Note 034
Commodus killed a camelopardalis or giraffe (Dion, 1.
lxxii. p. 1211), the tallest, the most gentle, and the most
useless of the large quadrupeds. This singular animal, a
native only of the interior parts of Africa, has not been
seen in Europe since the revival of letters, and though M.
de Buffon (Hist. Naturelle, tom. xiii.) has endeavoured to
describe, he has not ventured to delineate, the Giraffe.
Note to Chapter 4 of DECLINE & FALL by Gibbon