42 
THE GIRAFFE'S OBITUARY 
brought four, including that first taken, down the 
Nile to Alexandria, and then by ship to Malta. 
“ Providence alone,” he wrote, “ enabled me to sur- 
mount these difficulties.” 
The Report of the Council of the Society as to the 
progress of this great undertaking is worth quoting 
in full. 
“The Council are now (April 1836) looking forward 
with interest to the completion of an attempt in which 
the Society is engaged for the importation of several 
giraffes, which they hope to see added to the Society’s 
collection in a very few weeks. In the earlier days 
of the Society’s existence, the acquisition of this 
singular and rare animal was among the most import- 
ant objects to which the attention of the Council was 
directed, and they made many inquiries as to the 
probable means of effecting it, and then named a price 
which would be paid for one or two of them, on their 
being delivered, in good health, at the Society’s 
Gardens. 
“In 1833 the inquiries were again resumed, through 
Mr. Bourchier of Malta, to whose valuable aid on 
numerous occasions the Society is almost incessantly 
indebted. Through his intervention, and the kindness 
of Colonel Campbell, her Majesty’s Consul-General 
for Egypt, an arrangement was made during the close 
of that year with M. Thibaut, who was then at Cairo, 
and he agreed to proceed to Nubia for the purpose 
of procuring giraffes on the Society’s behalf. The 
terms of his agreement imposed upon him the whole 
