GIRAFFES, AND HOW TO CAPTURE THEM 133 



An old bull of nineteen or twenty feet high, or a 

 great cow of seventeen or eighteen feet, are not 

 animals that can be readily handled. It is true a 

 hunter mounted on a good horse can by hard riding 

 run a giraffe to a standstill in a headlong chase of 

 from five to seven miles. But then he must be pre- 

 pared either to shoot his quarry or to let it depart 

 in peace as soon as it shall have recovered its wind. 

 Offensively the giraffe can offer but the poorest 

 resistance; but its height, strength, and enormous 

 weight — an old bull will weigh a ton or more — 

 render this otherwise defenceless creature anything 

 but an easy beast to lead captive or to tame. The 

 giraffe has, too, a nasty habit Avhen brought to bay 

 of striking out with its fore-feet, and of butting with 

 its head; and it seems to be a generally accepted 

 theory among native hunters that only the young 

 can be taken and tamed. The pace of this animal 

 when pursued is, its height, bulk, and awkwardness 

 all considered, amazing. When first aroused it 

 steals away at a shambling, striding walk, which 

 looks slow but is in reality a fast pace. When 

 pressed at its top speed the gait is altered to a sort 

 of awkward bounding gallop, the two legs on either 

 side moving simultaneously, the long neck and head 

 swinging up and down in a machine-like unison, the 

 body swaying and pitching in an extraordinary 

 manner. There is nothing else like it in nature. 



