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The Report of the Council of the Society as to the progress of this great undertaking is worth quoting in full.

“The Council are now (April 1836) looking forward with interest to the completion of an attempt in which the Society is engaged for the importation of several giraffes, which they hope to see added to the Society’s collection in a very few weeks. In the earlier days of the Society’s existence, the acquisition of this singular and rare animal was among the most important objects to which the attention of the Council was directed, and they made many inquiries as to the probable means of effecting it, and then named a price which would be paid for one or two of them, on their being delivered, in good health, at the Society’s Gardens.

“In 1833 the inquiries were again resumed, through Mr. Bourchier of Malta, to whose valuable aid on numerous occasions the Society is almost incessantly indebted. Through his intervention, and the kindness of Colonel Campbell, her Majesty’s Consul-General for Egypt, an arrangement was made during the close of that year with M. Thibaut, who was then at Cairo, and he agreed to proceed to Nubia for the purpose of procuring giraffes on the Society’s behalf. The terms of his agreement imposed upon him the whole risk of the undertaking, previously to the delivery of the animals in Malta, and it was not until his landing them in that island that he was entitled to receive the stipulated price, which was at a fixed rate for each individual, diminishing in proportion to the number he should bring with him.”