Zafara, A Giraffe's True Story, from Deep in Africa to the Heart of Paris

 

I heard about this book while traveling in Egypt, ordered it on Amazon, and it was waiting in my mailbox when I got home. Zarafa, A Giraffe’s True Story, from Deep in Africa to the Heart of Paris, written and published by Michael Allin in 1998, is a short nonfiction accounting of the arrival of the giraffe known as Zarafa which the author reports is a phonetic variant of an Arabic word that means “charming,” or “lovely one.” The idea of sending a giraffe to the King of France, Charles X, came from Bernardino Drovetti, the French consul general to Egypt in 1824. He was also a private advisor to Muhammad Ali, the Egyptian viceroy who in effect, owned Egypt for nearly 50 years. Drovetti was known to be the first wholesale tomb robber of modern Egyptology, but Ali had no interest in securing the historical aspects of the country until late in his life. Drovetti, by presenting the giraffe as a gift to the king, was seeking the king’s favor, encouraging him not to intervene Egypt’s unpopular war with Greece.

 

Zafara’s journey itself was remarkable as the captured juvenile giraffe was sailed 2,000 miles down the Nile to Alexandria on the Mediterranean Sea, and then it would take another 2,000 to reach its new home. Zafara walked the last 550 miles from Marseilles to Paris. Zafara was the first giraffe to ever step foot in France, and it was thought to be the first giraffe that had been in Europe in the last 350 years. It received daily news accounts of its progress, and it was clear that Parisians fell in love with this animal which lived another 20 years after reaching its new quarters in Paris in 1826. Two Egyptian men cared for the animal on the journey, and then one of them remained as its caretaker for the rest of its life.

 

The novel gives a short history of Egypt and even a shorter one of France, but those stories helped put the animal’s magnetic effect on the French people in perspective considering the French intense fascination with this animal. Napoleon’s conquest of Egypt in 1798, as well as the destruction of his fleet by Admiral Horatio Nelson was also a part of the story. Ali, for the first time in the history of Egypt was friendly to European society, essentially opening up Egypt to European influence, much like Peter the Great did in Russia. The author opined the Ali brough Egypt from living in the 8^th decade to modern times.

 

I don’t think this is a great book, but it is a curiosity as it catches an important part of the history of two countries, as well as the love that poured out to this African animal.