46 
THE GIRAFFE'S OBITUARY 
the lustre and softness of the eye of the giraffe in life. 
While the Mahdi’s power remains unbroken at Khar- 
toum, there is little probability that the Soudan traders 
will be able to supply any to occupy the empty house 
in Regents Park. Yet the southern range of these 
beautiful creatures, though it has greatly receded, still 
extends to the North Kalahari Desert, and to part of 
Khama’s country, where the “ camel-thorn,” as the 
Boers call the giraffe-acacia, abounds. There the 
great chief carefully preserves the giraffes, and allows 
only his own people, or his own white friends, to kill 
them. The other point at which the giraffe country 
is still accessible to European hunters or naturalists 
is Somaliland, and the “ unknown horn ” of Africa. 
This district is so far accessible, that parties of English 
sportsmen yearly penetrate it from Berbera, making 
Aden their starting-point from British territory. But 
from the point of view of those who would delay as 
long as possible the extermination of the large game 
of Africa, the Dervish empire is not altogether matter 
for regret. No doubt the Arabs will still kill giraffes 
to make their shields from the hides, as they have 
done for centuries ; but for the present the Soudan 
giraffes will be protected from raids like that in which 
those in the Kalahari Desert were destroyed in 
hundreds, because the price of “ sjambok whips ” had 
doubled. The Mahdi is, in fact, the involuntary 
protector of the wild animals of Central Africa, to 
which Sir Samuel Baker bore unconscious testimony 
when he lamented that, “ owing to British interference 
