Читать книгу Life at the Zoo: Notes and Traditions of the Regent's Park Gardens - C. J. Cornish - Страница 8

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The winter of the year 1892, like the days of pestilence before the walls of Troy, was fatal both to man and beast. Even the carefully tended inmates of the Zoological Society’s Gardens did not escape; and as the new year opened with the death within a week of “Sally,” most human and most intelligent of apes, and of her neighbour “Tim,” the silver gibbon, who was almost as great a favourite of the London public as the educated chimpanzee, so the spring saw the death of the two beautiful giraffes, the sole survivors left in the collection. The experience which the Society has had in maintaining its stock of these interesting creatures has not, however, been altogether discouraging. Since the first four specimens were brought to England in 1836, no less than seventeen fawns have been born in the Gardens, and many of these lived to grow up. But the stock gradually diminished, until in 1866 two were burnt to death in their stable, and a third died of old age, leaving only the pair now lost.

The Last Giraffe. From a photograph by Gambier Bolton.

The time of their death, unfortunately, coincided with the complete interruption of the ancient trade in wild animals up the Valley of the Nile by the Mahdi’s occupation of the Soudan, a trade as old as the days of Solomon, never organized, often interrupted for centuries, yet always ready to spring up again, and always dependent for its rarest products on the free navigation of the river of Egypt. Giraffes—which, not excepting the hippopotamus, have most excited the imagination of European capitals after the long intervals in which they have remained unseen by the nations of the West—seem always to have found their way hither from the land of the Pharaohs. The first seen in Europe since the “tertiary epoch” was obtained from Alexandria by Julius Cæsar, and exhibited at the Circensian Games to crowds who expected, from its name, “camelopard,” to find in it a combination of the size of a camel and the ferocity of a panther. Pliny, who described it, echoed the public disappointment. “It was as quiet,” he wrote, “as a sheep.” The trade probably reached its maximum after it became the fashion to exhibit combats of wild beasts at Rome; yet even then giraffes seem to have been scarce in the popular shows, though Pompey could exhibit five hundred lions at a time, and the Emperor Titus, at the dedication of his new theatre, caused the slaughter of five thousand wild beasts. Either the number of wild animals in the provinces must have been beyond anything since known, or the Roman Governors must have used their despotic powers freely to oblige their friends. No doubt they did this. Cælius, Cicero’s gossiping correspondent, says, when writing to him in Cilicia—“In nearly every letter I have written to you about panthers. It is a great shame. Pray send to Pamphylia, where most are said to be taken. You have only to give an order, and the thing is done. You know I hate trouble, while you like it, and yet you will not do this, which is no trouble. I have sent men to look after them and bring them here.”

Despots are the best collectors; and from the fall of the Roman Empire till the arrival of those placed in the Zoological Gardens in 1836, the rare appearances of the giraffe in Europe were in each case due to the munificence of Eastern Sultans and Pashas. The Prince of Damascus gave one to the Emperor Frederick II. in 1215; and the Soldan of Egypt presented another to Lorenzo the Magnificent, which became the pet of Florence, and used to be allowed to walk in the streets, and take the presents of fruit and cakes extended to it from the balconies. From this time the giraffe was not seen in Europe until, in 1827, the Pasha of Egypt sent four to Constantinople, Venice, England, and France respectively. The giraffe sent to England was in bad health, and soon died; but the Parisians went wild with excitement over the Pasha’s present. It had spent the winter at Marseilles, and throve there on the milk of the cows which the Pasha had sent over for its use from Egypt. The Prefect of Marseilles had the arms of France embroidered on its body-cloth, and it entered Paris 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 permission 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 brought four, including that first taken, down the Nile to Alexandria, and then by ship to Malta. “Providence alone,” he wrote, “enabled me to surmount 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 important 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 risk of the undertaking, previously to the delivery of the animals in Malta, and it was not until his landing them in that island that he was entitled to receive the stipulated price, which was at a fixed rate for each individual, diminishing in proportion to the number he should bring with him.”

After a brief reference to the capture of the animals, the report states that he reached Malta in safety with his valuable charges, three males and a female, on November 21, 1834. “Having thus fulfilled his engagement, M. Thibaut became entitled to receive the stipulated sum of £700, which has accordingly been paid him. But the Council has considered it so desirable to avail themselves of his experience with respect to these valuable animals, that they have arranged with him for the continuation of his services until their arrival in England. For the conveyance of the giraffes to this country, the Council have availed themselves of the Manchester, a steam vessel of great size and power, which proceeded to Lisbon at the beginning of the present month, having been specially engaged for the service of Prince Ferdinand of Portugal. From Lisbon the Manchester is to proceed to Malta, whence she will return to London. Her arrival may be expected before the end of May. For the conveyance of the animals to England £1000 will be paid, and the necessary fittings for the accommodation of the giraffes will be prepared at the cost of the Society in her Majesty’s dockyard at Malta, orders to that effect having been sent thither by the Lords of the Admiralty.” Thus the giraffes came to this country under circumstances almost as imposing as those which marked the reception of that sent by the Pasha of Egypt to Paris. They travelled in one of the first steam vessels of the mercantile marine, one which had just conveyed a prince, and their comfort was provided for by the Admiralty and the Royal Dockyards.

All four were safely lodged in the Zoological Gardens on May 24, 1836, an event which the Council of the Society justly claimed as highly creditable to its resources. One died in the following winter, but the rest continued in excellent health, and became the greatest public favourites in the menagerie.

At the time of their arrival the largest was then about 11 ft. high, the height of an adult male being 12 ft. at the shoulder and 18 ft. at the head. For many years, as we have said, the giraffes throve and multiplied. They readily took to European food, and ate hay and fresh grass from the tall racks with which their stables were fitted. Onions and sugar were their favourite delicacies, and in search of sugar they would follow their keeper, and slip their long prehensile tongues into his hands or pockets. But they always retained a liking for eating flowers, a reminiscence, perhaps, of the days when their parents feasted on mimosa blossoms in the desert. Some years ago, one was seen to stretch its neck over the railings, and to delicately nip off an artificial rose in a young lady’s hat. They were most affectionate creatures, and, as M. Thibaut noticed when in charge of them in Upper Egypt, would shed tears if they missed their companions or their usual attendants. But the development of the lachrymal ducts, which enables the giraffe to express its emotions in this very human fashion, is less obvious than the wonderful size and beauty of the eyes themselves, which are far larger than those of any other quadruped. On May 27, 1840, four years after their arrival, the female giraffe bore and afterwards reared a fine fawn, and it was not until they had been eleven years in the menagerie that the death occurred of one of the pair of males which had survived the first year in England. In 1849 two more males and one female giraffe were waiting the Society’s pleasure at Cairo, and the stock continued to increase by births in the menagerie. In 1867 the straw in the giraffes’ house caught fire at night, and a female and her fawn were suffocated. A sum of £545 was claimed as compensation for their loss, and duly paid to the Society by the “Sun” Fire Insurance Office, probably the first claim of the kind paid in Europe. For curiosity, now that we have no living giraffe left in England, we would suggest a comparison of the beautifully-stuffed giraffe heads in Mr. Rowland Ward’s collection in Piccadilly, with the innumerable specimens of other large game, such as wapiti, buffaloes, hippopotami, or rhinoceros, which fill the rooms. In all these, the size and character of the eye has been carefully reproduced, though no art could preserve the lustre and softness of the eye of the giraffe in life. While the Mahdi’s power remains unbroken at Khartoum, there is little probability that the Soudan traders will be able to supply any to occupy the empty house in Regent’s 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 in Egypt, where the ‘courbatch’ (hippopotamus whip) has been abolished, the hippopotamus will remain undisturbed on the great White Nile, monarch of the river upon which fifteen British steamers were flying when the Soudan was abandoned by the despotic order of Great Britain, and handed back to savagedom and wild beasts.”