244 WILD ANIMALS. 



orders, he seized it in his arms and would have carried it to the 

 boat, which waited on him, had not the slimy exudation which is 

 lavishly poured forth from innumerable pores in the skin of the 

 young hippopotamus, rendered it so slippery that he was entirely 

 unable to retain his hold. The animal having thus slipped from 

 his grasp, all but escaped into the Nile, where the mother doubtless 

 was lying near at hand. The hunter, however, with the presence 

 of mind which characterizes a good sportsman, seized his spear, 

 and with a sharp side-hook, which has been the fashion in Egypt 

 for three thousand years or more, he succeeded in arresting the 

 headlong plunge of his prize, without inflicting greater injury 

 upon him than a skin-wound, which is marked by the scar upon 

 his ribs to this day." 



Dr. Sclater's " Guide," now being used, also gives an account of 

 this interesting event, from which the continuation of the narra- 

 tion is quoted,- — " From Obaysch, many hundred miles above 

 Cairo, the hippopotamus travelled down in charge of the hunters 

 and a company of infantry, who finally landed him at the British 

 Agency in the month of November, 1849. 



" By the obliging and liberal co-operation of the Peninsular and 

 Oriental Company, an apparatus was constructed on board their 

 steamer, the Bipon, by which the peculiar requirements of the 

 animal were perfectly accommodated, and the result was, that on 

 the 25th of May, 1850, the first living hippopotamus, since the 

 tertiary epoch, was landed on English soil. A special train con- 

 veyed him to London ; every station yielding up its wondering 

 crowd to look upon the monster as he passed — fruitlessly, for they 

 only saw the Arab keeper, who then attended him night and day, 

 and who, for want of air, was constrained to put his head out 

 through the roof. 



" The hippopotamus, thus acquired, and called ' Obaysch ' from 

 the place of his capture, continued to be a prime favourite with 

 the public, and the arrival of his mate, ' Adhela,' in 1853, did 

 not diminish his attraction. 



"For many years our hopes and expectations that the pair 

 would breed together were doomed to disappointment. At length, 

 in the spring of 1871, the female produced her first calf, and a 



