IT was one of the most remarkable journeys ever to pass through the Scottish Borders.

And in two months’ time one of Britain’s favourite comic artists will follow every footstep.

The year was 1872.

On April 9, an unusual auction had just taken place at the Waverley Market in Edinburgh.

The assets of Wombwell’s Royal Number One Menagerie, including lions, tigers and elephants, went under the hammer.

This was a time when menageries of exotic animals were a common sight on the highways and byways of Britain.

And the names of some of the animals and their keepers were well known up and down the country.

Lorenzo, the Lion Tamer, Lawrence was amongst the most famous of all.

In the audience at the Waverley sale was James Jennison, one of the owners of the Belle Vue Zoological Gardens in Manchester.

By the time the auction was over Mr Jennison had spent just under £800 on a baboon, a nylghau (an Asian antelope), a lioness and a seven-year old Asian elephant called Maharajah.

Maharajah stood at over two metres tall with very impressive 20-inch tusks.

Mr Jennison’s purchases were booked onto the 10:05 express train out of Waverley Station two days later.

Lorenzo Lawrence accompanied Maharajah to the station on April 11 and was scheduled to travel with him.

It didn’t quite go to plan. Maharajah was loaded into the horse box and the doors closed. Moments later the front of the wagon was shattered and Maharajah’s head was sticking out of the hole he created. Lorenzo managed to unloaded the elephant onto the platform where once again he resumed his mild-mannered and friendly demeanour.

The handler declared that he’d walk him to Manchester.

And so, as Maharajah and Lorenzo packed their trunk and said goodbye to the circus, one of the most infamous journeys through the Borders began.

Manchester comic artist Oliver East, whose drawings have featured on Elbow album covers, will follow in the footsteps of Maharajah exactly 143 years later - drawing as he goes.

Oliver told the Border Telegraph: “It’s a story that sits somewhere at the back of most Mancunian’s memories without ever really knowing what happened.  “There is a lot written about Belle Vue Zoo itself, and Maharaja’s life there, but little to nothing on the actual walk Lorenzo undertook, which makes it ripe to mine for linear narrative.  “The burgeoning relationship between animal trainer and animal, whilst undergoing such an epic trek is interesting to explore in itself, aside from the task of getting to Manchester.” Lorenzo and Maharajah set out for Manchester on April 11, 1872, following the path of the Waverley and West Coast rail lines.

They covered 20 miles on the first day before settling in for the night at Stow.

They kept at the same pace to reach Hawick the following day.

After eight days wandering beside the tracks, with further stops at Langholm, Carlisle, Penrith, Kendal, Lancaster and Preston, they reached Bolton.

And at 2pm on April 20, as was advertised in the Manchester Guardian, Lorenzo and Maharajah arrived at the Belle Vue Zoological Gardens.

During his own retracing journey down the Waverley Line, Oliver will set his drawings in 1872. He is already working on the research, studying the comprehensive written archives documenting the walk, looking at the welfare of animals in captivity during that period and also researching Victorian paintings and photographs of the route, held in local collections.

And at the end of his 10-day journey he hopes to produce a commemorative 150-page comic book.

Oliver added: “While aspects of the book will have to fall to fiction, I feel doing the walk myself will give the finished project so much more substance than spending that same time pouring over old newspaper cuttings in libraries.  “The landscape drawings gathered on route, the empathy of exhaustion, the thrill I’ll have having completed the walk - these will make it a much better project.  A book born on the road.” In his 1988 book, The Elephant Who Walked to Manchester, author David Barnaby detailed much of Lorenzo and Maharajah’s journey.

But he cast doubt over one infamous episode where the travelling pair were confronted by an awkward toll operator in the Borders who insisted on a charge for the elephant.

Legend has it that Mahirajah lifted up the gate and went on his way.

The incident inspired a painting by Hayward Hardy, which can be seen on display at Manchester Art Gallery, and has also been documented in a number of books.

Maharajah lived for a further ten years at the Manchester zoo - becoming famous for giving children’s rides as well as pulling around carts of bricks and meat for local companies.

He died from pneumonia in 1882 and his skeleton was put on display within the Zoological Gardens.

The skeletal remains of Maharaja can been seen today as an exhibit of the Manchester Museum.

Lorenzo Lawrence worked with elephants at Belle Vue Zoo for a further 40 years after the epic journey.

During the Whit Weekend of 1912 his leg was crushed after an elephant panicked, bringing to an end the career of Lorenzo, the Lion Tamer, Lawrence.

Following Oliver’s journey between April 8 and 18, which has been commissioned by the Lakes International Comic Art Festival and Manchester Museum, he will create a single 150-page comic, and 20 large scale drawings.

The comic will be showcased at the Lakes International Comic Art Festival in October and some work in progress will feature in the UK Comic Art Pavilion at the Toronto Comic Art Festival in May 2015.

The large scale drawings that will form the basis of an exhibition at Manchester Museum in the Manchester Gallery, where the skeleton of Maharajah is the prime exhibit. The exhibition is pencilled for January 2016.

Julie Tait, director of the Lakes International Comic Art Festival, told us: “Oliver takes comic art into new territory as we discovered when we worked with him last year on the Homesick Truant’s Cumbrian Yarn- then he walked the coast of Cumbria recording his encounters with fabulous drawings and great wit.

“Now he takes on an even more epic challenge presenting a legendary tale linked closely to the local landscape which is certain to capture the imaginations of people of all ages whether they are into comics or not.

“It promises to be memorable, especially with an elephant involved, and to tell this amazing story in a way only comics can do.”