SWINGING THEIR TAILS, THE GIRAFFES AMBLED AWAY 



XV 



Giraffes 



AMONG the rarest and most singular of the large 

 mammals still existing to-day is undoubtedly the 

 giraffe, various forms of which are to be found in 

 different parts of Africa. 



The extraordinary appearance of giraffes makes us 

 think of them as strange survivals from a prehistoric 

 past as the last representatives of a fauna long dead 

 and gone. Next to the okapi (Ocapia johnstoni], which 

 was discovered in 1901 by Sir Harry Johnston and 

 Mr. L. Eriksson in the forests of Central Africa, and 

 whose nearest relatives became extinct thousands of 

 years ago, the giraffe is certainly the strangest-looking 

 animal to be seen in Africa. 



"In the country of Ererait lived the nomad cattle- 

 breeders El Kamasia. . . . Their name for God was 

 Em Ba, and they made themselves images of Him in 

 the form of a giraffe with a hornless head." So Captain 

 Merker tells us in his account of the origin of the Masai. 

 Perhaps this hornless giraffe was the okapi, which may 



307 



