< Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 4).djvu
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A fruit v as though 1t were Gourdes 'y ana R e cach ot these gourds LTows Clvttvlle Bk\\k\ Lomb, withouten Wolle,” which i lamb, as well as the fruit, Sir John has caten. * And that 1s a gret Marvevlle,” quoth Sir John ; and o 1t 15, when you come to think of 1t. It 15 a pity that there was no wool on those * [Lombs 7; would have given the narrative certain artistic completeness, a rounding off. But, since there was no wool, 1t 1= fortunate that Sir John distinetly said so, otherwise people might have called him a liar,

Before the Zoological Society find specimens ot these rarities, perhaps they maycome upon another giraffe or two. S John Maundevile reallyv plavs light with the oiraffe. He might have made something much more startlineg of 1t than *a Dest pomclee or spotted ; that is but a lityvlle more highc than 15 a Stede; but he hathe the Ncecke a 2o Cubytes Tong; and his

g Croup and his Tayl is as of an Ilert; and he may loken over a gret highe Hous.” Morcover, the illustrative woodcut in my copy actually undcer-represents the neck by full two-thirds @ but that is for the very best of all reasons—there 1s no room on the block tor any more. Perhaps it was because Sir John vouched for the giraffe that up to the present century most people in this country disbelicved 1 its existence. But just consider how he might have put it, and with truth ; and how that hcavyv-handed artist might have put it—without truth, An anmmal with a deer’s head, o Jeopard’s skin, a swan's neek ; a tongue that was used as a man’s hand to grasp things o foot from its nosc. With cves that saw in every direction without a turn of the head ;5 with nostrils that closed or opened.

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Withal higher than three tall men, onc above another, and capable of slaying a man with onc kick of a hinder leg, yet so timid as to fly before a child or a Tivde dog ! One feels rather ashamed or Sie JQIII}: after all, for ncglecting his opportuntiies. There 1s difficulty in the capturc of a giratle, and there is expense. These obstacles, however, and arcater ones, have been overcome agam and agzain in time past by the Zoolovical Soctety of London, and

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