Histoire de Zarafa, la girafe de Charles X

In 1826, the Mamluk Pasha of Egypt, Muhammad-Ali, offered a giraffe to King Charles X of France. It was the first time that a live giraffe came to France. The transport of an animal of such dimensions turned into an incredible story. In 1824, the young giraffe was captured in southern Sudan, transported overland on the back of a camel, then in a boat across the Mediterranean. In 1827, she started a long walk that lasted 41 days from Marseille to Paris, under the personal supervision of Etienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, a well-known French naturalist from the Royal Museum of Natural History. The giraffe caused a sensation wherever she went. In Paris, 600,000 visitors came to see her in the zoo of the Royal Museum of Natural History during the summer of 1827, creating a fashion craze referred to as giraffomania. This saga produced abundant memorabilia, which is still available today. This giraffe lived quietly for 18 years in the zoo. After her death, she was nicknamed Zarafa, the Arabic word for giraffe.