428 THE GIRAFFE AND THE ZEBRA 



theatre, and from that time it often played a conspicuous part 

 in the bloody spectacles with which the military despots of the 

 declining empire used to entertain the rabble of Eome. Even 

 during the middle ages giraffes were sometimes seen in Europe. 

 The sultan of Egypt presented the Grerman emperor, Frederick 

 IL, with a cameleopard ; and Lorenzo de Medicis was honoured 

 with a similar gift. But since that time three full centuries 

 elapsed before a single giraffe was ever transported across the 

 Mediterranean ; and when at length the wily old tyrant Mehemet 

 Ali, who knew how to flatter the French while grinding his poor 

 Fellahs, sent one of them to the Jardin des Plantes in 1827, 

 it raised no less a sensation than if it had been the unicorn 

 itself. Thenceforth, the spell being broken, many giraffes 

 have been imported, so that now there is scarcely a zoological 

 garden of any importance in Europe that has not at least one 

 of them to boast of. How well they bear the change of food 

 and climate is sufficiently proved by the pair originally belonging 

 to the collection in Kegent's Park having produced a young 

 family of six, from 1838 to 1853 ; so that it seems quite 

 possible to acclimatise this denizen of African wilds, which 

 thrives as well upon corn, carrots, and hay, as upon the leaves, 

 shoots, and blossoms of the mokaala, his desert food. There are 

 many analogies between the giraffe and the ostrich ; both long- 

 legged, long-necked, fit for cropping the tall mimosas, or 

 scouring rapidly the plain ; both, finally, defending themselves 

 by striking their feet forwards, the one against the jackal or 

 hyaena, the other against the assaults of the formidable lion. 



As if to make up for the hideous deformity of the rhinoceros 

 and hippopotamus, the African wilds exclusively give birth to 

 the beautifully-striped Zebras, the most gorgeously attired 

 members of the equine race. 



The isabelle-coloured Quagga, irregularly banded and marked 

 with dark brown stripes, which, stronger 

 on the head and neck, gradually be- 

 come fainter, until lost behind the 

 shoulders, has its high crest surmounted 

 by a standing mane, banded alternately 

 brown and white. It used formerly to 

 be found in great numbers within the 

 ^^^"*" limits of the Cape Colony, and still roams 



in vast herds in the open plains farther to the north. 



