Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Zarafa: A Giraffe's True Story, from Deep in Africa to the Heart of Paris

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

Allin, Michael

Paperback

French HistoryGeneral World HistoryOther Animals

ISBN10: 0385334117
ISBN13: 9780385334112
Publisher: Bantam Dell
Published: Aug 10 1999
Pages: 224
Weight: 0.50
Height: 0.70 Width: 4.70 Depth: 8.10
Language: English
In October 1826, a ship arrived at Marseille carrying the first giraffe ever seen in France. A royal offering from Muhammad Ali, Ottoman Viceroy of Egypt, to King Charles X, she had already traveled 2,000 miles down the Nile to Alexandria, from where she had sailed across the Mediterranean standing in the hold, her long neck and head protruding through a hole cut in the deck. In the spring of 1827, after wintering in Marseille, she was carefully walked 550 miles to Paris to the delight of thousands of onlookers.

The viceroy's tribute was politically motivated: He commanded the Turkish forces then fighting the Greeks in their war of independence, and hoped his gift would persuade the French not to intervene against him. But the viceroy and his intentions were quickly forgotten as France fell in love with its beautiful stranger.

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