Giraffes and Zebras. 



CHAPTER XXXVII. 



THE GIRAFFE AND THE ZEBBA. 



Beauty of the Giraife — Its Wide Range of Vision — Useof its Horns— GiraiFe Hunt- 

 ing—The Giraffes of the Zoological Gardens — The Quagga— The Douw — The 

 Zebra — Its Lamentable Wailings — Its Inaccessible Retreats. 



WHICH of all four-footed animals raises its head to the 

 most towering height ? Is it the colossal elephant or the 

 "ship of the desert ? " No doubt the former reaches many 

 a lofty branch with its flexible proboscis, and the eye of the 

 long-necked camel sweeps over a vast extent of desert ; but the 

 Griraffe embraces a still wider horizon, and plucks the leaves 

 of the mokaala at a still greater height. A strange and most 

 surprising animal, almost all neck and leg, seventeen feet high 

 against a length of only seven from the breast to the beginning 

 of the tail, its comparatively small and slanting body resting on 

 long stilts, its diminutive head fixed at the summit of a column ; 

 and yet in spite of these apparent disproportions, which seem 

 rather to belonor to the world of chimeras than to the realities 

 of nature, of so elegant and pleasing an appearance, that it 



