THE GIRAFFE AND OKAPI <41 
fact that giraffes never touch water during the whole of the dry winter season — for several 
months on end. Gemsbok and elands in the same waterless tract of country are complete 
abstainers for the same period. The flesh of a giraffe cow, if fairly young, is excellent, tender, 
and well tasted, with a flavour of game-like veal. The marrow-bones also, roasted over a gentle 
wood fire, and sawn in half, afford delicious eating, quite one of the supreme delicacies of the 
African wilderness. 
THE OKAPI 
BY SIR HARRY JOHNSTON, K.C.B,, F.Z.S, 
READERS of “The Living Animals of the World” are in all probability readers of 
newspapers, and it would therefore be affectation on the part of the writer of these lines 
to assume that they have not heard more or less of the discovery which he was 
privileged to make of an entirely new ruminant 
of large size, dwelling in the forests bordering 
the Semliki River, in Central Africa, on the border- 
land between the Uganda Protectorate and the 
Congo Free State. The history of this discovery, 
stated briefly, is as follows:—In 1882-83 I was 
the guest of Mr. (now Sir Henry) Stanley on the 
River Congo at Stanley Pool. I was visiting the Congo 
at that time as an explorer in a very small way and 
a naturalist. Mr. Stanley, conversing with me on the 
possibility of African discoveries, told me then that he 
believed that all that was most wonderful in tropical 
Africa would be found to be concentrated in the 
region of the Blue Mountains, south of the Albert 
Nyanza. This feeling on Stanley’s part doubtless was 
one of the reasons which urged him to go to the 
relief of Emin Pasha. His journey through the great 
Congo Forest towards the Blue Mountains of the 
Albert Nyanza resulted in his discovery of the 
greatest snow mountain-range of Africa, Ruwenzori, 
and the river Semliki, which is the Upper Albertine 
Nile; of Lake Albert Edward, from which it flows 
round the flanks of Ruwenzori; and, amongst other ; 
things, in more detailed information regarding the A GIRAFFE BROWSING 
dwarf races of the Northern Congo forests than we Here the posture is seen to be theroughly natural 
had yet received. Stanley also was the first to draw 
the attention of the world to the dense and awful character of these mighty woods, and to 
hint at the mysteries and wonders in natural history which they possibly contained. The 
stress and trouble of his expedition prevented him and his companions from bestowing much 
attention on natural history; moreover, in these forests it is extremely difficult for persons 
who are passing hurriedly through the tangle to come into actual contact with the beasts that 
inhabit them. Sir Henry Stanley, discussing this subject with me since my return from 
Uganda, tells me that he believes that the okapi is only one amongst several strange new 
beasts which will be eventually discovered in these remarkable forests. He describes having seen 
a creature like a gigantic pig 6 feet in length, and certain antelopes unlike any known type. 
In regard to the okapi, the only hint of its existence which he obtained was the announcement 
that the dwarfs knew of the existence of a creature in their forests which greatly resembled 
an ass in appearance, and which they caught in pits. This tiny sentence in an appendix to 
his book “In Darkest Africa” attracted my attention some time before I went to Uganda. 
It seemed to me so extraordinary that any creature like a horse should inhabit a dense 
hote by Charles Knight] 
