Zarafa was one of two diplomatic giraffes that Muhammad Ali (the Ottoman viceroy of Egypt) dispatched to Europe, a gesture he hoped would take the sting out of opposition to his efforts to suppress the Greek uprising against Ottoman rule. He sent one of the animals to George IV of Britain and the other to curry favour with the newly incumbent King Charles X of France.Zarafa set foot on the dockside in Marseille on 31 October 1826. She overwintered in the south, before being led by Saint-Hilaire on the long, 885-km march to Paris. As she made her way to the French capital, the people began to refer to her as “le bel animal du roi” - “the beautiful animal of the King”. Once Charles X had received Zarafa, she was put on show in the Jardin des Plantes. In the last three weeks of July 1827, 60,000 people came to see her - Paris adored her.
This beautiful animal lived on at the Jardin des Plantes until 1845.
The adoration triggered a giraffe-inspired craze, with Zarafa the subject of songs, instrumental music, poems, music-hall sketches and items of high fashion.
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