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 pin-suit 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 Gumming 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 brush wood and water-bushes that
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