LMG 



CASSELL'S POPULAR NATURAL HISTORY. 



boat had been built on purpose for him ; and the Viceroy sent him in charge of the chief officer of his 

 palace to the house of the Hon. C. A. Murray, the British Consul, by whom lie had now been tian- 

 milled from Alexandria as a present to the Zoological Society, who, in the person of its secretary, took 

 possession of the animal, to procure which all exertions of their own had hitherto failed. 



A boarded inclosure had been built in the centre of the " Ripon," under the hatchway, and there, 

 in an iron tank, floated < >bayseh, as he was called, from the name of his birthplace ; and in the evening 

 of that very day he was liberated in the Zoological Gardens from his travelling house. On emerging 

 from the door of it he followed Hamet, who had scarcely left him from his starting from Cairo, into 

 the building which had been prepared for him, and instantly he proceeded to indulge in a long-con- 

 tinued bath. The ten hours which had elapsed between his removal from the steamer at Southampton 

 ami his arrival in the Regent's Park, is the longest period during which he has ever been without 

 access to water. 



Obaysch was perfectly aware that Hamet was there, after whose bag of dates, slung over 



CAI'lTIUSO THE HIPPOPOTAMUS. 



his shoulder, he had slowly followed ; but he was utterly unconscious how many celebrities ha 1 

 awaited his arrival, and were now watching his gambols. There stood Lord Brougham, with such men 

 as Professors Owen and Thomas Bell ; there were, too, the editors of our scientific periodicals ; and also 

 a tribe of artists ready to sketch him for the world's eye, among whom was Mr. Harrison Weir 

 whose vigorous and animated drawing we have had carefully and faithfully engraved. 



Hamet, whose services had been engaged at Cairo, from his experience and skill in the care and 

 jemeiit of animals, had some amusing incidents to relate as to his extraordinary charge. It was 

 clear, for instance, that lie had attracted to himself, and that most deservedly, the warm affections of 

 Ohaysch. Thus, Hamet slept side by side with him at Cairo, and in the same, way he slumbered 

 during the tir<(, week of the voyage. But as the weather grew warmer, and Obaysch larger and larger, 

 though "poverty makes us (proverbially) acquainted with strange bedfellows," the charge of a hippo- 

 potamus di,i n,,t, necessarily, it was thought, render such an inconvenience imperative. Ihnnet had, 



I herelbre, a hammock slung from the beams immediately over the place where he used to sleep just 



p OVer, in fact, his side of the bed, his position being raised some two or three feet, Assuriuu' < Hiayseh, 



not oidy by words, but by extending one arm OMT the side so as to touch him, llaiitvt got into his 



