Chapter II: Part 2

“Well, now then, uncle, if hydrogen is the tailor’s part of the water, what are the other eight parts? The iron turnings used to make hydrogen in the gun-barrel, and rusted, take just those eight parts from the water in the shape of steam, and are so much the heavier. Burn iron turnings in the air, and they make the same rust, and gain just the same in weight. So the other eight parts must be found in the air for one thing, and in the rusted iron turnings for another, and they must also be in the water; and now the question is, how to get at them?”

“Out of the water? Fish for them, I should say,” suggested Mr. Bagges.

“Why, so we can,” said Harry. “Only, instead of hooks and lines, we must use wires—two wires, one from one end, the other from the other, of a galvanic battery. Put the points of these wires into water, a little distance apart, and they instantly take the water to pieces. If they are of copper, or a metal that will rust easily, one of them begins to rust, and air-bubbles come up from the other. These bubbles are hydrogen. The other part of the water mixes with the end of the wire and makes rust. But if the wires are of gold, or a metal that does not rust easily, air-bubbles rise from the ends of both wires. Collect the bubbles from both wires in a tube, and fire them, and they turn to water again; and this water is exactly the same weight as the quantity that has been changed into the two gases. Now then, uncle, what should you think water was composed of?”

“Eh? well—I suppose of those very identical two gases, young gentleman.”

“Right, uncle. Recollect that the gas from one of the wires was hydrogen, the one-ninth of water. What should you guess the gas from the other wire to be?”

“Stop—eh?—wait a bit—eh?—oh!—why, the other eight-ninths, to be sure.”

“Good again, uncle. Now this gas that is eight-ninths of water is the gas called oxygen that I mentioned just now. This is a very curious gas. It won’t burn in air at all itself, like gas from a lamp, but it has a wonderful power of making things burn that are lighted and put into it. If you fill a jar with it——”

“How do you manage that?” Mr. Bagges inquired.

“You fill the jar with water,” answered Harry, “and you stand it upside down in a vessel full of water too. Then you let bubbles of the gas up into the jar and they turn out the water and take its place. Put a stopper in the neck of the jar, or hold a glass plate against the mouth of it, and you can take it out of the water and so have bottled oxygen. A lighted candle put into a jar of oxygen blazes up directly and is consumed before you can say Jack Robinson. Charcoal burns away in it as fast, with beautiful bright sparks—phosphorus with a light that dazzles you to look at—and a piece of iron or steel just made red-hot at the end first, is burnt in oxygen quicker than a stick would be in common air. The experiment of burning things in oxygen beats any fire-works.”

“Oh, how jolly!” exclaimed Tom.

“Now we see, uncle,” Harry continued, “that water is hydrogen and oxygen united together, that water is got wherever hydrogen is burnt in common air, that a candle won’t burn without air, and that when a candle burns there is hydrogen in it burning, and forming water. Now, then, where does the hydrogen of the candle get the oxygen from, to turn into water with it?”

“From the air, eh?”

“Just so. I can’t stop to tell you of the other things which there is oxygen in, and the many beautiful and amusing ways of getting it. But as there is oxygen in the air, and as oxygen makes things burn at such a rate, perhaps you wonder why air does not make things burn as fast as oxygen. The reason is, that there is something else in the air that mixes with the oxygen and weakens it.”

“Makes a sort of gaseous grog of it, eh?” said Mr. Bagges. “But how is that proved?”

“Why, there is a gas, called nitrous gas, which, if you mix it with oxygen, takes all the oxygen into itself, and the mixture of the nitrous gas and oxygen, if you put water with it, goes into the water. Mix nitrous gas and air together in a jar over water, and the nitrous gas takes away the oxygen, and then the water sucks up the mixed oxygen and nitrous gas, and that part of the air which weakens the oxygen is left behind. Burning phosphorus in confined air will also take all the oxygen from it, and there are other ways of doing the same thing. The portion of the air left behind is called nitrogen. You wouldn’t know it from common air by the look; it has no colour, taste, nor smell, and it won’t burn. But things won’t burn in it, either; and anything on fire put into it goes out directly. It isn’t fit to breathe,—and a mouse, or any animal, shut up in it, dies. It isn’t poisonous, though; creatures only die in it for want of oxygen. We breathe it with oxygen, and then it does no harm, but good; for if we breathed pure oxygen, we should breathe away so violently, that we should soon breathe our life out. In the same way, if the air were nothing but oxygen, a candle would not last above a minute.”

“What a tallow-chandler’s bill we should have!” remarked Mrs. Wilkinson.

“‘If a house were on fire in oxygen,’ as Professor Faraday said, ‘every iron bar, or rafter, or pillar, every nail and iron tool, and the fire-place itself; all the zinc and copper roofs, and leaden coverings, and gutters, and pipes, would consume and burn, increasing the combustion.’”

“That would be, indeed, burning ‘like a house on fire,’” observed Mr. Bagges.

“‘Think,’” said Harry, continuing his quotation, “‘of the Houses of Parliament, or a steam-engine manufactory. Think of an iron-proof chest—no proof against oxygen. Think of a locomotive and its train,—every engine, every carriage, and even every rail would be set on fire and burnt up.’ So now, uncle, I think you see what the use of nitrogen is, and especially how it prevents a candle from burning out too fast.”

“Eh?” said Mr. Bagges. “Well, I will say I do think we are under considerable obligations to nitrogen.”

“I have explained to you, uncle,” pursued Harry, “how a candle, in burning, turns into water. But it turns into something else besides that; there is a stream of hot air going up from it that won’t condense into dew; some of that is the nitrogen of the air which the candle has taken all the oxygen from. But there is more in it than nitrogen. Hold a long glass tube over a candle, so that the stream of hot air from it may go up through the tube. Hold a jar over the end of the tube to collect some of the stream of hot air. Put some lime-water, which looks quite clear, into the jar; stop the jar, and shake it up. The lime-water, which was quite clear before, turns milky. Then there is something made by the burning of the candle that changes the colour of the lime-water. That is a gas, too, and you can collect it, and examine it. It is to be got from several things, and is a part of all chalk, marble, and the shells of eggs or of shell-fish. The easiest way to make it is by pouring muriatic or sulphuric acid on chalk or marble. The marble or chalk begins to hiss or bubble, and you can collect the bubbles in the same way that you can oxygen. The gas made by the candle in burning, and which also is got out of the chalk and marble, is called carbonic acid. It puts out a light in a moment; it kills any animal that breathes it, and it is really poisonous to breathe, because it destroys life even when mixed with a pretty large quantity of common air. The bubbles made by beer when it ferments, are carbonic acid, so is the air that fizzes out of soda-water,—and it is good to swallow though it is deadly to breathe. It is got from chalk by burning the chalk as well as by putting acid to it, and burning the carbonic acid out of chalk makes the chalk lime. This is why people are killed sometimes by getting in the way of the wind that blows from lime-kilns.”

“Of which it is advisable carefully to keep to the windward,” Mr. Wilkinson observed.

“The most curious thing about carbonic acid gas,” proceeded Harry, “is its weight. Although it is only a sort of air, it is so heavy that you can pour it from one vessel into another. You may dip a cup of it and pour it down upon a candle, and it will put the candle out, which would astonish an ignorant person; because carbonic acid gas is as invisible as the air, and the candle seems to be put out by nothing. A soap-bubble or common air floats on it like wood on water. Its weight is what makes it collect in brewers’ vats; and also in wells, where it is produced naturally; and owing to its collecting in such places it causes the deaths we so often hear about of those who go down into them without proper care. It is found in many springs of water, more or less; and a great deal of it comes out of the earth in some places. Carbonic acid gas is what stupifies the dogs in the Grotto del Cane. Well, but how is carbonic acid gas made by the candle?”

“I hope with your candle you you’ll throw some light upon the subject,” said Uncle Bagges.

“I hope so,” answered Harry. “Recollect it is the burning of the smoke, or soot, or carbon of the candle that makes the candle-flame bright. Also that the candle won’t burn without air. Likewise that it will not burn in nitrogen, or air that has been deprived of oxygen. So the carbon of the candle mingles with oxygen, in burning, to make carbonic acid gas, just as the hydrogen does to form water. Carbonic acid gas, then, is carbon or charcoal dissolved in oxygen. Here is black soot getting invisible and changing into air; and this seems strange, uncle, doesn’t it?”

“Ahem! Strange, if true,” answered Mr. Bagges. “Eh?—well! I suppose it’s all right.”

“Quite so, uncle. Burn carbon or charcoal either in the air or in oxygen, and it is sure always to make carbonic acid, and nothing else, if it is dry. No dew or mist gathers in a cold glass jar if you burn dry charcoal in it. The charcoal goes entirely into carbonic acid gas, and leaves nothing behind but ashes, which are only earthy stuff that was in the charcoal, but not part of the charcoal itself. And now, shall I tell you something about carbon?”

“With all my heart,” assented Mr. Bagges.

“I said that there was carbon or charcoal in all common lights,—so there is in every common kind of fuel. If you heat coal or wood away from the air, some gas comes away, and leaves behind coke from coal, and charcoal from wood; both carbon, though not pure. Heat carbon as much as you will in a close vessel, and it does not change in the least; but let the air get to it, and then it burns and flies off in carbonic acid gas. This makes carbon so convenient for fuel. But it is ornamental as well as useful, uncle. The diamond is nothing else than carbon.”

“The diamond, eh? You mean the black diamond.”

“No; the diamond, really and truly. The diamond is only carbon in the shape of a crystal.”

“Eh? and can’t some of your clever chemists crystallise a little bit of carbon, and make a Koh-i-noor?”

“Ah, uncle, perhaps we shall, some day. In the meantime I suppose we must be content with making carbon so brilliant as it is in the flame of a candle. Well; now you see that a candle-flame is vapour burning, and the vapour, in burning, turns into water and carbonic acid gas. The oxygen of both the carbonic acid gas and the water comes from the air, and the hydrogen and carbon together are the vapour. They are distilled out of the melted wax by the heat. But, you know, carbon alone can’t be distilled by any heat. It can be distilled, though, when it is joined with hydrogen, as it is in the wax, and then the mixed hydrogen and carbon rise in gas of the same kind as the gas in the streets, and that also is distilled by heat from coal. So a candle is a little gas manufactory in itself, that burns the gas as fast as it makes it.”

“Haven’t you pretty nearly come to your candle’s end?” said Mr. Wilkinson.

“Nearly. I only want to tell uncle, that the burning of a candle is almost exactly like our breathing. Breathing is consuming oxygen, only not so fast as burning. In breathing we throw out water in vapour and carbonic acid from our lungs, and take oxygen in. Oxygen is as necessary to support the life of the body, as it is to keep up the flame of a candle.”

“So,” said Mr. Bagges, “man is a candle, eh? and Shakespeare knew that, I suppose, (as he did most things,) when he wrote—

‘Out, out, brief candle!’

“Well, well; we old ones are moulds, and you young squires are dips and rushlights, eh? Any more to tell us about the candle?”

“I could tell you a great deal more about oxygen, and hydrogen, and carbon, and water, and breathing, that Professor Faraday said, if I had time; but you should go and hear him yourself, uncle.”

“Eh? well! I think I will. Some of us seniors may learn something from a juvenile lecture, at any rate, if given by a Faraday. And now, my boy, I will tell you what,” added Mr. Bagges, “I am very glad to find you so fond of study and science; and you deserve to be encouraged; and so I’ll give you a what-d’ ye-call-it?—a Galvanic Battery on your next birth-day; and so much for your teaching your old uncle the chemistry of a candle.”

AN OLD HAUNT.

The rippling water, with its drowsy tone,—
The tall elms, tow’ring in their stately pride,—
And—sorrow’s type—the willow sad and lone,
Kissing in graceful woe the murmuring tide;—

The grey church-tower,—and dimly seen beyond,
The faint hills gilded by the parting sun,—
All were the same, and seem’d with greeting fond
To welcome me as they of old had done.

And for a while I stood as in a trance,
On that loved spot, forgetting toil and pain;—
Buoyant my limbs, and keen and bright my glance,
For that brief space I was a boy again!

Again with giddy mates I careless play’d,
Or plied the quiv’ring oar, on conquest bent;—
Again, beneath the tall elms’ silent shade,
I woo’d the fair, and won the sweet consent.

But brief, alas! the spell,—for suddenly
Peal’d from the tower the old familiar chimes,
And with their clear, heart-thrilling melody,
Awaked the spectral forms of darker times.

And I remember’d all that years had wrought—
How bow’d my care-worn frame, how dimm’d my eye,
How poor the gauds by Youth so keenly sought,
How quench’d and dull Youth’s aspirations high!

And in half mournful, half upbraiding host,
Duties neglected—high resolves unkept—
And many a heart by death or falsehood lost,
In lightning current o’er my bosom swept.

Then bow’d the stubborn knees, as backward sped
The self-accusing thoughts in dread array,
And slowly, from their long-congealèd bed,
Forced the remorseful tears their silent way.

Bitter, yet healing drops! in mercy sent,
Like soft dews falling on a thirsty plain,—
And ’ere those chimes their last faint notes had spent,
Strengthen’d and calm’d, I stood erect again.

Strengthen’d, the tasks allotted to fulfil;—
Calm’d, the thick-coming sorrows to endure;
Fearful of nought but of my own frail will,—
In His Almighty strength and aid secure.

For a sweet voice had whisper’d hope to me,—
Had through my darkness shed a kindly ray;—
It said: “The past is fix’d immutably,
Yet is there comfort in the coming day!”

THE HIPPOPOTAMUS.

Before we give a more exclusive attention to the “illustrious stranger,” we think it will be advisable to present the reader with a brief authentic account of the circumstances which led to the honour conferred upon England by the visit of this extraordinary personage. These circumstances are little known to the world; indeed, we have reason to believe they have never before been published.

The British Consul at Cairo had frequently intimated to His Highness the Pasha of Egypt, that a live hippopotamus would be regarded as a very interesting and valuable present in England. Now, there were sundry difficulties of a serious nature involved in this business. In the first place, the favourite resort of the hippopotami is a thousand or fifteen hundred miles distant from Cairo; in the second place, the hippopotamus being amphibious, is not easily come-at-able; when he is environed, he is a tremendous antagonist, by reason of his great strength, enormous weight, his wrathfulness when excited, and we may add his prodigious mouth with its huge tusks. We are speaking of the _male_ hippopotamus. He is often slain by a number of rifle-balls (he only makes a comic grin of scorn at a few) and laid low from a distance: but as to being taken alive, that is a triumph which has scarcely ever been permitted to mortal man of modern times. It is quite a different matter in respect of the elephant. He cannot take to the water, and neither dive clean away, nor upset your boat with a plunge of his forehead; besides which you cannot get two tame renegade hippopotami to assist in the capture and subjugation of a relative, as is the case with elephants. Accordingly, His Highness the Pasha, not liking to compromise the dignity of despotism, and his own position as sovereign of Egypt, by promising anything which he might, perhaps, be unable to perform, turned a deaf ear to the repeated overtures of the British Consul. He never refused his request; he simply did not hear what he said, or could not be made to have a clear understanding as to what the Consul really wanted. His Highness had already given him the skin and bones of hippopotami, and many other animals alive and dead. If he wished for any birds, he was welcome to as many as he pleased!

It so chanced, however, that Abbas Pasha took it into his head, or somebody told him, that we had in England several extraordinary breeds of dogs, horses, and cows,—hounds that could catch a gazelle by sheer fleetness, small fighting-dogs that would master a bull,—horses that could compete with his finest Arabian steeds, and beat them in a hard day’s hunt over rough ground. He bethought himself, therefore, of the hippopotamus. One good turn of this kind might deserve another of a different kind.

“So, Consul,” said the Pasha abruptly one day, when Mr. Murray was dining with him, “so, you want a hippopotamus?”

“Very much, your Highness.”

“And you think that such an animal would be an acceptable present to your Queen and country?”

“He would be accounted a great rarity,” said the Consul; “our naturalists would receive him with open arms—figuratively speaking,—and the public would crowd to pay their respects to him.”

Abbas Pasha laughed at this pleasantry of the Consul. “Well,” said he, “we will inquire about this matter.” He half-turned his head over one shoulder to his attendants: “Send here the Governor of Nubia!” The attendants thus ordered made their salam, and retired.

Anybody, not previously aware of the easy habits of a despotic sovereign, would naturally conclude that the Governor of Nubia was, at this time, in Cairo, and at no great distance from the royal abode. But it was not so. The Governor of Nubia was simply there—at home—smoking his pipe in Nubia. This brief and unadorned order, therefore, involved a post-haste messenger on a dromedary across the Desert, with a boat up the Nile, and then more dromedaries, and then another boat, and again a dromedary, till the Pasha’s mandate was delivered. We next behold the Governor of Nubia, in full official trim, proceeding post-haste with his suite across the Desert, and down the Nile, travelling day and night, until finally he is announced to the Pasha, and admitted to his most serene and fumigatious presence. The Governor makes his grand salam.

“Governor,” says the Pasha—and we have this unique dialogue on the best authority—“Governor, have you hippopotami in your country?”

“We have, your Highness.”

Abbas Pasha reflected a moment; then said—“Send to me the Commander of the Nubian army. Now, go!”

This was the whole dialogue. The Governor made his salam, and retired. With the same haste and ceremony, so far as the two things can be combined, he returned to Nubia by boat, and dromedary, and horse, and covered litter; and the same hour found the Commander of the army of Nubia galloping across the Desert with his attendants, in obedience to the royal mandate.

The Pasha, knowing that all means of speed will be used, and what those means will be, together with the nature of the route, is able to calculate to a day when the Commander ought to arrive—and therefore _must_ arrive,—at his peril, otherwise. The British Consul is invited to dine with his Highness on this day.

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.”

The admirable arrangement displayed in America, as well as in Germany, for receiving tickets without that delay which has been so much complained of in England, cannot be sufficiently applauded. When however delay is unavoidable, to receive the mails, or from some other cause, no sooner does the train stop, than a waiter, or sometimes a pretty waitress—who is more likely to find customers—trips up the steps with a tray laden with iced water and lemonade, glasses of light wine or _maitrank_,(a kind of Burridge-cup,) biscuits, cakes, and other edible nick-nacks, so that the passenger may take some slight refection without getting down.

In the railway from Bonn to Cologne, on the Rhine, they have pushed convenience yet farther, having provided the first-class carriages with tables, so that during the journey, one pressed for time may write letters with the greatest ease; pens and a portable inkstand being all that is necessary for that purpose. Paper may be had at the station.

It has been also suggested on several of the continental railways, that such travellers as chose to pay for the space, might have a regular bed; a great convenience for ladies or invalids, unable to bear the fatigue of a journey of many hours by night.

These hints might be followed with very great advantage to the shareholders in particular and to the public in general, by the directors of British lines.

IMPROVING A BULL.

The highly respectable old lady who addressed us on a former occasion, has obliged us with another communication, on a most important subject:—

“Sir,—You would have heard before, but the cause was a mad bull, which being tossed might at my age be very ill-convenient. But that’s nothing to what I’m going to tell you. Only to think of the power of horns! Bulls tosses very high, I’ve heard, but did you ever hear, Mr. Conductor, of a mad bull tossing a widow and six children across the sea, half over the side of the round world, from our Borough to Australia? Well you may stare, but it’s a fact!

“The bull run right at me, full butt, and so I grasped my umbrella with both hands and ran to where the shops was—drat the boys, how they did screech about one!—and it was cold water, which I doesn’t often drink, by which means I came to in a pastry-cook’s. The name was Bezzle, I see it on a bag while she was putting in gingerbread nuts for Mrs. Jenks’s baby, which I bought not to be under obligation for stepping in.

“‘Gracious mussy, Mrs. Bezzle,’ says I, ‘why wasn’t I killed? What ever is the reason of them bulls?’

“Says she, ‘It’s market day.’

“‘Smithfield!’ says I.

“Says Mrs. Bezzle, ‘Mum, all the abuse and outcry against Smithfield is very narrow-minded.’

“Says I, ‘How so?’

“Says she, ‘It don’t consider shop-keepers. When a bull takes a line of street, it drives the people into the shops on either side, and they make purchases for fear of being gored.’

“‘Heighty teighty, mum,’ I says, ‘you are alluding to my gingerbread.’

“Says she, ‘I scorn allusions. It’s a rule. Whether it’s bulls or thunderstorms, or what it is we look to, we respects whatever sends us customers.’

“Says I, ‘Mrs. Bezzle, you astonish me. Where’s your family trade?’

“Says she, ‘There are too many traders. Where one of us earns meat, three of us only earn potatoes.’

“‘Emigrate,’ says I.

“Says she, ‘That’s very well, but then,’ says she, ‘in such a move it’s hard to know which way to put one’s foot, and when a step’s made, if it’s a wrong one, it’s not easy to retrace it.’

“‘Spirited trading—’ says I.

“‘Ah!’ says she, cutting me short rudely; but I forgive her, owing to her feelings. ‘Take Chandlery, within seven minutes of this door, mum. One man sells soap under cost price, and other things at profit, hoping to bring people to his shop for soap, and then get them to buy other articles. But his neighbour sells cheap herrings in the same way; another sacrifices pickles, and another makes light of the candle business. What’s the result? Folks buy in the cheapest market; go for soap to the man who sells that at the ruin prices, go for herrings to his neighbour, go down the other street for pickles, and get candles over the way.’

“‘Well,’ says I, ‘that’s an Illustration of Cheapness, but,’ says I, ‘it’s dishonest. A fair trader has no right to sell an article at less than its first cost.’

“‘No right!’ says she. ‘And I dessay he thinks he has no right to starve. It’s very hard to judge. The young tradesman, with his little capital and knowledge of a trade, has got his sweetheart and his ambition. He must wedge into society somehow, and he begins with the sharp end.’

“‘But,’ says I, ‘it isn’t sharp, Mrs. Bezzle.’

“So she shakes her head; says she, ‘I’ll give you an example which is true, and one out of a many.’

“‘I once knew an excellent young man who died of cholera. He left a widow and three little children. After deducting all expenses for her husband’s burial, the widow found that she possessed a hundred pounds. With fear and trembling, she embarked this money, in an effort to support herself. With it she fitted up a little shop, and had begun to earn a livelihood, when——’

“‘Well, Mrs. Bezzle, what prevented her?’

——“‘An empty house close by was taken by another person following her trade. Immediately her receipts diminished. One cannot live except by bread that can be got out of a neighbour’s cupboard. The widow and the children have already lost eighty pounds, have only twenty left; their house is taken by the year, and so they still are in it; and the poor lost woman cannot be comforted. Her hope is gone.’

“‘Heigh, dear,’ says I, ‘it wasn’t so in my young days. I believe this is owing to overpopulation,’ says I.

“‘Well,’ says Mrs. Bezzle, perking up. ‘It’s cruel to blame us for our struggles. What if I _have_ got nine, and six on ’em dependant on penny tarts and gingerbread for meat, drink, washing, and lodging, are they to be thrown in my teeth?’

“‘Emigrate,’ says I, six times more pointedly than before.

“‘Where to?’ says she, ‘and how? Who can tell me that?’

“‘Go and lay your case before Parson Pullaway; he knows our M.P., and _he_ knows all about colonial places. Hasn’t his brother’s wife’s first cousin got one of them? He is Sub-under-Secretary to Lord Oxfordmixture, who has all the emigration settlements under his thumb.’

“‘I’ll think about it,’ says Mrs. Bezzle, quite struck-like,—for down came the scales on the counter like a shot, and the whole ounce of sugar-candy jumped into the little boy’s apron of its own accord. He had come for two penn’orth on pretence of a cough. ‘Besides, didn’t Mr. Pullaway christen seven out of my nine children, and not a penny of the fees owing for?’

“The last word as ever I spoke to Mrs. Bezzle was, ‘Emigrate!’