THE GIRAFFE'S OBITUARY 
4i 
escorted by a Darfour negro, Hassan, an Arab, a 
Marseilles groom, a mulatto interpreter, the Prefect of 
Marseilles himself, and a professor from the Jardin 
des Plantes, while troops kept back the crowd. 
Thousands came every day to see it, and men and 
women wore gloves, gowns, and waistcoats of the 
colour of its spots. But the successful expedition by 
which, in 1836, M. Thibaut procured a stock of 
giraffes for the Zoological Society, owed nothing to 
the patronage of the Pasha of Egypt, beyond per- 
mission to enter the Soudan. The caravan left the 
Nile near Dongola, and thence passed on to the desert 
of Kordofan. There M. Thibaut engaged the services 
of the Arab sword-hunters, whose skill and courage 
were of such service to Sir Samuel Baker in his 
expedition thirty years later to the sources of the Nile 
tributaries ; and in two days they sighted the giraffes. 
A female with a fawn was first pursued by the Arabs, 
who killed the animal with their swords, and next day 
tracked and caught the fawn in the thorny mimosa 
scrub. For four days the young giraffe was secured 
by a cord, the end of which was held by one of the 
Arabs ; at the end of that time it was perfectly tame, 
and trotted after the caravan with the female camels 
which had been brought to supply it with milk. The 
Arabs were excellent nurses, and taught the young 
creature to drink milk by putting their fingers into its 
mouth and so inducing it to suck. Four others 
which M. Thibaut caught died in the cold weather 
in the desert. But he replaced three of these, and 
