Page:Under the Sun.djvu/205

Rh about giraffes would have gone far towards convincing our obstinate forefathers and foremothers of the creature’s actual existence, and it is impossible, therefore, to deplore too sincerely the lamentable ignorance of natural history which deprived preceding generations of the enjoyment of this animal. To the Romans so eccentric a procedure in combat greatly endeared the giraffe; and it is within the limits of reasonable expectation to believe that our ancestors of the Dark Ages would similarly have appreciated it had they allowed themselves to be so far convinced of its entity as to get one caught.

For the giraffe is distinctly an enjoyment. It is a pity, perhaps, that it has not got wings; but we must accept things as we find them, and, taken all round, there is no doubt that the camelopard is a comfort and a pleasure. It gives us hopes of further eccentricities, and contracts the limits of the marvellous. It is about the best instalment of the impossible that has been vouchsafed us.

The hippopotamus is a great prodigy in its way, and the kangaroo is out of the common. But they are neither of them of the same class as this sky-raking animal, that passes all its life, so to speak, looking out of a fourth-story window. Think of the places it could live in! A steeple would be as comfortable as possible for it, or its body might be put into a back kitchen and its head up the chimney. The cowl at the top outside would keep the rain off its head, and, as the wind blew it round and round, the giraffe, from its sweep’s eminence, would be gratified by a gyroscopic view of the surrounding country. It is the only animal that lives on the earth and never thinks about the ground it walks on.

It takes terra firma as a matter of course, and does