226 WILD ANIMALS. 



animals ; unable to take her alive, tlie Arabs killed lier with, blows 

 of the sabre, and cutting her to pieces, carried the meat to their 

 headquarters, which had been established in a wooded situation — 

 an arrangement necessary for their own comfort, and to secure 

 pasturage for their camels. They deferred to the following day 

 the pursuit of the motherless young one, knowing they would have 

 no diflSculty in again discovering it. The Arabs quickly covered 

 the live embers with slices of the meat, which M. Thibaut pro- 

 nounces to be excellent. 



" On the following morning the party started at daybreak in 

 search of the young giraffe, of which they had lost sight not far 

 from the camp. The sandy desert is well adapted to afford indi- 

 cations to a hunter, and in a very short time they were on the 

 track of the object of their pursuit ; they followed the traces with 

 rapidity and in silence lest the creature should be alarmed whilst 

 yet at a distance ; but after a laborious chase of several hours 

 through brambles and thorny trees, they at last succeeded in 

 capturing the coveted prize. It was now necessary to rest for 

 three or four days, in order to render the giraffe sufficiently tame ; 

 during which period an Arab constantly held it at the end of a 

 long cord ; by degrees it became accustomed to the presence of 

 man, and was ' induced to take nourishment, but it was found 

 necessary to insert a finger into its mouth to deceive it into the 

 idea that it was with its dam, it then sucked freely. When 

 captured its age was about nineteen months. Five giraffes were 

 taken by the party, but the cold weather of December, 1834, killed 

 four of them in the desert on the route to Dongolah. Happily, 

 that first taken survived, and reached Dongolah in January, 1835, 

 after a sojourn of twenty-two days in the desert. 



"Unwilling to leave with a solitary specimen, M. Thibaut 

 returned to the desert, where he remained three months, crossing 

 in all directions, and frequently exposed to great hardships and 

 privations; but he was eventually rewarded by obtaining three 

 giraffes, all smaller than the first. A great trial awaited them, as 

 they had to proceed by water the whole distance from Wadi 

 Haifa to Cairo, and thence to Alexandria and Malta, besides the 

 voyage to England. They suffered considerably at sea during a 



