2-888-661 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Hippopotamus, in the Gardens of the Zoological Society, Regent's Park, 1850. Obaysch the hippo, a gift of Abbas Pasha. '...no ordinary difficulties had to be surmounted in his maintenance at Cairo...in getting him down to Alexandria, shipping him on board the Ripon, supplying him with the vast quantity of fresh water necessary for his bath, transferring him from the steamer to the railway, and thence to the Gardens...His beautiful and healthy condition, his docility and attachment to his Arab attendant...gave satisfactory evidence of the care which had been bestowed on him...Although yet under a twelvemonth old, his massive proportions indicate the enormous power which will be developed in his maturer growth; and the grotesque expression of his physiognomy far exceeds all that can he imagined from the stuffed specimens in museums...'. From "Illustrated London News", 1850.