THF, GIRAFFE AND OKA PI 



239 



united to the skull. A third race or sub-species of giraffe has been identified in Western 

 Africa mainly from the skull and cannon-bones of a specimen shot in 1897 at the junction of 

 the Binue and Niger Rivers; but very little is known about this form. Other varieties or 

 sub-species may yet be discovered in other parts of the Dark Continent. It is lacking in the 

 giraffe's long neck. 



The towering height of the giraffe is entirely attributable to the great length of the neck 

 and limbs. A full-grown bull giraffe will certainly measure occasionally as much as 19 feet in 

 height. I measured very carefully a specimen shot by my hunting friend, Mr. W. Dove, in the 

 forests of the North Kalahari, South Africa, which taped 18 feet I I ! inches. A fine cow, shot 

 by myself in the same country, measured 16 feet 10 inches, and there is no reason to suppose 

 that cow giraffes do not easily reach fully 17 feet in height. These animals feed almost 

 entirely upon the leaves of acacia-trees, the foliage of the kameel-doom, or giraffe-acacia, 

 affording their most favourite food-supply. It is a most beautiful spectacle to see, as I have 

 seen, a large troop of these dappled giants — creatures which, somehow, viewed in the wild state, 

 always seem to me to belong to another epoch — quietly browsing, with upstretched necks and 

 delicate heads, among the branches of the spreading mokala, as the Bechuanas call this tree. 



The giraffe's upper lip is long and prehensile, and covered, no doubt as a protection 

 against thorns, with a thick velvety coating of short hair. The tongue is long— some 18 inches 

 in length — and is employed for plucking down the tender leafage on which the giraffe feeds. 

 The eyes of the giraffe are most beautiful — dark brown, shaded by long lashes, and peculiarly 

 tender and melting in expression. Singularly enough, the animal is absolutely mute, and never, 

 even in its death-agonies, utters a sound. The hoofs are large, elongate, nearly \2 inches in 

 length in the case of old bulls, and look like those of gigantic cattle. There are no false 

 hoofs, and the fetlock is round and smooth. The skin of a full-grown giraffe is extraordinarily 

 tough and solid, attaining in tin- cast' of old males as much as an inch in thickness. From 

 these animals most of the sjamboks, or colonial whips, in use all over South Africa, are now 

 made; and it is a miserable fact to record that giraffes are now slaughtered by- native and 

 Boer hunters almost solely for the value of the hide, which is worth from i,j to ^.5 in the 

 case of full-grown beasts. So perishes the 

 giraffe from South Africa. 



Giraffes live mainly in forest country, or 

 country partially open and partially clothed with 

 thin, park-like stretches of low acacia-trees. 

 When pursued, they betake themselves to the 

 densest part of the bush and timber, and, their 

 thick hides being absolutely impervious to the 

 frightful thorns with which all African jungle 

 and forest seem to be provided, burst through 

 every bushy obstacle with the greatest ease. 

 They steer also in the most wonderful manner 

 through the timber, ducking branches and 

 evading tree-boles with marvellous facility. I 

 shall never forget seeing my hunting comrade 

 after his first chase in thick bush. We had 

 ridden, as we always rode hunting, in our flannel 

 shirts, coatlcss Attracted by his firing, I came 

 up with my friend, who was sitting on the 

 body of a huge old bull giraffe, which had 

 fallen dead in a grassv clearing. He was looking 



, . . 1-11 fh.n h, W. P. Dandi] IRift ■'■■■■ 



ruefully at the remains of his shirt, which hung MAL£ sQU rHERN GIRAFFE 



about him, literally in rags and ribbons. Blood ^ ^^ o/MeK amWj harmoniia cxacll? with tht ^ ana 

 was streaming from innumerable wounds upon light splashes of their surrounding 



