![]() ![]() The gentle animal, however, soon became an adored celebrity in her own right and the embodiment of an era in French history rich in new scientific and cultural ideas.Ĭaptured and tamed in the Ethiopian highlands, Zarafa travelled 3,500 miles down the Blue Nile and the Nile and then across the Mediterranean. ![]() ![]() She was a politically motivated tribute to Charles X from Muhammad Ali, the Ottoman Viceroy of Egypt, who had hope to forestall European intervention in his war against the Greeks. Zarafa was the first living giraffe Europe had seen in almost 350 years and the first of her kind ever to arrive in France. On Tuesday 31 October 1826, a young Masai giraffe - Zarafa - landed incognito outside the bustling port of Marseilles. She was an intriguing royal gift and one that certainly caused a stir among the people of nineteenth-century France. ![]()
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