In the Virginia countryside, love of animals permeates the lifestyle. It goes beyond dogs and horses. Consider the late sportswoman Viola Townsend Winmill, whose zebra, Nderu, was imported in June 1930 from Kenya and trained to pull a cart. Mrs. Winmill even added a sunroom on the back of a tenant house known as Whiffletree Manor at her 350-acre farm, Clovelly. The “Zebra Room” paid homage to Nderu’s distinctive black and white stripes in everything from lamps to rugs.
"She even "paid homage" with a zebra coat."
Friday, February 11, 2011
Zebra "cute and charming."
Zebra Training
The Zebra above looking at it's chest stripes, looks suspiciously like the zebra the good Dr. is riding below. I wonder if he used a "wrangler" to get pounded, pommeled, stomped, and kicked before he took a ride. LOL A curb and a snaffle like the Dr. is using below, doesn't seem to be the norm. A snaffle for left and right is what is normally used.
Following the arrival of the railway in 1897, Nairobi had soon grown into a town with muddy streets and ram shackle wood and sheet-metal buildings built on stone plinths to ward off termites.
Our next hero, Dr. Rosendo Ayres Ribeiro, appears on this scene in Nairobi, February 1900, as the first private medical doctor. For six months, he and his assistant, Mr. C. Pinto, shared a tent as home and practice. In the evenings by candlelight, they made up prescriptions of his invention, including a special malarial cure which was patented and eventually sold to an international company.2.
Later, when the Indian Bazaar expanded, he built his surgery from the packing cases used for shipping his drug supplies from England. It was Dr. Ribeiro who, in 1902, had diagnosed bubonic plague in two Somali patients and reported it. The Medical Officer of Health, with no experience of tropical diseases, panicked at the news, ordered the Indian Bazaar evacuated and burnt to the ground. Dr. Ribeiro's surgery went up in flames with the rest. The government in recognition for his services gave him a concession of sixteen acres of land in the township, part of which he was able to sell to Julius Campos, another Goan Pioneer. A street, Campos Ribeiro Avenue, was named after them. .
In Nairobi, the automobile was yet come to its own then. Horses were still relied upon to get around town, but they suffered from an equine fever in the hot tropical climate, which reduced their life span considerably. It was felt that the thousands of zebras that populated the grasslands around Nairobi should be trained to replace horses. Two schools of thought emerged on this subject. The first were of the opinion that the animals were stupid and untrainable. The second took the side of the zebras. They concluded that the zebra species had already done enough for human kind... they gave aesthetic appeal to the many zoos over the world, made street crossings safe for children, and had their skins crafted into numerous home furnishings and wall hangings. There was no need for zebras to go further, and make asses of themselves!.
An exception seems to have been made for Dr. Riberio. He managed to train a zebra, and ride him around town for house calls. As a founder member of the Goan Institute, he rode his zebra right up to the verandah of the club and hitched it to the front post. A photo of Dr. Riberio on his famous zebra is included in the 1950 Souvenir Brochure of Nairobi City to convince skeptics of this account! .
Zebra Training
Location and date unknown. I am beginning to think "zebra whispering" was a British pastime.
Zebra Hitches
Location and Date unknown. It looks like these are Zebra/Belgium crosses, but they sure look "muley."
Zebra Hitches
This photograph taken outside the London Zoological Society offices in 1914 shows one of the zoo's earliest forays into marketing.
Four zebras pull a cart advertising a brand of tea. Paying passengers were able to sit alongside the driver.
Zebra Hitches
Lord Walter Rothschild with a single. Type Walter Rothschild in the search bar above to see his 4 Zebra hitch. He preferred to use Burchells zebras.
Zebra Hitches
A zebra-driven taxi cab leaving Brixton and heading for Stockwell in 1915
Given their nature Zebra's seem to be a odd choice for a pulling animal. The few photos available of Zebra hitches all seem to be from around the same time period. It is as if it was one of those things that "seemed like a good idea at the time," and after everyone had tried their hand at it the practice was abandoned.
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