41 



curiosity might have been amply giatified, and inves- 

 tigation have received the Fullest and most satisfactory 

 conviciion, by attending the public games (upon 

 which occasions, Pliny informs us, it was frequently 

 exhibited), were alone sullicient to create justifiable 

 doubts, and propagate an opinion of the inaccuracy 

 of the statements and inadvertency of these writers 

 upon thf subject. The narratives of succeeding tra- 

 vellers, who ielt little inclination to observe, or whose 

 opportunities of observation were limited and few, 

 only tended to increase this perplexity, already too 

 intricate, and by their dark, ambiguous details, 

 equally opposite and vague, to confirm the previous 

 supposition of its fabulous and imaginary origin. 



That this conjecture should have been strengthened 

 by a perusal of the several relations of our travellers 

 and naturalists, ought not to excite surprise, when 

 we remember wc are told, by one, that the length of 

 its fore-legs is double that of those behind — by ano- 

 ther, that this disparity does not exist — by a third, 

 that such is their astonishing length, that a man 

 mounted on horseback may with ease pass beneath its 

 body, — and by a fourth, that in point of magnitude, 

 it does not exceed the size of a small horse. 



From such a contrariety of evidence, the veracity 

 of the traveller became disputed, and the credulity of 

 the naturalist an object of derision. The whole was 

 rejected as a fictitious invention — was classed with the 

 crude abortions of Pliny's fervid imagination; and 

 such was the influence of this variety of testimony, 

 that though ('apt. Carteret had given a distinct account 

 of a Girafie killed at the Cape of Cood Iio|)e in the 

 year 1769, Mr. Pennant still refused to yield his as* 

 sent, till convuiced by personal inspection of a skin 

 preserved in the University of Leyden, Tlie cloud of 

 uncertainty, however, winch has so long hovered 



