AT FORT LAMY 133 



oners make great play with their showy fetters, 

 especially when marching through the streets, so 

 that the women may pity them. The ladies are 

 inclined, however, to suspect their husbands of a 

 wish to go to prison, where they enjoy regular food, 

 pleasant company, and not overmuch work. In this 

 belief they make unkind remarks, which the men 

 find very painful. 



The utmost hospitality was shown us. Command- 

 ant Maillard himself took us to see the town, and 

 he insisted on our having every meal with him and 

 Captain Facon, despite the press of business with which 

 they were almost overwhelmed. He gave me a part- 

 ing gift, which I very greatly value — a beautiful 

 giraffe, who was captured as a baby and now leads 

 an independent life. Her name is Josephine, and she 

 was then three years old. Every day she roams out 

 into the country and crops the trees, but at night she 

 returns to the town to seek shelter from the wild foes 

 of her kind. She has superb confidence in her white 

 friends, and often, as we sat outside in the evenings, 

 would walk up to exchange greetings, and to demand 

 a handful of salt or tobacco, of which she is par- 

 ticularly fond. 



She likes to join an expedition to the country, though 

 her companionship is not always welcome. A man 

 generally sets out with the hope of sport ; but 

 Josephine, though she allows him to carry a gun, 

 objects to his raising it to fire. If he persists she 

 strikes at him with her fore feet, and there is some- 

 thing unpleasant in the prospect of a blow from those 

 long legs. Also from Josephine it would bear the 

 nature of a rebuke, and no man could persist against 



