Remember how Korney Chukovsky scared little children to keep them from running away to Africa? “In Africa there are sharks, in Africa there are gorillas, in Africa there are big, angry crocodiles…”
The desperate boy Kolya didn't believe these horror stories and, when he grew up, went to Africa. He didn't find the evil Barmaley there, but he did tell of a regal animal rumored to live near distant Lake Chad.
He is given graceful harmony and bliss,
And his skin is decorated with a magical pattern,
Which only the moon dares to equal,
Crushing and swaying on the moisture of wide lakes.
Nikolai Gumilev wasn't the only one enchanted by this amazing animal. The giraffe seems like a model of grace and sophistication to people, despite weighing nearly 900 kilograms. It's the fourth-largest animal in the world! Only the elephant, hippopotamus, and rhinoceros are larger on land. But unlike these giants, the giraffe has a majestic, leisurely gait. Truly, the king of the savannah!
And this king is anything but harmless. With a blow from his mighty, hoof-clad legs, he can cripple or kill a lion if the latter suddenly decides to hunt a giraffe calf. In short, if the giraffe weren't a herbivore, he would be more dangerous than some prehistoric tyrannosaurus. However, as the popular saying reassures us, God doesn't give horns to a butting cow.
The giraffe, although distantly related to cows and even sporting horns, is not aggressive. So, travelers on safari vehicles in Kenya or South Africa aren't afraid of encounters with giraffes. On the contrary, they rejoice. What spectacular shots you can take with this living tower!
Besides its height, the giraffe captivates with the pattern of its skin. This pattern is as individual as human fingerprints. African kings regularly hunted giraffes for their patterned skin, not for their tough meat. This pattern also astounded the inhabitants of ancient Rome when Julius Caesar brought back a giraffe as a trophy from his Egyptian campaign in 46 BC. The Romans immediately dubbed the giraffe “camelopardalis,” or “camelopard,” combining in one word both amazement at the African animal's height and delight at its inimitable coloring.
The word we use to describe the king of the savannah, however, comes from Arabic. “Zarafa” means “decorated” in Arabic. Perhaps you've seen the Franco-Belgian cartoon of that name. The cartoon is based on a true story about how, in the early 19th century, an Egyptian bey sent a giraffe named Zarafa to the French King Charles X. The giraffe was transported across the Mediterranean on a special ship with a hole cut in the deck for its head. Crowds of onlookers gathered in Marseille to witness the arrival of this amazing animal. The municipality organized several balls and gatherings for the townspeople to mark the occasion. And then the giraffe was taken from Marseille to Paris. Yes, they took it! Trucks and trailers were still a hundred years away. Zarafa made it safely to the French capital, where she lived for another 18 years in the Royal Botanical Garden.
The Arabic word “zarafá” is the source of another word that most of us consider to be native Russian: “sarafan.” This is a common occurrence. We sometimes don't realize how many words and fairy tales have entered the Russian language from the East. The sarafan's journey to the Russian village is no less interesting than the giraffe's journey from Egypt to Paris.
Sarafans appeared in Rus' in the 14th century. These garments were brought from Persia. Along with the garment, they also brought the Persian word for “robe of honor,” which derives from the same Arabic word, “zarafá.”
Persian sarafans were long, open-front men's garments. They were most often made of silk. Therefore, they were expensive and were worn by the very wealthy, such as boyars and princes. At that time, the sarafan was considered exclusively men's clothing. It was only in the 17th century that the term “sarafan” came to be used for women's clothing. Women in Rus' had, in fact, worn it for a long time, but they called it something else.
During the reign of Peter the Great, the sarafan came to be considered bourgeois or peasant clothing. It was considered inappropriate for noblewomen to wear one. Anyone who has carefully read A.S. Pushkin's “The Captain's Daughter” will have noticed the scene where the commandant of the Belogorsk Fortress bids farewell to his family.
“Farewell, farewell, mother!” said the commandant, embracing his old woman. “Well, that's enough! Go, go home; and if you have time, put a sarafan on Masha.”
So, a nobleman father, facing his death, orders his wife to dress his daughter as a peasant. Perhaps this masquerade will save her life!
But it was precisely at that time, during the reign of Catherine II, who, as befits a woman, possessed good taste, that the sarafan for noblewomen was “legalized” and became fashionable. And in 1834, Nicholas I ordered the common sarafan to be adopted as a women's court dress, with Russian national motifs. A woman in a sarafan no longer stood out in aristocratic circles, like a giraffe on the road from Marseille to Paris!
