GIRAFFES, AND HOW TO CAPTURE THEM 129 



giraffes, among other remarkable animals, in his tri- 

 umph after the conquest of Palmyra and capture 

 of Zenobia. Fond as were the Roman people of 

 zoological novelty, their pleasure and amazement 

 must have been keen indeed when these stately, 

 beautiful, and towering animals were first seen stalk- 

 inor about the arena. One can imao^ine the buzz of 

 wonder and amazement spreading round the vast 

 crowded amphitheatre at the first sight of Camelo- 

 pardalis giraffa in its captive state. There is men- 

 tion of the giraffe by Pliny, iElian, and Strabo ; but 

 the most careful account of the quadruped in ancient 

 times seems to have been given in the ^thiopica of 

 Heliodorus, Bishop of Tricca, who describes the bring- 

 ing of one of these rare creatures by the ambassadors 

 of the Axeomitse (the inhabitants of the modern 

 Abyssinia), among other presents of Hydaspes. Two 

 ambassadors from Zoe, mother of the young Em- 

 peror, Constantino VII, to Moktader, the then Caliph 

 of Bagdad, were shown in the year 911 a giraffe, 

 lynxes, and other animals. 



Coming to the Middle Ages, there is a curious 

 reference to the giraffe in an old Spanish book 

 {Historia del Grand Tamerlin), published at Madrid 

 in 1782. In this book there is a clear if quaint de- 

 scription of the animal in an account of an embassy 

 from Henri III of Castile to Tamerlane in 1403. 

 This giraffe was seen by the embassy at Khoy on 



K 



