130 NATURE AND SPORT IN SOUTH AFRICA 



the borders of Armenia and Persia. It was tliere 

 called the Sornufa, and appears to have been sent 

 to Tamerlane by the Sultan of Babylon. How the 

 animal came into the possession of the Sultan of 

 Babylon is not shown. 



From the heyday of the Roman Empire until the 

 end of the fifteenth century the giraffe was utterly 

 unknown to Europe. Towards the last years of that 

 century Lorenzo de Medici became possessed of a 

 specimen — undoubtedly from North Africa — which 

 was exhibited in Florence, and caused the greatest 

 excitement among the people. This animal seems 

 to have been perfectly tame, and, as it was con- 

 ducted through the crowded streets, often stopped, 

 and raising its lofty head to some high balcony, en- 

 treated and received some dainty — apples, or fruit, 

 or confections — from the inhabitants of the house 

 before which it halted. 



From Lorenzo de Medici's time until the reign of 

 George IV the giraffe in the living state once more 

 became unknown to European eyes. But in 1827 

 Mohammed Ali, Viceroy of Egypt, presented the 

 King of England with a specimen — the first ever to 

 appear in England — which, however, survived only 

 for a few months in the Eoyal Menagerie at Windsor. 

 In 1836, owing to the exertions of the Zoological 

 Society, a M. Tbibaut, a Soudan trader, after infinite 

 trouble, succeeded in capturing and safely bringing 



