing better than locomotive hutches—perfectly untenable.

They manage these things better abroad. There a detestable class-feeling—a contemptible purse-worship, which rigidly separates people according to their pecuniary circumstances; which metes out the smallest privilege or comfort at a price—does not exist to prevent the managers of railways from making the journeys of their customers and supporters as pleasant as possible. On the French railroads, (setting aside the question that the fares are much lower,) the second-class carriages are comfortably cushioned, having pretty silk blinds to keep out the sun; windows that really are capable of being pulled up and down, besides hooks for hats,—a great convenience on a journey. For the blinds, indeed, an enterprising blind-maker in France agreed to furnish them to one railway company, gratis, on condition that they used no other for a certain number of years, and allowed him to make them the medium of his advertisements. Talk of advertising vans—can they be compared to the brilliant notion of advertising railways—trains of puffs, wafting the genius of inventors faster than the wind! We throw out the hint to the “advertising world” in this country.

In winter, even in an English first-class carriage, there is no protection against frost and damp; but in nearly all the foreign railways, no sooner does the winter set in than the first-class traveller finds the bottom of his carriage provided with a long tin case full of hot water. In the cold months, masses of woollen cloth and railway wrappers, are seen shaking in the corners of first-class English carriages with shivering, comfortless, human beings inside them, despairing of any sort of warmth whatever.

Comfort in railway travelling is, however brought to the highest perfection in Germany. An esteemed correspondent at Vienna writes to us on this subject in the following terms:—On the “_Wiener-Neustäder Eisenbahn_,” (the Vienna and Neustadt Railway), the carriages of the first, second, and third-class may each be said to resemble a spacious room, furnished with seats, something like a concert-room, and having a broad passage down the middle. Thus one may get up, walk towards a friend a dozen seats off; or, if you require more air or a change of position, you will find the backs of the seats shift so as to enable you to turn round, and sit down the other way without inconvenience to any one. I need not say that on this railway there is no struggle for “that corner place with your back to the engine,” which is a desirable object throughout our three kingdoms,—for every place is a corner place, having light and air, and you may sit which way you please.

Attached to each carriage, and going the whole length of the train, is a broad wooden plank, along which the guards are constantly walking, so that the slightest thing amiss could scarcely occur without their perceiving it immediately. Just before the arrival of the train at any station, one of these functionaries—for there are several—quietly opens the door and, instead of calling out “I say, you sir!” or “Come, marm, your ticket, I carn’t be a waitin’ here all day,” as we have heard in England, walks without any hurry or bustle down the division from one end to the other, repeating, in a clear and ordinary tone of voice the name of the station which is being approached, and requiring the tickets of such passengers as are going to alight there. With such an arrangement—giving ample time for the gathering together of coats, canes, umbrellas, reticules, and so forth—even Martha Struggles herself might have got through a journey unscathed and “unflustered.”