NOTES ON THE GIRAFFE
Appearance of the giraffe--Not a vanishing species--Immense
range--Habitat--Native mounted hunters--Destruction of giraffes
and other game by Europeans--Necessity of restraining native
hunters--Discussion as to the possibility of the giraffe existing
for long periods without drinking--Water-conserving tubers--Wild
water-melons--Habits of elephants after much persecution--Possible
explanation of the belief that giraffes can dispense with
water--Giraffes seen in the act of drinking--Giraffes absolutely
voiceless--Partial to open, park-like country--Difficult
to approach on foot--Giraffes very keen-scented--Hunting
giraffes with Bushmen trackers--Exhilarating sport--Pace of
the giraffe--The easiest way to kill giraffes--Driving wounded
giraffes to camp--Two curious experiences with giraffes--"Stink
bulls"--Excellence of the meat of a fat giraffe cow--Height of
giraffes--Giraffes only occasionally killed by lions--Young
giraffe attacked by leopards.
"Ungainly" is an epithet which has often been applied to the giraffe;
but "stately," I think, would be a far more truly descriptive word,
and there is certainly no animal in Africa which adds so much to the
interest of the parched and waterless wastes in which it is usually
found as this tallest of mammals. The sight of a herd of giraffes
walking leisurely across an open piece of ground, or feeding through
a park-like country of scattered trees and bush, is one which, once
seen, must ever linger in the memory; for there is a something about
the appearance of some few of the largest mammals still extant upon the
earth which stirs the imagination as the sight of smaller but more
beautiful animals can never do. When watching a moose bull standing
knee-deep on the edge of some swampy lake, amidst the silence and the
gloom of sub-Arctic pine forests, I always seem to be carried back to
some far distant period of the world's history; and I remember that
when hunting with Bushmen amidst the dull monotony of the sun-scorched,
silent wastes of Western South Africa, the sight of giraffes always
stirred the same thought. My rude companions were palæolithic men, and
we were hunting strange beasts in the hot dry atmosphere of a long past
geological era.
Giraffes are often spoken of as a scarce and fast vanishing species,
but this I cannot believe to be really the case. There are vast areas
of country, extending right across the whole width of the broadest part
of Africa from Senegambia to Somaliland, and from thence southwards to
the northern border of British Central Africa, throughout the whole
of which one or other of the different races into which giraffes
have lately been divided is to be found, often in great abundance.
Throughout the greater part of this immense range, these magnificent,
strangely beautiful creatures will, in my opinion, continue to live
and thrive for centuries yet to come; for the giraffe is, as a rule,
an inhabitant only of countries which, owing to the extreme scarcity
of water, can never be settled up by Europeans, nor support anything
but a sparse and scattered population of native herdsmen. Here they
will never be hunted to any great extent by Europeans on horseback, nor
shot down in large numbers for the sake of their hides, whilst their
keenness of sight and great range of vision will protect them very
effectually from all danger of extermination at the hands of native
hunters as long as these latter are only armed with primitive weapons.
Even in the countries to the south and west of the Zambesi river,
though there the range of the giraffe has been sadly curtailed since
the time when the emigrant Boers first crossed the Orange river in
1836, these animals are far from being a vanished species, or one which
is on the verge of extermination. True, there are now no giraffes left
in large areas of country where thirty years ago they were plentiful,
but these animals are still to be found in Western Matabeleland,
throughout the greater part of Khama's country, as well as in the
Northern Kalahari, and thence northwards to far within the boundaries
of the Portuguese province of Angola. The whole of this vast extent of
country is, like so much of Northern Africa to the south of the Sahara
and Abyssinia, a semidesert, impossible of settlement by Europeans;
for although it is covered for the most part with trees of various
kinds, or thorn scrub varying in height from two or three to twelve or
fifteen feet, the soil is almost everywhere deep soft sand, and for
several months in the year there is little or no surface water, except
in the large rivers, which are few in number and far apart. Throughout
the greater part of these arid, sun-scorched wastes, giraffes are, I
think, likely to hold their own for a long time to come, if only some
check can be put upon the operations of the native mounted hunters,
belonging to the Bakwena, Bamangwato, and Batauwana tribes, who are now
practically their only enemies.
For the extermination of the giraffe in the Transvaal, Bechwanaland,
and the country immediately to the north of the Limpopo, Europeans
are entirely responsible. The Boers killed most of them, of course,
because up to 1890 Boer hunters were always in the proportion of at
least ten to one to white hunters of any other nationality. But, man
for man, English hunters were quite as destructive as Boers. The fact
is, the pioneers of all the white races of North-Western Europe in new
countries are tarred with the same brush, as far as the extermination
of wild animals is concerned. In North America the western
frontiers-men, who were largely of British descent, exterminated in a
few short years the countless herds of bison; in South Africa the Boers
have exterminated or brought to the verge of extinction many species of
animals which but a few decades ago were spread over the face of the
land in seemingly inexhaustible numbers; and to-day the inhabitants of
Newfoundland are hard at work destroying as fast as they can the great
herds of seals which annually assemble in the early spring to bring
forth their young on the ice floes off the coast of Labrador.
When human greed of gain is added to the old love of hunting, and
both are unrestrained by legislation, the speedy extermination of any
beast or bird which has any market value must necessarily follow. The
errors of the past can never be retrieved, but it is to be hoped that
now that every part of the world has been taken under the protection
of some civilised state, no species of animal or bird which still
survives in any considerable numbers will be allowed to become extinct.
The white man, whether Boer or Britain, is now effectually restrained
from taking any further part in lessening the numbers of the giraffes
in the countries to the west of Southern Rhodesia and to the north
of the Limpopo, which are under British protection, and if only the
native Bechwana hunters from Molipololi, Palapye, and Denukana--who
are well-mounted and armed with breech-loading rifles--were forbidden
by their chiefs to kill more than a certain fixed number of giraffes
annually, and severely punished for exceeding the limit allowed, I see
no reason why these most interesting animals should not survive for
all time, throughout all those great areas of South-Western Africa
where, owing to the scarcity of water, no human beings other than a few
scattered families of wandering Bushmen can ever make their home.
The belief is very general, both amongst white and native hunters in
South Africa, that giraffes are capable of going for months at a time
without drinking, and the fact that they are to be found during the
driest season of the year in the most arid districts, far away from
any place where surface water exists, lends colour to this belief.
But yet it seems to me impossible that an animal of the size of the
giraffe, which during the dry season is exposed day after day to a
sun-heat of 165° (Fahrenheit), and which browses on leaves and twigs
which at that time of year contain but little moisture, can really
live for long periods without drinking. When hunting with Bushmen in
the country to the south of the Mababi river, which towards the end of
the dry season is quite waterless, my savage companions would often
halt suddenly on perceiving a certain thin, grass-like leaf protruding
from the ground, and squatting down, commence digging vigorously with
their spears in the soft sandy soil. They would presently unearth great
white tubers--often as big as a man's head--white in colour and looking
something like very large turnips. These tubers contained as much water
as a juicy orange, and were, as the Bushmen said, "metsi hela" (that
is, "nothing but water"). They told me, and I think with truth, that
they were able to live and hunt in the country where these tubers grew
without requiring water to drink. They also informed me that elands,
gemsbucks, and other antelopes which live in the desert were in the
habit of pawing away the sand from and then eating these tubers, which
rendered them independent of actual drinking water. There are probably
other water-conserving tubers, known to animals which live in the
waterless parts of Western South Africa; and at certain times of year
a kind of small water-melon grows in the Kalahari in great profusion,
which, as long as it lasts, renders all wild animals entirely
independent of drinking water. Oxen and horses soon get accustomed to
these wild melons and thrive on them, and human beings can make tea or
coffee from their juice.
Now, the occurrence of wild melons and tubers which contain a great
deal of water, probably explains the otherwise unaccountable fact
that large antelopes and other animals are able to exist in the most
arid portions of South-West Africa at a time of year when there is
absolutely no surface water; but in the country to the south of the
Mababi the Bushmen stated emphatically that giraffes never dug up the
water-containing tubers of which I have spoken. My own belief is that,
although they must be able to go without water for a much longer time
than most animals, they must nevertheless drink periodically throughout
the year. It is possible that in the recesses of the Kalahari the
giraffes may obtain the fluid they require from the wild water-melons
like other animals, or in periods of prolonged drought they may migrate
to the neighbourhood of the Botletlie and other rivers. To the east and
north of the Botletlie, a glance at a good map will show that giraffes
could never be more than fifty or sixty miles from permanent water.
When I was hunting elephants on the Chobi river, in the 'seventies of
last century, elephants were in the habit of drinking early one night
in that river, and then travelling straight away into the waterless
country to the west, and I am sure they got their next drink, either
twenty-four or possibly forty-eight hours later, in the overflow
of the Okavango, known by the natives living on the Mababi as the
Machabi. These elephants, which had become excessively wary, through
much hunting, I believe never quenched their thirst twice running in
the same river; and as giraffes would not require to drink nearly as
frequently as elephants, they would be able to range over far more
extensive areas of country than those animals, drinking at intervals
at points far distant one from another, and between which there was
absolutely no surface water. I cannot help thinking that the idea that
giraffes can go for months together without drinking, in countries
where there is but a small percentage of fluid in the food they eat,
and in which the heat and dryness of the atmosphere are so intense that
one's nails become as brittle as glass and the hairs of one's beard
are constantly splitting, must be a mistaken one. It is, however, only
right to say that many very experienced African hunters hold the view
that giraffes are quite independent of water, and that they can and do
exist for months at a time without drinking.
Giraffes certainly show no aversion to water, as I have frequently
seen them drinking, and watched them as they gradually straddled their
forelegs wide apart, by a series of little jerks, until they at length
got their mouths down to the surface of the pool.
Many herbivorous animals are, as a rule, very silent, but all antelopes
are capable of making, and do occasionally make, certain vocal sounds.
But the giraffe appears to be absolutely voiceless. At any rate, I have
never heard one make any kind of noise, and that was the experience of
my friend the late Mr. A. H. Neumann; whilst Mr. H. A. Bryden, as well
as other men who have hunted these animals, have put the same fact on
record.
Although giraffes often feed through dense thickets of wait-a-bit
thorns on their way from one part of a country to another, they
are more partial, I think, to open park-like surroundings than to
thick forest. In portions of Khama's country--both near Lopepe and
Metsi-butluku--I have upon more than one occasion seen giraffes and
springbucks at the same time. In such districts, before the days of
the modern long-range, small-bore rifles, it was very difficult to
get within shot of the former animals on foot, as, owing to the great
height of their heads above the ground and their quickness of sight,
they were always able to see anything approaching them, when still a
long way off. Giraffes are also very keen-scented, as any one will
agree who has often followed on their spoor with Bushmen trackers.
Pointing to the ground, on which they have read as in a book that just
here the giraffes have commenced to run, these quick-sighted savages
will suddenly dash off along the spoor with right arms extended,
crying, "Sabili; ootlili pevu"[16] ("They've run away; they've got our
wind"). Running on the tracks of the disturbed animals at a pace which
it requires a sharp canter to keep up with, it is seldom that these
wiry sons of the desert will not bring the mounted hunter in sight of
the giant quarry. "Tutla, tutla ki-o" ("The giraffes; there are the
giraffes"), they cry, pointing eagerly forwards with glistening eyes.
And then it is for the white man to do his part and secure a plentiful
supply of meat for his savage friends.
[16] Literally, "They've _heard_ the wind."
The chase of the giraffe on horseback lacks, of course, the fierce
joy and the soul-stirring excitement which accompanied elephant- and
lion-hunting, with the rude muzzle-loading guns used by professional
African hunters some forty years ago; for the giraffe is a most
harmless and inoffensive animal, in no way dangerous to human life. The
same thing may, however, be said of the fox and the wild red deer of
Exmoor, the pursuit of which animals, it is generally conceded, affords
some of the most exhilarating sport procurable in this country.
Personally, in the old days when giraffes were very plentiful, and
when, with the thoughtless optimism of youth, one failed to realise
that they would ever become scarce, and when, moreover, a large supply
of meat was constantly required to feed one's native followers, I
always looked upon a good, reckless, breakneck gallop after a herd of
giraffes as a most exhilarating experience. The giant quadrupeds looked
so splendid as they dashed along at tremendous speed, with their long
black tails screwed up over their backs. Nothing checked their pace, as
they tore their way through dense thorn jungles, or crashed through the
branches of forest trees, ever and anon dipping their lofty heads with
the most unerring judgment so as just to pass beneath some horizontal
limb, which almost seemed to graze their shoulders. One took lots of
chances in giraffe-hunting, and got many a heavy fall when galloping
_ventre à terre_ across open ground full of ant-bear holes, or deep
sun-cracks hidden from view by thick tussocky grass, and when one saw
the branches of two neighbouring wait-a-bit thorn bushes, each covered
with hundreds of little hard black hooks, suddenly close together
with a swish behind the disappearing stern of a giraffe, it needed
considerable resolution to follow in its wake.
I have often had the greater part of my shirt--for I never wore a
coat--torn off and my bare arms very severely scratched whilst chasing
giraffes through thick wait-a-bit thorn scrub. I have had some heavy
falls too, and once knocked one of my front teeth clean out of the
socket, through galloping into an ant-eater's hole and falling on my
heavy ten-bore rifle. On another occasion my horse rolled over on
me, and cracked the tibia of my right leg, so that some of the serum
ran out and formed a lump on the bone. However, I never hurt myself
seriously, and the risk of such little misadventures when galloping
after giraffes through thick forests and over ground where the holes
were hidden by long grass always added zest to the pursuit of these
animals.
The pace of the giraffe, when pressed, is very great, and in my own
experience, which has been considerable, I have found that it is only
an exceptionally fast South African shooting horse which can actually
gallop past an unwounded giraffe in open ground. The young Boer hunters
used always to think a lot of a horse which was fast enough to enable
them to "brant," _i.e._ "burn," a giraffe. This meant firing into one
of these animals when galloping level with it and at a distance of only
a few paces. Such a practice is, however, not to be recommended, as it
takes too much out of a horse, upon which one has to depend to keep
one's camp in meat throughout a long hunting season, and the easiest
way of killing giraffes is not to press them too hard, but to jump off
behind them whenever a suitable opportunity occurs and aim for the root
of the tail. A bullet so placed, even from one of the old low velocity
rifles of forty years ago, would penetrate to the heart and lungs, and
soon prove fatal.
A wounded giraffe will usually, if not invariably, run against the
wind, and if one's waggon or camp is anywhere in the direction for
which it is heading, it is possible, by galloping alongside and
shouting, to alter its course to a certain extent, and so drive
the unsuspecting animal close up to the place where it can be most
conveniently killed and cut up. I have driven many giraffes quite close
up to my waggons before killing them; but I have also found that if
a wounded giraffe takes a course exactly opposite to that in which
you want it to go, no power on earth will make it turn right round
and run in the other direction. In the nature of things one cannot
have an adventure with a giraffe, but I have had two somewhat curious
experiences with these animals.
During 1876, when my friend George Dorehill and I were hunting in
Western Matabeleland, some Bushmen one day came to our camp and asked
us to shoot them a giraffe for the sake of the meat; so, on the
following morning, we went out with them, and before long crossing the
fresh tracks of a big old bull, followed them, and presently came up
with the animal itself. After a short gallop, I wounded it, and it then
very soon came to a halt and stood quite still. Wishing to drive it to
our camp, I rode slowly towards it, waving my hat and shouting, but it
never moved. I was sitting on my horse quite close to where the giant
beast stood towering above me, when I heard the crack of my friend's
rifle close behind me. At the same instant, the whole seventeen feet of
giraffe lurched over and came tumbling towards me, perfectly rigid and
without a bend in legs or neck. I don't think I had hold of my horse's
reins when my friend fired and shot the giraffe through the head from
behind, and the sudden fall of the huge beast was so unexpected that my
horse never moved till the great head crashed to the ground close to
its forefeet. I am sure that I am not exaggerating when I say that the
short thick horns of this dead giraffe only missed my horse's neck by
less than six inches. Had the giraffe only been a little taller, or had
my horse and I been a little nearer to it, there would have been more
than one dead animal on the ground soon after my friend's very accurate
shot.
On another occasion, during the same year, Dorehill wounded a
giraffe--a good-sized but not full-grown bull--which, after running a
little distance, stopped and then knelt down, in the position of an
ox or a camel at rest, and never moved when we rode up and dismounted
close to it. "I'll bet you, you won't get on to its back," said my
friend. We were both of us very young men then, which perhaps does
not excuse the thoughtless cruelty of the act; but in answer to my
friend's challenge I at once vaulted on to the giraffe's back, and
sat astride it just behind the withers. Immediately I touched it the
startled animal struggled to its feet and started off at a gallop.
Clasping it round the neck, I had no difficulty in retaining my seat,
and my remembrance is that the motion of my tall steed was easy. I was
not carried very far, however, and there were fortunately no trees,
but only a low growth of scrubby bush for a good distance in front of
us. After carrying me at a swinging canter for a short distance, the
giraffe once more knelt gently down, and I hastily dismounted. This
giraffe was not mortally wounded, but a bullet had injured its hip or
pelvis, though, as far as I can remember, no bone was actually broken.
The body of an old bull giraffe gives out an excessively strong,
pungent odour, which can be smelt by a human being at a considerable
distance. These old bulls, which are always so dark in colour that they
look almost black, used to be called by the old Boer hunters "stink
bulls." The meat of such animals was never eaten by white hunters, but
every scrap of it was either consumed when fresh, or dried for future
consumption, by one's Kafir or Bushman followers. The tongue of an old
bull giraffe, which is the only part of such an animal that I have ever
eaten, I have, however, always found to be excellent.
During the rainy season, when giraffes are able to obtain without
much exertion a plentiful supply of sweet and nourishing food, the
full-grown cows get into very good condition, and are sometimes so
fat in the early part of the dry season--May and June--that they
probably never get into bad order for the remainder of the year. I have
shot giraffe cows whose sides when the hide was peeled off them were
covered with a thick layer of white fat, from half an inch to over two
inches in thickness from shoulder to rump. There is no finer meat to
be got in the whole world than that of a fat giraffe cow, and the soft
white fat when rendered out is equal to the best lard. The tongue and
marrow-bones are also great delicacies, and the hide is valuable for
waggon whips, sjamboks, and the soles of boots. No wonder the South
African frontiers-men, whether Boers or Britons, were always keen
giraffe hunters.
It has often been stated that giraffe bulls in South Africa grow to
a height of 19 feet, whilst the cows attain to a stature of from 16
to 17 feet. I unfortunately only measured the standing height of two
bull giraffes; both of which, however, were old animals, and seemed
to me to be fine specimens of their kind. One of these, the head of
which I still have in my collection, measured, when his legs and
neck had been pulled out into as straight a line as possible, just
17 feet, the measurement having been taken between two stakes, the
one driven into the ground at the base of the forefoot, the other at
the top of the short horns. This giraffe was undoubtedly a very large
animal, and I remember very well Mr. Rowland Ward remarking on the
size of its skull, compared to one which had lately been brought from
Somaliland by the late Mr. F. L. James, as they both lay side by side
in Piccadilly. The other giraffe I measured--also a big bull, or, at
any rate, an old one--could only have stood 16 feet 6 inches in height,
in a straight line from the heel of the forefoot to the top of the
horns. The original old South African bull giraffe, too, which once
used to stand in the Mammalian Gallery of the Natural History Museum at
South Kensington, and which always appeared to me to be a magnificent
specimen in point of size, only measured as set up 17 feet 5 inches
from the ground to the top of the horns. I took this measurement myself
with the aid of a ladder. I know that in the Tring Museum the Hon.
Walter Rothschild has a specimen of a giraffe from Southern Angola,
which measures 18 feet 4 inches as it stands. But I am not convinced
that the animal actually stood that height when alive. In modern
taxidermy a framework model of an animal is first built, and the skin
then stretched over it. The man who shot and preserved the skin of the
giraffe now in the Tring Museum said that it stood 18 feet 4 inches,
and it has been set up to that height; but if the measurement was
taken carelessly, or over the curves of the animal's body, there would
be no difficulty in stretching the skin so as to obtain the height
required. My esteemed friend the late Mr. A. H. Neumann, than whom
there never lived a better authority upon African game, when speaking
of the northern giraffe in _The Great and Small Game of Africa_, says:
"It may possibly be somewhat smaller (than the southern species), for
the height of the full-grown males I have shot averaged about 16 feet,
that of the cows 14 feet." And he further says: "And though I have not
found these dimensions exceeded respectively in any of the southern
specimens of either sex I have myself killed anywhere, I have read in
the accounts of other hunters of considerably taller animals being
obtained in parts of South Africa."
Personally, grounding my belief on the size of the magnificent old
bull giraffe which once stood in the Mammalian Gallery of the Natural
History Museum at South Kensington, and the measurement I myself
took, immediately it was dead, of a very fine old bull which I shot in
Western Matabeleland in 1880, I should say that the average height, at
any rate of giraffe bulls in South Africa, cannot be more than 17 feet,
and that of the cows about 2 feet less. I have never measured a cow
giraffe, but in a herd of these animals an old black bull always towers
above the tallest cows. Exceptional specimens in both sexes may, of
course, grow much taller than the average height of the species.
Giraffes are, I think, less troubled by lions or other carnivorous
animals than any other African mammal, with the exception of the
elephant, rhinoceros, and hippopotamus. That giraffes are occasionally
killed by lions is, of course, a well-known fact, but my own experience
leads me to believe that such cases are quite exceptional. There are
two reasons, I think, for this, the first being that giraffes spend
most of their time in very dry, semidesert countries, far away from
water, into which lions do not often penetrate; and the second, that,
owing to their great size and strength and the thickness of their
hides, giraffes cannot be easy animals for even lions to pull down,
and, as a matter of fact, I think they are seldom molested in parts of
the country where game of other kinds, such as zebras, buffaloes, or
large antelopes, are plentiful.
An instance of a young giraffe being attacked by two leopards once
came within my own experience. I was riding with some Bushmen--more
than thirty years ago now--near the course of the Upper Tati river
in Western Matabeleland, when a single giraffe cow ran out into the
open from a cluster of mimosa trees through which we were passing.
Immediately I saw the giraffe, I put spurs to my horse and galloped
after it, but had only just reached the edge of the mimosa grove when
my horse put his foot in a hole, and not only fell, but rolled over
on me, breaking the thin thong attached to my belt from a ring on the
bridle. I was not hurt, but I was unable to extricate myself and regain
my feet as quickly as my horse, and he, not being a very well-trained
animal, trotted away in the direction taken by the giraffe before I
could get hold of the bridle. I now for the first time saw a very young
giraffe calf, which I do not think could have been more than a day or
two old, running between my horse and its mother, but much nearer to
the former than the latter. I suppose this little calf, being so very
young, had been purposely left by its mother lying hidden amongst the
bushes to await her return, but that we had frightened it and caused it
to jump up and run off. As we watched it we saw it run close up to my
horse, and as long as it was in view it appeared to be running close
behind it.
I now told two of my Bushmen to run after my horse, and try and get
in front of it and then catch it and bring it back to me. This they
succeeded in doing before very long, as, after having trotted away for
a mile or so, my recreant steed had commenced to feed. When we met, the
Bushmen told me that the giraffe cow had come round and taken off the
calf before they came up with my horse.
Since this giraffe calf was evidently very young and weak, I thought
it would be an easy matter to catch it alive, so I told my Bushmen to
take up its spoor at once. We had been following the tracks of both
the cow and the calf for perhaps a mile, when I saw the head and neck
of the latter rising out of some tussocky grass in an opening in the
forest. Galloping up to it, I found that the poor little creature's
hind-legs were stretched out straight behind it, as if its back were
broken. It was also bleeding from a few scratches. My Bushmen were
now examining the ground round the injured calf; and I heard one of
them say, "Ingwi, ingwi mabele" ("Leopards, two leopards"). They
soon explained to me exactly what had happened. As the giraffe calf
was following its mother, two leopards had attacked it. They must,
however, have been driven from their prey very quickly, as I could
only find a few claw-marks upon the body of the calf. Its mother had
evidently struck at the leopards with her forefeet, as we found several
freshly-made marks where her sharp hoofs had struck the hard ground.
Unfortunately, one of these terrific blows, very probably the first
aimed at the leopard which had attacked the calf, had struck the little
creature on the loins and broken its back, or at any rate paralysed its
hind-quarters. I searched all round for the leopards, but could not
find them, and was obliged to kill the calf, for it could only have
died a lingering death if I had not done so, or been torn to pieces
sooner or later by leopards or hyænas.
I don't think giraffes ever give birth to more than one calf at a time.
The calves are born, in South-Western Africa, towards the end of the
dry season or early in the rainy season, that is, during the months of
September, October, November, or December.