CHAPTER XVI.

_THE GIRAFFE AND OKAPI._

----

THE GIRAFFE.

BY H. A. BRYDEN.

Giraffes, which are found only in the continent of Africa, are the tallest of all living creatures. They belong to the Ruminants, or Cud-chewers, and naturalists are inclined to place them somewhere between the Deer Family and the Hollow-horned Ruminants, in which latter are to be found oxen, buffaloes, and antelopes. Rütimeyer, the Swiss naturalist, once defined them as "a most fantastic form of deer," which is, perhaps, as good a definition of them as one is likely to hit upon. Fossil discoveries show that, in ages long remote, great giraffe-like creatures, some of them bearing horns or antlers, roamed widely in the south of Europe, Persia, India and even China.

Of living giraffes, two species have thus far been identified,--the SOUTHERN or CAPE GIRAFFE, with a range extending from Bechuanaland and the Transvaal to British East Africa and the Soudan; and the NUBIAN or NORTHERN GIRAFFE, found chiefly in East Africa, Somaliland, and the country between Abyssinia and the Nile. The southern giraffe, which, from its recent appearance in the Gardens of the Zoological Society, is now the more familiar of the two animals, has a creamy or yellowish-white ground-colour, marked by irregular blotches, which vary in colour, in animals of different ages, from lemon-fawn to orange-tawny, and in older specimens to a very dark chestnut. Old bulls and occasionally old cows grow extremely dark with age, and at a distance appear almost black upon the back and shoulders. The northern giraffe is widely different, the coloration being usually a rich red-chestnut, darker with age, separated by a fine network of white lines, symmetrically arranged in polygonal patterns. At no great distance this giraffe, instead of having the blotchy or dappled appearance of the southern giraffe, looks almost entirely chestnut in colour. Again, the southern giraffe has only two horns, while the northern species usually develops a third, growing from the centre of the forehead. These horns, which are covered with hair in both species, and tufted black at the tips, are, in the youthful days of the animal, actually separable from the bones of the head. As the animal arrives at maturity, they become firmly united to the skull. A third race or sub-species of giraffe has been identified in Western Africa, mainly from the skull and cannon-bones of a specimen shot in 1897 at the junction of the Binue and Niger Rivers; but very little is known about this form. Other varieties or sub-species may yet be discovered in other parts of the Dark Continent. It is lacking in the giraffe's long neck.

The towering height of the giraffe is entirely attributable to the great length of the neck and limbs. A full-grown bull giraffe will certainly measure occasionally as much as 19 feet in height. I measured very carefully a specimen shot by my hunting friend, Mr. W. Dove, in the forests of the North Kalahari, South Africa, which taped 18 feet 11½ inches. A fine cow, shot by myself in the same country, measured 16 feet 10 inches, and there is no reason to suppose that cow giraffes do not easily reach fully 17 feet in height. These animals feed almost entirely upon the leaves of acacia-trees, the foliage of the _kameel-doorn_, or giraffe-acacia, affording their most favourite food-supply. It is a most beautiful spectacle to see, as I have seen, a large troop of these dappled giants--creatures which, somehow, viewed in the wild state, always seem to me to belong to another epoch--quietly browsing, with upstretched necks and delicate heads, among the branches of the spreading _mokala_, as the Bechuanas call this tree.

The giraffe's upper lip is long and prehensile, and covered, no doubt as a protection against thorns, with a thick velvety coating of short hair. The tongue is long--some 18 inches in length--and is employed for plucking down the tender leafage on which the giraffe feeds. The eyes of the giraffe are most beautiful--dark brown, shaded by long lashes, and peculiarly tender and melting in expression. Singularly enough, the animal is absolutely mute, and never, even in its death-agonies, utters a sound. The hoofs are large, elongate, nearly 12 inches in length in the case of old bulls, and look like those of gigantic cattle. There are no false hoofs, and the fetlock is round and smooth. The skin of a full-grown giraffe is extraordinarily tough and solid, attaining in the case of old males as much as an inch in thickness. From these animals most of the _sjamboks_, or colonial whips, in use all over South Africa, are now made; and it is a miserable fact to record that giraffes are now slaughtered by native and Boer hunters almost solely for the value of the hide, which is worth from £3 to £5 in the case of full-grown beasts. So perishes the giraffe from South Africa.

Giraffes live mainly in forest country, or country partially open and partially clothed with thin, park-like stretches of low acacia-trees. When pursued, they betake themselves to the densest parts of the bush and timber, and, their thick hides being absolutely impervious to the frightful thorns with which all African jungle and forest seem to be provided, burst through every bushy obstacle with the greatest ease. They steer also in the most wonderful manner through the timber, ducking branches and evading tree-boles with marvellous facility. I shall never forget seeing my hunting comrade after his first chase in thick bush. We had ridden, as we always rode hunting, in our flannel shirts, coatless. Attracted by his firing, I came up with my friend, who was sitting on the body of a huge old bull giraffe, which had fallen dead in a grassy clearing. He was looking ruefully at the remains of his shirt, which hung about him, literally in rags and ribbons. Blood was streaming from innumerable wounds upon his chest, neck, and arms. Always after that we donned cord coats, when running giraffes in bush and forest country.

In regions where they have been little disturbed, giraffes no doubt wander across open plains, and are to be seen well away from the denser forests, feeding among scattered islets of acacias, easily exposed to the human eye. But in South Africa they are now seldom to be met with out of the forest region. Once, and once only, have I seen giraffes in the open. This was on the outskirts of the forest, and the great creatures had been tempted to a little knoll of _mokala_ trees, rising like an islet from the sea of grass.

One's first impression of these creatures in the wild state is very deceptive. I well remember first setting eyes upon a troop of five or six. As they swung away from the leafage on which they were feeding, my friend and I cantered easily, thinking that we should soon come up with them. We were completely deceived. With those immense legs of theirs, the great creatures, going with their easy, shuffling, but marvellously swift walk, were simply striding away from us. Discovering our mistake, we rode hard, and the giraffes then broke into their strange, rocking gallop, and a headlong, desperate chase began, to be terminated by the death of a fine cow. Like the camel, the giraffe progresses by moving the two legs upon either side of the body simultaneously. At this strange, rocking gallop these animals move at a great pace, and a good Cape horse is needed to run into them. By far the best plan, if you are bent on shooting these animals, is to press your pony, so soon as you sight giraffes, to the top of its speed, and force the game beyond its natural paces in one desperate gallop of a couple of miles or so. If well mounted, your nag will take you right up to the heels of the tall beasts, and, firing from the saddle, you can, without great difficulty, bring down the game. The giraffe, unlike the antelopes of Africa, is not very tenacious of life, and a bullet planted near the root of the tail will, penetrating the short body, pierce a vital spot, and bring down the tall beast crashing to earth. Having tasted the delights of fox-hunting and many other forms of sport, I can testify that the run up to a good troop of giraffes is one of the most thrilling and exciting of all human experiences. There is nothing else quite like it in the wide range of sporting emotions. Having enjoyed this thrilling pleasure a few times, however, the humane hunter will stay his hand, and shoot only when meat, or perhaps an exceptionally fine specimen, is absolutely needed. Giraffes are, of course, utterly defenceless, and, save for their shy, wary habits and remote, waterless habitat, have nothing to shield them from the mounted hunter.

Giraffe-hunting on foot is a very different matter. In that case the giraffe has the better of it, and the stalker is placed at great disadvantage. These animals are in many places found in extremely waterless country, where even the mounted hunter has much trouble to reach them. Like elands and gemsbok and other desert-loving antelopes, they can exist for long periods--months together--without drinking. In the northern portions of the Kalahari Desert, where I have carefully observed their habits, as well as hunted them, it is an undoubted 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 borderland 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 dwarf races of the Northern Congo forests than we 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 forest, that I determined, if ever fate should lead me in that direction, I would make enquiries.

Soon after reaching the Uganda Protectorate at the end of 1899, I came in contact with a large party of dwarfs who had been kidnapped by a too enterprising German impresario, who had decided to show them at the Paris Exhibition. As the Belgians objected to this procedure, I released the dwarfs from their kidnapper, and retained them with me for some months in Uganda, until I was able personally to escort them back to their homes in the Congo Forest. I had other reasons connected with my Government business for visiting the north-western part of the Congo Free State. As soon as I could make the dwarfs understand me by means of an interpreter, I questioned them regarding the existence of this horse-like creature in their forests. They at once understood what I meant; and pointing to a zebra-skin and a live mule, they informed me that the creature in question, which was called OKAPI, was like a mule with zebra stripes on it. When I reached Fort Mbeni, in the Congo Free State, on the west bank of the river Semliki, I put questions to the Belgian officers stationed there. They all knew the okapi, at any rate, when dead. As a living animal they had none of them seen it, but their native soldiers were in the habit of hunting the animal in the forest and killing it with spears, and then bringing in the skin and the flesh for use in the fort. One of the officers declared there was even then a freshly obtained skin lying about in the precincts of the fort. On searching for this, however, it was discovered that the greater part of it had been thrown away, only the gaudier portions having been cut into strips by the soldiers to be made into bandoliers. These strips, together with similar ones obtained from natives in the forest, I sent to England, to Dr. P. L. Sclater, for his consideration. Furnished by the Belgian officers with guides, and taking with me all the dwarfs whom I had brought from Uganda, I entered the forest, and remained there for some days searching for the okapi. All this time I was convinced that I was on the track of a species of horse; and therefore when the natives showed the tracks of a cloven-footed animal like the eland, and told us these were the foot-prints of the okapi, I disbelieved them, and imagined that we were merely following a forest-eland. We never saw the okapi; and as the life in the forest made the whole expedition extremely ill, and my time was required for official work elsewhere, I was obliged to give up this search. Meantime, I had elicited from the natives, whom I questioned closely, that the okapi was a creature without horns or any means of offence, the size of a large antelope or mule, which inhabited only the densest parts of the forest, and generally went about in pairs, male and female. It lived chiefly on leaves. The Belgian officers, seeing that I was disappointed at not obtaining a complete skin, offered to use their best efforts to obtain one for me, and send it on to Uganda after my departure.

This promise was eventually redeemed by Mr. Karl Eriksson, a Swedish officer in the Belgian service. Mr. Eriksson sent me a complete skin and two skulls. The skin and the bigger of the two skulls belonged to a young male. This is the skin which is now set up in the Natural History Museum at South Kensington, and of which a photographic illustration accompanies this notice. Upon receiving this skin, I saw at once what the okapi was--namely, a close relation of the giraffe. From the very small development of the horn-bosses, I believed that it was nearer allied to the helladotherium than to the living giraffe. In forwarding the specimens to Professor Ray Lankester, I therefore proposed that it should be called _Helladotherium tigrinum_. Professor Ray Lankester, having examined the specimens with a greater knowledge than I possessed, decided that the animal was rather more closely allied to the giraffe than to the helladotherium, but that it possessed sufficient peculiarities of its own to oblige him to create for its reception a new genus, which he proposed to call _Ocapia_.

Meantime, the original strips of the skin (which apparently belonged to an older and larger animal than the specimen mounted at South Kensington) had been pronounced by experts to whom they were submitted to be the skin of an undiscovered species of horse, and this supposed new horse had been tentatively named by Dr. P. L. Sclater _Equus johnstoni_. The full discovery obliged Professor Ray Lankester to set aside any idea of the okapi being allied to the horse, but he was good enough to attach Mr. Sclater's specific name of _johnstoni_ to his newly founded genus of _Ocapia_.

Up to the time of writing this is all that is known of this extraordinary survival in the Congo Forest of the only living relation of the giraffe. We know by palæontological discoveries in Europe and in Asia that there existed a large family of ruminants which in their development and features were neither of the Ox group nor of the Deer, but in some respects occupied a position midway between these two branches of cloven-hoofed, horned, ruminating Ungulates. To this family the Giraffe, the Okapi, the Helladotherium, the Samotherium, the Sivatherium, and the Bramatherium belong. In all probability bony projections arose from the skulls of these creatures similar in some measure to the prominent bony cores of the horns of oxen. From the top, however, of these bony cores there would seem to have arisen anciently antlers, possibly deciduous like those of the prongbuck. In time creatures like the giraffe lost any need for such weapons of offence, and ceased to grow antlers; but the bony cores from which these antlers once proceeded still remained, and in the case of the giraffe remain to the present day. In the helladotherium and in the okapi these bony cores have dwindled to mere bumps.

----