It is especially in the peculiar light attendant on the rainy season and amidst tall growths that giraffes mingle so with their surroundings. It is only when the towering forms are silhouetted against the sky that they can be clearly seen on the open velt. At midday, when the velt is shimmering with a thousand waves of light, when everything seems aglow with the dazzling sun, even the most practised eye can scarcely distinguish the outlines of single objects. By such a light the sandy-coloured oryx antelopes and the stag-like waterbuck look coal-black; the uninitiated take zebras for donkeys—they appear so grey—and rhinoceroses resting on the velt for ant-hills. But giraffes especially mingle with the surrounding mimosa woods at this hour in such a way as only those who have seen it could believe possible.
When you see these animals in their wild state, your thoughts naturally revert to the penned-up tame specimens in zoological gardens or those preserved in museums. \ Well do I remember that the first wild zebra I saw looked to me little like a tame specimen in a zoological garden.
C. G. Schillings, phot.
A HERD OF GIRAFFES: THE LEADER, A POWERFUL OLD BULL, IN THE FOREGROUND.
C. G. Schillings, phot.
TWO GIRAFFES OUT OF A HERD I CAME UPON IN THE VICINITY OF THE MASAI COLONY CALLED KIRARAGUA, NOW ALMOST BEREFT OF WILD LIFE OWING TO THE IMMIGRATION OF THE BOERS. THE ANIMALS MAY HERE BE SEEN IN VERY CHARACTERISTIC SURROUNDINGS, ACACIA WOODS ALTERNATING WITH WIDE EXPANSES COVERED WITH BOWSTRING HEMP.
C. G. Schillings, phot.