Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851

The natural food of the giraffe is the leaves, tender shoots, and blossoms of a singular species of mimosa, called by the colonists kameel doorn, or giraffe thorn, which is found chiefly on dry plains and sandy deserts. The great size of this tree, together with its thick and spreading top, shaped like an umbrella, distinguish it at once from all others. The wood, of a dark red color, is exceedingly hard and weighty, and is extensively used by the Africans in the manufacture of spoons and other articles, many being ingeniously fashioned with their rude tools into the form of the giraffe.

The class to which the giraffe belongs, is the deer tribe. It is, in fact, as pointed out by Professor Owen, a modified deer; but the structure by which so large a ruminant is enabled to subsist in the tropical regions of Africa, by browsing on the tops of trees, disqualifies it for wielding antlers of sufficient strength and size to serve as weapons of offense. The annual shedding of the formidable antlers of the full-grown buck has reference to the preservation of the younger and feebler individuals of his own race; but, as the horns of the giraffe never acquire the requisite development to serve as weapons of attack, their temporary removal is not needed.

When looking at a giraffe, it is difficult to believe that the fore-legs are not longer than the hind-legs. They are not so, however, for the greater apparent length results from the remarkable depth of the chest, the great length of the processes of the anterior dorsal vertebræ, and the corresponding length and position of the shoulder blade, which is relatively the longest and narrowest of all mammalia. In the simple walk the neck is stretched out in a line with the back, which gives them an awkward appearance; this is greatly diminished when the animals commence their undulating canter. In the canter the hind-legs are lifted alternately with the fore, and are carried outside of and beyond them, by a kind of swinging movement; when excited to a swifter pace, the hind-legs are often kicked out, and the nostrils are then widely dilated. The remarkable gait is rendered still more automaton-like by the switching at regular intervals of the long black tail which is invariably curled above the back, and by the corresponding action of the neck, swinging as it does like a pendulum, and literally giving the creature the appearance of a piece of machinery in motion. The tail of the giraffe is terminated by a bunch of wavy hair, which attains a considerable length, but the longest hairs are those which form a fringe, extending about three inches on its under side. Two of these in our possession, from the tail of Alfred, are each rather more than four feet two inches in length; this long whisp of hair must be of great service in flicking off flies and other annoyances.

Major Gordon relates an anecdote of a giraffe slain by himself, which illustrates the gentle, confiding disposition of these graceful creatures. Having been brought to the ground by a musket-ball, it suffered the hunter to approach, without any appearance of resentment, or attempt at resistance. After surveying the crippled animal for some time, the major stroked its forehead, when the eyes closed as if with pleasure, and it seemed grateful for the caress. When its throat was cut, preparatory to taking the skin, the giraffe, while struggling in the last agonies, struck the ground convulsively with its feet with immense force, as it looked reproachfully on its assailant, with its fine eyes fast glazing with the film of death, but made no attempt to injure him.

Some of the best and most animating accounts of giraffe hunts are contained in the works of Sir W. Cornwallis Harris and Mr. R.G. Cumming. Of that magnificent folio, "Portraits of the Game and Wild Animals of South Africa," by the former of these gallant sportsmen, we can not speak too highly; it is equal, in many respects, to the truly-superb folios of Mr. Gould. From it we extract the following spirit-stirring adventures:

"It was on the morning of our departure from the residence of his Amazoola Majesty, that I first actually saw the giraffe. Although I had been for weeks on the tiptoe of expectation, we had hitherto succeeded in finding the gigantic footsteps only of the tallest of all the quadrupeds upon the earth; but at dawn of that day, a large party of hungry savages, with four of the Hottentots on horseback, having accompanied us across the Mariqua in search of elands, which were reported to be numerous in the neighborhood, we formed a long line, and, having drawn a great extent of country blank, divided into two parties, Richardson keeping to the right, and myself to the left. Beginning, at length, to despair of success, I had shot a hartebeeste for the savages, when an object, which had repeatedly attracted my eye, but which I had as often persuaded myself was nothing more than the branchless stump of some withered tree, suddenly shifted its position, and the next moment I distinctly perceived that singular form of which the apparition had ofttimes visited my slumbers, but upon whose reality I now gazed for the first time. Gliding rapidly among the trees, above the topmost branches, of many of which its graceful head nodded like some lofty pine, all doubt was in another moment at an end—it was the stately, the long-sought giraffe, and, putting spurs to my horse, and directing the Hottentots to follow, I presently found myself half-choked with excitement, rattling at the heels of an animal which, to me, had been a stranger even in its captive state, and which, thus to meet free on its native plains, has fallen to the lot of but few of the votaries of the chase; sailing before me with incredible velocity, his long swan-like neck, keeping time to the eccentric motion of his stilt-like legs—his ample black tail curled above his back, and whisking in ludicrous concert with the rocking of his disproportioned frame—he glided gallantly along 'like some tall ship upon the ocean's bosom,' and seemed to leave whole leagues behind him at each stride. The ground was of the most treacherous description; a rotten, black soil, overgrown with long, coarse grass, which concealed from view innumerable gaping fissures that momentarily threatened to bring down my horse. For the first five minutes, I rather lost than gained ground, and, despairing over such a country of ever diminishing the distance, or improving my acquaintance with this ogre in seven-league boots, I dismounted, and the mottled carcase presenting a fair and inviting mark, I had the satisfaction of hearing two balls tell roundly upon his plank-like stern. But as well might I have fired at a wall; he neither swerved from his course nor slackened his pace, and pushed on so far ahead during the time I was reloading, that, after remounting, I had some difficulty in even keeping sight of him among the trees. Closing again, however, I repeated the dose on the other quarter, and spurred my horse along, ever and anon sinking to his fetlock—the giraffe now flagging at each stride—until, as I was coming up hand-over-hand, and success seemed certain, the cup was suddenly dashed from my lips, and down I came headlong—my horse having fallen into a pit, and lodged me close to an ostrich's nest, near which two of the old birds were sitting. Happily, there were no bones broken, but the violence of the shock had caused the lashings of my previously-broken rifle to give way, and had doubled the stock in half, the barrels only hanging to the wood by the trigger-guard. Nothing dismayed, however, by this heavy calamity, I remounted my jaded beast, and one more effort brought me ahead of my wearied victim, which stood still and allowed me to approach. In vain did I now attempt to bind my fractured rifle with a pocket-handkerchief, in order to admit of my administering the coup de grace. The guard was so contracted that, as in the tantalizing phantasies of a night-mare, the hammer could not by any means be brought down upon the nipple. In vain I looked around for a stone, and sought in every pocket for my knife, with which either to strike the copper-cap and bring about ignition, or hamstring the colossal but harmless animal, by whose towering side I appeared the veriest pigmy in the creation. Alas! I had lent it to the Hottentots to cut off the head of the hartebeeste, and, after a hopeless search in the remotest comers, each hand was withdrawn empty. Vainly did I then wait for the tardy and rebellious villains to come to my assistance, making the welkin ring, and my throat tingle with reiterated shouts. Not a soul appeared, and in a few minutes the giraffe, having recovered his wind, and being only slightly wounded on the hind-quarters, shuffled his long legs, twisted his bushy tail over his back, walked a few steps, then broke into a gallop, and, diving into the mazes of the forest, presently disappeared from my sight. Disappointed and annoyed at my discomfiture, I returned toward the wagons, now eight miles' distant, and on my way overtook the Hottentots, who, pipe in mouth, were leisurely strolling home, with an air of total indifference as to my proceedings, having come to the conclusion that 'Sir could not fung de kameel' (catch the giraffe), for which reason they did not think it worth while to follow me, as I had directed. Two days after this catastrophe, having advanced to the Tolaan River, we again took the field, accompanied by the whole of the male inhabitants of three large kraals, in addition to those that had accompanied us from the last encampment. The country had now become undulating, extensive mimosa groves occupying all the valley, as well as the banks of the Tolaan winding among them, on its way to join the Mariqua. Before we had proceeded many hundred yards, our progress was opposed by a rhinoceros, who looked defiance, but quickly took the hints we gave him to get out of the way. Two fat elands had been pointed out at the verge of the copse the moment before. One of which Richardson disposed of with little difficulty, the other leading me through all the intricacies of the labyrinth to a wide plain on the opposite side. On entering which, I found the fugitive was prostrate at my feet in the middle of a troop of giraffes, who stooped their long necks, astounded at the intrusion, then consulted a moment how they should best escape the impending danger, and in another were sailing away at their utmost speed. To have followed upon my then jaded horse would have been absurd, and I was afterward unable to recover any trace of them.

"Many days elapsed before we again beheld the tall giraffe, nor were our eyes gladdened with his sight until, after we had crossed the Cashan Mountains to the country of the Baquaina, for the express purpose of seeking for him. After the many contretemps, how shall I describe the sensations I experienced as, on a cool November evening, after rapidly following some fresh traces in profound silence, for several miles, I at length counted from the back of Breslau, my most trusty steed, no fewer than thirty-two of various sizes, industriously stretching their peacock necks to crop the tiny leaves that fluttered above their heads, in a flowering mimosa grove which beautified the scenery. My heart leapt within me, and my blood coursed like quicksilver through my veins, for, with a firm wooded plain before me, I knew they were mine; but, although they stood within a hundred yards of me, having previously determined to try the boarding system, I reserved my fire.

"Notwithstanding that I had taken the field expressly to look for giraffes, and in consequence of several of the remarkable spoors of these animals having been seen the evening before, had taken four mounted Hottentots in my suite, all excepting Piet had, as usual, slipped off unperceived in pursuit of a troop of koodoos. Our stealthy approach was soon opposed by an ill-tempered rhinoceros, which, with her ugly old-fashioned calf, stood directly in the path, and the twinkling of her bright little eyes, accompanied by a restless rolling of the body, giving earnest of her mischievous intentions, I directed Piet to salute her with a broadside, at the same time putting spurs to my horse. At the report of the gun, and sudden clattering of the hoofs, away bounded the herd in grotesque confusion, clearing the ground by a succession of frog-like leaps, and leaving me far in their rear. Twice were their towering forms concealed from view by a park of trees, which we entered almost at the same instant, and twice, on emerging from the labyrinth, did I perceive them tilting over an eminence far in advance, their sloping backs reddening in the sunshine, as with giant port they topped the ridges in right gallant style. A white turban that I wore round my hunting-cap, being dragged off by a projecting bough, was instantly charged and trampled under foot by three rhinoceroses, and long afterward, looking over my shoulder, I could perceive the ungainly brutes in the rear fagging themselves to overtake me. In the course of five minutes the fugitives arrived at a small river, the treacherous sands of which receiving their spider-legs, their flight was greatly retarded, and by the time they had floundered to the opposite side and scrambled to the top of the bank, I could perceive that their race was run. Patting the steaming neck of my good steed, I urged him again to his utmost, and instantly found myself by the side of the herd. The lordly chief being readily distinguishable from the rest by his dark chestnut robe, and superior stature, I applied the muzzle of my rifle behind his dappled shoulder with my right hand, and drew both triggers; but he still continued to shuffle along, and being afraid of losing him should I dismount, among the extensive mimosa groves with which the landscape was now obscured, I sat in my saddle, loading and firing behind the elbow, and then placing myself across his path to obstruct his progress. Mute, dignified, and majestic stood the unfortunate victim, occasionally stooping his elastic neck toward his persecutor, the tears trickling from the lashes of his dark humid eye, as broadside after broadside was poured into his brawny front.

'His drooping head sinks gradually low,And through his side the last drops ebbing slowFrom the red gash fall heavy one by one,Like the first of a thunder shower.'

"Presently a convulsive shivering seized his limbs, his coat stood on end, his lofty frame began to totter, and at the seventeenth discharge from the deadly grooved bore, like a falling minaret bowing his graceful head from the skies, his proud form was prostrate in the dust. Never shall I forget the intoxicating excitement of that moment! At last, then, the summit of my ambition was actually attained, and the towering giraffe laid low! Tossing my turban-less cap into the air, alone in the wild wood, I hurraed with bursting exultation, and unsaddling my steed, sank, exhausted with delight, beside the noble prize that I had won.

"While I leisurely contemplated the massive form before me, seeming as though it had been cast in a mould of brass, and wrapped in a hide an inch and a half in thickness, it was no longer matter of astonishment that a bullet discharged from a distance of eighty or ninety yards should have been attended with little effect upon such amazing strength.

"Two hours were passed in completing a drawing, and Piet still not making his appearance, I cut off the ample tail, which exceeded five feet in length, and was measureless the most estimable trophy I had ever gained. But on proceeding to saddle my horse, which I had left quietly grazing by the running brook, my chagrin may be conceived when I discovered that he had taken advantage of my occupation to free himself from his halter and abscond. Being ten miles from the wagons, and in a perfectly strange country, I felt convinced that the only chance of saving my pet from the clutches of the lion, was to follow his trail; while doing which with infinite difficulty, the ground scarcely deigning to receive a foot-print, I had the satisfaction of meeting Piet and Mohanycom, who had fortunately seen and recaptured the truant. Returning to the giraffe, we all feasted merrily on the flesh, which, although highly scented with the rank mokaala blossoms, was far from despicable, and losing our way in consequence of the twin-like resemblance of two scarped hills, we did not finally regain the wagons until after the setting sunbeams had ceased to play upon the trembling leaves of the light acacias, and the golden splendor which was sleeping upon the plain had gradually passed away."

Singular and striking as is the form of the giraffe, it only furnishes a proof of the wonderful manner in which an all-wise Creator has adapted means to ends. A vegetable feeder, but an inhabitant of sterile and sandy deserts, its long slender neck and sloping body, enable it to reach with ease its favorite food: leaf by leaf is daintily plucked from the lofty branch by the pliant tongue, and a mouthful of tender and juicy food is speedily accumulated. The oblique and narrow apertures of the nostrils, defended even to their margins by a chevaux de frise of strong hairs, and surrounded by muscular fibres by which they can be hermetically sealed, effectually prevent the entrance of the fine particles of sand which the suffocating storms of the desert raise in fiery clouds, destructive to the lord of the creation. Erect on those stilt-like legs, the giraffe surveys the wide expanse, and feeds at ease, for those mild, large eyes are so placed that it can see not only on all sides, but even behind, rendering it next to impossible for an enemy to approach undiscovered. As we reflect on these and numberless other points for admiration presented by the giraffe, we involuntarily exclaim with the Psalmist, "Oh, Lord! how manifold are thy works; in wisdom hast thou made them all!"

"Nature to these, without profusion kind,The proper organs, proper powers assigned;Each seeming want compensated of course,Here with degrees of swiftness, there of force;All in exact proportion to the state,Nothing to add, and nothing to abate."

THE SOLAR SYSTEM

THE earth is a huge oblate or orange-shaped sphere, spinning on its shorter axis like a humming-top, yet at such a rate of speed as to seem standing still; it goes once round in twenty-four hours, its rotation being both the cause and the measure of day and night. The highest mountains range from four to five miles in height; the greatest depth of the ocean is probably little more than five miles, although Ross let down 27,000 feet of sounding-line in vain on one occasion. So that the earth's surface is very irregular; but its mountainous ridges and oceanic valleys are no greater things in proportion to its whole bulk, than the roughness of the rind of the orange it resembles in shape. The geological crust—that is to say, the total depth to which geologists suppose themselves to have reached in the way of observation—is no thicker in proportion than a sheet of thin writing paper pasted on a globe two feet in diameter. The surface of the earth is some 148,500,000 of miles in extent; and only one-fourth of that large space is dry land, the rest being ocean and ice. The atmosphere rises all round to a height between forty-five and fifty miles above the sea-level. The solar radiance sends such heat as it brings no deeper any where than 100 feet into the surface or scurfskin of the dry land—from forty to a hundred feet, one-third of the sun's heat being absorbed by the air. Yet the deeper man digs beyond the hundred feet, the warmer he finds the earth, and that at a somewhat determinable rate of increase. Supposing that rate of increment to go on toward the centre, it is computable that the solid underwork of the world, say granite by way of conjecture, must be in a state of fusion at no vast depth from the ground on which we tread. Let the scientific imagination descend a little lower, and it will find the melted granite in the form of a fiery vapor or gas—the dry steam of a red-hot liquid, in which the rock-built foundations of "the everlasting hills" melt like icebergs. But this is conjectural and probable, not observable and proved.

Far away from this spinning and perilous globe of ours, at the distance of some 95,000,000 miles, stands the sun. A ray of light, starting from his surface at any given moment, takes eight minutes to reach us, although light runs at the speed of 195,000 miles in a second. The sun is 1,380,000 times as large as the earth, and 355,000 times as heavy; but the stuff of which he is made is just about a fourth part as dense as the average matter of this world. The sun is of as light a substance, taking his whole body, as coal; whereas the earth is twice as heavy as brimstone, striking the mean between the air, the ocean, the dry land, and the internal vapor. The sun has an atmosphere like the earth, or rather he has two. One of them, close upon his solid surface, seems to resemble our own; it bears cloudy bodies in its upper levels. The other is a sort of fiery gas, surrounding the former, kindled and sustained in the calorific and luminous state, no man knows or can conjecture how. Storms in the lower atmosphere are constantly blowing this phosphorescent airy envelope aside, so as to afford us glimpses down into the (comparatively) dark and black recesses beneath. These are the spots on the sun. Galileo inferred the rotation of the sun on his axis from the motions of those spots. The explanation of those spots, afforded by the discoveries of Wilson and Herschel, diminishes the value of the inference; but no Copernican can doubt that the sun is forever turning, and that with unimaginable swiftness and impetuosity.

At the distance, then, of more than ninety-five millions of miles, this dim spot which men call earth, this great globe and all its dwellers, this ever-spinning planet, revolves around the sun once every year, that revolution being both the cause and the measure of that space of time. Its orbit is not a circle; it is an ellipse, but not very far removed from the circular path. The terrestrial axis is not at right angles to that ellipse, else there were no seasons; it is somewhat inclined. The earth, once regarded as the fixed and solid centre of creation, is now to be conceived of as a globular sphere of some fire-blown stream, bounded by a film of rock like a soap-bubble, carrying an unresting sea in the hollows of its rind, swathed in a soft gauze of air, going round upon itself every day, running round the sun every year; and all that with so much silence, security, and stillness of speed that nobody ever suspects the dread predicament of physical circumstance in which he wakes and sleeps, lives and dies, does good or evil, and passes away to judgment. It is difficult to realize the truth, now that it is told; for the knowledge of the intellect is one thing, and the consent of the whole man is quite another.

Precisely as the earth goes round the sun from year to year, the moon goes round the earth from month to month, and that at a distance of some 240,000 miles; the same lunar side or hemisphere being always turned toward us, although that satellite turns upon her own axis as well as the earth and the sun. The earth is in repose so far as the moon is concerned; it is her sun. The two combined, being as true a unity as any chemical molecule which is composed of two atoms, go round the sun as if they were one; the earth carries her moon with her. So that it is possible, if not probable in the first instance, that the sun, though in repose as to the earth and her moon (and, indeed, to all the planets yet to be mentioned) may be in motion on some vast orbit of his own; an orbit along which he carries all his planetary adherents with him, just as the earth takes her moon round the sun. It is curious to perceive how, not only in the case of our own moon, but in the cases of the moons of Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus, and actually in those of all the planets considered as the moons of the sun, the Platonic epicycle really holds good. The earth turns on her heel, with the moon held out at arm's length, while she goes round the amphitheatre before the solar eye; so do the other moon-bearers. So does the sun himself upon a vaster arena and before a greater spectator, like another Briareus; holding out his seventeen planets, and nobody knows how many comets, in his hundred hands. The moons, of those solar planets which have them, represent the epi-epicyclical orbits of the Ptolemaic theory. It is curious, and also touching, to notice how often the errors of man are thus the shadows of truth. Were it not for the preceding shadows, indeed, the substance would never arrive; and therefore the Ptolemaics of the world are second, in value and in merit, only to epochal discoverers like Copernicus.