It is interesting to know that Milton evidently considered Behemoth to mean the Elephant, or any rate, not the Hippopotamus, for in “Paradise Lost,” in writing of the Creation, he says:—
“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.”
According to Pliny, the Hippopotamus was first seen in Europe in the curule ædileship of Scaurus, 58 B.C., when the exhibition in the circus surpassed anything the Romans had ever seen. Among other novelties, he exhibited a Hippopotamus and five Crocodiles. But according to Dion Cassius, the Hippopotamus was first shown in the games celebrated by Augustus, 29 B.C. So great was the demand for Hippopotami in the Roman sports at a later period, that according to Marcellinus Ammianus, they had disappeared from Egypt since the time of the Emperor Julian. Favourable circumstances, however, must have again restored them, as we learn, from the accounts given by Zerenghi and others, of their being plentiful about the year 1600 and later. In some parts of Egypt the Hippopotamus seems to have been sacred, as we learn from Herodotus. Sonnini relates that the Hippopotami laid bare whole countries by their terrible ravages, and from the terror they inspired they were generally looked upon as the symbol of Typhon, that giant who spread death and destruction among the deities which were worshipped, and were the emblem of mischance and cruelty, and that the worship of them at Papresius was practised with the view of appeasing and averting their anger.
The descriptions given by early writers of the Hippopotamus are in many instances most ludicrous. Aristotle, borrowing from Herodotus, states that “the Hippopotamus of Egypt has a mane like a Horse, a bifurcated hoof like an Ox, a flat visage or muzzle, an astragalus like the animals with cloven feet, projecting teeth which do not show themselves much, the tail of a Hog, the voice of a Horse, and in size it resembles an Ass. Its skin is of such a thickness that spears are made of it.” It is pretty clear from this description that Aristotle meant the Hippopotamus, but also that he never saw one. Diodorus approaches nearer to the truth as to the size of this animal when he says that it is five cubits in length, and that the bulk resembles that of the Elephant. However, he still retains the cloven hoof and Horse’s mane. Pliny speaks of it as living in the Nile, and also gives it the bifid hoof of the Ox, the back, mane, and neigh of the Horse, a flattened muzzle, the tail and teeth of the Boar; evidently following the descriptions given of it by Aristotle. He also adds that helmets and bucklers are made of its skin, and that the animal feeds on the crops, and is very cautious in avoiding snares; but he goes on to say that it is covered with hair like the Seals. It is difficult to conceive how he could have fallen into so great an error after having spoken of its being exhibited in Rome by M. Scaurus, with five Crocodiles. He finishes his account by stating that when the animal gets too fat, and is diseased, it bleeds itself by pressing a vein of its leg against some sharp object, and then plastering up the wound with mud, so that it may speedily heal. The ancient artists appear to have been more faithful in their portraits of the Hippopotamus than the ancient authors and naturalists in their descriptions; indeed, with very few exceptions, the animal has been pretty faithfully portrayed. One exception is a figure copied by Hamilton from one of the caves of Beni-Hassan, in which the feet are displayed as cloven and the lower tusks made to appear so excessively large as to prevent all possibility of their being hidden when the animal closed its jaws. In the figure on the plinth of the statue of the Nile, which was formerly in the Vatican, although the teeth and feet are not correct, the general idea is good; and in many other sculptures and mosaics it is very well represented, also on some of the medals and coins of Roman Emperors: sometimes it is represented as holding a Crocodile in its mouth, which probably may have given rise to the stories of the enmity the Hippopotamus bears towards the Crocodile. In more modern times we have more or less fabulous descriptions given by Isidore of Seville and Vincent de Beauvais, neither of whom appears to have seen the animal. Belon and Gillius, it would seem, are the first of the moderns who actually saw the Hippopotamus alive, and this was at Constantinople, although Sonnini appears to doubt the identity of the animal which Belon saw. This is hardly justifiable, as Belon was a very accurate observer, and even points out with much truth the differences between the one he saw and those he had seen pictured on ancient works of art.
The first Hippopotamus ever seen alive in Great Britain, or indeed in Europe in modern times, was brought to England on the 25th of May, 1850, and placed in the Gardens of the Zoological Society. Mitchell gives the following account of its capture and habits:—“Since the Imperial Exhibitions in the Circus of Rome, no living Hippopotamus has been imported into Europe, except the young male which the Society possesses. The difficulty of obtaining such an animal may be conjectured from the fact that after the Viceroy of Egypt had determined to present one to the Society, it became necessary for his Highness to despatch an expedition to the Upper Nile for the purpose of making the capture, and that success was only achieved after two thousand miles of the river had been ascended. In the month of July, 1849, the chief huntsman of the party, in searching the reedy margin of an island in the White Nile, called Obaysch, at last discovered a little Hippopotamus calf, which, as he conjectured, had been born about two days. It was so small that, in his delight at having accomplished the Pasha’s order, 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 characterises a good sportsman, seized his spear, and with the sharp side-hook, which has been in 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, the scar of which he bore to the day of his death. The long voyage down the river was successfully accomplished in a boat which had been built for the purpose by the Viceroy’s order, and ‘Obaysch,’ as they named the Hippopotamus, from his birthplace, was safely delivered in November, 1849, after a journey of four months, into the care of the Hon. C. A. Murray, through whose powerful influence the Viceroy had been prevailed upon to exert his power and assist the Society in an object for which all exertions of their own had failed. Obaysch spent his first winter in Cairo, under the charge of his intelligent keeper, Hamet Saaffi Canaana, a Nubian Arab, whom Mr. Murray engaged for the purpose. In May, 1850, proper preparations were made, with the obliging co-operation of the directors, in the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company’s ship Ripon, for the transport from Alexandria, and on the 25th of that month the first Hippopotamus which had breathed on English soil within this period of history was landed successfully on the quay at Southampton, and liberated in the Gardens from his travelling-house at ten o’clock the same evening. On emerging from the door of it he followed Hamet, who had scarcely ever left him during the whole voyage from Cairo, into the building which had been prepared for him, and instantly indulged in a long-continued bath. The ten hours which elapsed between his removal from the steamer at Southampton, and his arrival in the Regent’s Park, is the longest period during which he has ever been without access to water.”
For the first year Obaysch was fed almost entirely on Cow’s milk and finely-ground Indian corn, and as he grew older he consumed about 100 lbs. weight of hay, chaff, corn, roots, and green food a day. He rapidly grew, until he reached the enormous weight of about four tons, and he was one of the chief attractions of the Gardens at the time of his death in March, 1878.