This is a new animal called the okapi, only discovered during the last fifty years in the dense forests of Africa, and its skin was stuffed and set up and is now here. One would have thought that all the animals now living would have been known long ago, and it seems almost ridiculous to speak of a 'new' animal; but this one was new to us. He is very much like a mixture of several other animals. He is about the size of a large antelope, and he has a long upper lip like a giraffe, and a meek, patient face. His back slopes down like a giraffe's, too, and his body is a reddish colour like that of a cow; but his hind-legs are striped like a zebra. Now, what do you think of that for a new animal? You or I might have invented something more original. It is just as if he had been round to the other animals, and said: 'Please, I want to live. Will you give me something?' And the antelope had said: 'Well, you may be rather like me in size, but don't make yourself a shape that anyone could mistake for me.' So the poor, meek okapi had made himself the colour and size of the antelope, but had taken the sloping back of a giraffe; and then he had gone to the antelope, and said: 'Will this do?' And the antelope had not been altogether pleased, and he had said: 'Humph! I'm not sure if it will; you've taken my colour, too. Some fool might think you were me at a distance.' So the meek okapi had added a few stripes on his legs, like a zebra, just to make him less like the scornful antelope. He lives in dense forests, and eats grass as a cow does, and is very shy; and the only people who have seen him alive are the natives, who told an Englishman about him, and then managed to shoot one, and bring its skin to sell to the Englishman. But now that he is known of, it will probably not be long before a live one is captured. He is so gentle that they might make him into what is called a domestic animal, like the cow; if he once understood that men were his friends and did not want to hurt him, then his shyness might vanish, and his gentleness would make him safe and easy to deal with. In this gallery we see all the animals of the Zoo, stuffed and peaceful. The tiger no longer prowls round and round his cage when the dinner-hour draws near, he will never be hungry again; the lion no longer is angry when the crowd stare, he cannot see them; the patient elephant has given up for ever carrying children on his back, and the hippo has ceased to wallow in the waters of his beloved bath. Even the silver-white polar bear does not mind the heat, and pines no longer for his ice and snow. All are at rest, at rest! CHAPTER XXIV WESTMINSTER ABBEY, ST. PAUL'S, AND THE CENOTAPH