78 WILD BEASTS OF THE WORLD 



In size the animal may be compared to a large Donkey or a 

 Mule, and it was first vaguely heard of by reports obtained by Mr. 

 H. Stanley from the Pigmies of the Central African forests, that they 

 knew of an animal something like a Donkey, which they caught in 

 pitfalls. That anything of the Horse kind should live in a dense 

 forest seemed so strange to Sir Harry Johnston that he resolved 

 thoroughly to investigate the question, and in 1899 he had the 

 opportunity of himself questioning some Pigmies whom he had rescued 

 from the clutches of a showman ; and they told him that the beast 

 was like a Mule with Zebra's stripes. That the description gives 

 some idea of the animal, no one who looks at the illustration will 

 deny, but nothing was said about the cloven hoofs, a detail which 

 the Pigmy mind was evidently not scientific enough to take cognisance of. 



Thus, when next year Sir Harry obtained further information 

 about the beast from the Belgian officers at Fort M'Beni in the Congo 

 Free State, and even the strips of skin above mentioned, there was 

 nothing to dissipate the Zebra idea, and when he went Okapi- 

 hunting in the forest and saw the marks of cloven hoofs, he was still 

 off the scent. 



However, in 1901, Sir Harry, then Governor of Uganda, received 

 from Eriksson, a Swedish officer in the Belgian service, a skin and a 

 couple of skulls of the Okapi, and at once perceived its relationship 

 to the Giraffe. Since then quite a number of specimens more than 

 two dozen have come to hand, and a good deal of information about 

 the animal has been acquired, notably with regard to the horns of the 

 male. There are now three stuffed specimens to be seen at the South 

 Kensington Museum, and skeletons have also been sent to Europe. 

 Moreover, two or three specimens have been captured alive, including 

 a baby one about a week old, which was photographed, apparently 

 from life, though it only survived a month. Before long, therefore, 

 we may expect some enterprising individual to bring a live Okapi 

 to Europe. 



All the specimens have so far been obtained in the Semliki Forest, 

 and the Belgian Government, in whose jurisdiction the haunts of the 



