22 



LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST. 



fatal. After the first two hundred " here 



the dreadful details become too horrible. " * * * 

 In a few hours after he had taken the whole four 

 hundred he was a corpse. The agas, kashellas, 

 and kadis attend on these occasions. I was as- 

 sured the man did not breathe a sigh, audibly. 

 Another punishment succeeded this, which, as it 

 was for a minor offence namely, stealing ten 

 camels and selling them was trifling, as they only 

 gave him one hundred stripes, and with a far less 

 terrific weapon." 



In ancient history the hippopotamus figures 

 under many shapes ; some giving it the mane of 

 a horse and the hoofs of an ox, and others the tail 

 of the last-named animal. Whether it be the 

 behemoth of Job* is doubtful, many asserting that 

 it is, and as many thinking that it is not : among 

 the last Milton must be reckoned 



Scarce from his mould, 

 Behemoth biggest born of earth upheaved 

 His vastness : fleeced the flocks and bleating rose, 

 As plants : ambiguous between sea and land 

 The river horse and scaly crocodile. f 



It is remarkable that the accounts of the an- 

 cients, from Herodotus and Aristotle down to Pliny 

 and subsequent writers, should be so extremely 

 inaccurate, while the representations which have 

 come down to us are comparatively correct. 

 'Take, for example, the coin of Hadrian, with a 

 crocodile at the side of Nilus and a hippopotamus 

 looking up at the river god; the coin of Marcia 

 Olacilla Severa ; and the sculpture on the plinth 

 of the statue of the Nile, with a crocodile orscink 

 probably the former j-in its mouth. 



Besides, one should think that some had seen 

 the animal itself. " Marcus Scaurus was the first 

 man, who in his plaies and games that he set out 

 in his aedileship, made a show of one water-Horse 

 -and foure Crocodiles swimming in a poole or mote 

 made for the time during those solemnities."! 

 'One, also, swelled the triumphal pomp of Augus- 

 tus after his victory over Cleopatra. The later 

 emperors exhibited them frequently, and there is 

 every reason for concluding that they were shown, 

 no longer as mere objects of curiosity, but matched 

 with men. The bestiarus must have thought he 

 had an ugly customer when the lanista first intro- 

 duced a hippopotamus to him as the antagonist 

 against which he was pitted. The third Gordian 

 gratified the people with the display of thirty-two 

 < elephants, ten elks, ten tigers, sixty tame lions, 



* Chap. xl. 10-19. 

 t Holland's Pliny. 



Paradise Lost, vii. 470. 



thirty tame leopards, ten hyaenas, a thousand 

 pair of gladiators, one hippopotamus, one rhinoc- 

 eros, and ten camelopards. These gigantic 

 " games," as they were called, had almost always 

 a bloody termination ; and the author of The Last 

 Days of Pompeii caught the spirit of the savage 

 populace when he made one of them shout in joy- 

 ous anticipation 



Ho ! ho ! for the merry, merry show, 

 With a forest of faces in every row ; 

 Lo ! the swordsmen, bold as the son of Alemsena, 

 Sweep side by side o'er the hushed arena. 

 Tal k while you may, you will hold your breath 

 When they meet in the grasp of the" glowing death ! 

 Tramp ! tramp ! how gayly they go ! 

 . Ho ! ho ! for the merry, merry show ! 



The ancients believed that great enmity existed 

 between the hippopotamus and the crocodile ; and 

 that they bear no very good will to each other 

 may be very possible ; but near neighbors as they 

 are, dangerous enough perhaps, Nature has so 

 provided for them, offensively and defensively, that 

 they, most probably, maintain an armed neutrality. 



The hippopotamus did not escape the medical 

 practitioners of old. Pliny and others show how 

 it enriched the pharmacopoeia. We spare our 

 readers the various prescriptions, merely observing 

 that the teeth were famous against the tooth-ache, 

 and that the mother who could procure some of the 

 brain had only to rub the gums of her infant with 

 it to deliver the poor dear baby from the torments 

 of teething. We must not omit that the animal 

 was considered a master of the art of healing, from 

 his alleged habit of Jetting blood by pressing the 

 vein of his leg against a sharp stake, or stout, 

 broken, sharp-pointed reed, when his constitution 

 required it. 



If we are so fortunate as to overcome the dif- 

 ficulties of rearing and of the passage, and lodge 

 the young hippopotamus, now sojourning in Egypt, 

 safely in the Regent's Park, how different will the 

 spirit of the English people, who will crowd to 

 see it, be from that with which the sanguinary 

 Romans, high and low, beheld the same form ! 

 We shall have the privilege of peaceably enjoying 

 the sight of this peaceable animal, anxious, in its 

 uncouth way, to show its good will to those who 

 show good will to it, instead of lusting for the ter- 

 rible excitement of the amphitheatre. 



Commodus, on one occasion, exhibited five ; 

 and descending into the arena butchered some of 

 these wretched beasts with his own imperial hand. 

 Queen Victoria, accompanied by her consort and 

 their children, the hopes of Britain, will gracious- 

 ly look upon the unmolested creature. 



