244 MAMMALIA. 



But on looking in the direction in which he was pointing, I 

 perceived, with surprise, a Giraffe standing up under a large 

 ebony tree, and attacked by my dogs. I thought it was another 

 one, and ran towards it, but found it was the animal I had first 

 attacked, which had managed to get up again, but fell down dead 

 just as I was about to fire a second shot. 



" Who would believe that a success like this could excite in 

 my mind transports of joj'' almost akin to madness ! Pain, 

 fatigue, cruel want, uncertainty as to the future, and disgust 

 at the past, all disappeared, all vanished, at the sight of my rare 

 prize ; I could not look at it enough. I measured its enormous 

 height, and gazed with astonishment from the instrument of 

 destruction to the animal destroj^ed b}^ it. I called and recalled 

 my people, one by one ; and, though each of them might have been 

 able to do as much, and we had all slaughtered heavier and more 

 dangerous animals, yet I was the first to kill one of this particular 

 kind ; with it I was about to enrich natural history, and, putting 

 an end to fiction, establish the truth." 



Such are the pure, deep, and noble joys which attend the 

 travelling naturalist in the distant countries to which he is urged 

 by his love of science and devotion to his pursuit. 



Until the year 1827 no living Girafi'e had been brought to 

 London or Paris ; but at this date the Pacha of Egj'pt having 

 heard that the Arabs of the province of Sennaar, in Nubia, had 

 succeeded in rearing two young Giraffes on Camel's milk, caused 

 them to be brought to Cairo, one of which he gave to the English, 

 and the other to the French consul. 



The specimen destined for France accomjjlished the journey 

 from Sennaar to Cairo, partljr on foot and partly on the Nile, in a 

 boat specially prepared for its reception. It reached Marseilles 

 in the month of January, where it jDassed the winter. Its journey 

 to Paris began in May ; on the 5th of June it reached Lyons. 



On the 30th of June it made its entree into Paris, and went to 

 St. Cloud, to be i^resented to the king before finally taking up its 

 abode in the menagerie of the Museum. 



The reception which this strange visitor obtained at Paris may 

 still be remembered. People never wearied in admiring its 

 singular gait, its great height, its long neck, the peculiarity of its 

 skin, and the brilliancy of its colours. An incalculable number of 



