fi a - a 7 7 — a 7 re f AFRICAN GAME TRAILS «“ He loved the big game as if he were their father.” —A nglo-Saxon Chrenicle. ‘«‘ Tell me the course, the voyage, the ports, and the new stars.’ —Bliss Carman. ore nee, ee Gy ) C Theodore Koosevelt and one of his lig lions 2 ry? ) from a photograph by KNermetl KHoosevelt- yo 4 yo 4 \ \WAew a Yr Ps i AFRICAN GAME TRAILS AN ACCOUNT OF THE AFRICAN WANDERINGS OF AN AMERICAN HUNTER-NATURALIST BY SHEODORE ROOSEVELT WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS BY KERMIT ROOSEVELT AND OTHER MEMBERS OF THE EXPEDITION, AND FROM DRAWINGS BY PHILIP R. GOODWIN | LONDON JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W. | I9IO | | 9 Bla @ a First EpItIon . . . . August, IQIO. Repyintel 2. vies: |.> ed August, 1910. Reprinted . . . « + November, 1910. TO KERMIT ROOSEVELT MY SIDE-PARTNER “GREAT ADVENTURE” FOREWORD * | speak of Africa and golden joys ”; the joy of wander- ing through lonely lands; the joy of hunting the mighty and terrible lords of the wilderness, the cunning, the wary, and the grim. In these greatest of the world’s great hunting- grounds there are mountain-peaks whose snows are dazzling under the equatorial sun ; swamps where the slime oozes and bubbles and festers in the steaming heat; lakes like seas; skies that burn above deserts where the iron desolation is shrouded from view by the wavering mockery of the mirage; vast grassy plains where palms and thorn-trees fringe the dwindling streams ; mighty rivers rushing out of the heart of the continent through the sadness of endless marshes ; forests of gorgeous beauty, where death broods in the dark and silent depths. There are regions as healthy as the Northland ; and other regions, radiant with bright-hued flowers, birds, and butterflies, odorous with sweet and heavy scents, but treacherous in their beauty, and sinister to human life. On the land and in the water there are dreaa brutes that feed on the flesh of man; and among the lower things, that crawl, and fly, and sting, and bite, he finds swarming foes far more evil and deadly than any beast or reptile ; foes that kill his crops and his cattle, vil Vill FOREWORD foes before which he himself perishes in his hundreds of thousands. The dark-skinned races that live in the land vary widely. Some are warlike, cattle-owning nomads ; some till the soil and live in thatched huts shaped like beehives; some are fisherfolk ; some are ape-like, naked savages, who dwell in the woods and_ prey on creatures not much wilder or lower than them- selves. , The land teems with beasts of the chase, infinite in number and incredible in variety. It holds the fiercest beasts of ravin, and the fleetest and most timid of those things that live in undying fear of talon and fang. It holds the largest and the smallest of hoofed animals. It holds the mightiest creatures that tread the earth or swim in its rivers; it also holds distant kinsfolk of these same creatures, no bigger than wood- chucks, which dwell in crannies of the rocks, and in the tree-tops. There are antelope smaller than hares, and. antelope larger than oxen. There are creatures which are the embodiments of grace ; and others whose huge ungainliness is like that of a shape in a nightmare. The plains are alive with droves of strange and beautiful animals whose like is not known elsewhere; and with others, even stranger, that show both in form and temper something of the fantastic and the grotesque. It is a never-ending pleasure to gaze at the great herds of buck as they move to and fro in their myriads ; as they stand for their noontide rest in the quivering heat haze ; as the long files come down to drink at the watering- places ; as they feed and fight and rest and make love. ‘I'he hunter who wanders through these lands sees sights which ever afterward remain fixed in his mind. He sees the monstrous river-horse snorting and plunging FOREWORD 1x beside the boat ; the giraffe looking over the tree-tops at the nearing horseman ; the ostrich fleeing at a speed that none may rival; the snarling leopard and coiled python, with their lethal beauty ; the zebras, barking in the moonlight, as the laden caravan passes on its night march through a thirsty land. To his mind come memories of the lion’s charge ; of the grey bulk of the elephant, close at hand in the sombre woodland ; of the buffalo, his sullen eyes lowering from under his helmet of horn; of the rhinoceros, truculent and stupid, stand- ing in the bright sunlight on the empty plain. These things can be told. But there are no words that can tell the hidden spirit of the wilderness, that can reveal its mystery, its melancholy, and its charm. There is delight in the hardy life of the open, in long rides rifle in hand, in the thrill of the fight with dangerous game. Apart from this, yet mingled with it, is the strong attraction of the silent places, of the large tropic moons, and the splendour of the new stars ; where the wanderer sees the awful glory of sunrise and sunset in the wide waste spaces of the earth, unworn of man, and changed only by the slow changes of the ages from time everlasting. THEODORE ROOSEVELT. KuHarzoum, March 15, 1910. 7 SPre. a en A at Bia be 7 es ue ere iL +h a my a ‘te! ee ae < ay. We q a) i : oy ,. 4 ae 7 ai” a ‘ Lan yt 1S ae 7 ry J f : ye ive : : - a Suet! rn haa 7 | + _ ty rs Cy ‘a. F iS if ae | - ' "a4 | Aer i) - —_ iF 5 ar oy ee ak wt, | * nae | 2 apy ee « i it Pe altel 7 7 ' 7 Ps F rn ett 7 4 re Ne ne 7 4 ; a4 : et mn f = aire ‘a Pie Z i - u Jaa — g ue ‘* on Peer . ae > > al Dicer ee ia : ; ne Vi 7 wt __ wv ane - rom 7 j ue , > ~— a shin ¢ i Gh ‘ | 7 - ai. ve | ae j : Hy, Beit : me ois i a : om 7 hy sy , at i a at a. va * ! | : ao im : hse +> PITTS \' See : @ : a i 7 ' y a | : 7 = a | 7 oe - g ibe wea = ] t : ~~ |e | ‘ 7 a f _ 7 ral 7 1 a ' a | Lae is - ee Joo ¢€ f 7 7 J as 7 - ip Hie x 7 ; 7 i : 7 - Ti 0 ‘9 id sith, | bated 4 th me ou i eee j ‘ ” = : in ile Sha ; a9 x Jiu, > fe Li a is 7 7 7a ne Be " att - red i a - i uM 7 7 if NOTE BY THE PUBLISHER Avr my request, Colonel Roosevelt has kindly consented to add to the English Edition of his book full reports of his speeches delivered before the University of Cairo, on March 28, 1910, and at the Guildhall in London, May 31, 1910. It is believed that no complete report of the former speech has hitherto appeared in this country. ‘The Guildhall speech is based on the report in the T?mes, for permission to use which I beg to thank the pro- prietors of that newspaper. J. M. xi CHAPTER I. Il. il. IV. Vis VI. Vil, Vill. IX, X. XI. XII. XIII. XIV. XV. CONTENTS A RAILROAD THROUGH THE PLEISTOCENE ON AN EAST AFRICAN RANCH - = LION-HUNTING ON THE KAPITI PLAINS ON SAFARI: RHINO AND GIRAFFES JUJA FARM: HIPPO AND LEOPARD A BUFFALO HUNT BY THE KAMITI = TREKKING THROUGH THE THIRST TO THE SOTIK HUNTING IN THE SOTIK = = TO LAKE NATIVASHA = = = ELEPHANI-HUNTING ON MOUNT KENIA - THE GUASO NYERO: APPENDIX C.—LORING’S NOTES = = APPENDIX D.—BIOLOGICAL SURVEY OF MOUNT KENIA APPENDIX E.—PROTECTIVE COLORATION IN ANIMALS APPENDIX F.—THE PIGSKIN LIBRARY = = INDEX Xlil ON GREAT —_— ILLUSTRATIONS FACING PAGE Mr. Roosevelt and one of his big lions — - - - Frontispiece Photogravure from a photograph by Kermit Roosevelt. Map showing Mr. Roosevelt’s route and hunting trips in Africa - A herd of zebra and hartebeest - : : : e One of the interesting features of African wild life is the close association and companionship so often seen between two totally different species of game, Before he could get quite all the way round in his headlong rush to reach us, I struck him with my left-hand barrel - - From a drawing by Philip R. Goodwin. Without any warning, out he came and charged straight at Kermit, who stopped him when he was but six yards off — - From a drawing by Philip R. Goodwin. Mr. Roosevelt and Kermit Roosevelt with the first buffalo : It was not a nice country in which to be charged by the herd, and for a moment things trembled in the balance - From a drawing by Philip R. Goodwin. Group: Waxbills ; courser ; elephant shrew; springhaas ; dikdik ; serval kitten ; banded mongoose ; Colobus monkey - The safari fording a stream - - - : = Giraffe at home - - - - - - - Group: A rhino family. Rhino surveying the safari. “In the middle of the African plain, deep in prehistoric thought” - Wildebeest at home - - : E i Q Two bulls may suddenly drop to their knees, and for a moment or two fight furiously. Group: The wounded lioness. The wounded lioness ready to charge - - - - - - - He came on steadily, ears laid back and uttering terrific coughing grunts - - - - - - = From a drawing by Philip R. Goodwin. xv 188 192 XV1 ILLUSTRATIONS FACING PAGE Group: What one has to shoot at when after hippo on water. Mr. Roosevelt’s hippo charging open-mouthed - - 208 Charged straight for the boat, with open jaws, bent on mischief 212 From a drawing by Philip R. Goodwin. Group: Black-backed jackal; tree hyrax; big gazelle buck ; pelican; spotted genet; white-tailed mongoose ; porcupine ; baboon - - . - . - - 216 Towing in bull hippo, Lake Naivasha - - - - 220 Kikuyu Ngama, Neri - - - - = - 9232 Group: Camping after death of first bull. The porters exult over the death of the bull - - - - - 240 Falls on slope of Kenia near first elephant camp - - 244. The charging bull elephant . 7 - . - 248 ‘* He could have touched me with his trunk.” From a drawing by Philip R. Goodwin. The first bull elephant — - - = - - = 252 A herd of elephant in an open forest of high timber _ - - 7256 Group: The herd getting uneasy. The same herd on the eve of charging - - - . - - - 260 Mr. Roosevelt’s and Kermit’s camp near which they got the rhino and elephant - - - - - - 262 My boma where I camped alone - - - - #206 Group: An oryx bull ; an oryxX cow : - - = 2710 Group: The Guaso Nyero ; ivory-nut palms on the Guaso Nyero 276 Group: The old bull Athi giraffe ; the reticulated giraffe - 296 Group: Black-and-white crow; sparrow-lark; ant wheatear ; ostrich nest; rusty rock-rat ; sand-rat ; African hedgehog ; “‘mole-rat” = é : - - 312 Juma Yohari with the impalla killed by Kermit Roosevelt at Lake Hannington - : t . - - 318 The broken horn of another ram imbedded in the buck’s neck. Tarlton with a singsing shot by Mr. Roosevelt - - - 9338 The hyena, which was swollen with elephant meat, had gotten inside the huge body 5 - - - - 346 Rearing, the lion struck the man, bearing down the shield - $352 From a drawing by Philip R. Goodwin. Group: The spears that did the trick. Mr. Roosevelt photo- graphing the speared lion - - - - - 352 ILLUSTRATIONS XVil FACING PAGE Group: The lion as it fell. As he fell he gripped a spear-head in his jaws with such tremendous force that he bent it double - - : - - - - Sailinye, the Dorobo, who was with Kermit Roosevelt when he shot the bongo, holding up the bongo head - = Dance of boys of the Nyika tribe in honour of the chief’s son who had just died - - - - - - The situtunga shot by Kermit Roosevelt at Kampalla — - - Group: Ground hornbill; wagtail; nightjar; fish eagle ; crocodile ; Nile bushbuck ; cobus maria ; baker’s roan The “ white ” rhino - - - - - From a drawing by Philip R. Goodwin. The papyrus afire - - - - - - We walked up to within about twenty yards — - - - The cow and calf square-nosed rhino under the tree after being disturbed by the click of the camera - - - Group: The calf which was old enough to shift for itself refused to leave the body. When alarmed, they failed to make out where the danger lay - - - - - One remained standing, but the other deliberately sat down upon its haunches like a dog - - = - The monitor lizard robbing a crocodile’s nest — - Group: Kermit’s first giant eland cow, shot on the Redjaf trip. Giant eland bull — - - Es : g Mr. Roosevelt and Kermit Roosevelt with giant eland horns _ - 356 360 362 574 390 392 398 4.06 414 416 4.20 4.24 deb 448 — ¢ ie 4 be iM Pie | nor " ey, ; i= my H . Ny ; a9 ia ot, - c= 7 i el a ees ms uN pe 7 a a a eT: BE hs ie edi > SA, eee ner 1 ——_ ae oe - ‘th 2 o- hast a ‘aa | ia 2 ; (oy % a i} y+ ee a ; : : oe | r,. rr Shee dre! (ih A awa Sats 7 Ar. as i cae Lise ae : ‘ : ee 7 F _ " a P ee betel why z - ~ ij , SP Bee nie ae - 7 : | : ile - ; i 7 . 7 re 7 wife irs Rrre Mi ct\y “A We rst oF, - (a fy { 7 : 7 : _ oy : Tir a) _ pase ¢ 6 aL Li val : 2 ae ae “ & 4 | oe ; 1 .. Ql & 4 yrs 1 Bi] : : : - a 4 pia, | it ry. 7 oa 7 oe et! St } ,° i 7 af — : whe I : B he oa or 7) od * 7 ¢: ut ’ - & 40 SCALE OF MILES = = = 50 100 150 Tee ee — ‘ I g°N Queen Margherita rs FP = Lado,; So Ge \ [fe stron )))! ‘e, FF CONGO t yA 4 p Nimule i 2 val “-, ion an ee Zz, ow? P Wadelai SOME. Lovie “Tan, Swamp ss tell Nic § R A A 0 } > He , Ls iesrt Edward ; Mae ST Hanning IY Nakuro L Nakuno al = e L. 3: s. Kilima Njarar N 19,7 4 E A LALPOATES ENG. CO N.Y Longitude Greenwich Map showing Mr. Roosevelt’s route and hunting trips in Africa AFRICAN GAME TRAILS CHAPTER I A RAILROAD THROUGH THE PLEISTOCENE THE great world movement which began with the voyages of Columbus and Vasco da Gama, and which has gone on with ever-increasing rapidity and complexity until our own time, has developed along a myriad lines of interest. In no way has it been more interesting than in the way in which it has brought into sudden, violent, and intimate contact phases of the world’s life- history which would normally be separated by untold centuries of slow development. Again and again, in the continents new to peoples of European stock, we have seen the spectacle of a high civilization all at once thrust into and superimposed upon a_ wilderness of savage men and savage beasts. Nowhere, and at no time, has the contrast been more strange and more striking than in British East Africa during the last dozen years. The country lies directly under the Equator ; and the hinterland, due west, contains the huge Nyanza lakes, vast inland seas which gather the head-waters of the White Nile. This hinterland, with its lakes and its marshes, its snow-capped mountains, its high, dry 1 2 THE PLEISTOCENE AGE (CHE plateaux, and its forests of deadly luxuriance, was utterly unknown to white men half a century ago. The map of Ptolemy in the second century of our era gave a more accurate view of the lakes, mountains, and head- waters of the Nile than the maps published at the beginning of the second half of the nineteenth century, just before Speke, Grant, and Baker made their great trips of exploration and adventure. Behind these ex- plorers came others; and then adventurous mission- aries, traders, and elephant-hunters; and many men, whom risk did not daunt, who feared neither danger nor hardship, traversed the country hither and thither, now for one reason, now for another, now as naturalists, now as geographers, and again as Government officials or as mere wanderers who loved the wild and strange life which had survived over from an elder age. Most of the tribes were of pure savages, but here and there were intrusive races of higher type; and in Uganda, beyond the Victoria Nyanza, and on the head- waters of the Nile proper, lived a people which had — advanced to the upper stages of barbarism, which might almost be said to have developed a very primitive kind of semi-civilization. Over this people—for its good fortune—Great Britain established a protectorate ; and ultimately, in order to get easy access to this new out- post of civilization in the heart of the Dark Continent, the British Government built a railroad from the old Arab coast town of Mombasa westward to Victoria Nyanza. This railroad, the embodiment of the eager, masterful, materialistic civilization of to-day, was pushed through a region in which nature, both as regards wild man and pany wild beast, did not and does not differ materially from - what it was in Kurope in the late Pleistocene Age. The CH. 1] OUR PARTY 3 comparison is not fanciful. The teeming multitudes of wild creatures, the stupendous size of some of them, the terrible nature of others, and the low culture of many of the savage tribes, especially of the hunting tribes, substantially reproduces the conditions of life in Europe as it was led by our ancestors ages before the dawn of anything that could be called civilization. The great beasts that now live in East Africa were in that bygone age represented by close kinsfolk in Europe ; and in many places, up to the present moment, African man, absolutely naked, and armed as our early paleolithic ancestors were armed, lives among, and on, and in constant dread of, these beasts, just as was true of the men to whom the cave lion was a nightmare of terror, and the mammoth and the woolly rhinoceros possible but most formidable prey. This region, this great fragment out of the long- buried past of our race, is now accessible by railroad to all who care to go thither; and no field more inviting offers itself to hunter or naturalist, while even to the ordinary traveller it teems with interest. On March 23, 1909, I sailed thither from New York, in charge of a scientific expedition sent out by the Smithsonian In- stitute, to collect birds, mammals, reptiles, and plants, but especially specimens of big game, for the National Museum at Washington. In addition to myself and my son Kermit (who had entered Harvard a few months previously), the party consisted of three naturalists : Surgeon-Lieutenant-Colonel Edgar A. Mearns, U.S.A., retired; Mr. Edmund Heller, of California ; and Mr. J. Alden Loring, of Owego, New York. My arrangements for the trip had been chiefly made through two valued English friends, Mr. Frederick Courteney Selous, the greatest of the world’s big- game 4 THE PLEISTOCENE AGE [CcH. I hunters, and Mr. Edward North Buxton, also a mighty hunter. On landing, we were to be met by Messrs. R. J. Cuninghame and Leslie Tarlton, both famous hunters—the latter an Australian, who served through the South African War; the former by birth a Scots- man and a Cambridge man, but long a resident of Africa, and at one time a professional elephant-hunter, in addition to having been a whaler in the Arctic Ocean, a hunter-naturalist in Lapland, a transport rider in South Africa, and a collector for the British Museum in various odd corners of the earth. We sailed on the Hamburg from New York—what headway the Germans have made among those who go down to the sea in ships!—and at Naples transhipped to the Admiral, of another German line, the East African. On both ships we were as comfortable as possible, and the voyage was wholly devoid of incidents. Now and then, as at the Azores, at Suez, and at Aden, the three naturalists landed, and collected some dozens or scores of birds, which next day were skinned and prepared in my room, as the largest and best fitted for the purpose. After reaching Suez the ordinary tourist type of passenger ceased to be predominant; in his place there were Italian officers going out to a desolate coast town on the edge of Somaliland ; missionaries, German, English, and American ; Portuguese civil officials ; traders of different nationalities ; and planters and military and civil officers bound to German and British East Africa. The Englishmen included planters, magistrates, forest officials, army officers on leave from India, and other army officers going out to take command of black native levies in out-of-the-way regions where the English flag stands for all that makes life worth living. ‘They were a fine set, these young On, 1| OUR FELLOW-PASSENGERS 5 Englishmen, whether dashing army officers or capable civilians. ‘They reminded me of our own men who have reflected such honour on the American name, whether in civil and military positions in the Philippines and Porto Rico, working on the Canal Zone in Panama, taking care of the custom-houses in San Domingo, or serving in the army of occupation in Cuba. Moreover, I felt as if I knew most of them already, for they might have walked out of the pages of Kipling. But I was not as well prepared for the corresponding and equally interesting types among the Germans, the planters, the civil officials, the officers who had commanded, or were about to command, white or native troops—men of evident power and energy, seeing whom made it easy to understand why German East Africa has thriven apace. They are first-class men, these English and Germans; both are doing in East Africa a work of worth to the whole world ; there isample room for both, and no possible cause for any but a thoroughly friendly rivalry ; and it is earnestly to be wished, in the interest both of them and of outsiders too, that their relations will grow, as they ought to grow, steadily better—and not only in Kast Africa, but everywhere else. On the ship at Naples we found Selous, also bound for East Africa on a hunting trip; but he, a veteran whose first hunting in Africa was nearly forty years ago, cared only for exceptional trophies of a very few animals, while we, on the other hand, desired specimens of both sexes of all the species of big game that Kermit and I could shoot, as well as complete series of all the smaller mammals. We believed that our best work of a purely scientific character would be done with the mammals, both large and small. No other hunter alive has had the experience of 6 THE PLEISTOCENE AGE [cH. I Selous; and, so far as I now recall, no hunter of any- thing like his experience has ever also possessed his gift of penetrating observation joined to his power of vivid and accurate narration. He has killed scores of lion and rhinoceros and hundreds of elephant and buffalo ; and these four animals are the most dangerous of the world’s big game, when hunted as they are hunted in Africa. ‘To hear him tell of what he has seen and done is no less interesting to a naturalist than to a hunter. There were on the ship many men who loved wild nature, and who were keen hunters of big game; and almost every day, as we steamed over the hot, smooth waters of the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, we would gather on deck around Selous to listen to tales of those strange adventures that only come to the man who has lived long the lonely life of the wilderness. On April 21 we steamed into the beautiful and picturesque harbour of Mombasa. Many centuries before the Christian era, dhows from Arabia, carrying seafarers of Semitic races whose very names have perished, rounded the Lion’s Head at Guardafui and crept slowly southward along the barren African coast. Such dhows exist to-day almost unchanged, and bold indeed were the men who first steered them across the unknown oceans. They were men of iron heart and supple conscience, who fronted inconceivable danger and hardship ; they established trading-stations for gold and ivory and slaves; they turned these trading-stations into little cities and sultanates, half Arab, half negro. Mombasa was among them. In her time of brief splendour Portugal seized the city ; the Arabs won it back ; and now England holds it. It lies just south of the Equator, and when we saw it the brilliant green of the tropic foliage showed the town at its best. cH. 1] MOMBASA 7 We were welcomed to Government House in most cordial fashion by the acting Governor, Lieutenant- Governor Jackson, who is not only a trained public official of long experience, but a first-class field-naturalist and a renowned big-game hunter ; indeed, I could not too warmly express my appreciation of the hearty and generous courtesy with which we were received and treated, alike by the official and the unofficial world, throughout East Africa. We landed in the kind of torrential downpour that only comes in the tropics ; it reminded me of Panama at certain moments in the rainy season. That night we were given a dinner by the Mombasa Club, and it was interesting to meet the merchants and planters of the town and the neighbour- hood as well as the officials. The former included not only Englishmen, but also Germans and_ Italians, which is quite as it should be, for at least part of the high inland region of British East Africa can be made one kind of “ white man’s country,” and to achieve this white men should work heartily together, doing scrupulous justice to the natives, but remembering that progress and development in this particular kind of new land depend exclusively upon the masterful leadership of the whites, and that therefore it is both a calamity and a crime to permit the whites to be riven in sunder by hatreds and jealousies. The coast regions of British East Africa are not suited for extensive white settle- ment; but the hinterland is, and there everything should be done to encourage such settlement. Non- white aliens should not be encouraged to settle where they come into rivalry with the whites (exception being made as regards certain particular individuals and certain particular occupations). There are, of course, large regions on the coast and in 8 THE PLEISTOCENE AGE [CH. I the interior where ordinary white settlers cannot live, in which it would be wise to settle immigrants from India ; and there are many positions in other regions which it is to the advantage of everybody that the Indians should hold, because there is as yet no sign that sufficient numbers of white men are willing to hold them, while the native blacks, although many of them do fairly well in unskilled labour, are not yet competent to do the higher tasks which now fall to the share of the Goanese, and Moslem and non-Moslem Indians. The small merchants who deal with the natives, for instance, and most of the minor railroad officials, belong to these latter classes. I was amused, by the way, at one bit of native nomenclature in connection with the Goanese. Many of the Goanese are now as dark as most of the other Indians ; but they are descended in the male line from the early Portuguese adventurers and conquerors, who were the first white men ever seen by the natives of this coast. Accordingly, to this day some of the natives speak even of the dark-skinned descendants of the subjects of King Henry the Navigator as “the whites,” designating the Europeans specifically as English, Germans, or the like; just as in out-of-the- way nooks in the far North-West one of our own red men will occasionally be found who still speaks of Americans and Englishmen as “ Boston men” and “ King George’s men.” One of the Government farms was being run by an educated coloured man from Jamaica, and we were shown much courtesy by a coloured man from our own country who was practising as a doctor. No one could fail to be impressed with the immense advance these men represented as compared with the native negro ; and, indeed, to an American, who must necessarily | | | | | eI CH. I] ADVENTUROUS LIVES 9 think much of the race problem at home, it is pleasant to be made to realize in vivid fashion the progress the American negro has made by comparing him with the negro who dwells in Africa untouched, or but lightly touched, by white influence. In such a community as one finds in Mombasa or Nairobi one continually runs across quiet, modest men whose lives have been fuller of wild adventure than the life of a Viking leader of the ninth century. One of the public officials whom I met at the Governor’s table was Major Hinde. He had at one time served under the Government of the Congo Free State; and at a crisis in the fortunes of the State, when the Arab slave-traders bade fair to get the upper hand, he was one of the eight or ten white men, representing half as many distinct nationalities, who overthrew the savage soldiery of the slave-traders and shattered beyond recovery the Arab power. They organized the wild pagan tribes just as their Arab foes had done; they fought in a land where deadly sickness struck down victor and vanquished with ruthless impartiality ; they found their commissariat as best they could wherever they happened to be; often they depended upon one day’s victory to furnish the ammunition with which to wage the morrow’s battle ; and ever they had to be on guard no less against the thousands of cannibals in their own ranks than against the thousands of cannibals in the hostile ranks, for, on whichever side they fought, after every battle the warriors of the man-eating tribes watched their chance to butcher the wounded indiscriminately and to feast on the bodies of the slain. The most thrilling book of true lion-stories ever written is Colonel Patterson’s “The Man-eaters of Tsavo.” Colonel Patterson was one of the engineers 10 THE PLEISTOCENE AGE [cH. I engaged, some ten or twelve years back, in building the Uganda Railway. He was in charge of the work, at a place called Tsavo, when it was brought to a complete halt by the ravages of a couple of man-eating lions, which, after many adventures, he finally killed. At the dinner at the Mombasa Club I met one of the actors in a blood-curdling tragedy which Colonel Patterson relates. He was a German, and, in company with an Italian friend, he went down in the special car of one of the English railroad officials to try to kill a man-eating lion which had carried away several people from a station on the line. They put the car ona siding. As it was hot, the door was left open, and the Englishman sat by the open window to watch for the lion, while the Italian finally lay down on the floor and the German got into an upper bunk. Evidently the Englishman must have fallen asleep, and the lion, seeing him through the window, entered the carriage by the door to get at him. The Italian waked to find the lion standing on him with its hind-feet, while its fore-paws were on the seat as it killed the unfortunate Enghshman ; and the German, my informant, hearing the disturbance, leaped out of his bunk actually on to the back of the lion. The man-eater, however, was occupied only with his prey; holding the body in his mouth, he forced his way out through the window-sash, and made his meal undisturbed but a couple of hundred yards from the railway-carriage. The day after we landed we boarded the train to take what seems to me, as I think it would to most men fond of natural history, the most mteresting railway journey in the world. It was Governor Jackson’s special train, and in addition to his own party and ours there was only Selous; and we travelled with the CH. I] GAME RESERVES 11 utmost comfort through a naturalist’s wonderland. All civilized Governments are now realizing that it is their duty here and there to preserve certain defined districts, with the wild things thereon, the destruction of which means the destruction of half the charm of wild nature. The English Government has made a large game reserve of much of the region on the way to Nairobi, stretching far to the south, and one mile to the north, of the track. The reserve swarms with game; it would be of little value except as a reserve ; and the attraction it now offers to travellers renders it an asset of real consequence to the whole colony. The wise people of Maine, in our own country, have discovered that intelligent game preservation, carried out in good faith, and in a spirit of common sense as far removed from mushy sentimentality as from brutality, results in adding one more to the State’s natural resources of value; and in consequence there are more moose and deer in Maine to-day than there were forty years ago. There is a better chance for every man in Maine, rich or poor, provided that he is not a game butcher, to enjoy his share of good hunting ; and the number of sportsmen and tourists attracted to the State adds very appreciably to the means of livelihood of the citizen. Game reserves should not be established where they are detrimental to the interests of large bodies of settlers, nor yet should they be nominally established in regions so remote that the only men really interfered with are those who respect the law, while a premium is thereby put on the activity of the un- scrupulous persons who are eager to break it. Similarly, game laws should be drawn primarily in the interest of the whole people, keeping steadily in mind certain facts that ought to be self-evident to everyone above the 12 THE PLEISTOCENE AGE [cH. 1 intellectual level of those well-meaning persons who apparently think that all shooting is wrong, and that man could continue to exist if all wild animals were allowed to increase unchecked. ‘There must be recog- nition of the fact that almost any wild animal of the defenceless type, if its multiplication were unchecked, while its natural enemies—the dangerous carnivores— were killed, would by its simple increase crowd man off the planet ; and of the further fact that, far short of such increase, a time speedily comes when the existence of too much game is incompatible with the interests, or, indeed, the existence, of the cultivator. As in most other matters, it is only the happy mean which is healthy and rational. ‘There should be certain sanctuaries and nurseries where game can live and breed absolutely unmolested ; and elsewhere the laws should, so far as possible, provide for the continued existence of the game in sufficient numbers to allow a reasonable amount of hunting on fair terms to any hardy and vigorous man fond of the sport, and yet not in sufficient numbers to jeopardize the interests of the actual settler, the tiller of the soil, the man whose well-being should be the prime object to be kept in mind by every statesman. Game butchery is as objectionable as any other form of wanton cruelty or barbarity ; but to protest against all hunting of game is a sign of softness of head, not of soundness of heart. In the creation of the great game reserve through which the Uganda Railway runs the British Govern- ment has conferred a boon upon mankind, and no less in the enactment and enforcement of the game laws in the African provinces generally. Of course, experience will show where, from time to time, there must be changes. In Uganda proper buffaloes and hippos WO OO ee CH. 1] THE UGANDA RAILWAY 13 throve so under protection as to become sources of grave danger, not only to the crops, but to the lives of the natives, and they had to be taken off the protected lists and classed as vermin, to be shot in any numbers at any time, and only the great demand for ivory pre- vented the necessity of following the same course with regard to the elephant; while recently in British East Africa the increase of the zebras, and the harm they did to the crops of the settlers, rendered it necessary to remove a large measure of the protection formerly accorded them, and in some cases actually to encourage their slaughter ; and increase in settlement may neces- sitate further changes. But, speaking generally, much wisdom and foresight, highly creditable to both Govern- ment and people, have been shown in dealing with and preserving East African game, while at the same time safeguarding the interests of the settlers. On our train the locomotive was fitted with a com- fortable seat across the cow-catcher, and on this, except at meal-time, I spent most of the hours of daylight, usually in company with Selous, and often with Governor Jackson, to whom the territory and the game were alike familiar. The first afternoon we did not see many wild animals, but birds abounded, and the scenery was both beautiful and interesting. A black-and-white hornbill, feeding on the track, rose so late that we nearly caught it with our hands ; guinea-fowl and francolin, and occa- sionally bustard, rose near by; brilliant rollers, sun- birds, bee-eaters, and weaver-birds, flew beside us, or sat unmoved among the trees as the train passed. In the dusk we nearly ran over a hyena. A year or two previously the train actually did run over a lioness one night, and the conductor brought in her head in triumph. In fact, there have been continual mishaps, such as could 14 THE PLEISTOCENE AGE [CH. i only happen to a railroad in the Pleistocene Age! The very night we went up there was an interruption in the telegraph service, due to giraffes having knocked down some of the wires and a pole in crossing the track ; and elephants have more than once performed the same feat. Two or three times at night giraffes have been run into and killed: once a rhinoceros was killed, the engine being damaged in the encounter ; and on other occasions the rhino has only just left the track in time, once the beast being struck and a good deal hurt, the engine again being somewhat crippled. But the lions now offer, and have always offered, the chief source of unpleasant excitement. Throughout East Africa the lions continually take to man-eating at the expense of the native tribes, and white hunters are frequently being killed or crippled by them. At the lonely stations on the railroad the two or three subordinate officials often live in terror of some fearsome brute that has taken to haunting the vicinity; and every few months, at some one of these stations, a man is killed, or badly hurt by, or narrowly escapes from, a prowling lion. The stations at which the train stopped were neat and attractive ; and, besides the Indian officials, there were usually natives from the neighbourhood. Some of these might be dressed in the fez and shirt and trousers which indicate a coming under the white man’s influence, or which, rather curiously, may also indicate Mohammedanism. But most of the natives are still wild pagans, and many of them are unchanged in the shghtest particular from what their forefathers were during the countless ages when they alone were the heirs of the land—a land which they were utterly power- less in any way to improve. Some of the savages we saw wore red blankets, and in deference to white pre- | | | oe eee ae ell = cH. 1] NATURAL ZOOLOGICAL GARDEN 15 judice draped them so as to hide their nakedness. But others appeared—men and women—with literally not one stitch of clothing, although they might have rather elaborate hairdresses, and masses of metal ornaments on their arms and legs. In the region where one tribe dwelt all the people had their front teeth filed to sharp points. It was strange to see a group of these savages, stark naked, with oddly shaved heads and filed teeth, armed with primitive bows and arrows, stand gravely gazing at the train as it rolled into some station; and none the less strange, by the way, because the loco- motive was a Baldwin, brought to Africa across the great ocean from our own country. One group of women, nearly nude, had their upper arms so tightly bound with masses of bronze or copper wire that their muscles were completely malformed. So tightly was the wire wrapped round the upper third of the upper arm that it was reduced to about one-half of its normal size, and the muscles could only play, and that in de- formed fashion, below this unyielding metal bandage. Why the arms did not mortify it was hard to say, and their freedom of use was so hampered as to make it difficult to understand how men or women whose whole lives are passed in one or another form of manual labour could inflict upon themselves such crippling and pointless punishment. Next morning we were in the game country, and as we sat on the seat over the cow-catcher it was literally like passing through a vast zoological garden. Indeed, no such railway journey can be taken on any other line in any other land. At one time we passed a herd of a dozen or so of great giraffes, cows and calves, cantering along through the open woods a couple of hundred yards to the right of the train. Again, still closer, four 16 THE PLEISTOCENE AGE [CH. I waterbuck cows, their big ears thrown forward, stared at us without moving until we had passed. Hartebeests were everywhere ; one herd was on the track, and when the engine whistled they bucked and sprang with un- gainly agility and galloped clear of the danger. A long-tailed, straw-coloured monkey ran from one tree to another. Huge black ostriches appeared from time to time. Once a troop of impalla, close by the track, took fright ; and as the beautiful creatures fled we saw now one and now another bound clear over the high bushes. A herd of zebra clattered across a cutting of the line not a hundred yards ahead of the train; the whistle hurried their progress, but only for a moment, and as we passed they were already turning round to gaze. The wild creatures were in their sanctuary, and they knew it. Some of the settlers have at times grumbled at this game reserve being kept of such size, but surely it is one of the most valuable possessions the country could have. ‘The lack of water in parts, the prevalence in other parts of diseases harmful to both civilized man and domestic cattle, render this great tract: of country the home of all homes for the creatures of the waste. The protection given these wild creatures is genuine, not nominal; they are preserved, not for the pleasure of the few, but for the good of all who choose to see this strange and attractive spectacle; and from this nursery and breeding-ground the overflow keeps up the stock of game in the adjacent land, to the benefit of the settler to whom the game gives fresh meat, and to the benefit of the whole country because of the attraction it furnishes to all who desire to visit a veritable happy hunting- ground. Soon after lunch we drew up at the little station of Kapiti Plains, where our safari was awaiting us, “ safari” CH. I] FIELD NATURALISTS 17 being the term employed throughout East Africa to denote both the caravan with which one makes an expedition and the expedition itself. Our aim being to cure and send home specimens of all the common big game—in addition to as large a series as possible of the small mammals and birds—it was necessary to carry an elaborate apparatus of naturalists’ supplies. We had brought with us, for instance, four tons of fine salt, as to cure the skins of the big beasts is a Herculean labour under the best conditions. We had hundreds of traps for the small creatures; many boxes of shot-gun car- tridges, in addition to the ordinary rifle cartridges which alone would be necessary on a hunting trip; and, in short, all the many impedimenta needed if scientific work is to be properly done under modern conditions. Few laymen have any idea of the expense and pains which must be undergone in order to provide groups of mounted big animals from far-off lands, such as we see in museums like the National Museum in Washington and the American Museum of Natural History in New York. The modern naturalist must realize that in some of its branches his profession, while more than ever a science, has also become an art. So our preparations were necessarily on a very large scale ; and as we drew up at the station the array of porters and of tents looked as if some small military expedition was about to start. As a compliment, which I much appreciated, a large American flag was floating over my own tent ; _and in the front line, flanking this tent on either hand, were other big tents for the members of the party, with _adining tent and a skinning tent; while behind were the tents of the two hundred porters, the gun-bearers, the ' tent-boys, the askaris, or native soldiers, and the horse- | boys, or saises. In front of the tents stood the men in two 2 ( i \ | 18 THE PLEISTOCENE AGE [cH. i lines, the first containing the fifteen askaris, the second the porters with their head-men. The askaris were uniformed, each in a red fez, a blue blouse, and white knickerbockers, and each carrying his rifle and _ belt. The porters were chosen from several different tribes or races, to minimize the danger of combination in the event of mutiny. Here and there in East Africa one can utilize ox- waggons or pack-trains of donkeys ; but for a consider- able expedition it is still best to use a safari of native porters, of the type by which the commerce and ex- ploration of the country have always been carried on. The backbone of such a safari is generally composed of Swahili, the coast men, negroes who have acquired the Moslem religion, together with a partially Arabi- cized tongue and a strain of Arab blood from the Arab warriors and traders who have been dominant in the coast towns for so many centuries. It was these Swa- hili trading caravans, under Arab leadership, which, in their quest for ivory and slaves, trod out the routes which the early white explorers fullowed. Without their work as a preliminary, the work of the white explorers could not have been done; and it was the Swahili porters themselves who rendered this work itself possible. ‘To this day every hunter, trader, mis- slonary, or explorer must use either a Swahili safari or one modelled on the Swahili basis. The part played by the white-topped ox-waggon in the history of South Africa, and by the camel caravan in North Africa, has been played in middle Africa by the files of strong, patient, childlike savages, who have borne the burdens of so many masters and employers hither and thither, through and across, the dark heart of the continent. Equatorial Africa is in most places none too healthy | | | | cH. 1] PREPARATIONS 19 a place for the white man, and he must care for himself as he would scorn to do in the lands of pine and _ birch and frosty weather. Camping in the Rockies or the North Woods can with advantage be combined with “roughing it”; and the early pioneers of the West, the explorers, prospectors, and hunters, who always roughed it, were as hardy as bears, and lived to a hale old age, if Indians and accidents permitted. But in tropical Africa a lamentable proportion of the early explorers paid in health or life for the hardships they endured ; and throughout most of the country no man can long rough it, in the Western and Northern sense, with impunity. At Kapiti Plains our tents, our accommodation generally, seemed almost too comfortable for men who knew camp life only on the Great Plains, in the Rockies, and in the North Woods. My tent had a fly, which was to protect it from the great heat ; there was a little rear extension in which I bathed—a hot bath, never a cold bath, is almost a tropic necessity ; there was a ground canvas, of vital moment in a land of ticks, jiggers, and scorpions ; and a cot to sleep on, so as to be raised from the ground. Quite a contrast to life on the round-up! Then, I had two tent-boys to see after my belongings, and to wait at table as well as in the tent. Ali, a Mohammedan mulatto (Arab and negro), was the chief of the two, and spoke some English, while under him was ‘“ Bill,” a speechless black boy, Ali being particularly faithful and efficient. Two other Mohammedan negroes, clad like the askaris, reported to me as my gun-bearers, Muhammed and Bakiri; seemingly excellent men, loyal and enduring, no trackers, but with keen eyes for game, and the former speaking a little English. My two horse-boys, or saises, were both pagans. One, Hamisi, must have had in his veins Galla 20 THE PLEISTOCENE AGE [eter or other non-negro blood; derived from the Hamitic, or bastard Semitic, or at least non-negro, tribes which, pushing slowly and fitfully southward and south- westward among the negro peoples, have created an intricate tangle of ethnic and linguistic types from the middle Nile to far south of the Equator. Hamisi always wore a long feather in one of his sandals, the only ornament he affected. The other sais was a silent, gentle-mannered_ black heathen; his name was Simba, a lion, and, as I shall later show, he was not unworthy of it. The two horses for which these men cared were stout, quiet little beasts; one, a sorrel, [ named ‘Tran- quillity, and the other, a brown, had so much the coblike build of a zebra that we christened him Zebra-shape. One of Kermit’s two horses, by the way, was more romantically named after Huandaw, the sharp-eared steed of the ** Mabinogion.” Cuninghame, lean, sinewy, bearded, exactly the type of hunter and safari manager that one would wish for such an expedition as ours, had ridden up with us on the train, and at the station we met Tarlton, and also two settlers of the neighbourhood, Sir Alfred Pease and Mr. Clifford Hill. Hull was an Africander. He and his cousin, Harold Hill, after serving through the South African War, had come to the new country of British East Africa to settle, and they represented the ideal type of settler for taking the lead in the spread of empire. ‘They were descended from the English colonists who came to South Africa in 1820; they had never been in England, neither had Tarlton. It was exceedingly interesting to meet these Australians and Africanders, who typified in their lives and deeds the greatness of the British Empire, and yet had never seen England. As for Sir Alfred, Kermit and I were to be his guests CH. 1] KAPITI STATION 21 for the next fortnight, and we owe primarily to him, to his mastery of hunting craft, and his unvarying and generous hospitality and kindness, the pleasure and success of our introduction to African hunting. His life had been one of such varied interest as has only been possible in our own generation. He had served many years in Parliament; he had for some years been a magistrate in a peculiarly responsible post in the Transvaal; he had journeyed and hunted and explored in the northern Sahara, in the Soudan, in Somaliland, in Abyssinia; and now he was ranching in East Africa. A singularly good rider and one of the best game shots I have ever seen, it would have been impossible to find a kinder host or a hunter better fitted to teach us how to begin our work with African big game. At Kapiti Station there was little beyond the station buildings, a ** compound ” or square enclosure in which there were many natives, and an Indian store. ‘The last was presided over by a turbaned Mussulman, the agent of other Indian traders who did business in Machakos-boma, a native village a dozen miles distant ; the means of communication being two-wheeled carts, each drawn by four humped oxen, driven by a wellnigh naked savage. For forty-eight hours we were busy arranging our outfit, and the naturalists took much longer. The provisions were those usually included in an African hunting or exploring trip, save that, in memory of my days in the West, I included in each provision box a few cans of Boston baked beans, California peaches, and tomatoes. We had plenty of warm bedding, for the nights are cold at high altitudes, even under the Equator. While hunting I wore heavy shoes, with hobnails or rubber soles; khaki trousers, the knees faced with 22 THE PLEISTOCENE AGE [cH. 1 leather, and the legs buttoning tight from the knee to below the ankle, to avoid the need of leggings ; a khaki- coloured army shirt, and a sun helmet, which I wore in deference to local advice, instead of my beloved and far more convenient slouch hat. My rifles were an army Springfield, 30-calibre, stocked and sighted to suit myself; a Winchester -405; and a double-barrelled ‘500-450 Holland, a beautiful weapon presented to me by some English friends.! 1 Mr. E. N. Buxton took the lead in the matter when he heard that I intended making a trip after big game in Africa. I received the rifle at the White House, while I was President. Inside the case was the following list of donors : LIST OF ZOOLOGISTS AND SPORTSMEN WHO ARE DONORS OF A DOUBLE ELEPHANT RIFLE TO THE HON. THEODORE ROOSEVELT, PRESIDENT U.S.A. IN RECOGNITION OF HIS SERVICES ON BEHALF OF THE PRESERVATION OF SPECIES BY MEANS OF NATIONAL PARKS AND FOREST RESERVES, AND BY OTHER MEANS E. N. Buxton, Ese. Rr. Hon. Lorp Avesury, D.C.L. (“The Pleasures of Life,” etc.) MaJor-Generat Sir F. Recrvatp Wineare, K.C.B. (Governor- General of the Soudan.) Str Epmunp G. Loner, Barr. Hon. N. C. Roruscuip. Tur Eart or Lonspate. (Master of Hounds.) Sm R. G. Harvey, Barr. Tue Ricur Hon. Lorp Curzon or Kepiesron, G.C.S.1., G.C.LE. Sr. Georce Lirriepae, Ese. Dr. P. Cuatmers Mircueit, F.R.S., F.Z.S. (Secretary of the Zoological Society.) C. E. Green, Esa. (Master of Essex Hounds.) F.C. Srxous, Esa. (“ A Hunter’s Wanderings,” etc.) Count BLUcHer. Lreut.-Cotonet C. DetmE Ranpciirrr, C.M.G., M.V.O. Mauricr Ecrerron, Ese. Lorp Deszoroucn, C.V.O. Carrain M, McNeEm1, OS OO a er CH. 1] OUR ARMAMENT 23 Kermit’s battery was of the same type, except that instead of a Springfield he had another Winchester, shooting the army ammunition, and his double-barrel was a Rigby. In addition I had a Fox No. 12 shot- gun; no better gun was ever made. CraupE H. Trirron, Esa. J. Turner-Turner, Ese. Hon. L. W. Roruscuitp, M.P. Ricut Hon. Sir E. Grey, Barr., M.P. (Foreign Secretary and author of “ Dry Fly Fishing.”) Sir M. pe C. Fixvtay, C.M.G. (British Minister at Dresden.) C. Pururprs-Wortey, Ese, F.R.G.S. (“Sport in the Caucasus.”) Ricut Hon. Sir G. O. Trevetyan, Bart., D.C.L. (“The American Revolution.”) Warsurton Pike, Esa. Sir Wo. E. Garstin, G.C.M.G. His Grack tHE Duke or Beprorp, K.G. (Author of “ A Great Estate.”) Her Grace tHE Ducuess oF Beprorp, Lorp Brassry, G.C.B., M.V.O. (Owner of the Sunbeam.) Hon. T. A. Brassey. (Editor of the Naval Annual.) Ruys Wittrams, Esa. Masor-GeneraL A, A. A. Kintocn, C.B. (“Large Game in Thibet.”) Si Wm. Lee-Warner, K.C.S.I. (“The Protected Princes of India.”) Tue Ricur Rev. roe Lorp Bisnor or Lonpon. Masor-GeNERAL DatryMpLeE WHITE. CotoneL CLaupDE CANE. Ricur Hon. SypNey Buxron, M.P. (Postmaster-General, “ Fish- ing and Shooting.”) Maysor C. E. Ranciyrre, D.S.O. Sir A. E. Pease, Barr. (‘ Cleveland Hounds.”) Sir H. H. Jounsron, K.C.B., G.C.M.G. (“The Uganda Pro- tectorate.”) Axe. Cuapman, Ese. (‘ Wild Spain.”) J. G. Miats, Esa., F.Z.S. (“ A Breath from the Veldt.”) E. Lorr-Pururrs, Ese. (Author of ornithological works.) R. Kearron, Esa., F.Z.S. (* Wild Nature’s Ways.”) J. H. Gurney, Ese., F.Z.S. (Works on ornithology.) F. J. Jackson, C.B., C.M.G., Lrevur.-Governor East AFRICAN Prorecrorate. (‘ Big Game,” Badminton Library.) CoLoneEt Sir F. Lucarp, K.C.M.G., C.B., D.S.O. 24 THE PLEISTOCENE AGE __[cu.1 There was one other bit of impedimenta, less usual for African travel, but perhaps almost as essential for real enjoyment even on a hunting trip, if it is to be of any length. This was the ‘ pigskin library,” so called because most of the books were bound in pigskin. They were carried in a light aluminium and oilcloth case, which, with its contents, weighed a little less than sixty pounds, making a load for one porter. Including a few volumes carried in the various bags, so that I might be sure always to have one with me, and ‘“Gregorovius,” read on the voyage outward, the list was as printed in Appendix F. It represents in part Kermit’s taste, in part mine; and, I need hardly say, it also represents in no way all the books we most care for, but merely those which, for one reason or another, we thought we should like to take on this particular trip. I used my Whitman tree army saddle and my army field-glasses ; but, in addition, for studying the habits of the game, I carried a telescope given me on the boat by a fellow traveller and big-game hunter, an Irish Hussar Captain from India—and incidentally I am out in my guess if this same Irish Hussar Captain be not worth watching should his country ever again be engaged in Lapy Lucarp. (“A Tropical Dependency.”) Sir Crement L. Hii, K.C.B., M.P. (Late Head of the African Department, Foreign Office.) Sir H. Srron-Karr, M.P.,C.M.G. (“My Sporting Holidays.”) Carrain Boyp ALExanpER. (‘From the Niger to the Nile.”) Sir J. Kirk, K.C.B., G.C.M.G. (Dr. Livingstone’s companion, 1858-64.) Moreron Frewen, Esa. Tuer Ear or Warwick. P. L. Scrarer, Ese., D.Sc., Pu.D. (Late Secretary Zoological Society.) Coronet J. H. Parrerson, D.S.O. (“'The Tsavo Lion.”) CH. 1] OUR CAMP 25 war. I had a very ingenious beam or scale for weigh- ing game, designed and presented to me by my friend, Mr. Thompson Seton. I had a slicker for wet weather, an army overcoat, and a mackinaw jacket for cold, if I had to stay out overnight in the mountains. In my pockets I carried, of course, a knife, a compass, and a waterproof matchbox. Finally, just before leaving home, I had been sent, for good luck, a gold-mounted rabbit’s foot, by Mr. John L. Sullivan, at one time ring champion of the world. Our camp was on a bare, dry plain, covered with brown and withered grass. At most hours of the day we could see round about, perhaps a mile or so distant, or less, the game feeding. South of the track the reserve stretched for a long distance ; north it went for but a mile, just enough to prevent thoughtless or cruel people from shooting as they went by in the train. ‘There was very little water; what we drank, by the way, was care- fully boiled. The drawback to the camp, and to all this plains region, lay in the ticks, which swarmed, and were a scourge to man and beast. Every evening the saises picked them by hundreds off each horse, and some of our party were at times so bitten by the noisome little creatures that they could hardly sleep at night, and in one or two cases the man was actually laid up for a couple of days; and two of our horses ultimately got _ tick fever, but recovered. In mid-afternoon of our third day in this camp we at last had matters in such shape that Kermit and I could begin our hunting; and forth we rode, he with Hill, I with Sir Alfred, each accompanied by his gun-bearers and sais, and by a few porters to carry in the game. For two or three miles our little horses shuffled steadily northward across the desolate flats of short grass until 26 THE PLEISTOCENE AGE CH. 1] the ground began to rise here and there into low hills, or kopjes, with rock-strewn tops. It should have been the rainy season, the season of “the big rains”; but the rains were late, as the parched desolation of the land- scape bore witness; nevertheless, there were two or three showers that afternoon. We soon began to see game, but the flatness of the country and the absence of all cover made stalking a matter of difficulty ; the only bushes were a few sparsely-scattered mimosas, stunted things, two or three feet high, scantily leaved, but abounding in bulbous swellings on the twigs, and in long, sharp spikes of thorns. There were herds of harte- beest and wildebeest, and smaller parties of beautiful gazelles. The last were of two kinds, named severally, after their discoverers, the explorers Grant and Thomson ; many of the creatures of this region commemorate the men—Schilling, Jackson, Neumann, Kirke, Chanler, Abbot—who first saw and hunted them and brought them to the notice of the scientific world. The Thomson’s gazelles, or tommies, as they are always locally called, are pretty, alert little things, half the size of our prongbuck ; their big brothers, the Grant’s, are among the most beautiful of all antelopes, being rather larger than a whitetail deer, with singularly graceful carriage, while the old bucks carry long lyre-shaped horns. Distances are deceptive on the bare plains under the African sunlight. I saw a fine Grant, and stalked him in a rain squall, but the bullets from the little Springfield fell short as he raced away to safety; I had under- estimated the range. Then I shot, for the table, a good buck of the smaller gazelle, at two hundred and twenty- five yards; the bullet went a little high, breaking his back above the shoulders, wee ee... eee, rt st (at; CH. I] WILDEBEEST 27 But what I really wanted were two good specimens, bull and cow, of the wildebeest. These powerful, un- gainly beasts, a variety of the brindled gnu or blue wildebeest of South Africa, are interesting creatures of queer, eccentric habits. With their shaggy manes, heavy forequarters, and generally bovine look, they remind one somewhat of our bison at a distance ; but of course they are much less bulky, a big old bull in prime con- dition rarely reaching a weight of seven hundred pounds. They are beasts of the open plains, ever alert and wary. The cows, with their calves and one or more herd-bulls, keep in parties of several score ; the old bulls, singly or two or three together, keep by themselves or with herds of zebra, hartebeest, or gazelle ; for one of the interesting features of African wild life is the close association and companionship so often seen between totally different species of game. Wildebeest are as savage as they are suspicious ; when wounded they do not hesitate to charge a man who comes close, although of course neither they nor any other antelopes can be called dangerous when in a wild state, any more than moose or other deer can be called dangerous; when tame, however, wildebeest are very dangerous indeed—more so than an ordinary domestic bull. The wild, queer- looking creatures prance and rollick and cut strange capers when a herd first makes up its mind to flee from a stranger’s approach; and even a solitary bull will sometimes plunge and buck as it starts to gallop off; while a couple of bulls, when the herd is frightened, may relieve their feelings by a moment’s furious battle, occasionally dropping to their knees before closing. At this time, the end of April, there were little calves with the herds of cows; but in many places in Equatorial Africa the various species of antelopes seem to have no 28 THE PLEISTOCENE AGE (cH. I settled rutting-time or breeding-time ; at least, we saw calves of all ages. Our hunt after wildebeest this afternoon was success- ful; but, though by veldt law each animal was mine because I hit it first, yet in reality the credit was com- munistic, so to speak, and my share was properly less than that of others. I first tried to get up to a solitary old bull, and after a good deal of manceuvring, and by taking advantage of a second rain squall, I got a standing shot at him at four hundred yards, and hit him, but too far back. Although keeping a good distance away, he tacked and veered so, as he ran, that by much running myself I got various other shots at him, at very long range, but missed them all, and he finally galloped over a distant ridge, his long tail switching, seemingly rot much the worse. We followed on horseback, for I hate to let any wounded thing escape to suffer. But mean- while he had run into view of Kermit ; and Kermit— who is of an age and build which better fit him for successful breakneck galloping over unknown country dotted with holes and bits of rotten ground—took up the chase with enthusiasm. Yet it was sunset, after a run of six or eight miles, when he finally ran into and killed the tough old bull, which had turned to bay, snorting and tossing its horns. Meanwhile I managed to get within three hundred and fifty yards of a herd, and picked out a large cow which was unaccompanied by a calf. Again my bullet went too far back, and I could not hit the animal at that distance as it ran. But after going half a mile it lay down, and would have been secured without diffi- culty if a wretched dog had not run forward and put it — up. My horse was a long way back; but Pease, who had been looking on at a distance, was mounted, and NS eee A herd of zebra and hartebeest One of the interesting features of African wild life is the close association and companionship so often seen between two totally different species of game From photographs by Kermit Roosevelt cH. 1] KITANGA 29 sped after it. By the time I had reached my horse Pease was out of sight; but, riding hard for some miles, I overtook him, just before the sun went down, standing by the cow, which he had ridden down and slain. It was long after nightfall before we reached camp, ready for a hot bath and a good supper. As always thereafter with anything we shot, we used the meat for food, and preserved the skins for the National Museum. Both the cow and the bull were fat and in fine condition ; but they were covered with ticks, especially wherever the skin was bare. Around the eyes the loathsome creatures swarmed so as to make complete rims, like spectacles ; and in the armpits and the groin they were massed so that they looked like barnacles on an old boat. It is astonishing that the game should mind them so little; the wildebeest evidently dreaded far more the biting flies which hung around them, and the maggots of the bot-flies in their nostrils must have been a sore torment. Nature is merciless indeed. The next day we rode some sixteen miles to the beautiful hills of Kitanga, and for over a fortnight were either Pease’s guests at his farm—ranch, as we should call it in the West—or were on _ safari under his guidance. CHAPTER II ON AN EAST AFRICAN RANCH Tne house at which we were staying stood on the beautiful Kitanga Hills. They were so named after an Englishman, to whom the natives had given the name of Kitanga. Some years ago, as we were told, he had been killed by a lion near where the ranch house now stood ; and we were shown his grave in the little Machakos graveyard. ‘The house was one story high, clean and comfortable, with a veranda running round three sides ; and on the veranda were lion-skins and the skull of a rhinoceros. From the house we looked over hills and wide, lonely plains; the green valley below, with its flat-topped acacias, was very lovely ; and in the evening we could see, scores of miles away, the snowy summit of mighty Kilimanjaro turn crimson in the setting sun. The twilights were not long; and when night fell, stars new to Northern eyes flashed glorious in the sky. Above the horizon hung the Southern Cross, and directly opposite in the heavens was our old familiar friend the Wain, the Great Bear, upside down and pointing to a North Star so low behind a hill that we could not see it. It is a dry country, and we saw it in the second year of a drought; yet I believe it to be a country of high promise for settlers of white race. In many ways it reminds one rather curiously of the great 30 CH. IT] WATER STORAGE 31 plains of the West, where they slope upward to the foothills of the Rockies. It is a white man’s country. Although under the Equator, the altitude is so high that the nights are cool, and the region as a whole is very healthy. I saw many children—of the Boer immigrants, of English settlers, even of American missionaries—and they looked sound and well. Of course, there was no real identity in any feature ; but again and again the landscape struck me by its general likeness to the cattle country I knew so well. As my horse shuffled forward, under the bright, hot sunlight, across the endless flats or gently rolling slopes of brown and withered grass, I might have been on the plains anywhere from Texas to Montana. The hills were like our Western buttes; the half-dry watercourses were fringed with trees, just as if they had been the Sandy, or the Dry, or the Beaver, or the Cottonwood, or any of the multitude of creeks that repeat these and similar names, again and again, from the Panhandle to the Saskatchewan. Moreover a Westerner, far better than an Easterner, could see the possibilities of the country. There should be storage reservoirs in the hills and along _ the rivers—in my judgment built by the Government, and paid for by the water-users in the shape of water- rents—and irrigation ditches. With the water stored and used there would be an excellent opening for small | farmers, for the settlers, the actual home-makers, who, above all others, should be encouraged to come into a white man’s country like this of the highlands of East Africa. Even as it is, many settlers do well ; it is hard to realize that right under the Equator the conditions are such that wheat, potatoes, strawberries, apples, all flourish. No new country is a place for weaklings ; but the right kind of man, the settler who makes a success 382. ON AN EAST AFRICAN RANCH (ca. in similar parts of our own West, can do well in East Africa, while a man with money can undoubtedly do very well indeed; and incidentally both men will be leading their lives under conditions peculiarly attractive to a certain kind of spirit. It means hard work, of course ; but success generally does imply hard work. The plains were generally covered only with the thick grass on which the great herds of game fed ; here and there small thorn-trees grew upon them, but usually so small and scattered as to give no shelter or cover. By the occasional watercourses the trees grew more thickly, and also on the hills and in the valleys between. Most of the trees were mimosas, or of similar kind, usually thorny; but there were giant cactus - like euphorbias, shaped like candelabra, and named accord- ingly ; and on the higher hills fig-trees, wild olives, and many others whose names I do not know, but some of which were stately and beautiful. Many of the mimosas were in bloom, and covered with sweet- smelling yellow blossoms. ‘There were many flowers. On the dry plains there were bushes of the colour and size of our own sagebrush, covered with flowers like morning glories. There were also wild sweet-peas, on which the ostriches fed, as they did on another plant with a lilac flower of a faint heliotrope fragrance. Among the hills there were masses of singularly fragrant flowers like pink jessamines, growing on bushes sometimes fifteen feet high or over. There were white flowers that smelt like narcissus, blue flowers, red lilies, orange tiger-llies, and many others of many kinds and colours, while here and there in the pools of the rare rivers grew the sweet-scented purple lotus-lily. There was an infinite variety of birds, small and large, CH. 11] BIRDS OF THE DISTRICT 33 dull-coloured and of the most brilliant plumage. For the most part they either had no names at all or names that meant nothing to us. There were glossy starlings of many kinds, and scores of species of weaver-finches, some brilliantly coloured, others remarkable because of the elaborate nests they built by communities among the trees. There were many kinds of shrikes, some of them big parti-coloured birds, almost like magpies, and with a kestrel-like habit of hovering in the air over one spot; others very small and prettily coloured. ‘There was a little red-billed finch with its outer tail feathers several times the length of its head and body. There was a little emerald cuckoo, and a tiny thing, a barbet, that looked exactly like a kingfisher, four inches long. Eared owls flew up from the reeds and grass. ‘There were big, restless, wonderfully-coloured plantain-eaters in the woods, and hornbills, with strange swollen beaks. A true lark, coloured like our meadow-lark (to which it is in no way related) sang from bushes ; but the clapper- lark made its curious clapping sounds (apparently with its wings, like a ruffed grouse) while it zigzagged in the ur. Little pipits sang overhead like our Missouri sky- larks. There were nightjars, and doves of various kinds, one of which uttered a series of notes slightly resembling the call of our whip-poor-will or chuckwill’s widow. The beautiful little sunbirds were the most gorgeous of all. Then there were bustards, great and small, and snake-eating secretary birds, on the plains ; and francolins, and African spur-fowl, with brilliant | naked throats, and sand grouse that flew in packs uttering guttural notes. The wealth of bird life was bewildering. There was not much bird music, judged _by the standards of a temperate climate; but the | bulbuls and one or two warblers sang very sweetly. | 3 34 ON AN EAST AFRICAN RANCH [cu. U The naturalists caught shrews and mice in their traps ; molerats with velvety fur, which burrowed like our pocket gophers; rats that lived in holes like those of our kangaroo rat ; and one mouse that was striped like our striped gopher. ‘There were conies among the rocks on the hills ; they looked like squat, heavy wood- chucks, but their teeth were somewhat like those of a wee rhinoceros, and they had little hoof-lke nails instead of claws. There were civets and wild-cats, and things like a small mongoose. But the most interesting mammal we saw was a brilliantly-coloured yellow and blue, or yellow and slate, bat, which we put up one day while beating through a ravine. It had been hanging from a mimosa twig, and it flew well in the strong sun- light, looking like some huge parti-coloured butterfly. It was a settled country, this in which we did our first hunting, and for this reason all the more interesting. The growth and development of East and Middle Africa are phenomena of such absorbing interest, that I was delighted at the chance to see the parts where settle- ment has already begun before plunging into the absolute wilderness. ‘There was much to remind one of conditions in Montana and Wyoming thirty years ago ; the ranches planted down among the hills and on the plains still teeming with game, the spirit of daring adventure everywhere visible, the hope and the heart- breaking disappointment, the successes and the failures. But the problem offered by the natives bore no resem- blance to that once offered by the presence of our tribes of horse Indians, few in numbers and incredibly formidable in war. The natives of East Africa are numerous; many of them are agricultural or pastoral peoples after their own fashion ; and even the bravest of them, the warlike Masai, are in no way formidable CH. II] THE WAKAMBA 35 as our Indians were formidable when they went on the war-path. ‘The ranch country I first visited was in what was once the domain of the Wakamba, and in the greater part of it the tribes still dwell. They are in most ways primitive savages, with an imperfect and feeble social, and therefore military, organization ; they live in small communities under their local chiefs ; they file their teeth, and though they wear blankets in the neighbourhood of the whites, these blankets are often cast aside; even when the blanket is worn, it is often in such fashion as merely to accentuate the otherwise absolute nakedness of both sexes. Yet these savages are cattle-keepers and cattle-raisers, and the women do a good deal of simple agricultural work ; unfortunately, they are wastefully destructive of the forests. ‘The chief of each little village is recognized as the official head- man by the British official, is given support, and _ is required to help the authorities keep peace and stamp out cattle disease—the two most important functions of government so far as the Wakamba themselves are concerned. All the tribes have their herds of black, brown, and white goats, of mottled sheep, and especially of small humped cattle. The cattle form their pride and joy. During the day each herd is accompanied by the herdsmen, and at night it is driven within its boma, or circular fence of thorn-bushes. Except for the milk, which they keep im thew foul, smoky calabashes, the natives really make no use of their cattle; they do not know how to work them, and they never eat them even in time of starvation. When there is prolonged drought, and consequent failure of crops, the foolish creatures die by the hundreds when they might readily be saved if they were willing to eat the herds which they persist in treating as ornaments rather than as made for use. 36 ON AN EAST AFRICAN RANCH ([cu. Many of the natives work for the settlers, as cattle- keepers, as ostrich-keepers, or, after a fashion, as labourers. The settlers evidently much prefer to rely upon the natives for unskilled labour rather than see coolies from Hindostan brought into the country. At Sir Alfred Pease’s ranch, as at most of the other farms of the neighbourhood, we found little Wakamba settle- ments. Untold ages separated employers and employed; yet those that I saw seemed to get on well together. The Wakamba are as yet not sufficiently advanced to warrant their sharing in the smallest degree in the com- mon government ; the “just consent of the governed ” in their case, if taken literally, would mean idleness, famine, and endless internecine warfare. ‘They cannot govern themselves from within; therefore they must be governed from without ; and their need is met in highest fashion by firm and just control, of the kind that on the whole they are now getting. At Kitanga the natives on the place sometimes worked about the house; and they took care of the stock. ‘The elders looked after the mild little humped cattle—bulls, steers, and cows; and the children, often the merest toddlers, took naturally to guarding the parties of pretty little calves, during the daytime, when they were separated from their mothers. It was an ostrich-farm, too; and in the morning and evening we would meet the great birds, as they went to their grazing-grounds or returned to the ostrich boma, mincing along with their usual air of foolish stateliness, convoyed by two or three boys, each with a red blanket, a throwing stick, copper wire round his legs and arms, and perhaps a feather stuck in his hair. There were a number of ranches in the neighbour- hood—using “neighbourhood” in the large Western | | a CH. IT] BOER SETTLERS 37 sense, for they were many miles apart. The Hills— Clifford and Harold—were Africanders ; they knew the country, and were working hard and doing well; and in the midst of their work they spared the time to do their full part in insuring a successful hunt to me, an entire stranger. All the settlers I met treated me with the same large and thoughtful courtesy—and what fine fellows they were! and their wives even finer. At Bondini was Percival, a tall sinewy man, a fine rider and shot; like so many other men whom I met, he wore merely a helmet, a flannel shirt, short breeches or trunks, and puttees and boots, leaving the knee entirely bare. I shall not soon forget seeing him one day, as he walked beside his twelve-ox team, cracking his long whip, while in the big waggon sat pretty Mrs. Percival with a puppy and a little cheetah cub, which we had found and presented to her, and which she was taming. They all—Sir Alfred, the Hills, everyone—behaved as if each was my host and felt it peculiarly incumbent on him to give me a good time; and among these hosts one who did very much for me was Captain Arthur Slatter. I was his guest at Kilimakiu, where he was running an ostrich-farm ; he had lost his right hand, yet he was an exceedingly good game shot, both with his light and his heavy rifles. At Kitanga, Sir Alfred’s place, two Boers were working, Messrs. Prinsloo and Klopper. We _ fore- gathered, of course, as I, too, was of Dutch ancestry. They were strong, upstanding men, good mechanics, good masons, and Prinsloo spoke English well. I afterward stopped at the farm of Klopper’s father, and at the farm of another Boer named Loijs; and I met other Boers while out hunting— Erasmus, Botha, Joubert, Meyer. They were descendants of the Voor 38 ON AN EAST AFRICAN RANCH [cu. trekkers with the same names who led the hard-fighting farmers northward from the Cape seventy years ago, and were kinsfolk of the men who since then have made these names honourably known throughout the world. There must, of course, be many Boers who have gone backward under the stress of a hard and semi-savage life; just as in our communities of the frontier, the backwoods, and the lonely mountains, there are shiftless “ poor whites ” and ‘mean whites” mingled with the sturdy men and women who have laid deep the foundations of our national greatness. But personally I happened not to come across these shiftless ‘* mean white ” Boers. Those that T met, both men and women, were of as good a type as anyone could wish for in his own countrymen or could admire in another nationality. They fulfilled the three prime requisites for any race: they worked hard, they could fight hard at need, and they had plenty of children. These are the three essential qualities in any and every nation ; they are by no means all-sufficient in themselves, and there is need that many others should be added to them; but the lack of any one of them is fatal, and cannot be made good by the presence of any other set of attributes. It was pleasant to see the good terms on which Boer and Briton met. Many of the English settlers whose guest I was, or with whom I hunted—the Hills, Captain Slatter, Heatley, Judd—had fought through the South African War; and so had all the Boers I met. The latter had been for the most part members of various particularly hard-fighting commandos; when the war closed they felt very bitterly, and wished to avoid living under the British flag. Some moved west and some east ; those I met were among the many hundreds, indeed thousands, who travelled northward —a few over- CH. 11] ENGLISH AND DUTCH 39 land, most of them by water—to German East Africa. But in the part in which they happened to settle they were decimated by fever, and their stock perished of cattle sickness; and most of them had again moved northward, and once more found themselves under the British fiag. 'They were being treated precisely on an equality with the British settlers ; and every well-wisher to his kind, and above all every well-wisher to Africa, must hope that the men who in South Africa fought so valiantly against one another, each for the right as he saw it, will speedily grow into a companionship of mutual respect, regard, and consideration such as that which, for our inestimable good fortune, now knits closely together in our own land the men who wore the blue and the men who wore the grey and their descendants. There could be no better and manlier people than those, both English and Dutch, who are at this moment engaged in the great and difficult task of adding East Africa to the domain of civilization ; their work is bound to be hard enough anyhow, and it would be a lamentable calamity to render it more difficult by keeping alive a bitterness which has lost all point and justification, or by failing to recognize the fundamental virtues, the fundamental characteristics, in which the men of the two stocks are in reality so much alike. Messrs. Klopper and Loijs, whose farms I visited, were doing well. The latter, with three of his sons, took me out with pride to show me the dam which they had built across a dry watercourse, so as to make a storage reservoir when the rains came. ‘The houses were of stone, and clean and comfortable; the floors were covered with the skins of buck and zebra; the chairs were home-made, as was most of the other furniture ; the “rust bunks,” or couches, strongly and gracefully 40 ON AN EAST AFRICAN RANCH [cu. 0 shaped, and filled with plaited raw hide, were so attrac- tive that I ordered one to take home. ‘There were neatly kept little flower-gardens, suffering much from the drought; there were ovens and out - buildings ; cattle-sheds for the humped oxen and the herds of pretty cows and calves; the biltong was drying in smoke-houses ; there were patches of ground in cultiva- tion, for corn and vegetables ; and the wild veldt came up to the door-sills, and the wild game grazed quietly on all sides within sight of the houses. It was a very good kind of pioneer life; and there could be no better pioneer settlers than Boers such as I saw. The older men wore full beards, and were spare and sinewy. The young men were generally smooth-faced or moustached, strongly built, and rather shy. ‘The elder women were stout, cordial, motherly housewives ; the younger were often really pretty. At their houses I was received with hearty hospitality, and given coffee or fresh milk, while we conversed through the medium of the sons or daughters, who knew a little English. They all knew that I was of Dutch origin, and were much interested when I repeated to them the only Dutch I knew, a nursery song which, as I told them, had been handed down to me by my own forefathers, and which in return I had repeated so many, many times to my children when they were little. It runs as follows, by the way; but I have no idea how the words are spelled, as I have no written copy; it is supposed to be sung by the father, who holds the little boy or little girl on his knee, and tosses him or her up in the air when he comes to the last line: “'Trippa, troppa, tronjes, De varken’s in de boonjes, De koejes in de klaver, De paardeen in de haver, CH. 11] BRITONS AND BOERS 41 De eenjes in de water-plass ! So groot myn kleine (here insert the little boy’s or little girl’s name) wass !” My pronunciation caused trouble at first; but I think they understood me the more readily because doubtless their own usual tongue was in some sort a dialect ; and some of them already knew the song, while they were all pleased and amused at my remembering and repeat- ing it; and we were speedily on a most friendly footing. T he essential identity of interest between the Boer and British settlers was shown by their attitude toward the district commissioner, Mr. Humphries, who was just leaving for his biennial holiday, and who dined with us in our tent on his way out. . From both Boer farmer and English settler—and from the American missionaries also—I heard praise of Humphries, as a strong man, not in the least afraid of either settler or native, but bound to do justice to both, and, what was quite as important, sympathizing with the settlers and knowing and understanding their needs. A new country in which white pioneer rele are struggling with the iron difficulties and hardships of frontier life is, above all others, that in which the officials should be men having both knowledge and sympathy with the other men over whom they are placed and for whom they should work. My host and hostess, Sir Alfred and Lady Pease, were on the best terms with all their neighbours, and their friendly interest was returned. Now it was the wife of a Boer farmer who sent over a basket of flowers, now came a box of apples from an English settler on the hills; now Prinsloo the Boer stopped to dinner ; now the McMillans—American friends, of whose farm and my stay thereon I shall speak later—rode over 42 ON AN EAST AFRICAN RANCH (cu. 1 from their house on the Mua Hills, with their guest, Selous, to take lunch. This, by the way, was after I had shot my first lions, and I was much pleased to be able to show Selous the trophies. My gentle-voiced hostess and her daughter had seen many strange lands and strange happenings, as was natural with a husband and father of such adventure- loving nature. They took a keen interest, untinged by the slightest nervousness, in every kind of wild creature, from lions and leopards down. ‘The game was in sight from the veranda of the house almost every hour of the day. Karly one morning, in the mist, three hartebeests came right up to the wire fence, two score yards from the house itself; and the black and white striped zebra and ruddy hartebeest grazed or rested through the long afternoons in plain view on the hillsides opposite. It is hard for one who has not himself seen it to realize the immense quantities of game to be found on the Kapiti Plains and Athi Plains and the hills that bound them. The common game of the plains, the animals of which I saw most while at Kitanga and in the neighbourhood, were the zebra, wildebeest, harte- beest, Grant’s gazelle, and “tommies,” or Thomson’s gazelle ; the zebra and the hartebeest, usually known by the Swahili name of kongoni, being by far the most plentiful. Then there were impalla, mountain reed- buck, duyker, steinbuck, and diminutive dikdik. As we travelled and hunted, we were hardly ever out of sight of game; and on Pease’s farm itself there were many thousand head, and so there were on Slatter’s. If wealthy men, who desire sport of the most varied and interesting kind, would purchase farms like these, they could get, for much less money, many times the —. ee. ee... ee ee ~~~ = cH. um] PROTECTIVE COLORATION 43 interest and enjoyment a deer-forest or grouse-moor can afford. The wildebeest or gnu were the shyest and least plentiful, but in some ways the most interesting, be- cause of the queer streak of ferocious eccentricity evident in all their actions. They were of all the animals those that were most exclusively dwellers in the open, where there was neither hill nor bush. Their size and their dark bluish hides, sometimes showing white in the sunlight, but more often black, rendered them more easily seen than any of their companions. But hardly any plains animal of any size makes any effort to escape its enemies by eluding their observa- tion. Very much of what is commonly said about “protective coloration” has no basis whatever in fact. Black and white are normally the most conspicuous colours in nature (and yet are borne by numerous creatures who have succeeded well in the struggle for life); but almost any tint, or combination of tints, among the greys, browns, and duns harmonizes fairly well with at least some surroundings in most land- scapes; and in but a few instances among the larger mammals, and in almost none among those frequenting the open plains, is there the slightest reason for sup- posing that the creature gains any benefit whatever from what is loosely called its “ protective coloration.” Giraffes, leopards, and zebras, for instance, have actually been held up as instances of creatures that are “ pro- tectingly ” coloured, and are benefited thereby. The giraffe is one of the most conspicuous objects in nature, and never makes the slightest effort to hide. Near by its mottled hide is very noticeable, but, as a matter of fact, under any ordinary circumstances any possible foe trusting to eyesight would discover the giraffe so far 44 ON AN EAST AFRICAN RANCH (cu. away that its colouring would seem uniform—that 1s, would, because of the distance, be indistinguishable from a general tint, which really might have a slight protective value. In other words, while it is possible that the giraffe’s beautifully waved colouring may under certain circumstances, and in an infinitesimally small number of cases, put it at a slight disadvantage in the struggle for life, in the enormous majority of cases—a majority so great as to make the remaining cases negligible—it has no effect whatever, one way or the other; and it is safe to say that under no conditions is its colouring of the slightest value to it as affording it “protection” from foes trusting to their eyesight. So it is with the leopard. It is undoubtedly much less conspicuous than if it were black; and yet the black leopards, the melanistic individuals, thrive as well as their spotted brothers ; while, on the whole, it is prob- ably slightly more conspicuous than if it were nearly unicolour, like the American cougar. As compared with the cougar’s tawny hide, the leopard’s coloration represents a very slight disadvantage, and not an advan- tage, to the beast ; but its life is led under conditions which make either the advantage or the disadvantage so slight as to be negligible. Its peculiar coloration is probably in actual fact of hardly the slightest service to it from the “ protective ” standpoint, whether as regards escaping from its enemies or approaching its prey. It has extraordinary facility in hiding ; it is a master of the art of stealthy approach ; but it is normally nocturnal, and by night the colour of its hide is of no consequence whatever; while by day, as I have already said, its varied coloration renders it slightly more easy to detect than is the case with the cougar. All of this applies with peculiar force to the zebra, | en. E] ZEBRAS AND GAZELLES 45 which it has also been somewhat the fashion of recent years to hold up as an example of ‘“ protective colora- tion.” As a matter of fact, the zebra’s coloration is not protective at all: on the contrary, it is exceedingly conspicuous, and under the actual conditions of the zebra’s life, probably never hides it from its foes; the instances to the contrary being due to conditions so exceptional that they may be disregarded. If any man seriously regards the zebra’s coloration as ‘ protective,” let him try the experiment of wearing a hunting-suit of the zebra pattern; he will speedily be undeceived. The zebra is peculiarly a beast of the open plains, and makes no effort ever to hide from the observation of its foes. It is occasionally found in open forest, and may there now and then escape observation simply as any animal of any colour—a dun hartebeest or a nearly black bushbuck—may escape observation. At a dis- tance of over a few hundred yards the zebra’s colora- tion ceases to be conspicuous simply because the distance has caused it to lose all its distinctive character —that is, all the quality which could possibly make it protective. Near by it is always very conspicuous, and if the conditions are such that any animal can be seen at all, a zebra will catch the eye much more quickly than a Grant’s gazelle, for instance. These gazelles, by the way, although much less conspicuously coloured than the zebra, bear when young, and the females even when adult, the dark side stripe which characterizes all sexes and ages of the smaller gazelle, the “tommy”; it is a very conspicuous marking, quite inexplicable on any theory of protective coloration. The truth is that no game of the plains is helped in any way by its coloration in evading its foes, and none seeks to escape the vision of its foes. The larger game animals of the plains are 46 ON AN EAST AFRICAN RANCH [cu. 11 always walking and standing in conspicuous places, and never seek to hide or take advantage of cover; while, on the contrary, the little grass and bush antelopes, like the duyker and steinbuck, trust very much to their power of hiding, and endeavour to escape the sight of their foes by lying absolutely still, in the hope of not being made out against their background. On_ the plains one sees the wildebeest farthest off and with most ease; the zebra and hartebeest next; the gazelle last. The wildebeest are very wary. While the hunter is still a long way off the animal will stop grazing and stand with head raised, the heavy shoulders and short neck making it unmistakable. Then, when it makes up its mind to allow no closer approach, it brandishes its long tail, springs and plunges, runs once or twice in semicircles, and is off, the head held much lower than the shoulders, the tail still lashing ; and now and then a bull may toss up the dust with its horns. The herds of cows and calves usually contain one or two or more bulls ; and in addition, dotted here and there over the plain, are single bulls or small parties of bulls, usually past their prime or not yet full grown. These bulls are often found in the company of hartebeests or zebras, and stray zebras and hartebeests are often found with the wildebeest herds. ‘The stomachs of those I opened contained nothing but grass; they are grazers, not browsers. The hartebeest are much faster, and if really frightened speedily leave their clumsy-looking friends behind; but the wildebeest, as I have seen them, are by far the most wary. The wildebeest and zebra seemed to me to lie down less freely than the hartebeest ; but I frequently came on herds of both lying down during the heat of the day. Sometimes CH. IT] ANTELOPE AT part of the herd will stand drowsily erect and the rest lie down. Near Kitanga there were three wildebeest which were usually found with a big herd of hartebeest, and which regularly every afternoon lay down for some hours, just as their friends did. ‘The animal has a very bovine look, and though called an antelope it is quite as close kin to the oxen as it is to many of the other beasts also called antelope. The fact is that antelope is not an exact term at all, but merely means any hollow- horned ruminant which the observer happens to think is not a sheep, goat, or ox. When, with Linneus, the first serious effort at the systematization of living nature began, men naturally groped in the effort to see correctly and to express what they saw. When they came to describe the hollow-horned ruminants, they, of course, already had names at hand for anything that looked like one of the domestic creatures with which they were familiar ; and as “ antelope ” was also already a name of general, though vague, currency for some wild creatures, they called everything an antelope that did not seem to come in one of the more familiar domestic categories. Study has shown that sheep and goats grade into one another among the wild species; and the so-called antelopes include forms differing from one another quite as sharply as any of them differ from their kinsfolk that are represented in the farmyard. Zebras share with hartebeest the distinction of being the most abundant game animal on the plains, through- out the whole Athi region. ‘The two creatures are fond of associating together, usually in mixed herds, but sometimes there will merely be one or two individuals of one species in a big herd of the other. ‘They are sometimes, though less frequently than the hartebeest, 48 ON AN EAST AFRICAN RANCH (cu. found in open bush country ; but they live in the open plains by choice. I could not find out that they had fixed times for resting, feeding, and going to water. They and the hartebeest formed the favourite prey of the numerous lions of the neighbourhood, and I believe that the nights, even the moonlight nights, were passed by both animals under a nervous strain of apprehension, ever dreading the attack of their arch-enemy, and stampeding from it. Their stampedes cause the utmost exasperation to the settlers, for when in terror of the real or imaginary attack of a lion, their mad, heedless rush takes them through a wire fence as if it were made of twine and pasteboard. But a few months before my arrival a mixed herd of zebra and hartebeest, stampeded either by lions or wild-dogs, rushed through the streets of Nairobi, several being killed by the inhabitants, and one of the victims falling just outside the Episcopal Church. The zebras are nearly powerless when seized by lions, but they are bold creatures against less formid- able foes, trusting in their hoofs and their strong jaws ; they will, when in a herd, drive off hyenas or wild-dogs, and will turn on hounds if the hunter is not near. If the lion is abroad in the daytime, they, as well as the other game, seem to realize that he cannot run them down; and though they follow his movements with great alertness, and keep at a respectful distance, they show no panic. Ordinarily, as I saw them, they did not seem very shy of men, but in this respect all the game displayed the widest differences, from time to time, without any real cause, that I could discern, for the difference. At one hour, or on one day, the zebra and hartebeest would flee from our approach when half a mile off, and again they would permit us to come CH. IT] ZEBRAS 49 within a couple of hundred yards before moving slowly away. On two or three occasions at lunch herds of zebra remained for half an hour watching us with much curiosity not over a hundred yards off. Once, when we had been vainly beating for lions at the foot of the Elukania ridge, at least a thousand zebras stood, in herds, on every side of us, throughout lunch; they were from two to four hundred yards distant, and I was especially struck by the fact that those which were to leeward and had our wind were no more alarmed than the others, I have seen them water at dawn and sunset, and also in the middle of the day; and I have seen them grazing at every hour of the day, although I believe most freely in the morning and evening. At noon, and until the late afternoon, those I saw were not infrequently resting, either standing or lying down. They are noisy. Hartebeests merely snort or sneeze now and then, but the shrill, querulous barking of the ‘“‘bonte quaha,” as the Boers call the zebra, is one of the common sounds of the African plains, both by day and night. It is usually represented in books by the syllables *qua-ha-ha”; but of course our letters and syllables were not made to represent, and can only in arbitrary and conventional fashion represent, the calls of birds and mammals ; the bark of the bonte quagga or common zebra could just as well be represented by the syllables “ba-wa-wa, and as a matter of fact it can readily be mistaken for the bark of a shrill-voiced dog. After one of a herd has been killed by a lion or a hunter, its companions are particularly apt to keep uttering their ery. Zebras are very beautiful creatures, and it was an unending pleasure to watch them. I never molested them save to procure specimens for the museums, or food for the porters, who like their rather rank flesh. + 50 ON AN EAST AFRICAN RANCH (cu. 1 They were covered with ticks like the other game; on the groin, and many of the tenderest spots, the odious creatures were in solid clusters; yet the zebras were all in high condition, with masses of oily yellow fat. One stallion weighed six hundred and fifty pounds. The hartebeest—Coke’s hartebeest, known locally by the Swahili name of ‘* kongoni ”—were at least as plenti- ful, and almost as tame, as the zebras. As with the other game of Equatorial Africa, we found the young ot all ages; there seems to be no especial breeding-time, and no one period among the males corresponding to the rutting season among Northern animals. The hartebeests were usually inseparable companions of the zebras ; but, though they were by preference beasts of the bare plain, they were rather more often found in open bush than were their striped friends. There are in the country numerous anthills, which one sees in every stage of development, from a patch of bare earth with a few funnel-like towers, to a hillock a dozen feet high and as many yards in circumference. On these big anthills one or two kongoni will often post themselves as look- outs, and are then almost impossible to approach. ‘The bulls sometimes fight hard among themselves, and, although their horns are not very formidable weapons, yet I knew of one case in which a bull was killed in such a duel, his chest being ripped open by his adver- sary’s horns; and now and then a bull will kneel and grind its face and horns into the dust or mud. Often a whole herd will gather around and on an anthill, or even a small patch of level ground, and make it a regular stamping-ground, treading it into dust with their sharp hoofs. They have another habit which I have not seen touched on in the books. Ordinarily their droppings are scattered anywhere on the plain; but again and CH. 11] GRANTS GAZELLE 51 again I found where hartebeests—and, more rarely, Grant’s gazelles—had in large numbers deposited their droppings for some time in one spot. Hartebeest are homely creatures, with long faces, high withers, and showing, when first in motion, a rather ungainly gait ; but they are among the swiftest and most enduring of antelope, and when at speed their action is easy and regular. When pursued by a dog they will often play before him, just as a tommy will, taking great leaps with all four legs inclined backward, evidently in a spirit of fun and derision. In the stomachs of those | killed, as in those of the zebras, I found only grass and a few ground-plants ; even in the open bush or thinly- wooded country they seemed to graze, and not browse. One fat and heavy bull weighed 340 pounds ; a very old bull, with horns much worn down, 299 pounds ; and a cow in high condition, 315 pounds. The Grant's gazelle is the most beautiful of all these plains creatures. It is about the size of a big white-tail deer; one heavy buck which I shot, although with poor horns, weighed 171 pounds. The finest among the old bucks have beautiful lyre-shaped horns, over two feet long, and their proud, graceful carriage and lightness of movement render them a delight to the eye. As I have already said, the young and the females have the dark side stripe which marks all the tommies ; but the old bucks lack this, and their colour fades into the brown or sandy of the dry plains far more completely than is the case with zebra or kongoni. Like the other game of the plains, they are sometimes found in small parties, or else in fair-sized herds, by themselves, and sometimes with other beasts ; I have seen a single fine buck in a herd of several hundred zebra and kongoni. The Thomson’s gazelles, hardly a third the weight of their 52 ON AN EAST AFRICAN RANCH [cu larger kinsfolk, are found scattered everywhere ; they are not as highly gregarious as the zebra and kongoni, and are not found in such big herds; but their little bands—now a buck and several does, now a couple of does with their fawns, now three or four bucks together, now a score of individuals—are scattered everywhere on the flats. Like the Grants, their flesh is delicious, and they seem to have much the same habits. But they have one very marked characteristic—their tails keep up an incessant nervous twitching, never being still for more than a few seconds at a time, while the larger gazelle in this part of its range rarely moves its tail at all. They are grazers, and they feed, rest, and go to water at irregular times, or, at least, at different times in different localities ; and although they are most apt to rest during the heat of the day, I have seen them get up soon after noon, having lain down for a couple of hours, feed for an hour or so, and then lhe down again. In the same way the habits of the game as to migration vary with the different districts, in Africa as in America. here are places where all the game, perhaps notably the wildebeests, gather in herds of thousands, at certain times, and travel for scores of miles, so that a district which is teeming with game at one time may be almost barren of large wild life at another. But my information was that around the Kapiti plains there was no such complete and extensive shift. If the rains are abundant and the grass rank, most of the game will be found far out in the middle of the plains; if, as was the case at the time of my visit, there has been a long drought, the game will be found ten or fifteen miles away, near or among the foothills. Unless there was something special on, like a lion or rhinoceros hunt, I usually rode off followed only by my CH. I1] SOLITARY RIDES 58 sais and gun-bearers. I cannot describe the beauty and the unceasing interest of these rides, through the teem- ing herds of game. It was like retracing the steps of time for sixty or seventy years, and being back in the days of Cornwallis Harris and Gordon Cumming, in the palmy times of the giant fauna of South Africa. On Pease’s own farm one day I passed through scores of herds of the beautiful and wonderful wild creatures I have spoken of above; all told there were several thousands of them. With the exception of the wilde- beest, most of them were not shy, and I could have taken scores of shots at a distance of a couple of hundred yards or thereabouts. Of course, I did not shoot at anything unless we were out of meat or needed the skin for the collection ; and when we took the skin we almost always took the meat too, for the porters, although they had their rations of rice, depended for much of their well-being on our success with the rifle. These rides through the wild, lonely country, with only my silent black followers, had a peculiar charm. When the sky was overcast it was cool and pleasant, for it is a high country; as soon as the sun appeared the vertical tropic rays made the air quiver above the scorched land. As we passed down a hill-side we brushed through aromatic shrubs, and the hot, pleasant fragrance enveloped us. When we came to a nearly dry watercourse, there would be beds of rushes, beautiful lilies and lush green plants with staring flowers, and great deep green fig-trees, or flat-topped mimosas. In many of these trees there were sure to be native bee- hives; these were sections of hollow logs hung from the branches; they formed striking and characteristic features of the landscape. Wherever there was any moisture there were flowers, brilliant of hue and many 54 ON AN EAST AFRICAN RANCH [cu. 11 of them sweet of smell; and birds of numerous kinds abounded. When we left the hills and the wooded watercourses we might ride hour after hour across the barren desolation of the flats, while herds of zebra and hartebeest stared at us through the heat haze. Then the zebra, with shrili, barking neighs, would file off across the horizon, or the high-withered hartebeests, snorting and bucking, would rush off in a confused mass, aS unreasoning panic succeeded foolish confidence. If I shot anything, vultures of several kinds and the tall, hideous marabout storks gathered before the skinners were through with their work; they usually stayed at a wary distance, but the handsome ravens, glossy-hued, with white napes, big-billed, long-winged, and short-tailed, came round more familiarly. I rarely had to take the trouble to stalk anything ; the shooting was necessarily at rather long range, but by manoeuvring a little, and never walking straight toward a beast, I was usually able to get whatever the naturalists wished. Sometimes I shot fairly well, and sometimes badly. On one day, for instance, the entry in my diary ran: ‘* Missed steinbuck, pig, impalla and Grant ; awful.” On another day it ran in part as follows: ‘Out with Heller. Hartebeest, 250 yards, facing me; shot through face, broke neck. Zebra, very large, quartering, 160 yards, between neck and shoulder. Buck Grant, 220 yards, walking, behind shoulder. Steinbuck, 180 yards, standing, behind — shoulder.’ Generally each head of game bagged cost me a goodly number of bullets ; but only twice did I wound animals which I failed to get; in the other cases the extra cartridges represented either misses at animals which got clean away untouched, or else a running fusillade at wounded animals which I eventually got. I am a very strong believer in making sure, and, therefore, in shoot- CH. IT] SMALLER ANTELOPES Do ing at a wounded animal as long as there is the least chance of its getting off. The expenditure of a few cartridges is of no consequence whatever compared to the escape of a single head of game which should have been bagged. Shooting at long range necessitates much running. Some of my successful shots at Grant's gazelle and kongoni were made at 300, 350, and 400 yards ; but at such distances my proportion of misses was very large indeed—and there were altogether too many even at shorter ranges. The so-called grass antelopes, the steinbuck and duyker, were the ones at which I shot worst. ‘They were quite plentiful, and they got up close, seeking to escape observation by hiding until the last moment ; but they were small, and when they did go they rushed half- hidden through the grass and in and out among the bushes at such a speed, and with such jumps and twists and turns, that I found it wellnigh impossible to hit them with the rifle. The few I got were generally shot when they happened to stand still. On the steep, rocky, bush-clad hills there were little klipspringers and the mountain reedbuck, or Chanler’s reedbuck, a very pretty little creature. Usually we found the reedbuck does and their fawns in small parties, and the bucks by themselves ; but we saw too few to enable us to tell whether this represented their normal habits. They fed on the grass, the hill plants, and the tips of certain of the shrubs, and were true mountaineers in their love of the rocks and rough ground, to which they fled in frantic haste when alarmed. They were shy and elusive little things, but not wary in the sense that some of the larger antelopes are wary. I shot two does with three bullets, all of which hit. Then I tried hard for a buck ; at last, late _ one evening, I got up to one feeding on a steep hillside, 56 ON AN EAST AFRICAN RANCH [cu. u and actually took ten shots to kill him, hitting him no less than seven times. Occasionally we drove a ravine or a range of hills by means of beaters. On such occasions all kinds of things were put up. Most of the beaters, especially if they were wild savages impressed for the purpose from some neighbouring tribe, carried throwing-sticks, with which they were very expert, as, indeed, were some of the colonials, like the Hills. Hares, looking and behaving much like small jack-rabbits, were plentiful both on the plains and in the ravines, and dozens of these were knocked over; while on several occasions I saw franco- lins and spurfowl cut down on the wing by a throwing- stick hurled from some unusually dexterous hand. ‘The beats, with the noise and laughter of the good- humoured, excitable savages, and the alert interest as to what would turn up next, were great fun; but the days I enjoyed most were those spent alone with my horse and gun-bearers. We might be off by dawn, and see the tropic sun flame splendid over the brink of the world ; strange creatures rustled through the bush or fled dimly through the long grass, before the light grew bright: and the air was fresh and sweet as it blew in our faces. When the still heat of noon drew near I would stop under a tree, with my water canteen and my lunch. ‘The men lay in the shade, and the hobbled pony grazed close by, while I either dozed or else watched through my telescope the herds of game lying down or standing drowsily in the distance. As the shadows lengthened I would again mount, and finally ride homeward as the red sunset paled to amber and opal, and all the vast, mysterious African landscape grew to wonderful beauty in the dying twilight. CHAPTER III LION-HUNTING ON THE KAPITI PLAINS THe dangerous game of Africa are the lion, buffalo, elephant, rhinoceros, and leopard. The hunter who follows any of these animals always does so at a certain risk to life or limb—a risk which it is his business to minimize by coolness, caution, good judgment, and straight shooting. The leopard is in point of pluck and ferocity more than the equal of the other four; but his small size always renders it likely that he will merely maul, and not kill, a man. My friend Carl Akely, of Chicago, actually killed bare-handed a leopard which sprang on him. He had already wounded the beast twice, crippling it in one front and one hind paw; whereupon it charged, followed him as he tried to - dodge the charge, and struck him full just as he turned. It bit him in one arm, biting again and again as it worked up the arm from the wrist to the elbow; but _ Akely threw it, holding its throat with the other hand, and flinging its body to one side. It luckily fell on its side, with its two wounded legs uppermost, so that it could not tear him. He fell forward with it and crushed in its chest with his knees, until he distinctly felt one of its ribs crack; this, said Akely, was the first / moment when he felt he might conquer. Redoubling | his efforts, with knees and hand, he actually choked | 57 J 58 LION-HUNTING [cH. II and crushed the life out of it, although his arm was badly bitten. A leopard will charge at least as readily as one of the big beasts, and is rather more apt to get his charge home, but the risk is less to life than to limb. There are other animals often or occasionally danger- ous to human life which are, nevertheless, not dangerous to the hunter. Crocodiles are far greater pests, and far more often man-eaters, than lions or leopards ; but their shooting is not accompanied by the smallest element of risk. Poisonous snakes are fruitful sources of accident, but they are actuated only by fear and the anger born of fear. ‘The hippopotamus sometimes destroys boats and kills those in them; but again there is no risk in hunting him. Finally, the hyena, too cowardly ever to be a source of danger to the hunter, is sometimes a dreadful curse to the weak and helpless. ‘The hyena is a beast of unusual strength and of enormous power in his jaws and teeth, and thrice over would he be dreaded were fang and sinew driven by a heart of the leopard’s cruel courage. But though the creature’s foul and evil ferocity has no such backing as that yielded by the angry daring of the spotted cat, it is yet fraught with a terror all its own; for on occasion the hyena takes to man-eating after its own fashion. Carrion-feeder though it is, in certain places it will enter native huts and carry away children or even sleeping adults ; and where famine or disease has worked havoc among a people, the hideous spotted beasts become bolder and prey on the survivors. For some years past Uganda has been scourged by the sleeping-sickness, which has ravaged it as in the Middle Ages the Black Death ravaged Europe. Hundreds of thousands of natives have died. Every effort has been made by the Government officials to cope with the disease; and among other things sleeping-sickness | O—— OO ee CH. II] RAVAGES OF HYENAS 59 camps have been established, where those stricken by the dread malady can be isolated and cease to be possible sources of infection to their fellows. Recovery among those stricken is so rare as to be almost unknown, but the disease is often slow, and months may elapse during which the diseased man is still able to live his life much as usual. In the big camps of doomed men and women thus established there were, therefore, many persons carrying on their avocations much as in an ordinary native village. But the hyenas speedily found that in many of the huts the inmates were a helpless prey. In 1908 and throughout the early part of 1909 they grew constantly bolder, haunting these sleeping- sickness camps, and each night entering them, bursting into the huts and carrying off and eating the dying people. To guard against them, each little group of huts was enclosed by a thick hedge; but after a while the hyenas learned to break through the hedges, and continued their ravages, so that every night armed sentries had to patrol the camps, and every night they could be heard firing at the marauders. The men thus preyed on were sick to death, and for the most part helpless. But occasionally men in full vigour are attacked. One of Pease’s native hunters was seized by a hyena as he slept beside the camp-fire, and part of his face torn off. Selous informed me that a friend of his, Major R. 'T. Coryndon, then Administrator of North-Western Rhodesia, was attacked by a hyena but two or three years ago. At the time Major Coryndon was lying, wrapped in a blanket, beside his waggon. A hyena, stealthily approaching through the night, seized him by the hand and dragged him out of bed; but, as he struggled and called out, the beast left him and ran off into the darkness. In spite of his torn hand the 60 LION-HUNTING (CH. TL Major was determined to get his assailant, which he felt sure would soon return. Accordingly, he went back to his bed, drew his cocked rifle beside him, pointing toward his feet, and feigned sleep. When all was still once more, a dim form loomed up through the un- certain light, toward the foot of the bed; it was the ravenous beast returning for his prey, and the Major shot and killed it where it stood. A few months ago a hyena entered the outskirts of Nairobi, crept into a hut, and seized and killed a native man. At Nairobi the wild creatures are always at the threshold of the town, and often cross it. At Governor Jackson's table, at Government House, | met Mr. and Mrs. Sandiford. Mr. Sandiford is managing the rail- road. A few months previously, while he was sitting with his family in his own house in Nairobi, he happened to ask his daughter to look for something in one of the bedrooms. She returned in a minute, quietly remark- ing: “ Father, there’s a leopard under the bed.” So there was; and it was then remembered that the house- cat had been showing a marked and alert distrust of the room in question—very probably the leopard had got into the house while trying to catch her or one of the dogs. A neighbour with a rifle was summoned, and shot the leopard. Hyenas not infrequently kill mules and donkeys, tearing open their bellies, and eating them while they are still alive. Yet when themselves assailed they usually behave with abject cowardice. ‘The Hills had a large Airedale terrier, an energetic dog of much courage. Not long before our visit this dog put up a hyena from a bushy ravine in broad daylight, ran after it, overtook it, and flew at it. The hyena made no effective fight, although the dog—not a third its CH. IIT] HYENAS 61 weight—bit it severely, and delayed its flight so that it was killed. During the first few weeks of our trip I not infrequently heard hyenas after nightfall, but saw none. Kermit, however, put one out of a ravine or dry creek-bed—a donga, as it is locally called—and though the brute had a long start he galloped after it and succeeded in running it down. The chase was a long one, for twice the hyena got in such rocky country that he almost distanced his pursuer; but at last, after covering nearly ten miles, Kermit ran into it in the open, shooting it from the saddle as it shambled along at a canter growling with rage and terror. [I would not have recognized the cry of the hyenas from what I had read, and it was long before I heard them laugh. Pease said that he had only once heard them really laugh. On that occasion he was watching for lions outside a Somali zareba. Suddenly a leopard leaped clear over the zareba, close beside him, and in a few seconds came flying back again, over the high thorn fence, with a sheep in its mouth; but no sooner had it landed than the hyenas rushed at it and took away the sheep, and then their cackling and shrieking sounded exactly like the most unpleasant kind of laughter. The normal death of very old lions, as they grow starved and feeble —unless they are previously killed in an encounter with dangerous game like buffalo—is to be killed and eaten by hyenas; but of course a lion in full vigour pays no heed to hyenas, unless it is to kill one if it gets in the way. During the last few decades, in Africa, hundreds of white hunters, and thousands of native hunters, have been killed or wounded by lions, buffaloes, elephants, and rhinos. All are dangerous game; each species has to its gruesome credit a long list of mighty hunters 62 LION-HUNTING [CH. III slain or disabled. Among those competent to express judgment there is the widest difference of opinion as to the comparative danger in hunting the several kinds of animals. Probably no other hunter who has ever lived has combined Selous’s experience with his skill as a hunter and his power of accurate observation and narra- tion. He has killed between three and four hundred lions, elephants, buffaloes, and rhinos, and he ranks the lion as much the most dangerous, and the rhino as much the least, while he puts the buffalo and elephant in between, and practically on a par. Governor Jackson has killed between eighty and ninety of the four animals ; and he puts the buffalo unquestionably first in point of formidable capacity as a foe, the elephant equally un- questionably second, the lion third, and the rhino last. Stigand puts them in the following order : lion, elephant, rhino, leopard, and buffalo. Drummond, who wrote a capital book on South African game, who was for years a professional hunter like Selous, and who had fine opportunities for observation, but who was a much less accurate observer than Selous, put the rhino as un- questionably the most dangerous, with the lion as second, and the buffalo and elephant nearly on a level. Samuel Baker, a mighty hunter and good observer, but with less experience of African game than any one of the above, put the elephant first, the rhino second, the buffalo seem- ingly third, and the lion last. ‘The experts of greatest experience thus absolutely disagree among themselves ; and there is the same wide divergence of view among good hunters and trained observers whose oppor- tunities have been less. Mr. Abel Chapman, for instance, regards both the elephant and the rhino as more dangerous than the lion, and many of the hunters I met in East Africa seemed inclined to rank the buffalo CH. 11] VICTIMS OF BIG GAME 63 as more dangerous than any other animal. A man who has shot but a dozen or a score of these various animals, all put together, is not entitled to express any but the most tentative opinion as to their relative prowess and ferocity ; yet on the whole it seems to me that the weight of opinion among those best fitted to judge is that the lion is the most formidable opponent of the hunter, under ordinary conditions. This is my own view. Butwe must everkeep in mind the fact that the surround- ing conditions, the geographical locality, and the wide individual variation of temper within the ranks of each species, must all be taken into account. In certain circumstances a lion may be easily killed, whereas a rhino would be a dangerous foe. Under other con- ditions the rhino could be attacked with impunity, and the lion only with the utmost hazard; and one bull buffalo might flee and one bull elephant charge, and yet the next couple met with might show an exact reversal of behaviour. At any rate, during the last three or four years in German and British East Africa and Uganda over fifty white men have been killed or mauled by lions, buffa- loes, elephants, and rhinos, and the lions have much the largest list of victims to their credit. In Nairobi churchyard I was shown the graves of seven men who had been killed by lions, and of one who had been killed by arhino. The first man to meet us on the African shore was Mr. Campbell, Governor Jackson’s A.D.C., ‘and only a year previously he had been badly mauled py a lion. We met one gentleman who had _ been crippled for life by a lioness. He had marked her into some patches of brush, and, coming up, tried to put her (out of one thick clump. Failing, he thought she might have gone into another thicket, and walked towards it. 64. LION-HUNTING [cH. m7 Instantly that his back was turned, the lioness, who had really been in the first clump of brush, raced out after him, threw him down, and bit him again and again before she was driven off. One night we camped at the very spot where, a score of years before, a strange tragedy had happened. It was in the early days of the opening of the country, and an expedition was going towards Uganda. One of the officials in charge was sleeping in a tent with the flap open. ‘There was an askari on duty; yet a lion crept up, entered the tent, and seized and dragged forth the man. He struggled and made outcry; there was a rush of people, and the lion dropped his prey and bounded off. ‘The man’s wounds were dressed, and he was put back to bed in his own tent; but an hour or two after the camp again grew still the lion returned, bent on the victim of whom he had been robbed ; he re-entered the tent, seized the unfortunate wounded man with his great fangs, and this time made off with him into the surrounding dark- ness, killed and ate him. Not far from the scene of this tragedy another had occurred. An English officer named Stewart, while endeavouring to kill his first lion, was himself set on and slain. At yet another place we were shown where two settlers, Messrs. Lucas and Goldfinch, had been one killed and one crippled by a lion they had been hunting. They had been following the chase on horseback, and being men of bold nature, and having killed several lions, had become too daring. They hunted the lion into a small piece of brush, and rode too near it. It came out at a run, and was on them before their horses could get under way. Gold- finch was knocked over, and badly bitten and clawed ; Lucas went to his assistance, and was in his turn knocked over, and the lion then lay on him and bit him — cH. 11] ADVENTURES WITH LIONS 65 to death. Goldfinch, in spite of his own severe wounds, crawled over and shot the great beast as it lay on his friend. Most of the settlers with whom I was hunting had met with various adventures in connection with lions. Sir Alfred had shot many in different parts of Africa ; some had charged fiercely, but he always stopped them. Captain Slatter had killed a big male with a mane a few months previously. He was hunting it in company with Mr. Humphries, the District Commissioner of whom I have already spoken, and it gave them some exciting moments, for when hit it charged savagely. Humphries had a shot-gun loaded with buckshot, Slatter his rifle. When wounded, the lion charged straight home, hit Slatter, knocking him flat, and rolling him over and over in the sand, and then went after the native gun- bearer, who was running away—the worst possible course to follow with a charging lion. The mechanism of Slatter’s rifle was choked by the sand, and as he rose to his feet he saw the lion overtake the fleeing man, rise on his hind-legs like a rearing horse—not springing— and strike down the fugitive. Humphries fired into him with buckshot, which merely went through the ‘skin ; and some minutes elapsed before Slatter was able to get his rifle in shape to kill the lion, which, fortunately, had begun to feel the effect of its wounds, and was too sick to resume hostilities of its own accord. The gun- bearer was badly but not fatally injured. Before this ‘Slatter, while on a lion hunt, had been set afoot by one ‘of the animals he was after, which had killed his horse. It was at night, and the horse was tethered within six yards of his sleeping master. The latter was aroused iby the horse galloping off, and he heard it staggering ‘on for some sixty yards before it fell. He and his | 2 66 LION-HUNTING (CH. III friend followed it with lanterns and drove off the lion, but the horse was dead. The tracks and the marks on the horse showed what had happened. The lion had sprung clean on the horse’s back, his fore-claws dug into the horse’s shoulders, his hind-claws cutting into its haunches, while the great fangs bit at the neck. The horse struggled off at a heavy run, carrying its fearsome burden. After going some sixty yards the lion’s teeth went through the spinal cord, and the ride was over. Neither animal had made a sound, and the lion’s feet did not touch the earth until the horse fell. While a magistrate in the Transvaal, Pease had under him as game officer a white hunter, a fine fellow, who underwent an extraordinary experience. He had been off some distance with his Iaffir boys to hunt a lion. On his way home the hunter was hunted. It was after nightfall. He had reached a region where lions had not been seen for a long time, and where an attack by them was unknown. He was riding along a trail in the darkness, his big boar-hound trotting ahead, his native ‘* boys” some distance behind. He heard a rustle in the bushes alongside the path, but paid no heed, thinking it was a reedbuck. Immediately after- ward two lions came out in the path behind and raced after him. One sprang on him, tore him out of the saddle, and trotted off, holding him in its mouth, while the other continued after the frightened horse. The — lion had him by the right shoulder, and yet with his left hand he wrenched his knife out of his belt and twice stabbed it. ‘The second stab went to the heart, and the beast let go of him, stood a moment, and fell dead. Meanwhile the dog had followed the other lion, which now, having abandoned the chase of the horse, and with the dog still at his heels, came trotting back — cH. m1] CLIFFORD AND HAROLD HILL 67 to look for the man. Crippled though he was, the hunter managed to climb a small tree; and though the lion might have got him out of it, the dog inter- fered. Whenever the lion came toward the tree the dog worried him, and kept him off until, at the shouts and torches of the approaching Kaffir boys, he sullenly retired, and the hunter was rescued. Percival had a narrow escape from a lion, which nearly got him, though probably under a misunder- standing. He was riding through a wet spot of ground, where the grass was four feet high, when his horse suddenly burst into a run, and the next moment a lion had galloped almost alongside of him. Probably the lion thought it was a zebra, for when Percival, leaning over, yelled in his face, the lion stopped short. But he at once came on again, and nearly caught the horse. However, they were now out of the tall grass, and the lion gradually pulled up when they reached the open country. The two Hills, Clifford and Harold, were running an ostrich farm. The lions sometimes killed their ostriches and stock, and the Hills in return had killed several lions. The Hills were fine fellows—Africanders, as their forefathers for three generations had been, and _ frontiersmen of the best kind. From the first moment they and I became fast friends, for we instinctively understood one another, and found that we felt alike on | all the big questions, and looked at life, and especially the life of effort led by the pioneer settler, from the same standpoint. ‘They reminded me at every moment of those Western ranchmen and home-makers with whom I have always felt a special sense of companion- ( ship, and with whose ideals and aspirations I have always , felt a special sympathy. A couple of months before i a 68 LION-HUNTING (CH. II my visit Harold Hill had met with a rather unpleasant adventure. He was walking home across the lonely plains in the broad daylight, never dreaming that lions might be abroad, and was unarmed. When still some miles from his house, while plodding along, he glanced up and saw three lions in the trail only fifty yards off, staring fixedly at him. It happened to be a place where the grass was rather tall, and lions are always bold where there is the slightest cover; whereas, unless angered, they are cautious on bare ground. He halted, and then walked slowly to one side, and then slowly forward toward his house. The lions followed him with their eyes, and when he had passed they rose and slouched after him. ‘They were not pleasant followers, but to hurry would have been fatal; and he walked slowly on along the road, while for a mile he kept catching glimpses of the tawny bodies of the beasts as they trod stealthily forward through the sunburned grass along- side or a little behind him. Then the grass grew short, and the lions halted and continued to gaze after him until he disappeared over a rise. Everywhere throughout the country we were crossing were signs that the lion was lord, and that his reign was cruel. ‘There were many lions, for the game on which they feed was extraordinarily abundant. They occasion- ally took the ostriches or stock of the settlers, or ravaged the herds and flocks of the natives, but not often; for their favourite food was yielded by the swarming herds of kongoni and zebras, on which they could prey at will. Later we found that in this region they rarely molested the buffalo, even where they lived in the same reed-beds ; and this though elsewhere they habitually prey on the buffalo. But where zebras and hartebeests could be obtained without efiort, it was evidently not | CH. TIt] LIONS AND THEIR PREY 69 worth their while to challenge such formidable quarry. Every “kill” I saw was a kongoni or a zebra; probably I came across fifty of each. One zebra kill, which was not more than eighteen hours old (after the lapse of that time the vultures and marabouts, not to speak of the hyenas and jackals, leave only the bare bones), showed just what had occurred. The bones were all in place, and the skin still on the lower legs and head. The animal was lying on its belly, the legs spread out, the neck vertebrae crushed. Evidently the lion had sprung clean on it, bearing it down by his weight, while he bit through the back of the neck, and the zebra’s legs had spread out as the body yielded under the lion. One fresh kongoni kill showed no marks on the haunches, but a broken neck and claw-marks on the face and withers ; in this case the lion’s hind-legs had remained on the ground, while with his fore-paws he grasped the kongoni’s head and shoulders, holding it until the teeth splintered the neck-bone. One or two of our efforts to get lions failed, of course ; the ravines we beat did not contain them, or we failed to make them leave some particularly difficult hill or swamp—for lions lie close. But Sir Alfred knew just the right place to go to, and was bound to get us lions— and he did. _ One day we started from the ranch-house in good season for an all-day lion hunt. Besides Kermit and myself, there was a fellow-guest, Medlicott, and not ‘only our host, but our hostess and her daughter ; and we were joined by Percival at lunch, which we took under a great fig-tree, at the foot of a high, rocky hill. Percival had with him a little mongrel bulldog and a ‘Masai “ boy,” a fine, bold-looking savage, with a hand- | some head-dress and the usual formidable spear. Master, 70 LION-HUNTING [CH. 1 man, and dog evidently all looked upon any form of encounter with lions simply in the light of a spree. After lunch we began to beat down a long donga, or dry watercourse—a creek, as we should call it in the Western plains country. The watercourse, with low, steep banks, wound in curves, and here and there were patches of brush, which might contain anything in the shape of lion, cheetah, hyena, or wild-dog. Soon we came upon lion spoor in the sandy bed ; first the foot- prints ef a big male, then those of a lioness. We walked cautiously along each side of the donga, the horses following close behind so that if the lion were missed we could gallop after him and round him up on the plain. The dogs—for besides the little bull, we had a large brindled mongrel named Ben, whose courage belied his looks—began to show signs of scenting the lion; and we beat out each patch of brush, the natives shouting and throwing in stones, while we stood with the rifles where we could best command any probable exit. After a couple of false alarms, the dogs drew toward one patch, their hair bristling, and showing such eager excitement that it was evident something big was inside, and in a moment one of the boys called “ Simba” (Lion), and pointed with his finger. It was just across the little ravine, there about four yards wide and as many feet deep: and I shifted my position, peering eagerly into the bushes for some moments before I caught a glimpse of tawny hide. As it moved, there was a call to me to * shoot,” for at that distance, if the lion charged, there would be scant time to stop it; and I fired into what I saw. There was a commotion in the bushes, and Kermit fired ; and immediately afterward there broke out on the other side, not the hoped-for big lion, but two cubs the size of mastiffs. Kach was badly CH. 11] A MANELESS LION 71 wounded, and we finished them off; even if unwounded, they were too big to take alive. This was a great disappointment, and as it was well on in the afternoon, and we had beaten the country most apt to harbour our game, it seemed unlikely that we would have another chance. Percival was on foot and a long way from his house, so he started for it ; and the rest of us also began to jog homeward. But Sir Alfred, although he said nothing, intended to have another try. After going a mile or two, he started off to the left at a brisk canter; and we, the other riders, followed, leaving behind our gun-bearers, saises, and porters. A couple of miles away was another donga, another shallow watercourse, with occasional big brush patches along the winding bed, and toward this we cantered. Almost as soon as we reached it our leader found the spoor of two big lions; and with every sense acock, we dismounted and approached the first patch of tall bushes. We shouted and threw in stones, but nothing came out; and another small patch showed the same result. ‘Then we mounted our horses again, and rode toward another patch a quarter of a mile off. I was mounted on Tranquillity, the stout and quiet sorrel. This patch of tall, thick brush stood on the hither bank—that is, on our side of the watercourse. We rode up to it and shouted loudly. ‘The response was immediate in the shape of loud gruntings and crash- ings through the thick brush. We were off our horses in an instant, I throwing the reins over the head of mine; and without delay the good old fellow began placidly grazing, quite unmoved by the ominous sounds immediately in front. I sprang to one side, and for a second or two we 72 LION-HUNTING (cH. 1 waited, uncertain whether we should see the lions charging out ten yards distant or running away. Fortunately, they adopted the latter course. Right in front of me, thirty yards off, there appeared from behind the bushes which had first screened him from my eyes, the tawny, galloping form of a big mane- less lion. Crack! the Winchester spoke ; and as the soft-nosed bullet ploughed forward through his flank the lion swerved so that I missed him with the second shot ; but my third bullet went through the spine and forward into his chest. Down he came, sixty yards off, his hind-quarters dragging, his head up, his ears back, his jaws open, and lips drawn up in a prodigious snarl, as he endeavoured to turn to face us. His back was broken ; but of this we could not at the moment be sure; and if it had merely been grazed, he might have recovered, and then, even though dying, his charge might have done mischief. So Kermit, Sir Alfred, and I fired, almost together, into his chest. His head sank, and he died. This lion had come out on the left of the bushes; the other, to the right of them, had not been hit, and we saw him galloping off across the plain, six or eight hundred yards away. A couple more shots missed, and we mounted our horses to try to ride him down. The plain sloped gently upward for three-quarters of a mile to a low crest or divide, and long before we got near him he disappeared over this. Sir Alfred and Kermit were tearing along in front and to the right, with Miss Pease close behind, while Tranquillity carried me as fast as he could on the left, with Medlicott near me. On topping the divide Sir Alfred and Kermit missed the lion, which had swung to the left, and they raced ahead too far to the right. Medlicott and I, how- CH. 111] A WOUNDED LION 73 ever, saw the lion, loping along close behind some kongoni; and this enabled me to get up to him as quickly as the lighter men on the faster horses. ‘The going was now slightly downhill, and the sorrel took me along very well, while Medlicott, whose horse was slow, bore to the right and joined the other two men. We gained rapidly, and, finding out this, the lion suddenly halted and came to bay in a slight hollow, where the grass was rather long. ‘The plain seemed flat, and we could see the lion well from horseback; but, especially when he lay down, it was most difficult to make him out on foot, and impossible to do so when kneeling. We were about a hundred and fifty yards from the lion, Sir Alfred, Kermit, Medlicott, and Miss Pease off to one side, and slightly above him on the slope, while I was on the level, about equidistant from him and them. Kermit and I tried shooting from the horses, but at such a distance this was not effective. Then Kermit got off, but his horse would not let him shoot ; and when I got off I could not make out the animal through the grass with sufficient distinctness to enable me to take aim. Old Ben the dog had arrived, and, _ barking loudly, was strolling about near the lion, which _ paid him not the slightest attention. At this moment | my black sais, Simba, came running up to me and took hold of the bridle ; he had seen the chase from the line _ of march and had cut across to join me. There was no | other sais or gun-bearer anywhere near, and his action | was plucky, for he was the only man afoot, with the lion -at bay. Lady Pease had also ridden up and was an interested spectator only some fifty yards behind me. | Now, an elderly man with a varied past which in- _cludes rheumatism does not vault lightly into the 74 LION-HUNTING [ CH. It saddle, as his sons, for instance, can; and I had already made up my mind that in the event of the lion’s charging it would be wise for me to trust to straight powder rather than to try to scramble into the saddle and get under way in time. The arrival of my two companions settled matters. I was not sure of the speed of Lady Pease’s horse ; and Simba was on foot, and it was, of course, out of the question for me to leave him. So I said, ‘“*Good, Simba! now welll see this thing through,” and gentle-mannered Simba smiled a shy appreciation of my tone, though he could not understand the words. I was still unable to see the lion when I knelt, but he was now standing up, look- ing first at one group of horses and then at the other, his tail lashing to and fro, his head held low, and his lips dropped over his mouth in peculiar fashion, while his harsh and savage growling rolled thunderously over the plain. Seeing Simba and me on foot, he turned toward us, his tail lashing quicker and quicker. Rest- ing my elbow on Simba’s bent shoulder, I took steady aim and pressed the trigger. ‘The bullet went in between the neck and shoulder, and the lion fell over on his side, one fore-leg in the air. He recovered in a moment and stood up, evidently very sick, and once more faced me, growling hoarsely. I think he was on the eve of charging. I fired again at once, and this bullet broke his back just behind the shoulders; and with the next I killed him outright, after we had gathered round him. These were two good-sized maneless lions ; and very proud of them I was. I think Sir Alfred was at least as proud, especially because we had performed the feat alone, without any professional hunters being present. “We were all amateurs, only gentleman riders up,” CH. IT] ON THE POTHA STREAM 75 said Sir Alfred. It was late before we got the lions skinned. Then we set off toward the ranch, two porters carrying each lion-skin, strapped to a pole, and two others carrying the cub-skins. Night fell long before we were near the ranch ; but the brilliant tropical moon lighted the trail. The stalwart savages who carried the bloody lion-skins swung along at a faster walk as the sun went down and the moon rose higher; and they began to chant in unison, one uttering a single word or sentence, and the others joining in a deep-toned, musical chorus. The men on a safari, and, indeed, African natives generally, are always excited over the death of a lion, and the hunting tribes then chant their rough hunting songs, or victory songs, until the monotonous, rhythmical repetitions make them almost frenzied. The ride home through the moonlight, the vast barren landscape shining like silver on either hand, was one to be remembered, and, above all, the sight of our trophies and of their wild bearers. Three days later we had another successful lion hunt. Our camp was pitched at a water-hole in a little stream called Potha, by a hill of the same name. Pease, Med- licott, and both the Hills were with us, and Heller came too, for he liked, when possible, to be with the hunters, so that he could at once care for any beast that was shot. As the safari was stationary, we took fifty or sixty porters as beaters. It was thirteen hours before we got into camp that evening. The Hills had with them as beaters and water-carriers half a dozen of the Wakamba who were working on their farm. It was interesting to watch these naked savages, with their filed teeth, their heads shaved in curious patterns, and carrying for arms little bows and arrows. Before lunch we beat a long, low hill. Harold Hill 76 LION-HUNTING (CH. III was with me; Medlicott and Kermit were together. We placed ourselves, one couple on each side of a narrow neck, two-thirds of the way along the crest of the hill; and soon after we were in position we heard the distant shouts of the beaters as they came toward us, covering the crest and the tops of the slopes on both sides. It was rather disconcerting to find how much better Hill’s eyes were than mine. He saw everything first, and it usually took some time before he could make me see it. In this first drive nothing came my way except some mountain reedbuck does, at which I did not shoot. But a fine male cheetah came to Kermit, and he bowled it over in good style as it ran. Then the beaters halted, and waited before resuming their march until the guns had gone clear round and established themselves at the base of the farther end of the hill. This time Kermit, who was a couple of hundred yards from me, killed a reedbuck and a steinbuck. Suddenly Hill said *“ Lion !” and endeavoured to point it out to me as it crept cautiously among the rocks on the steep hillside a hundred and fifty yards away. At first I could not see it; finally I thought I did, and fired, but, as it proved, at a place just above him. However, it made him start up, and I immediately put the next bullet behind his shoulders. It was a fatal shot, but, growling, he struggled down the hill, and I fired again and killed him. It was not much of a trophy, however, turning out to be a half-grown male. We lunched under a tree, and then arranged for another beat. There was a long, wide valley, or rather a slight depression in the ground—for it was only three or four feet below the general level—in which the grass grew tall, as the soil was quite wet. It was the scene of Percival’s adventure with the lion that chased him. CH. IIT] A CHARGING LION (ai Hill and I stationed ourselves on one side of this valley or depression toward the upper end; Pease took Kermit to the opposite side; and we waited, our horses some distance behind us. The beaters were put in at the lower end, formed a line across the valley, and beat slowly toward us, making a great noise. They were still some distance away when Hill saw three lions, which had slunk stealthily off ahead of them through the grass. I have called the grass tall, but this was only by comparison with the short grass of the dry plains. In the depression or valley it was some three feet high. In such grass a lion, which is marvellously adept at hiding, can easily conceal itself, not merely when lying down, but when advancing at a crouching gait. If it stands erect, however, it can be seen. There were two lions near us—one directly in our front, a hundred and ten yards off. Some _ seconds passed before Hill could make me realize that the dim yellow smear in the yellow-brown grass was a lion; and then I found such difficulty in getting a bead on him that I overshot. However, the bullet must have passed very close—indeed, I think it just grazed him—for he jumped up and faced us, growling savagely. Then, his _ head lowered, he threw his tail straight into the air and _ began to charge. The first few steps he took at a trot, _ and before he could start into a gallop I put the soft- nosed Winchester bullet in between the neck and shoulder. Down he went with a roar; the wound was | fatal, but I was taking no chances, and I put two more | bullets in him. Then we walked toward where Hill had already seen another lion—the lioness, as it proved. | Again he had some difficulty in making me see her, | , but he succeeded, and I walked towards her through the long grass, repressing the zeal of my two gun- 78 LION-HUNTING (cH. III bearers, who were stanch, but who showed a tendency to walk a little ahead of me on each side, instead of a little behind. I walked toward her because I could not kneel to shoot in grass so tall; and when shooting off- hand I like to be fairly close, so as to be sure that my bullets go in the right place. At sixty yards I could make her out clearly, snarling at me as she faced me, and I shot her full in the chest. She at once performed a series of extraordinary antics, tumbling about on her head, just as if she were throwing somersaults, first to one side and then to the other. I fired again, but managed to shoot between the somersaults, so to speak, and missed her. The shot seemed to bring her to herself, and away she tore; but, instead of charging us, she charged the line of beaters. She was dying fast, however, and in her weakness failed to catch anyone, and she sank down into the long grass. Hill and I advanced to look her up, our rifles at full cock, and the gun-bearers close behind. — [t is ticklish work to follow a wounded lion in tall grass, and we walked carefully, every sense on the alert. We passed Heller, who had been with the beaters. He spoke to us with an amused smile. His only weapon was a pair of field- glasses, but he always took things as they came with entire coolness, and to be close to a wounded lioness when she charged merely interested him. BH 2 OOO & —_ Drm Co SH CO Or — mee | re mre | | | | ogee haere me bo | tm Or et 2 * One on wing. 2 On wing. CH. Xv] TROPHIES 459 BY T. R. BY K. R Vulture ce at = ae 2 Crocodile a. oe Noe 1 eo 3 Monitor <: oe —._ — 1 Python fet Ae Be a 1 296 216 Grand total rae an ie Ue In addition, we killed with the Fox shot-gun Egyptian geese, yellow-billed mallards, francolins, spur-fowl, and sand-grouse for the pot, and certain other birds for specimens. Kermit and I kept about a dozen trophies for our- selves; otherwise we shot nothing that was not used either as a museum specimen or for meat—usually for both purposes. We were in hunting-grounds practically as good as any that have ever existed, but we did not kill a tenth nor a hundredth part of what we might have killed had we been willing. The mere size of the bag indicates little as to a man’s prowess as a hunter, and almost nothing as to the interest or value of his achieve- ment. ADDRESS DELIVERED AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CATRO, By COLONEL ROOSEVELT, March 28, 1910. Ir is to me a peculiar pleasure to speak to-day under such distinguished auspices as yours, Prince Fouad,’ before this National University, and it is of good augury for the great cause of higher education in Egypt that it should have enlisted the special interest of so distinguished and eminent a man. ‘The Arabic-speak- ing world produced the great University of Cordova, which flourished a thousand years ago, and was a source of light and learning when the rest of Europe was either in twilight or darkness. In the centuries following the creation of this Spanish Moslem University, Arabic men of science, travellers, and geographers—such as the noteworthy African traveller, Ibn Batuta, a copy of whose book, by the way, I saw yesterday in the library of the Alhazar*—were teachers whose works are still to be eagerly studied ; and I trust that here we shall see the revival, and more than the revival, of the conditions that made possible such contributions to the growth of civilization. This scheme of a National University is fraught with literally untold possibilities for good to your country. 1 Prince Fouad is the uncle of the Khedive. ? The great Moslem University of Cairo. 460 THE UNIVERSITY OF CAIRO 461 You have many rocks ahead of which you must steer clear; and because I am your earnest friend and well- wisher, I desire to point out one or two of these which it is necessary especially to avoid. In the first place, there is one point upon which I always lay stress in my own country, in your country, in all countries-- the need of entire honesty as the only foundation on which it is safe to build. It is a prime essential that all who are in any way responsible for the beginnings of the University shall make it evident to everyone that the management of the University, financial and otherwise, will be conducted with absolute honesty. Very much money will have to be raised and expended for this University in order to make it what it can and ought to be made ; for, if properly managed, I firmly believe that it will become one of the greatest influences, and perhaps the very greatest influence, for good in all that part of the world where Mohammedanism is the leading religion—that is, in all those regions of the Orient, including North Africa and South-Western Asia, which stretch from the Atlantic Ocean to the farther confines of India and to the hither provinces of China. This University should have a profound influence in all things educational, social, economic, industrial, through- out this whole region, because of the very fact of Egypt’s immense strategic importance, so to speak, in the world of the Orient, an importance due partly to her geographical position, partly to other causes. Moreover, it is most fortunate that Egypt’s present position is such that this University will enjoy a free- dom hitherto unparalleled in the investigation and testing out of all problems vital to the future of the peoples of the Orient. Nor will the importance of this University be con- 462 AIMS OF A UNIVERSITY fined to the Orient. Egypt must necessarily, from now on, always occupy a similar strategic position as regards the peoples, of the Occident, for she sits on one of the highways of the commerce that will flow in ever- increasing volume from Europe to the East. ‘Those responsible for the management of this University should set before themselves a very high ideal. Not merely should it stand for the uplifting of all Moham- medan peoples, and of all Christians and peoples of other religions who live in Mohammedan lands, but it should also carry its teaching and practice to such perfection as in the end to make it a factor in instruct- ing the Occident. When a scholar is sufficiently apt, sufficiently sincere and intelligent, he always has before him the opportunity of eventually himself giving aid to the teachers from whom he has received aid. Now, to make a good beginning towards the definite achievement of these high ends, it is essential that you should command respect and should be absolutely trusted. Make it felt that you will not tolerate the least little particle of financial crookedness in the raising or ex- penditure of any money, so that those who wish to give money to this deserving cause may feel entire confidence that their piastres will be well and honestly applied. In the next place, show the same good faith, wisdom, and sincerity in your educational plans that you do in the financial management of the institution. Avoid sham and hollow pretence just as you avoid religious, racial, and political bigotry. You have much to learn from the Universities of EKurope and of my own land, but there is also in them not a little which it is well to avoid. Copy what is good in them, but test in a critical spirit whatever you take, so as to be sure that you take only what is wisest and best for yourselves. FORMATION OF CHARACTER 463 More important even than avoiding any mere educa- tional shortcoming is the avoidance of moral short- coming. Students are already being sent to Europe to prepare themselves to return as professors. Such preparation is now essential, for it is of prime impor- tance that the University should be familiar with what is being done in the best Universities of Kurope and America. But let the men who are sent be careful to bring back what is fine and good, what is essential to the highest kind of modern progress; and let them avoid what are the mere non-essentials of the present- day civilization, and, above all, the vices of modern civilized nations. Let these men keep open minds. It would be a capital blunder to refuse to copy, and thereafter to adapt to your own needs, what has raised the Occident in the scale of power and justice and clean living. But it would be a no less capital blunder to copy what is cheap or trivial or vicious, or even what is merely wrong-headed. Let the men who go to Europe feel that they have much to learn, and much also to avoid and reject ; let them bring back the good and leave behind the discarded evil. Remember that character is far more important than intellect, and that a really great University should strive to develop the qualities that go to make up character even more than the qualities that go to make up a highly trained mind. No man ean reach the front rank if he is not intelligent and if he is not trained with intelligence; but mere intelligence by itself is worse than useless unless it is guided by an upright heart, unless there are also strength and courage behind it. Morality, decency, clean living, courage, manliness, self-respect — these qualities are more important in the make-up of a people than any 464 EDUCATIONAL NEEDS mental subtlety. Shape this University’s course so that it shall help in the production of a constantly upward trend for all your people. You should be always on your guard against one defect in Western education. ‘There has been alto- gether too great a tendency in the higher schools of learning in the West to train men merely for literary, professional, and official positions ; altogether too great a tendency to act as if a literary education were the only real education. I am exceedingly glad that you have already started industrial and agricultural schools in Egypt. A literary education is simply one of many different kinds of education, and it is not wise that more than a small percentage of the people of any country should have an exclusively literary education. The average man must either supplement it by another education, or else as soon as he has left an institution of learning, even though he has benefited by it, he must at once begin to train himself to do work along totally different lines. His Highness the Khedive, in the midst of his activities touching many phases of Egyptian life, has shown conspicuous wisdom, great foresight, and keen understanding of the needs of the country in the way in which he has devoted himself to its agricultural betterment, in the interest which he has taken in the improvement of cattle, crops, ete. You need in this country, as is the case in every other country, a certain number of men whose education shall fit them for the life of scholarship, or to become teachers or public officials. But it is a very unhealthy thing for any country for more than a small proportion of the strongest and best minds of the country to turn into such channels. It is essential also to develop indus- trialism, to train people so that they can be cultivators —— Eee” INFLUENCE OF WORKERS 465 of the soil in the largest sense on as successful a scale as the most successful lawyer or public man, to train them so that they shall be engineers, merchants—in_ short, men able to take the lead in all the various functions indispensable in a great modern civilized State. An honest, courageous, and far-sighted politician is a good thing in any country. But his usefulness will depend chiefly upon his being able to express the wishes of a population wherein the politician forms but a fragment of the leadership, where the business man and the land- owner, the engineer and the man of technical knowledge, the men of a hundred different pursuits, represent the average type of leadership. No people has ever perma- nently amounted to anything if its only public leaders were clerks, politicians, and lawyers. The base, the foundation, of healthy life in any country, in any society, is necessarily composed of the men who do the actual productive work of the country, whether in tilling the soil, in the handicrafts, or in business ; and it matters little whether they work with hands or head, although more and more we are growing to realize that it is a good thing to have the same man work with both head and hands. ‘These men, in many differing careers, do the work which is most important to the com- munity’s life, although, of course, it must be supple- mented by the work of the other men whose education and activities are literary and scholastic; who work in politics or law, or in literary and clerical positions. Never forget that in any country the most important activities are the activities of the man who works with head or hands in the ordinary life of the community, whether he be handicraftsman, farmer, or business man —no matter what his occupation, so long as it is useful, and no matter what his position, from the guiding 30 466 EDUCATION A PROCESS intelligence at the top down all the way through, just as long as his work is good. I preach this to you here by the banks of the Nile, and it is the identical doctrine I preach no less earnestly by the banks of the Hudson, the Mississippi, and the Columbia. Remember always that the securing of a substantial education, whether by the individual or by a people, is attained only by a process, not by anact. You can no more make a man really educated by giving him a certain curriculum of studies than you can make a people fit for self-government by giving it a paper constitution. ‘The training of an individual so as to fit him to do good work in the world is a matter of years, just as the training of a nation to fit it successfully to fulfil the duties of self-government is a matter, not of a decade or two, but of generations. There are foolish empiricists who believe that the granting of a paper constitution, prefaced by some high-sounding declara- tion, of itself confers the power of self-government upon a people. This is never so. Nobody can “ give” a people ‘ self-government,” any more than it is possible to “give” an individual “ self-help.” You know that the Arab proverb runs, “God helps those who help themselves.” In the long-run, the only permanent way by which an individual can be helped is to help him to help himself, and this is one of the things your University should inculcate. But it must be his own slow growth in character that is the final and determining factor im the problem. Soitis with a people. In the two Americas we haveseen certain commonwealths rise and prosper greatly. We have also seen other commonwealths start under identically the same conditions, with the same freedom and the same rights, the same guarantees, and yet have seen them fail miserably and lamentably, and sink into MURDER OF BOUTROS PASHA 467 corruption and anarchy and tyranny, simply because the people for whom the constitution was made did not develop the qualities which alone would enable them to take advantage of it. With any people the essential quality to show is, not haste in grasping after a power which it is only too easy to misuse, but a slow, steady, resolute development of those substantial qualities, such as the love of justice, the love of fair play, the spirit of self-reliance, of moderation, which alone enable a people to govern themselves. In this long and even tedious but absolutely essential process, I believe your University will take an important part. When I was in the Soudan I heard a vernacular proverb, based on a text in the Koran, which is so apt that, although not an Arabic scholar, I shall attempt to repeat it in Arabic: * dllah ma el saberin, izza sabaru”—God is with the patient, if they know how to wait. One essential feature of this process must be a spirit which will condemn every form of lawless evil, every form of envy and hatred, and, above all, hatred based upon religion or race. All good men, all the men of every nation whose respect is worth having, have been inexpressibly shocked by the recent assassination of Boutros Pasha. It was an even greater calamity for Egypt than it was a wrong to the individual himself. The type of man which turns out an assassin is a type possessing all the qualities most alien to good citizen- ship ; the type which produces poor soldiers in time of war and worse citizens in time of peace. Such a man stands on a pinnacle of evil infamy; and those who apologize for or condone his act, those who, by word or deed, directly or indirectly, encourage such an act in advance, or detend it afterwards, occupy the same bad eminence. It is of no consequence whether the assassin 468 RELIGIOUS EQUALITY be a Moslem, or a Christian, or a man of no creed ; whether the crime be committed in political strife or industrial warfare ; whether it be an act hired by a rich man or performed by a poor man; whether it be committed under the pretence of preserving order or the pretence of obtaining liberty. It is equally abhorrent in the eyes of all decent men, and, in the long-run, equally damaging to the very cause to which the assassin professes to be devoted. Yours is a National University, and as such knows no creed. ‘This is as it should be. When I speak of equality between Moslem and Christian, I speak as one who believes that where the Christian is more powerful he should be scrupulous in doing justice to the Moslem, exactly as under reverse conditions justice should be done by the Moslem to the Christian. In my own country we have in the Philippines Moslems as well as Christians. We do not tolerate for one moment any oppression by the one or by the other, any discrimina- tion by the Government between them or failure to mete out the same justice to each, treating each man on his worth as a man, and behaving towards him as his conduct demands and deserves. In short, I earnestly hope that all responsible for the beginnings of the University, which I trust will become one of the greatest and most powerful educational influences throughout the world, will feel it incumbent upon themselves to frown on every form of wrong- doing, whether in the shape of injustice, or corruption, or lawlessness, and to stand with firmness, with good sense, and with courage, for those immutable principles of justice and merciful dealing as between man and man, without which there can never be the slightest growth towards a really fine and high civilization. SPEECH DELIVERED AT THE GUILDHALL, LONDON, By COLONEL ROOSEVELT, May 31, 1910. LaDIES AND GENTLEMEN,—It is a peculiar pleasure to me to be here. And yet I cannot but appreciate, as we all do, the sadness of the fact that I come here just after the death of the Sovereign whom you so mourn, and whose death caused such an outburst of sympathy for you throughout the civilized world. One of the things I shall never forget is the attitude of that great mass of people, assembled on the day of the funeral, who, in silence, in perfect order, and with uncovered heads, saw the body of the dead King pass to its last resting-place. I had the high honour of being deputed to come to the funeral as the representative of America, and by my presence to express the deep and universal feeling of sympathy which moves the entire American people for the British people in their hour of sadness and trial. I need hardly say how profoundly I feel the high honour that you confer upon me—an honour great in itself, and great because of the ancient historic associa- tions connected with it, with the ceremonies incident to conferring it, and with the place in which it is conferred. I am very deeply appreciative of all that this ceremony means, all that this gift implies, and all the kind words which Sir Joseph Dimsdale has used in conferring it, 469 470 AFRICAN EXPERIENCES I thank you heartily for myself. I thank you still more because I know that what you have done is to be taken primarily as a sign of the respect and friendly goodwill which more and more, as time goes by, tends to knit the English-speaking peoples. I shall not try to make you any extended address of mere thanks, still less of mere eulogy. I prefer to speak, and I know you would prefer to have me speak, on matters of real concern to you, as to which I happen at this moment to possess some first-hand knowledge ; for recently I traversed certain portions of the British Empire under conditions which made me intimately cognizant of their circumstances and needs. I have just spent nearly a year in Africa. While there | saw four British protectorates. I grew heartily to respect the men whom I there met—settlers and military and civil officials—and it seems to me that the best service I can render them and you is very briefly to tell you how I was impressed by some of the things that I saw. Your men in Africa are doing a great work for your Empire, and they are also doing a great work for civilization. ‘This fact and my sympathy for and belief in them are my reasons for speaking. The people at home, whether in Europe or in America, who live softly often fail fully to realize what is being done for them by the men who are actually engaged in the pioneer work of civilization abroad. Of course, in any mass of men there are sure to be some who are weak or unworthy, and even those who are good are sure to make occasional mistakes—that is as true of pioneers as of other men. Nevertheless, the great fact in world history during the last century has been the spread of civilization over the world’s waste spaces. The work is still going on; and the soldiers, the settlers, and the CIVILIZATION IN AFRICA 471 civic officials who are actually doing it are, as a whole, entitled to the heartiest respect and the fullest support from their brothers who remain at home. At the outset there is one point upon which I wish to insist with all possible emphasis. ‘The civilized nations who are conquering for civilization savage lands should work together in a spirit of hearty mutual goodwill. I listened with special interest to what Sir Joseph Dims- dale said about the blessing of peace and goodwill among nations. I agree with that in the abstract. Let us show by our actions and our words in specific cases that we agree with it also in the concrete. I[ll-will between civilized nations is bad enough anywhere, but it is peculiarly harmful and contemptible when those actuated by it are engaged in the same task—a task of such far-reaching importance to the future of humanity —the task of subduing the savagery of wild man and wild nature, and of bringing abreast of our civilization those lands where there is an older civilization which has somehow gone crooked. Mankind, as a whole, has benefited by the noteworthy success that has attended the French occupation of Algiers and Tunis, just as mankind, as a whole, has benefited by what England has done in India; and each nation should be glad of the other nation’s achievements. In the same way it is of interest to all civilized men that a similar success shall attend alike the Britisher and the German as they work in East Africa ; exactly as it has been a benefit to everyone that America took possession of the Philip- pines. ‘Those of you who know Lord Cromer’s excel- lent book. in which he compares modern and ancient Imperialism, need no words from me to prove that the dominion of modern civilized nations over the dark places of the earth has been fraught with widespread 472 A WHITE MAN’S COUNTRY good for mankind; and my plea is that the civilized nations engaged in doing this work shall treat one another with respect and friendship, and shall hold it as discreditable to permit envy and jealousy, backbiting and antagonism, among themselves. I visited four different British protectorates or posses- sions in Africa—namely, British East Africa, Uganda, the Soudan, and Egypt. About the first three I have nothing to say to you save what is pleasant, as well as true. About the last I wish to say a few words because they are true, without regard to whether or not they are pleasant. In the highlands of East Africa you have a land which can be made a true white man’s country. While there I met many settlers on intimate terms, and I felt for them a peculiar sympathy, because they so strikingly reminded me of the men of our own western frontier of America, of the pioneer farmers and ranchmen who build up the States of the great plains and the Rocky Mountains. It is of high importance to encourage these settlers in every way, remembering—I say that here in the City—remembering that the prime need is not for capitalists to exploit the land, but for settlers who shall make their permanent homes therein. Capital is a good servant, but a mighty poor master. No alien race should be permitted to come into competition with the settlers. Fortunately, you have now in the Governor of East Africa, Sir Percy Girouard, a man admirably fitted to deal wisely and firmly with the many problems before him. He is on the ground and knows the needs of the country, and is zealously devoted to its interests. All that is necessary is to follow his lead, and to give him cordial support and backing. The principle upon which [ think it is wise to UGANDA AND THE SOUDAN 473 act in dealing with far-away possessions is this: choose your man, change him if you become discontented with him, but while you keep him back him up. In Uganda the problem is totally different. Uganda cannot be made a white man’s country, and the prime need is to administer the land in the interest of the native races, and to help forward their development. Uganda has been the scene of an extraordinary develop- ment of Christianity. Nowhere else of recent times has missionary effort met with such success. The inhabi- tants stand far above most of the races in the Dark Continent in their capacity for progress towards civiliza- tion. They have made great strides, and the British officials have shown equal judgment and disinterested- ness in the work they have done; and they have been especially wise in trying to develop the natives along their own lines, instead of seeking to turn them into imitation Englishmen. In Uganda all that is necessary is to go forward on the paths you have already marked out. The Soudan is peculiarly interesting because it affords the best possible example of the wisdom—and when I say that I speak with historical accuracy—ot disregarding the well-meaning but unwise sentimen- talists who object to the spread of civilization at the expense of savagery. I remember a quarter of a century ago, when you were engaged in the occupation of the Soudan, that many of your people at home, and some of ours in America, said that what was demanded in the Soudan was the application of the principles of indepen- dence and self-government to the Soudanese, coupled with insistence upon complete religious toleration and the abolition of the slave-trade. Unfortunately, the chief reason why the Mahdists wanted independence and self-government was that they could put down all 47 4 HORRORS OF MAHDISM religions but their own and carry on the slave-trade. I do not believe that in the whole world there is to be found any nook of territory which has shown such astonishing progress from the most hideous misery to well-being and prosperity as the Soudan has shown during the last twelve years, while it has been under British rule. Up to that time it was independent, and it governed itself; and independence and self-govern- ment in the hands of the Soudanese proved to be much what independence and self-government would be in a wolf pack. Great crimes were committed there—crimes so dark that their very hideousness protected them from exposure. During a decade and a half, while Mahdism controlled the country, there flourished a tyranny which for cruelty, bloodthirstiness, unintelligence, and wanton destructiveness, surpassed anything which a civilized people can even imagine. The keystones of the Mahdist party were religious intolerance and slavery, with murder and the most abominable cruelty as the method of obtaining each. During those fifteen years at least two-thirds of the population, probably seven or eight millions of people, died by violence or by starvation. ‘Then the British came in, put an end to the independence and self- government which had wrought this hideous evil, restored order, kept the peace, and gave to each individual a liberty which during the evil days of their own self-government not one human being possessed, save only the blood-stained tyrant who at the moment was ruler. I stopped at village after village in the Soudan, and in many of them I was struck by the fact that, while there were plenty of children, they were all under twelve years old; and inquiry always developed that these children were known as ‘Government EGYPT AND THE SOUDAN 475 children,” because in the days of Mahdism it was the literal truth that in a very large proportion of the communities every child was either killed or died of starvation and hardship, whereas under the peace brought by British rule families are flourishing, men and women are no longer hunted to death, and the children are brought up under more favourable circum- stances, for soul and body, than have ever previously obtained in the entire history of the Soudan. In administration, in education, in police work, the Sirdar and his heutenants, great and small, have performed to perfection a task equally important and difficult. The Government officials, civil and military, who are respon- sible for this task, and the Egyptian and Soudanese who have worked with and under them, and as directed by them, have a claim upon all civilized mankind which should be heartily admitted. It would be a crime not to go on with the work—a work which the inhabitants themselves are helpless to perform, unless under firm and outside wise guidance. I have met people who had some doubt as to whether the Soudan would pay. Personally, I think it probably will. But I may add that, in my judgment, this fact does not alter the duty of Britain to stay there. It 1s not worth while belong- ing to a big nation unless the big nation is willing when the necessity arises to undertake a big task. I feel about you in the Soudan just as I felt about us in Panama. When we acquired the right to build the Panama Canal, and entered on the task, there were worthy people who came to me and said they wondered whether it would pay. I always answered that it was one of the great world works which had to be done; that it was our business as a nation to do it, if we were ready to make good our claim to be treated as a great 476 KGYPT world Power ; and that as we were unwilling to abandon the claim, no American worth his salt ought to hesitate about performing the task. I feel just the same way about you in the Soudan. Now as to Egypt. It would not be worth my while to speak to you at all, nor would it be worth your while to listen, unless on condition that I say what I deeply feel ought to be said. I speak as an outsider, but in one way this is an advantage, for I speak without national prejudice. I would not talk to you about your own internal affairs here at home ; but you are so very busy at home that I am not sure whether you realize just how things are, in some places at least, abroad. At any rate, it can do you no harm to hear the view of one who has actually been on the ground, and has information at first hand; of one, moreover, who, it is true, is a sincere well-wisher of the British Empire, but who is not British by blood, and who is impelled to speak mainly because of his deep concern for the welfare of mankind and for the future of civiliza- tion. Remember also that I who address you am not only an American, but a Radical, a real—not a mock— Democrat, and that what I have to say is spoken chiefly because I am a Democrat—a man who feels that his first thought is bound to be the welfare of the masses of mankind, and his first duty to war against violence and injustice and wrong-doing, wherever found; and I advise you only in accordance with the principles on which I myself acted when I was President of the United States in dealing with the Philippines. In Egypt you are not only the guardians of your own interests; you are also the guardians of the interests of civilization; and the present condition of affairs in Egypt is a grave menace both to your Empire and to OO eae ENGLAND’S DUTIES IN EGYPT 477 civilization. You have given Egypt the best govern- ment it has had for at least two thousand years— probably a better government than it has ever had before ; for never in history has the poor man in Egypt —the tiller of the soil, the ordinary labourer—been treated with as much justice and mercy, under a rule as free from corruption and brutality, as during the last twenty-eight years. Yet recent events, and especially what has happened in connection with and following on the assassination of Boutros Pasha three months ago, have shown that, in certain vital points, you have erred, and it is for you to make good your error. It has been an error proceeding from the effort to do too much, and not too little, in the interests of the Egyptians them selves ; but, unfortunately, it is necessary for all of us who have to do with uncivilized peoples, and especially with fanatical peoples, to remember that in such a situation as yours in Egypt weakness, timidity, and sentimentality, may cause even more far-reaching harm than violence and injustice. Of all broken reeds, senti- mentality is the most broken reed on which righteous- ness can lean. In Egypt you have been treating all religions with studied fairness and impartiality ; and instead of grate- fully acknowledging this, a noisy section of the native population takes advantage of what your good treat- ment has done to bring about an anti-foreign movement —a movement in which, as events have shown, murder on a large or a small scale is expected to play a leading part. Boutros Pasha was the best and most competent Egyptian official, a steadfast upholder of British rule, and an earnest worker for the welfare of his country- men ; and he was murdered simply and solely because of these facts, and because he did his duty wisely, 478 THE NATIONALIST PARTY fearlessly, and uprightly. ‘The attitude of the so-called Egypt Nationalist Party in connection with this murder has shown that they were neither desirous nor capable of guaranteeing even that primary justice the failure to supply which makes self-government not merely an empty but a noxious farce. Such are the conditions ; and where the effort made by your officials to help the Egyptians towards self-government is taken advantage of by them, not to make things better, not to help their country, but to try to bring murderous chaos upon the land, then it becomes the primary duty of whoever is responsible for the Government in Egypt to establish order, and to take whatever measures are necessary to that end. It was with this primary object of establishing order that you went into Egypt twenty-eight years ago; and the chief and ample justification for your presence in Egypt was this absolute necessity of order being estab- lished from without, coupled with your ability and willingness to establish it. Now, either you have the right to be in Egypt or you have not ; either it is or it is not your duty to establish and keep order. If you feel that you have not the right to be in Egypt, if you do not wish to establish and to keep order there, why, then, by all means get out of Egypt. If, as I hope, you feel that your duty to civilized mankind and your fealty to your own great traditions alike bid you to stay, then make the fact and the name agree, and show that you are ready to meet in very deed the responsibility which is yours. It is the thing, not the form, which is vital. If the present forms of government in Egypt, established by you in the hope that they would help the Egyptians upward, merely serve to provoke and permit disorder, then it is for you to alter the forms; for if you stay THe FUTURE OF EGYPT 479 in Egypt, it is your first duty to keep order, and, above all things, also to punish murder and to bring to justice all who directly or indirectly incite others to commit murder or condone the crime when it is committed When a people treats assassination as the corner-stone of self-government, it forfeits all right to be treated as worthy of self-government. You are in Egypt for several purposes, and among them one of the greatest is the benefit of the Egyptian people. You saved them from ruin by coming in, and at the present moment, if they are not governed from outside, they will again sink into a welter of chaos. Some nation must govern Egypt. I hope and believe that you will decide that it is your duty to be that nation. os APPENDICES 31 on > "i 1, We ; aan. iv) ayer i a APPENDIX A I wish to thank Sir Edward Grey and Lord Crewe for the numerous courtesies extended to me by the British officials throughout the British possessions in Africa; and M. Renkin for the equal courtesy shown me by the Belgian officials in the Lado. The scientific part of the expedition could not have been under- taken save for the generous assistance of Mr. Andrew Carnegie, Mr. Oscar Straus, Mr. Leigh Hunt, and certain others, to all of whom lovers of natural history are therefore deeply indebted. I owe more than I can express to the thoughtful and unwearied consideration of Mr, F. C. Selous and Mr. E. N. Buxton, through whom my excellent outfit was obtained. Mr. R. J. Cuninghame, assisted in East Africa by Mr. Leslie J. Tarlton, managed the expedition in the field, and no two better men for our purposes could have been found anywhere. I doubt if Mr. Cuninghame’s equal in handling such an expedition as ours exists ; I know no one else who combines as he does the qualities which make a first-class explorer, guide, hunter, field-naturalist, and safari manager. Messrs. Newland and Tarlton, of Nairobi, did the actual work of providing and arranging for our whole journey in the most satisfactory manner. 483 APPENDIX B ‘Tue following is a partial list of the small mammals obtained on the trip, except certain bats, shrews, and rodents, which it is not possible to identify in the field. Even some of these identifications are not final. LIST OF SMALL MAMMALS. UNGULATA—HOOFED MAMMALS. Alpine Hyrax. Athi Rock Hyrax. Kikuyu Tree Hyrax. Alpine Tree Hyrax. Procavia mackinderi Procavia brucei maculata ; Procavia (Dendrohyrax) betiont . Procavia (Dendrohyrax) crawshayi GLIRES—RODENTS. Heliosciurus kenia Paraxerus behmi emini Paraxerus jacksoni Paraxerus jacksoni capitis Euxerus microdon fulvior Graphiurus raptor Graphiurus parvus Lophiomys testudo Tatera mombase Tatera pothe Tatera fallax Tatera varia Tatera emini Tatera nigrita Dipodillus harwoodt Otomys irroratus orestes Otomys irroratus tropicalis Dendromus nigrifrons Dendromus insignis ; Dendromus whytei pallescens Steatomys athi : Lophuromys ansorget Lophuromys aquilus Mus (Leggada) bellus 484. Kenia Forest Squirrel. Uganda Striped Squirrel. Jackson Forest Squirrel. Nairobi Forest Squirrel. : Kenia Ground Squirrel. Kenia Dormouse. Pigmy Dormouse. Nandi Maned Rat. Mombasa Gerbille. Highland Gerbille. Uganda Gerbille. Sotik Gerbille. Nile Gerbille. Dusky Gerbille. Pigmy Gerbille. Alpine Veldt Rat. Masai Veldt Rat. Black-fronted Tree Mouse. Greater Tree Mouse. Athi Tree Mouse. East African Fat Mouse. Uganda Harsh-furred Mouse. Masai Harsh-furred Mouse. East African Pigmy Mouse. LIST OF SMALL MAMMALS Mus (Leggada) gratus Mus (Leggada) sorellus . Mus (Leggada) triton murillus Mus (Leggada) triton naivashe . Epimys hindei : ; Epimys endorobe Epimys jacksoni Epimys peromyscus Epimys hildebranti Epimys ugande . Epimys panya Epimys nieventris ule Zelotomys hildegarde Thamnomys surdaster polionops Thamnomys loringi (Enomys hypoxanthus bacc hante Dasymus helukus Acomys wilsoni . Arvicanthis abyssinicus nair obe Arvicanthis abyssinicus rubescens Arvicanthis pulchellus massaicus Arvicanthis barbarus albolineatus Arvicanthis pumilio diminutus . Arvicanthis dorsalis maculosus . Pelomys roosevelti Saccostomus umbriventer Saccostomus mearnsi Tachyoryctes annectens . : Tachyoryctes splendens ibeanus . Tachyoryctes rex Myoscalops kapiti Pedetes surdaster Hystrix galeata . Lepus victoria Uganda Pigmy Mouse. Elgon Pigmy Mouse. Sooty Pigmy Mouse. Naivasha Pigmy Mouse. Masai Bush Rat. Small-footed Forest Mouse. Uganda Forest Mouse. Large-footed Forest Mouse. Taita Multimammate Mouse. Uganda Multimammate Mouse. Masai Multimammate Mouse. Athi Rock Mouse. Broad-headed Bush Mouse. Athi Tree Rat. Masked Tree Rat. Rusty-nosed Rat. East African Swamp Rat. Kast African Spiny Mouse Athi Grass Rat. Uganda Grass Rat. Spotted Grass Rat. Striped Grass Rat. Pigmy Grass Rat. Single Striped Grass Rat. Iridescent Creek Rat. Sotik Pouched Rat. Swahili Pouched Rat. Rift Valley Mole Rat. Nairobi Mole Rat. Alpine Mole Rat. Masai Blesmol. East African Springhaas. East African Porcupine. East African Hare, FERHZ—CARNIVORES. Hyena striata schillingsi Hyena crocuta germinans Proteles cristatus et Genetta bettoni . : Crossarchus Sasciatus macrurus Mungos sanguienus ibee Mungos albicaudus ibeanus Canis mesomelas Canis variegatus Lycaon pictus lupinus Otocyon virgatus Mellivora ratel . Masai Striped Hyena. East African Spotted Hyena. Somali Aard Wolf. East African Genet. Uganda Banded Mongoose. Kikuyu Lesser Mongoose. Masai White-tailed Mongoose. Black-backed Jackal} Silver-backed Jackal. East African Hunting Dog. Masai Great-eared Fox. Cape Honey Badger. INSECTIVORA—INSECTIVORES. Nasilio brachyrhynchus delamerei Elephantulus pulcher Erinaceus albiventris Crocidura flavescens myans@ Athi Lesser Elephant Shrew. East African Elephant Shrew. White-bellied Hedgehog, Giant Shrew. 485 486 Crocidura alchemilla Crocidura fumosa Crocidura argentata fisheri Crocidura bicolor elgonius Crocidura allex . Surdisorex nore APPENDIX Alpine Shrew. Dusky Shrew. Veldt Shrew. Elgon Pigmy Shrew. Rift Valley Pigmy Shrew. Short-tailed Shrew. CHIROPTERA—BATS. Scotophilus nigrita colias Pipistrellus kuhlii fuscatus Nyctinomus hindei Lavia frons Lavia frons affinis Petalia thebaica . Rhinolophus hildebrandti eloqueus Hipposiderus caffer centralis Kikuyu Green Bat. Naivasha Pigmy Bat. Free-tailed Bat. East African Great-eared Bat. Nile Great-eared Bat. Nile Wrinkle-nosed Bat. Elgon Horseshoe Bat. Uganda Leaf-nosed Bat. PRIMATES—MONKEYS. Galago (Otolemur) lasiotis Papio ibeanus Cercocebus albigena , johnstoni Lrythrocebus formosus . Cercopithecus ascanius schmidti. Cercopithecus pygerythrus johnstoni Cercopithecus kolbi Cercopithecus kolbi hindei Colobus abyssinicus caudatus Colobus abyssinicus matschiei Colobus palliatus cottoni LIST OF LARGE Mombasa Lemur. East African Baboon. Uganda Mangabey. Uganda Patas Monkey. Uganda White-nosed Monkey. Masai Green Monkey. Kikuyu Forest Green Monkey. Kenia Forest Green Monkey. White-tailed Colobus Monkey. Uganda Colobus Monkey. Nile Colobus Monkey. MAMMALS. UNGULATA—HOOFED MAMMALS. Diceros simus cottoni Diceros bicornis Equus burchellii granti Equus grevyt Hippopotamus amphibius s Potamocherus cheropotamus demonis Hylocherus meinertzhageni Phacocherus ethiopicus massaicus Bos caffer vadcliffei Bos equinoctialis Taurotragus oryx livingstonia Taurotragus gigas Boocer cusaisaci Strepsiceros strepsiceros Tragelaphus scriptus heywoodi Tragelaphus scriptus dama Tragelaphus scriptus bor Limnotragus spekii Ozanna roosevelti Ozanna equinus langheldi Nile Square-nosed Rhinoceros. Black Rhinoceros. Northern Burchell Zebra. Grevy Zebra. Nile Hippopotamus. East African Bush Pig. East African Forest Hog. East African Wart Hog. East African Buffalo. Abyssinian Buffalo. East African Eland. Giant Eland. East African Bongo. Greater Koodoo. Aberdare Bushbuck. Kavirondo Bushbuck. Nile Bushbuck. Uganda Situtunga. Roosevelt Sable Antelope. East African Roan Antelope. LIST OF LARGE MAMMALS 487 Ozanna equinus bakeri . Oryx beisa annectens Gazella granti : Gazella granti robertsi . Gazella granti notata Gazella thomsoni Lithocranius walleri Af pyceros melampus suara Redunca fulvorufula chanleri Redunea redunea wardi Redunea redunca dona/dsoni Kobus kob thomasi Kobus vaughani Kobus leucotis : Kobus defassa ugande Kobus defassa harnieri . Kobus ellipsiprymnus Kobus maria : Cephalophus abyssinicus hindei . Cephalophus abyssinicus nyanse Cephalopus ignifer Nototragus neumanni Ourebia montana Ourebia cottoni . f Rhynchotragus kirki hindei Oreotragus schillingsi Connochetes albojubatus Damaliscus corrigum jimela Bubalis jacksoni ; Bubalis jacksoni insignis Bubalis coket Bubalis neumanni : Bubalis lelwel niediecki . : Giraffa reticulata ‘ ; Giraffa camelopardalis tippelskirchi Giraffa camelopardalis rothschildi Hlephas africanus peeli . Nile Roan Antelope. East African Beisa. Grant Gazelle. Nyanza Grant Gazelle. Boran Grant Gazelle. Thomson Gazelle. Gerenuk Gazelle. [mpalla. Bast African Rock Reedbuck. Highland Bohor Reedbuck. Uganda Bohor Reedbuek. Kavirondo Kob. Rufous White-eared Kob. White-eared Kob. Uganda Defassa Waterbuck. White Nile Defassa Waterbuck. Yast African Waterbuck. White-withered Waterbuck. Masailand Duikerbok. Kavirondo Duikerbok. Rufous Forest Duikerbok. East African Steinbok. Abyssinian Oribi. Guas Ngishu Oribi. Masai Dikdik. East African Klippspringer. White-bearded Wildebeest. East African Topi. Jackson Hartebeest. Uganda Hartebeest. Kongoni Hartebeest. Neumann Hartebeest. White Nile Hartebeest. Somali Giraffe. Masailand Giraffe. Five horned Giraffe. British East African Elephant. FER®—CARNIVORES, Felis leo massaica Felis pardus suahelica Felis capensis hindei Cynalurus jubatus guttatus East African Lion. East African Leopard. East African Serval Cat. African Cheetah. The following is a partial list of those species obtained by Heller, concerning which he (and occasionally I) could make observations as to their life histories. In the comparisons with or allusions to our American species there is, I need hardly say, no implication of kinship ; the differences are generally fundamental, and I speak of the American animals only for the purpose of securing’a familiar standard of comparison. ‘The Central African fauna is of course much more nearly allied to that of Europe than to that of North America, and were I familiar with small European 488 APPENDIX B mammals, I should use them, rather than the American, for pur- poses of illustration. Heliosciurus kenie (Kenia Forest Squirrel). Mount Kenia, B. E. A. Heller shot one in a tree in the heavy forest by our first elephant camp. In size and actions like our grey squirrel. Shy. Paraxerus jacksoni. Shot at same camp; common at Nairobi and Kijabe, B. E. A. A little smaller than our red squirrel; much less noisy and less vivacious in action. Tamer than the larger squirrel, but much shyer than our red squirrel or chickaree. Kept among the bushes and lower limbs of the trees. Local in distribution ; found in pairs or small families. Graphiurus parvus (Pigmy Dormouse). Everywhere in B. E. A. in the forest ; arboreal, often descending to the ground at night, for they are strictly nocturnal. Found in the woods fringing the rivers in the Sotik and on the Athi Plains, but most common in the juniper forests of the higher levels, Spend the daytime in crevices and hollows in the big trees. Build round, ball-like nests of bark fibre and woolly or cottony vegetable * fibre. One of them place? in a hollow, four inches across, in a stump, the entrance being five feet above the ground. Caught in traps baited with walnuts or peanuts. Tatera pothe Heller (n. s.) (Athi Gerbille). Common on the Athi Plains, in open ground at the foot of the hills. Live in short grass, not bush. Nocturnal. Live in burrows, each burrow often possessing several entrances, and sometimes several burrows, all inhabited by same animal, not communicating. Tatera varia Heller (n.s.) (Sotik Gerbille). A large form, seemingly new. Lives in the open plains, among the grass; not among bushes, nor at foot of hills. Lives in burrows, one animal apparently having several, each burrow with a little mound at the entrance Nocturnal. In aspect ani habits bears much resemblance to our totally different kangaroo rats. Dipodillus harwoodi (Naivasha Pigmy Gerbille). Common around Naivasha, also in Sotik. A small form, quarter the size of the above; about as big as a house mouse. Same habits as above, but apparently only one burrow to each animal; much more plentiful. The burrows in the Sotik were in hard ground, and went straight down. Round Naivasha the ground was soft and dry, and most of the burrows entered it diagonally. Otomys irroratus tropicalis (‘eldt Rat). Generally throughout B. E. A., but always in moist places, never on dry plains. Abundant on top of Aber- dares, and ten thousand feet up on slopes of Kenia. Always in open grass. Make very definite trails, which they cut with their teeth through the grass. Feed on the grass, which they cut into lengths just as our meadow mice (Mirotus) do. Largely diurnal, but also run about at night. The gravid females examined had in each of them two embryos only. Live in burrows, in which they place nests of fine grass six inches in diameter. Dendromys nigrofrons (Black-fronted Tree Mouse). On Athi Plains and on the Sotik. Size of our harvest mouse. Do not go into forest, but dwell in bush country and thin timber along streams. Nocturnal; not abundant. Live in covered nests in bushes; nests made of long wiry grass, not lined, and very small, less than three inches in diameter. They are globular, and entered by a hole in one side, as with our marsh wrens. Only one mouse to a nest, as far as we saw; Heller caught two in their nests. The nests were in thorn-bushes, only about a foot and a half from the ground ; once or twice these mice were found in what were SPECIES OBTAINED BY HELLER 489 apparently abandoned weaver-birds’ nests. If frightened, one wonld drop out of its nest to the ground and run off; but if Heller waited quietly for ten minutes the mouse would come back, climb up the twigs of the bush, and re-enter the nest. It never stayed away long, seeming to need the nest for protection. Dendromys insignis. Although belonging to the genus of tree mice, this large Dendromys lives on the ground, seemingly builds no nest, and is most often found in the runways of the Otomys. Lophuromys aquilus (Harsh-furred Mouse). Common in Rift Valley, on the top of the Aberdares, and in the Kenia forest. Go up to timber line, but are not found in the deep forest, save above the edges of the stream. Very fond of brush. Do not go out on the grassy plains. Usually, but not strictly, nocturnal; and in the cold, foggy uplands, as on the Aberdares, become diurnal. (Leggada) Mus gratus (Pigmy Harvest Mouse). As small as our smallest harvest mouse. A grass mouse, usually entirely away from bushes and trees. Usually taken in the runways of the larger species. Occasionally come into tents. Nocturnal. Found generally throughout East Africa, but nowhere as abundant as many other species. Epimys hindei (Masai Bush Rat). Trapped on the Kapiti and Athi Plains. About the size of the Southern wood rat of California ; almost the size of the wood rat of the Eastern States. Is a ground-loving species, fond of bushes ; in habits like the Mus panya, but less widely distributed, and entering houses less freely. Epimys peromyscus Heller (n.s.) (African White-footed Mouse). Externally strikingly like our white-footed mouse. Found in thick forest, along the edges of the Rift Valley and on Mount Kenia. Near our elephant camp Heller failed to trap any white-footed mice in the open glades, even when the glades were of small size, but caught them easily if the traps were set only a few yards within the dense forest. Evidently very abundant in the forest, but not venturing at all into the open, Strictly nocturnal. Dwell under logs and in decayed places around stumps, and the trunks of big trees. Epimys panya (East African House Mouse) Common in B. E, A., coming into the houses, and acting like a house mouse, but twice the size. Frequently came into our camps, entering the tents. Very common on the edges of the forest, and in brush country and long grass, and among the shambas ; not in the deep forests, except along streams, and not in the bare open plains. Nocturnal. [ound in the runways of Ofomys and Arvicanthis. Does not seem to be a grass-feeding species, like Otomys ; eats grain, beans, ete. Epimys nieventris ula (Athi Rock Mouse). On the Athi Plains, in the Sotik, around Naivasha, and in the Rift Valley. Body only slightly larger than that of a house mouse, but tail at least a third longer than the head and body together. Yellowish-brown above and whitish beneath. Never found except among rocks ; we always found it where there were cliffs or on stony koppies. Lives in crevices in the rocks and along the ledges of the cliffs. Nocturnal. Caught in traps with nuts. Zelotomys hildegarde (Broad-headed Bush Mouse). Looks like a small-eared, broad-headed house mouse. Rather common on Athi Plains, in same localities with Uganda mouse, but rarer, and seldom enters houses. Thamnomys surdaster polionops (Long-tailed Tree Mouse). Arboreal ; more like a mouse than a rat. On the Athi Plains, in the Sotik and Rift Valley. Not found in heavy forest, but in the open acacia woods and in bushy country. Apparently lives much of the time on the ground, and builds no nests in the trees, but runs up and down them and among their branches freely. Nocturnal. 490 APPENDIX B Thamnomys Loringi Heller (uv. s.) (Masked Tree Rat). In the Rift Valley : common around Naivasha. Has a black ring around each eye, the colour spreading over the nose like a mask. Arboreal and nocturnal. Much the habits of our Neotoma, but do not build large nests. Build nests about six inches in diameter, made of sticks, placed in the branches of the thorn trees ; also in burrows near the bottom of the trunks ; runways lead from the trees containing the nests to the burrows. ‘Trapped on the ground and in traps set in notches of the trees. (Hnomys hypoxanthus bacchante (Rusty-nosed Rat). Found in same country as above, and with similar habits, but somewhat less arboreal. A hand- some species. Dasymus helukus Heller (n.s.) (Swamp Rat). In appearance much like the Alexandrian or roof rat, but with longer hair and shorter, much less conspicuous ears. Found all over the Athi Plains where there was brush, especially along stream beds. Nocturnal. Arvicanthis abyssinicus nairobe (Athi Grass Rat). The commonest mouse in B. E. A. on the plains. Outnumbers any other species. Found every- where in grass and brush, but not in deep forest. Often lives in shallow burrows round the bases of thorn-trees, from which its well-marked runways radiate into the grass. Strictly diurnal. Often seen running about in bright sunlight. Never found in traps at night. A striped mouse that has lost its stripes, vestiges of which are occasionally found in the young. Arvicanthis pulchellus masaicus (Nairobi Striped Mouse). Diurnal. Common on the Athi Plains, and on the Sotik and in Rift Valley. Around Neri we often saw them running about through the shambas. Live in brush and cultivated fields. In pattern of coloration much like our thirteen- striped gopher. Arvicanthis pumilio diminutus (Naivasha Striped Rat). Common in Rift Valley, and on the Aberdares and around Kenia. Sometimes occurs in company with Nairobi mouse, but less widely distributed ; much more abundant where found, and ascends to much higher altitudes. Pelomys roosevelti Heller (n. s.). About the size of our cotton rat, and with much the same build, Coarse, bristly hair; the dorsal coloration is golden yellow, overlaid by long hairs, with an olive iridescence ; the under parts are silky white. It is a meadow mouse, found at high altitudes, seven to nine thousand feet high; usually lives close to streams in heavy grass, through which it makes runways. Not common. Succostomus umbriventer (Sotik Pouched Rat). Heller trapped several on the Sotik, at the base of the southernmost range of mountains we reached. Found in the longish grass along a dry creek bed. Trapped in their rather indistinct runways. The pockets, or pouches, are internal, not external, as in our pocket mice. Vachyroyetes splendens ibeanus (Nairobi Mole Rat). A mole rat of B. E. A., with general habits of above, but avoiding rocky places, and not generally found many miles out on the plains away from the forest. Rarely found in the bamboos, in spite of its name. Muyoscalops kapiti Heller (nu. s.) (Kapiti Blesmole). On the Kapiti and Athi Plains, and in the Sotik. Smaller than German East African form, and no white occipital spot ; a cinnamon wash on its silvery fur. Burrows like our pocket gophers, and has same squat look and general habits. Lives in rocky ground, where bamboo rat does not penetrate. It does not run just below the surface of the soil, as the pocket gopher does in winter. The blesmole’s burrows are about a foot below the surface. Eats roots. Pedetes surdaster (Springhaas). (See body of book.) One young at birth. A colony of four to eight open burrows, all inhabited by a single animal. SPECIES OBTAINED BY HELLER 491 Hystrix galeata. (See body of book.) Heller found in stomach the remains of a root or tuber, and seeds like those of the nightshade. Lepus victoria. Generally distributed on plains ; much the habits and look of a small jack-rabbit. Does not burrow. Elephantulus pulcher (Elephant Shrew). Fairly common throughout B. E. A. in bush and on hills, not in deep forests or on bare plains. Often out at dusk, but generally nocturnal. A gravid female contained a single embryo. One ina trap had its mouth full of partly masticated brown ants. A gentle thing, without the fierceness of the true shrews. Trapped in the runways of Arvican‘his. Hrinaceus albiventris (Hedgehog). Fairly common in the Sotik. In certain places, under trees, Heller found accumulations of their spiny skins, as if some bird of prey had been feeding on them. Crocidura fisheri. The common shrew of the Athi Plains and the Sotik, in the Rift Valley. Largely diurnal. Males quite yellowish, females smoky brown. Generally trapped in runways of Arvicanthis. Pregnant females contained three to five embryos, usually four. Not found in heavy forest or swamp. Crocidura fumosa (Dusky Shrew), A darker form found in the rush swamps and sedgy places of the same region. Number of young usually three. Diurnal. Occasional in forests. Crocidura alchemille Heller (n. s.). Aberdare shrew ; a diurnal form, occur- ring above timber line on the Aberdare; perhaps identical with the foregoing.+ Crocidura allex. A pigmy shrew, taken at Naivasha. Crocidura nyanse. Very big for a shrew. Chiefly in the high country, near watercourses ; found round the edge of the forest at Kenia and Kijabe. A fierce, carnivorous creature, preying on small rodents as well as insects ; habitually ate mice, rats, or shrews which it found in the traps, and would then come back and itself be readily trapped. Surdisorex nore. A shrew in shape, not unlike our mole shrew. On the high, cold, wet Aberdare plateau. Diurnal. Seotophilus migrita colias. Common at Nairobi; flying among the tree-tops in the evenings. Greenish back, with metallic glint; belly sulphur. Has the same flight as our big brown bat—Vespertilio fuscus. Pipistrellus kuhlii fuscatus. Common at Naivasha and Nairobi. Very closely kin to our Myotis, or little brown bat, with same habits. Flies high in the air after dusk, and is easily shot. We never found its day roosts. Nyctinomus hindei (Free-tailed Bat). At Naivasha. Very swift flight, almost like a swallow’s ; fairly high in the air. Live in colonies; one such in a house at Naivasha. On the Athi Plains they were found in daytime hanging up behind the loose bark of the big yellow-trunked acacias. | Crocidura alchemille, new species (Heller). Type from the summit of the Aberdare Range; altitude, 10,500 feet; British East Africa; adult male, number 163,087, U.S. Nat. Mus ; collected by Edmund Heller, October 17, 1909 ; original number, 1,177. Allied to fwmosa of Mount Kenia, but coloration much darker, everywhere clove- brown, the under parts but slightly lighter in shade ; feet somewhat lighter sepia brown, but much darker than in /wmosa; hair at base slaty-black. Hair Jong and heavy, on back 6 to 7 mm. long ; considerably longer than in fumosa. Musk-glands on sides of body, clothed with short brownish hairs, the glands producing an ony odour very similar to that of a petrel. Skull somewhat smaller than fwmosa, wit relatively smaller teeth. Measurements: Head and body, 90; tail, 55; hind foot, 15°3. Skull: Condylo- incisive length, 21; mastoid breadth, 9°7 ; upper tooth row (alveoli), 8°3. This species is an inhabitant of the dense beds of A/chemi?/a which clothe the alpine moorland of the Aberdare range. 492 APPENDIX B Lavia frons (Great-eared Bat). Bluish body and yellowish wings ; very long ears. Almost diurnal; flies well by day ; hangs from the thorn-tree branches in the sunlight, and flies as soon as it sees a man approaching. One young, which remains attached to the mother until it is more than half her size. Petalia thebaica (Large-eared Nycterine Bat). Caves in the Rift Valley, also in the Sotik, spending the day in the tops of the limestone wells or caverus which contained water. Both sexes occurred together in company with a bat of another genus—Rhixolophus. Fly very close to the ground, only two or three feet above it, and usually among trees and brush, and not in the open, so that it is almost impossible to shoot them. Rhinolophus. Found at the Limestone Springs in the Sotik, and in great numbers in a cave at Naivasha, no other bat being found in the cave. Same general habits as the Nycteris. Specimens flew among our tents in the evening. Papio ibeanus. The baboon is common all over the plains, in troops. It digs up lily bulbs, and industriously turns over stones for grubs and insects. Very curious, intelligent, and bestial. Cercopithecus kolbi. Found in company with the Co/obus in heavy forest along the Kikuyu escarpment. The sub-species Hindei is found on Kenia. Cercopithecus pygerythrus johnsoni (Green Monkey). In the yellow thorns of the Sotik and Rift Valley, and along the northern Guaso Nyero. Leaves aud acacia pods in their stomachs. Live in troops of from ten to twenty individually. Exceedingly active and agile. Oiten sit motionless on the very tops of the trees, when they cannot be seen from below, Run well on the ground. Colobus caudatus (Black and White Monkey). Heavy mountain forests, Kijabe and Kenia, and on the Aberdares, Only foliage in the stomachs of those shot. Goes in small troops, each seemingly containing both males and females; not as agile as the other monkeys, and less wary. The natives prize their skins. On the Guas Ngishu the small mammals were in general identical with those of the Aberdares and Mount Kenia. In Uganda Heller shot an old male, Cercopithecus ascanius schmidti— a red-backed, red-tailed, white-nosed monkey ; it was alone in a small grove of trees surrounded by elephant grass. In the same grove he shot a squirrel, Parazerus, very different from the Kenia species. In Uganda there were fewer species of small mammals than in Kast Africa, in spite of the abundance of vegetation and water. In the Lado we found rats, mice, and shrews abundant, but the number of species limited, and for the most part representing wide- spread types. Some of the bats were different from any yet obtained ; the same may be true of the shrews. The small carnivores, and hyzenas also, were very scarce. North of Nimule Kermit shot another Funisciwrus, while it was climbing a bamboo. At Gondokoro there were many bats in the houses, chiefly Nyctinomus, the swift-flying, high-flying, free-tailed bats, with a few leaf-nosed bats, and yellow bats. I wish field naturalists would observe the relation of zebras and wild-dogs. Our observations were too limited to be decisive ; but it seemed to us that zebras did not share the fear felt by the other ZEBRAS AND WILD DOGS 493 game for the dogs. I saw a zebra, in a herd, run toward some wild-dogs, with its mouth open and ears back; and they got out of the way, although seemingly not much frightened. Loring saw a solitary zebra seemingly unmoved by the close neighbourhood of some wild-dogs. Once, on the Nile, while Loring and I were watching a monitor stealing crocodiles’ eggs, we noticed a hippo in mid- stream, It was about ten in the morning. The hippo appeared regularly, at two or three minute intervals, always in the same place, breathed, and immediately sank. ‘This continued for an hour. We could not make out what he was doing. It seemed unlikely that he could be feeding ; and the current was too swift to allow him to rest; all other hippos at that time were for the most part lying in the shallows or were back among the papyrus beds. APPENDIX C Tue following notes were made by Loring in East Africa : Alpine Hyrax (Procavia mackinderi). On Mount Kenia, at altitudes between 12,000 and 15,000 feet, we found these animals common wherever pro- tective rocks occurred. Under the shelving rocks were great heaps of their droppings ; and in the places where for centuries they had sunned themselves the stone was stained and worn smooth. At all times of the day, but more frequently after the sun had risen, they could be seen singly, in pairs, and in families, perched on the peaks. At our highest camp (14,700 feet), where, on September 22, more than half an inch of ice formed in buckets of water outside the tent, they were often heard, They emit a variety of chatters, whistles, and catlike squalls that cannot be described in print, and we found them very noisy. Whenever they saw anyone approaching they always sounded some note of alarm, and frequently continued to harangue the intruder until he had approached so close that they took fright and disappeared in the rocks* or until he had passed. All along the base of cliffs, and leading from one mass of rocks to another, they made well-worn trails through the grass. At this time of the year many young ones, about one-third grown, were seen and taken. Kenia Tree Hyrax (Procavia crawshayi). From the time that we reached the edge of the forest belt (altitude 7,000), on Mount Kenia, we heard these tree dassies every night, and at all camps to an altitude of 10,700 feet they were common. I once heard one on a bright afternoon about four o’clock, and on a second occasion another about two hours before sundown. Although I searched diligently on the ground for run- ways and for suitable places to set traps, no such place was found. In a large yew-tree that had split and divided fifteen feet from the ground | found a bed or bulky platform of dried leaves and moss of Nature’s manufacture. On the top of this some animal had placed a few dried green leaves. In this bed I set a steel trap, and carefully covered it, and on the second night (October 14) captured a dassie containing a foetus almost mature. We were informed by our “boys ’ that these animals inhabited hollow stumps and logs, as well as the foliage of the live trees, but we found no signs that proved it, although, judging from the din at night, dassies were abundant everywhere in the forests. At evening, about an hour after darkness had fully settled, a dassie would call, and in a few seconds dassies were answering from all around, and the din continued for half an hour or an hour. The note began with a series of deep, froglike croaks, that gradually gave way to a series of shrill, tremulous screams, at times resembling the squealing of a pig, and again the cries of a child. It was a far-reaching sound, and always came 4D 4 NOTES MADE BY LORING 495 from the large forest trees. Often the cries were directly over our heads, and at a time when the porters were singing and dancing about a bright camp fire. Although we tried many times to shine their eyes with a powerful light, we never succeeded, nor were we able to hear any rustling of the branches or scraping on the tree-trunks as one might expect an animal of such size to make. The porters were offered a rupee apiece for dassies, but none were brought in. Rock Hyrax (Procavia brucei maculata). ‘These animals inhabited the rocks and cliffs on Ulnkenia Hills in fair numbers. None lived in burrows of their own make, but took advantage of the natural crevices for cover. I heard their shrill calls at night, usually when the moon was out. Several were shot, and two trapped in traps set in narrow passages through which the animals travelled. Klippspringer (Oreotragus oreotragus). Several pairs of these little antelopes were seen on Ulukenia Hills, but never were more than two found at a time. They lived on the rocky hillsides, and were quite tame, allowing one to approach within twenty-five yards before taking fright and dashing into the rocks—invariably their shelter when alarmed. When thoroughly frightened they made a loud sneezing sound. Two were collected, one of which was a female with horns. A young Boer who had lived in that neighbourhood three years told me that all the females of proper age had horns. Pigmy Gerbille (Dipodillus harwoodi). ‘These little sand mice resemble very closely some of our American pocket mice (Perognathus). Heller took several on the Njoro O Solali, and found them common ; and | caught one specimen on the South Guaso Nyero River. On the sandy desert flats on the south-west side of Lake Naivasha they were abundant. The holes, running obliquely into the ground, were sometimes blocked with sand from the inside. On the opposite side of the lake there was less sand, and here the gerbilles were found only in spots. In sand alone their burrows resembled those described, but where the ground was hard they entered almost perpendicular, and were never blocked with sand. Often seed-pods and tiny cockle-burrs were strewn about the entrances. Pigmy Mouse (J/us [Leggada] gratus). Various forms of this tiny little mouse were taken all along the route we travelled. They were caught in traps set at random in the brushy thickets in the lowland, as well as in the open grassy spots on the rocky hillsides, where they frequented the runways made by various species of Mus. A few were collected on Mount Kenia. Athi Rock Mouse (Lpimys nieventris u/@). ‘This mouse proved to be a new species. It was common in and about the rocks on Ulukenia Hills, which is the only place where we found them. Those taken were caught in traps, baited with peanut-butter, dried apple, and rolled oats, and set among the rocks. Forest Mouse (Epimys peromyscus). At our camp, at 8,500 feet altitude, we first met with this mouse ; and although a good line of traps, well baited, and set about stumps, tree-trunks, and logs, for three nights, but one mouse was captured, that being taken under a large log. Several others were trapped in the thick brush bordering the bamboos. At 10,000 feet several were caught in the bamboo, and at 10,700 feet a good series was collected on a well-thicketed and timbered rocky ridge. Masked Tree Rat (Thamnomus loringi). None were taken until we reached the south-west end of Lake Naivasha. Here, and also at Naivasha Station, a number were collected in traps baited with rolled oats and dried apple, and set at the base of large trees and in brushy thickets in groves. In some of these trees and in the bushes, nests of sticks, grass, 496 APPENDIX C and leaves were found. While setting traps one afternoon | saw what might have been one of these rats dart from a deserted bird’s-nest and run down a limb to the ground. The following morning | caught a masked tree rat in a trap set beneath the nest. Four-striped Grass Rat (Arvicanthus pumilio minutus). At Naivasha we first came across this species, where it was found on the east side of the lake only, although the spotted rat was common on both the east and the west side. At Naivasha these two animals inhabited slightly different regions. In the brushy and grassy thickets bordering the lake spotted rats were abundant, but a few four-striped rats were captured. As soon as the traps were transferred to thorn-tree groves, where there was plenty of under-bushes, and not so much grass and weeds, the spotted rats were found in great numbers, but no four-striped rats. All the way from Fort Hail to Mount Kenia, and as high as 10,700 feet, where Dr. Mearns secured one specimen, this species was common. We also caught them along the route between Kampala and Butiaba. Giant Rat (Zhrynomys gregorianus). Along the skirtings of the rivers in the thick weeds, grass, and bushes at Fort Hall signs of these animals were common. ‘There were no well-defined paths. Footprints the size and shape of those made by our muskrats (Fiber) were found in the mud at the water’s edge, and here and there were clusters of grass and weed- stems cut in lengths averaging six inches. In sections where the vegeta- tion had been burned were innumerable holes, where some animal had dug about the base of grass-tufts. ‘Their signs did not extend farther than fifty feet from water. While passing through a thicket close to the water, I started a large rodent, which darted through the grass and plunged into the water. Mole-Rat (Tachyoryctes splendens ibeanus). Mounds of earth that these rats had thrown from the mouth of their burrows at the time that the tunnels were made were found as far west as Oljoro O’Nyon River, but none at N’garri Narok River. At our camp on the South Guaso Nyero River a pale, mole-coloured mole rat took this animal’s place. Some fifteen miles west of Lake Naivasha mole-rats became common, and on the sandy flats, within five miles of the lake, they were so abundant that our horses broke into their runways nearly every step. Their underground tunnels and the mounds of earth that were thrown out were similar to those made by the pocket gophers of Western United States. Many were snared by the porters and brought to camp alive. They would crawl about slowly, not attempting to run away, but looking for a hole to enter. After the lapse of a few seconds they would begin to dig. In any slight depression they began work ; and when small roots or a tussock of grass intervened, they used their teeth until the obstruction was removed, and then, with the nails of their front feet only, continued digging. As the hole deepened they threw the dirt out between their hind-legs, and with them still farther beyond. After the earth had accumulated so that it drifted back, they faced about, and, using their chest as a scoop, pushed it entirely out of the way. They were most active in the evening, at night, and in early morning. Several were found dead near their holes, having evidently been killed by owls or small carnivorous mammals, Alpine Mole-Rat (Lachyoryctes rex). Mole-rat mounds were common about the West Kenia Forest Station, but none were seen between 7,500 and 8,500 feet, and from this altitude they ranged to 11,000 feet. They inhabited all of the open grassy plots in the bamboo belt and in the open timber. The “boys” snared many in nooses ingeniously placed in the runs that were opened and closed after the trap was set. While digging into the burrows, several times I found bulky nests of dried grass in side NOTES MADE BY LORING 497 pockets just off the main runway. Most of them were empty, but one was filled with the animal’s droppings. Kapiti Blesmol (Myoscalops kapiti). This mole-rat, which proved to be new to science, was first encountered at Potha, on Kapiti Plains, and it was again met with at Ulukenia Hills. I was shown several skins that were taken about fifteen miles east of Nairobi. They were the most difficult of all mole-rats to catch, because they lived in the very sandy soil, and almost invariably covered the trap with sand without themselves getting into it. I found a number of their skulls in the pellets of barn and other species of owls. Springhaas (Pedetes surdaster). Very common at Naivasha station, where their burrows were numerous, on a sandy flat practically in the town, and many were taken within a hundred yards of the station. They are nocturnal, although one instance came under my observation where a springhaas was seen on a dark day to run from one burrow to another. By hunting them on dark nights, with the aid of an acetylene light, we were able to secure a good series of skins. When the light was flashed on them, their eyes shone like balls of fire the size of a penny, and it was not uncommon to see from two to five and six within the radius of the light at one time. They were usually flashed at a distance of about a hundred yards, and as the light drew near they would watch it, frequently bobbing up and down. Often they hopped away to right or to left, but very seldom did their fright carry them into their burrows unless a shot was fired ; in fact, even then we sometimes followed up one of their companions and secured it, Some allowed us to approach within ten feet before moving, and then off they would go in great bounds, but | was never able in the dim light to see whether or not their tails aided them in jumping. I once shot a fox from a cluster of eyes that I am positive were those of springhaas ; this, together with the fact that the stomachs of all of the foxes killed contained termites and insects, leads me to believe that these two animals are more or less congenial. Dr. Mearns saw a springhaas sitting with its tail curled around to one side of its body, similar to the position often assumed by a house cat. Several small colonies of springhaas were discovered on sandy flats near Ulukenia Hills. ‘Iwo females taken from the same burrow showed great variation in size, one having a tail several inches longer and ears larger than the other. Although I never discovered a burrow that was com- pletely blocked with sand, in the morning one could find quantities of fresh sand that had been thrown out of the entrance during the night. Great-eared Fox (Otocyon virgartus). This new species of fox we discovered at Naivasha, and found it very common there. All of the seven specimens secured were takeu by “jacking” at night, although while travelling over the Uganda Railroad we frequently saw them singly or in pairs iu broad daylight. The white people knew nothing of a fox in this country, and had always called them “jackals.” They seemed to live in pairs, and groups of three to six. On dark nights it was usually easy to shine their eyes, and approach within shooting range. We would shine a fox, then suddenly the glare of its eyes would disappear, and we would walk about, casting the light in all directions, until we again saw the two balls of fire glaring some fifty or a hundred yards away. Often the foxes would slink about for some time before we got within gunshot range. Frequently we saw two, and sometimes three and four, standing so close together that it was surprising that the spread of the shot did not kill more than one. One evening Dr. Mearns and I started out about nine o’clock, and returned about midnight. Most of the hunting was done on an elevated brushy plateau, within short distance of a native village, 32 498 APPENDIX C where the occupants were singing, dancing, and playing their crude stringed instruments. We ran into a bunch of five of these foxes, and got four of them, none of which was the young of the year. After shooting one, we would search about in the dark until the light picked up another pair of eyes, and in this way we kept circling about close to the village. One fox was killed within two hundred yards of the rail- road station, and at dusk one evening I saw a fox emerge from a burrow close to a group of natives, and scamper across the flat. The stomachs of several were examined, and found to contain about a quart of termites and other insects. Fiant Shrew (Crocidura nyanse). Giant shrews were common at Lake Naivasha, where most of them were caught in the thick reeds and rank grass bordering the lake. One was taken at Nyeri and another on Mount Kenia, at an altitude of 10,700 feet. They seemed to be as much diurnal as nocturnal, and were captured in traps baited with rolled oats, dried apple, and raw meat. ‘They inhabited the dense parts of the thickets, where the foliage had to be parted, and a clearing made for the traps. These localities were the home of a large rat, and many of the rats captured were decapitated or partly eaten by animals that probably were giant shrews. A shrew captured alive was very ferocious, and would seize upon anything that came within its reach. When fully excited, and litted into the air by its tail, it would emit a loud, shrill, chirping note. Short tatied Shrew (Surdisorex nore). Collected between altitudes of 10,000 and 12,100 feet on Mount Kenia. With the exception of those collected at 10,000 feet, where they were trapped in open grassy and brushy parks in the bamboo, most of them were taken in runways of Otomys, and all of those taken at 12,100 were caught in such runways in tall marsh grass. Elephant Shrew (Elephantulus pulcher). Both diurnal and nocturnal. While riding over the country I frequently saw them darting through the runways from one thicket to another. Nearly every clump of bushes and patch of rank vegetation in the Sotik and Naivasha districts was traversed with well-worn trails, used by different species of Mus and shrews. The elephant shrews were most common on the dry flats, where clumps of fibre plants grew, and their trails usually led into some thorny thicket and finally entered the ground. Yellow-Winged Tree Bat (Lavia frons). These large semi-diurnal bats lived in the thorn-tree groves and thick bush along the Athi, South Guaso Nyero, and Nile rivers, where we found them more or less common, and at the latter place abundant. At the two first named places they were almost always found in pairs, hanging from the thorn-trees by their feet, their wings folded before their faces. When disturbed, they fly a short distance and alight ; but when we returned to the spot a few minutes later, they would often be found in the same tree from which they had been started. On the Nile at Rhino Camp, and in suitable places all along the trail between Kampala and Butiaba, it was not unusual to find three and four in a single thorn-tree. On dark days, and once in the bright sunlight, I saw these bats flying about and feeding. At evening they always appeared an hour or so before the sun went down. Their method of feeding was quite similar to that of our fly-catching birds. They would dart from the branches of a thorn-tree, catch an insect, then return and hang head downward in the tree while they ate the morsel. Oue was captured with a young one clinging to it head downward, its feet clasped about its mother’s neck. APPENDIX D Dr. Mearns, accompanied by Loring, spent from the middle of September to after the middle of October, 1909, in a biological survey of Mount Kenia. I take the following account from his notes. In them he treats the mountain proper as beginning at an altitude of 7,500 feet. Mount Kenia is the only snow-capped mountain lying exactly on the equator. Its altitude is about 17,200 feet. ‘I'he mountain is supposed to support fifteen glaciers; those that Mearns and Loring examined resembled vast snow-banks rather than clear ice-glaciers. ‘lhe permanent snow-line begins at the edge of the glacial lakes at 15,000 feet; on October 18 there was a heavy snow-storm as low down as 11,000 feet. For some distance below the snow-line the slopes were of broken rock, bare earth, and gravel, with a scanty and insignificant vegetable growth in the crannies between the rocks. These grasses and Alpine plants, including giant groundsels and lobelias, cover the soil. At 13,000 feet timber line is reached. The Kenia forest belt, separating this treeless Alpine region from the surrounding open plains, is from six to nine miles wide. ‘The forest zone is only imperfectly divided into successive belts of trees of the same species ; for the species vary on different sides of the mountain. Even the bamboo zone is interrupted. On the west side the zones may be divided into : 1. A cedar zone from 7,000 or 7,500 to 8,500 feet. The cedars are mixed with many hardwood trees. 2. A belt composed mainly of bamboo and yellow-wood (African yew) from 8,500 to 10,700 feet. Here the true timber zone ends. 3. A zone of giant heath, mixed with giant groundsels and shrubs, extending to 13,000 feet. The heaths may be 30 feet high, and can be used as fuel. In this zone are many boggy meadows. Loring and Mearns occupied five collecting camps in the forest zone and one above it, at 13,700 feet. One day Mearns followed 499 500 APPENDIX D the snow-line for a mile without seeing any traces of large animals, although leopards and smaller cats sometimes wander to this height. The groove-toothed rat (Otomys) was numerous in the grass bordering the glacial lakes at a height of 15,000 feet : so were the big mountain hyrax ; and Mearns shot one of these animals at 15,500 feet, by a snow-bank; it was the highest point at which any mammal was collected. Various kinds of rats and shrews were numerous about the 13,700-foot camp. Above 12,000 feet only three small birds were seen: a long-tailed sunbird, a stone- chat, and a fantail warbler. On the entire Mount Kenia trip 1,112 birds, of 210 species, were collected ; 1,820 mammals and 771 reptiles and batrachians were collected, but the species represented were much fewer. Mearns also made an excellent collection of plants and a good collection of invertebrates. Fresh-water crabs were numerous in the streams up to 10,000 feet, frogs went as high as 10,700, a chameleon was taken at 11,000, and a lizard at 12,100. Loring ascended the mountain to the base of the pinnacle, at about 16,500 feet. He started from the highest camp, where the water froze each night. The ascent was easy, and ke carried his camera ; but the glare of the snow gave him snow-blindness. APPENDIX E PROTECTIVE COLORATION Mr. Ducmore has taken a wonderful series of photographs of African big game. Mr. Kearton has taken a series of moving pictures of various big animals which were taken alive by Buffalo Jones and his two cowboys, Loveless and Meany, on his recent trip to East Africa—a trip on which they were accompanied by a former member of my regiment, Guy Scull. All three men are old-time Westerners and plainsmen, skilled in handling both horse and rope. ‘They took their big, powerful, thoroughly trained cow horses with them, and roped and captured a lioness, a rhinoceros, a giraffe, and other animals. I regard these feats of my three fellow-countrymen as surpassing any feats which can possibly be performed by men who hunt with the rifle. For the natural history of African big game, probably the three most valuable books—certainly the most valuable modern books—are Selous’s “ African Nature Notes,” Schilling’s ‘ Flash- light and Rifle,” and Millais’s “ Breath from the Veldt.” The photographer plays an exceedingly valuable part in Nature study, but our appreciation of the great value of this part must never lead us into forgetting that as a rule even the best photograph renders its highest service when treated as material for the best picture, instead of as a substitute for the best picture; and that the picture itself, important though it is, comes entirely secondary to the text in any book worthy of serious consideration either from the standpoint of science or the standpoint of literature. Of course this does not mean any failure to appreciate the absolute importance of photographs—of Mr. Dugmore’s capital photo- graphs, for instance; what I desire is merely that we keep in mind, when books are treated seriously, the relative values of the photograph, the picture, and the text. The text, again, to be of the highest worth, must be good both in form and in substance— that is, the writer who tells us of the habits of big game must be a man of ample personal experience, of trained mind, of keen powers 501 502 APPENDIX E of observation, and, in addition, a man possessing the ability to portray vividly, clearly, and with interest what he has seen. Experience in the field is of great value in helping to test various biological theories. One of the theories which has had a very great vogue of recent years is that of the protective coloration of animals, It has been worked out with a special elaborateness in Mr. Thayer’s book on “Concealing Coloration in the Animal Kingdom.” I do not question the fact that there are in all probability multitudes of cases in which the coloration of an animal is of protective value in concealing it from its prey or its foes. But the theory is certainly pushed to preposterous extremes; its ultra-adherents taking up a position like that of some of the earlier champions of the glacial theory, who, having really dis- covered notable proofs of glacial action in parts of Kurope and North America, then went slightly crazy on their favourite subject, and proceeded to find proofs of glacial action over the entire world surface, including, for instance, the Amazon Valley. As regards many of the big game animals, at any rate, which are claimed by the ultra-exponents of the protective coloration theory as offering examples thereof, there is not the least particle of justification for the claim. I select Mr. Thayer’s book because it is a really noteworthy book, written and illustrated by men of great ability, and because it contains much that is of genuine scientific value.1 I have no question whatever, for instance, that concealing coloration is of real value in the struggle for existence to certain mammals and certain birds, not to mention invertebrates. The night hawk, certain partridges and grouse, and numerous other birds which seek to escape observation by squatting motionless, do unquestion- ably owe an immense amount to the way in which their colours harmonize with the surrounding colours, thus enabling them to lie undetected while they keep still, and probably even protecting them somewhat if they try to skulk off. In these cases, where the theory really applies, the creature benefited by the coloration secures the benefit by acting in a way which enables the coloration to further its concealment. A night hawk, or a woodcock, or a prairie chicken, will lie until nearly trodden on, the bird showing by its action that its one thought is to escape observation, and its coloration and squatting attitude enabling it thus to escape observation, as Mr. Beddard puts it in his book on “ Animal Coloration,” ‘‘ absence of movement is absolutely essential for protectively coloured animals, whether they make use of their ‘ In passing I wish to bear testimony to the admirable work done by various members of the Thayer family in preserving birds and wild life—work so admirable that if those concerned in it will go on with it, they are entitled to believe anything in the world they wish about protective coloration ! PROTECTIVE COLORATION 503 coloration for defensive purposes or offensive purposes.” So far as Mr. 'Thayer’s book or similar books confine themselves to pointing out cases of this kind, and to working on hypotheses where the facts are supplied by such cases, they do a real service. But it is wholly different when the theory is pushed to fantastic extremes, as by those who seek to make the coloration of big game animals such as zebras, giraffes, hartebeests, and the like, protective. I very gravely doubt whether some of the smaller mammals and birds to which Mr. Thayer refers really bear out his theory at all. He has, for instance, a picture of blue jays by snow and blue shadow, which is designed to show how closely the blue jay agrees with its surroundings (I would be uncertain from the picture whether it is really blue water or a blue shadow). Now, it is a simple physical impossibility that the brilliant and_ striking coloration of the blue jay can be protective both in the bare woods when snow is on the ground and in the thick leafy woods of midsummer. Countless such instances could be given. Mr. Thayer insists, as vital to his theory, that partridges and other protectively coloured animals owe their safety, not at all to being inconspicuously coloured—that is, to being coloured like their surroundings—but to their counter-shading, to their being coloured dark above and light below. But, as a matter of fact, most small mammals and birds which normally owe their safety to the fact that their coloration matches their surroundings, crouch flat when- ever they seek to escape observation ; and when thus crouched flat, the counter-shading on which Mr, ‘Thayer lays such stress almost, or completely, disappears. ‘The counter-shading ceases to be of any use in concealing or protecting the animal at the precise moment when it trusts to its coloration for concealment. Small rodents and small dull-coloured ground birds are normally in fear of foes which must see them from above at the critical moment if they see them at all; and from above no such shading is visible. This is true of almost all the small birds in question, and of the little mice and rats and shrews, and it completely upsets Mr. Thayer’s theory as regards an immense proportion of the animals to which he applies it; most species of mice, for example, which he insists owe their safety to counter-shading, live under conditions which make this counter-shading of practically no consequence whatever in saving them from their foes. The nearly uniform coloured mice and shrews are exactly as difficult to see as the others. Again, take what Mr. Thayer says of hares and prongbucks. Mr. Thayer insists that the white tails and rumps of deer, antelopes, hares, etc., help them by “ obliteration ” of them as they flee. He actually continues that ‘‘ when these beasts flee at night before terrestrial enemies, their brightly displayed, sky-lit white 504 APPENDIX E sterns blot out their foreshortened bodies against the sky.” He illustrates what he means by pictures, and states that “in the night the illusion must often be complete, and most beneficent to the hunted beast,” and that what he calls “ these rear-end sky- pictures are worn by most fleet ruminants of the open land, and by many rodents with more or less corresponding habits, notably hares ” and smaller things whose enemies are beasts of low stature, like weasels, minks, snakes, and foxes; ‘“‘in short, that they are worn by animals that are habitually or most commonly looked up at by their enemies.” Mr. Thayer gives several pictures of the prongbuck and of the northern rabbit to illustrate his theory, and actually treats the extraordinarily conspicuous white rump patch of the prongbuck as an “ obliterative” marking. In reality, so far from hiding the animal, the white rump is at night often the only cause of the animal's being seen at all. Under one picture of the prongbuck Mr. Thayer says that it is commonly seen with the white rump against the sky-line by all its terrestrial enemies, such as wolves and cougars. Of course, as a matter of fact, when seen against the sky-line, the rest of the prongbuck’s silhouette is so distinct that the white rump mark has not the slightest obliterative value of any kind. I can testify personally as to this, for I have seen prongbuck against the sky-line hundreds of times by daylight, and at least a score of times by night. ‘The only occasion it could ever have such obliterative value would be at the precise moment wheu it happened to be standing stern-on in such a position that the rump was above the sky-line and all the rest of the body below it. ‘Ten steps farther back, or ten steps farther forward, would in each case make it visible instantly to the dullest-sighted wolf or cougar that ever killed game; so that Mr. Thayer's theory is of value only on the supposition that both the prongbuck and its enemy happen to be so placed that the enemy never glances in its direction save at just the one particular moment when, by a combination of circumstances which might not occur once in a million times, the prongbuck happens to be helped by the obliterative quality of the white rump mark. Now, in the first place, the chance of the benefit happening to any individual prongbuck is so inconceivably small that it can be neglected, and, in the next place, in reality the white rump mark is exceedingly conspicuous under all ordinary circumstances, and, for once that it might help the animal to elude attention, must attract attention to it at least a thousand times. At night, in the darkness, as anyone who has ever spent much time hunting them knows, the white rump mark of the antelope is almost always the first thing about them that is seen, and is very often the only thing that is ever seen ; and at night it does not fade into the sky, even if the animal is on the sky-line. So far as beasts of prey are guided by PROTECTIVE COLORATION 505 their sight at night, the white rump must always under all circum- stances be a source of danger to the prongbuck, and never of any use as an obliterative pattern. In the daytime, so far from using this white rump as obliterative, the prongbuck almost invariably erects the white hairs with a kind of chrysanthemum effect when excited or surprised, and thereby doubles its conspicuousness. In the daytime, if the animals are seen against the sky-line, the white rump has hardly the slightest effect in making them less con- spicuous ; while if they are not seen against the sky-line (and of course in a great majority of cases they are not so seen), it is much the most conspicuous feature about them, and attracts attention from a very long distance. But this is not all. Anyone ac- quainted with the habits of the prongbuck knows that the adult prongbuck practically never seeks to protect itself from its foes by concealment or by eluding their observation; its one desire is itself to observe its foes, and it is quite indifferent as to whether or not it is seen. It lives in open ground, where it is always very conspicuous, excepting during the noonday rest, when it prefers to lie down in a hollow, almost always under conditions which render the white rump patch much less conspicuous than at any other time. In other words, during the time when it is comparatively off its guard and resting it takes a position where it does not stand against the sky-line—-as, according to Mr. Thayer’s ingenious theory, it should ; and, again contrary to this same theory, it usually lies down, so that any foe would have to look down at it from above. Whenever it does lie down, the white patch becomes less conspicuous ; it is rarely quiet for any length of time except when lying down. The kids of the prongbuck, on the other hand, do seek to escape observation, and they seek to do so by lying perfectly flat on the ground, with their heads outstretched and the body pressed so against the ground that the effect of the white rump is minimized, as is also the effect of the “ counter-shading ” ; for the light-coloured under parts are pressed against the earth, and the little kid lies motionless, trusting to escape observation owing to absence of movement, helped by the unbroken colour surface which is exposed to view. If the adult prongbucks really ever gained any benefit by any “ protective” quality in their coloration, they would certainly act like the kids, and crouch motionless. In reality the adult prongbuck never seeks to escape observation, never trusts in any way to the concealing or protec- tive power of any part of its coloration, and is not benefited in the slightest degree by this supposed, but in reality entirely non- existent, concealing, or protective power. The white rump practically never has any obliterative or concealing function ; on the contrary, in the great majority of instances, it acts as an advertisement to all outside creatures of the prongbuck’s existence. 506 APPENDIX E Probably it is an example of what is known as directive coloration, of coloration used for purposes of advertisement or communication with the animal’s followers. But however this may be, it is certain that there is not the smallest justification for Mr. Thayer’s theory so far as the prongbuck is concerned. It is practically the same as regards the rabbit or the hare. Anyone who has ever been in the woods must know, or certainly ought to know, that when hares are sitting still and trying to escape observation, they crouch flat, so that the white of the tail and rump is almost concealed, as well as the white of the under parts, while the effect of the counter-shading almost or entirely vanishes. No terrestrial foe of the hare would ever see the white rump against the sky-line unless the animal was in rapid motion (and parenthetically I may observe that even then it would only see the rump against the sky-line in an infinitesimally small number of cases). Of course, as soon as the animal is in motion it is conspicuous to even the most dull-sighted beast of prey; and Mr. Thayer's idea that the white rear patch may mislead a foe as it jumps upon it is mere supposition, unsustained by any proof, and contrary to all the facts that I have observed. Civilized man, who is much more dull-sighted than most wild things, can always sce a rabbit when it runs because its white is then so very con- spicuous. Here, again, I do not think there is the slightest value in Mr. Thayer’s theory. ‘The white rump is certainly not a pro- tective or obliterative marking; it is probably a directive or advertisement marking. The Virginia deer, utterly unlike the prongbuck, does often seek to evade observation by lying close, or skulking. When it lies close, it lies flat on the ground like a hare, and its white tail is almost invisible, while of course even the most low-creeping foe would not under such circumstances get it against the sky-line. When it skulks, it moves off with head and neck outstretched and tail flattened down, with the white as much obscured as possible. The white is never shown in conspicuous fashion until the animal is frightened and no longer seeks concealment. It then bounds off openly, crashing through the bush, with its white tail flaunted, and under such circumstances the white mark is extremely con- spicuous. Indeed, I feel that there is grave ground to question the general statement of Mr. Thayer that “ almost all mammals are equipped with a full obliterative shading of surface colours; that is, they are darkest on the back and lightest on the belly, usually with connected intermediate shades.” This is undoubtedly true as a statement of the coloration, but whether this coloration is in fact obliterative needs farer investigation. Of course, if it is obliterative, then its use is to conceal the mammals. Mr. Thayer's PROTECTIVE COLORATION 507 whole thesis is that such is the case. But as a matter of fact, the great majority of these mammals, when they seek to escape observation, crouch on the ground, and in that postuse the light belly escapes observation, and the animal’s colour pattern loses very much of, and sometimes all of, the “ full obliterative shading of surface colours” of which Mr. Thayer speaks. Moreover, when crouched down in seeking to escape observation, the foes of the animal are most apt to see it from above, not from below or from one side. ‘This is also the case with carnivorous animals which seek to escape the observation of their prey. ‘The cougar crouches when lying in wait or stalking, so that it is precisely when it is seeking to escape observation that its lighter-coloured under parts are obscured, and the supposed benefit of the “ obliterative shading pattern ” lost. I do not intend without qualification to take ground one way or the other on this general question; but it is certainly true that any such sweeping statement as that quoted above by Mr. Thayer is as yet entirely unproved. I have no doubt that in most cases animals whose colours harmonize with their environment, and which also seek to escape observation by remain- ing motionless when they think there is danger, are very materially helped by their concealing coloration ; but when this concealment is said to be due to the obliterative shading as described by Mr. Thayer, it is certainly worth while considering the fact that the so-called obliterative pattern is least shown, or is not shown at all, at the only time when the animal seeks to escape observation, or succeeds in escaping observation—that is, when it crouches motionless, or skulks slowly, with the conscious aim of not being seen. No colour scheme whatever is of much avail to animals when they move, unless the movement is very slow and cautious ; rats, mice, gophers, rabbits, shrews, and the enormous majority ot mammals which are coloured in this fashion are not helped by their special coloration pattern at all when they are in motion. Against birds of prey they are practically never helped by the counter- shading, but merely by the general coloration and by absence of movement. Their chief destroyers among mammals—such as weasels, for instance—hunt them almost or altogether purely by scent, and though the final pounce is usually guided by sight, it is ade from a distance so small that, as far. as we can tell by observation, the ‘* counter-shading ” is useless as a protection. In fact, while the general shading of these small mammals’ coats may very probably protect them from certain foes, it is as yet an open question as to just how far they are helped (and indeed in very many cases whether they really are helped to any appreciable extent) by what Mr. Thayer lays such special stress upon as being “ full obliterative shading (counter-shading) of surface colouring.” Certainly many of the. markings of mammals, just as is the case 508 APPENDIX E with birds, must be wholly independent of any benefit they give to their possessors in the way of concealment. Mr. Thayer’s pictures in some cases portray such entirely exceptional situations or sur- roundings that they are misleading—as, for instance, in his pictures of the peacock and the male wood-duck. An instant’s reflection is sufficient to show that if the gaudily-coloured males of these two birds are really protectively coloured, then the females are not, and vice versa ; for the males and females inhabit similar places, and if the elaborate arrangement of sky or water and foliage in which Mr. ‘Thayer has placed his peacock and wood-drake represented (which they do not) their habitual environment, a peahen and wood-duck could not be regarded as protectively coloured at all ; whereas of course in reality, as everyone knows, they are far more difficult to see than the corresponding males. Again, he shows a chipmunk among twigs and leaves, to make it evident that the white and black markings conceal it; but a weasel, which lacks these markings, would be even more difficult to see. The simple truth is that in most woodland, mountain, and prairie surroundings apy small mammal that remains motionless is, unless very vividly coloured, exceedingly apt to escape notice. I do not think that the stripes of the chipmunk are of any protective value—that is, I believe (and the case of the weasel seems to me to prove) that its coloration would be at least as fully “ protective” without them. The striped gophers and grey gophers seem equally easy to see ; they live in similar habitats, and the stripes seem to have no protective effect one way or the other. It is when Mr. Thayer and the other extreme members of the protective coloration school deal with the big game of Africa that they go most completely wide of the mark. For instance, Mr. Thayer speaks of the giraffe as a sylvan mammal with a checkered sun-fleck and leaf-coloured pattern of coloration, accom- panied by complete obliterative shading, and the whole point of his remark is that the giraffe’s coloration ‘always maintains its potency for obliteration.” Now, of course, this means nothing unless Mr. Thayer intends by it to mean that the giraffe’s coloration allows it to escape the observation of its foes. I doubt whether this is ever under any circumstances the case—that is, I doubt whether the girafte’s varied coloration ever “enables” it to escape observation save as the dark monochrome of the elephant, rhinoceros, or buffalo may “ enable” one of these animals to escape observation under practically identical conditions. There is, of course, no conceivable colour or scheme of colour which may not, under some conceivable circumstances, enable the bearer to escape observation ; but if such colouring, for once that it enables the bearer to escape observation exposes the bearer to observation a thousand times, it cannot be called protective. JI do not think that the giraffes PROTECTIVE COLORATION 509 coloration exposes it to observation on the part of its foes; I think that it simply has no effect whatsoever. he giraffe never trusts to escaping observation ; its sole thought is itself to observe any possible foe. At a distance of a few hundred yards, the colour pattern becomes indistinct to the eye, and the animal appears of a nearly uniform tint,so that any benefit given by the colour pattern must be comparatively close at hand. On the very rare occasions when beasts of prey—that is, lions—do attack giraffes, it is usually at night, when the coloration is of no consequence ; but even by daylight I should really doubt whether any giraffe has been saved from an attack by lions owing to its coloration allowing it to escape observation. It is so big, and so queerly shaped, that any trained eyes detect it at once, if within a reasonable distance ; it only escapes observation when so far off that its coloration does not count one way or the other. ‘There is no animal which will not at times seem invisible to the untrained eyes of the average white hunter, and any beast of any shape or any colour standing or lying motionless, under exceptional circumstances, may now and then escape observation. The elephant is a much more truly sylvan beast than the giraffe, and it is a one-coloured beast, its coloration pattern being precisely that which Mr. Thayer points out as being most visible. But I have spent over a minute in trying to see an elephant not fifty yards off, in thick forest, my black companion vainly trying to show it to me; I have had just the same experience with the similarly coloured rhinoceros and buffalo when standing in the same scanty bush that is affected by giraffes, and with the rhinoceros also in open plains where there are ant-hills. It happens that I have never had such an experience with a giraffe. Doubtless such experiences do occur with giraffes, but no more frequently than with elephant, rhinoceros, and buffalo ; and in my own experience I found that I usually made out giraffes at considerably larger distances than I made out rhinos. ‘The buffalo does sometimes try to conceal itself, and, Mr. Thayer to the contrary notwithstanding, it is then much more difficult to make out than a giraffe, because it is much smaller and less oddly shaped. ‘The buffalo, by the way, really might be benefited by protective coloration, if it possessed it, as it habitually lives in cover, and is often preyed on by the lion; whereas the giraffe is not protected at all by its coloration, and is rarely attacked by lions. Elephants and rhinoceroses occasionally stand motionless, wait- ing to see if they can place a foe, and at such times it is possible they are consciously seeking to evade observation. But the giraffe never under any circumstances tries to escape observation, and I doubt if, practically speaking, it ever succeeds so far as wild men or wild beasts that use their eyes at all are concerned. It stands 510 APPENDIX E motionless, looking at the hunter, put it never tries to hide from him. It is one of the most conspicuous animals in Nature. Native hunters of the true hunting tribes pick it up invariably at an astonishing distance, and near by it never escapes their eyes; its coloration is of not the slightest use to it from the standpoint of concealment. Of course, white men, even though good ordinary hunters, and black men of the non-hunting tribes, often fail to see it, just as they often fail to see a man or a horse, at a distance ; but this is almost always at such a distance that the coloration pattern cannot be made out at all, the animal seeming neutral tinted, like the rest of the landscape, and escaping observation because it is motionless, just as at the same distance a rhinoceros may escape observation. A motionless man, if dressed in neutral- tinted clothes, will in the same manner escape observation, even from wild beasts, at distances so short that no giraffe could possibly avoid being seen. I have often watched game come to watering- places, or graze toward me on a nearly bare ‘plain ; on such occasions I might he unable to use cover, and then merely sat motionless on the grass or in a game trail. My neutral-tinted clothes, grey or yellow-brown, were all of one colour, without any counter-shading ; but neither the antelope nor the zebra saw me, and they would frequently pass me, or come down to drink, but thirty or forty yards off, without ever knowing of my presence. My “ conceal- ment” or ‘ protection” was due to resting motionless and to wearing a neutral-tinted suit, although there was no counter- shading, and although the colour was uniform instead of being broken up with a pattern of various tints. The zebra offers another marked example of the complete break- down of the protective coloration theory. Mr. Thayer says: * Among all the bolder obliterative patterns worn by mammals, that of the zebra probably bears away the palm for potency.” The zebra’s coloration has proved especially attractive to many disciples of this school, even to some who are usually good ob- servers; but as a matter of fact, the zebra’s coloration is the reverse of protective, and it is really extraordinary how any fairly good observer of accurate mind can consider it so. One argument used by Mr. Thayer is really funny, when taken in connection with an argument frequently used by other disciples of the protective coloration theor y as applied to zebras. Mr. Thayer shows by in- genious pictures ‘that a wild ass is much less protectively coloured than a zebra. Some of his fellow-disciples triumphantly point out that at a little distance the zebra’s stripes merge into one another, and that the animal then becomes protectively “coloured because it looks exactly like a wild ass! Of course, each author forgets that zebras and wild asses live under substantially the same conditions, and that this mere fact totally upsets the theory that each is PROTECTIVE COLORATION 51] beneficially affected by its protective coloration. ‘The two animals cannot both be protectively coloured; they cannot each owe to its coloration an advantage in escaping from its foes. It is absolutely impossible, if one of them is so coloured as to enable it to escape the observation of its foes, that the other can be. As a matter of fact, neither is, and neither makes any attempt to elude observa- tion by its foes, but trusts entirely to vigilance in discerning them and fleetness in escaping from them ; although the wild ass, unlike the zebra, really is so coloured that because thereof it may occa. sionally escape observation from dull-sighted foes. Mr. Thayer’s argument is_ based throughout on a complete failure to understand the conditions of zebra life. He makes an elaborate statement to show that the brilliant cross-bands of the zebra have great obliterative effect, insisting that, owing to the obliterative coloration, zebras continually escape observation in the country in which they live. He continues: ‘‘ Furthermore, all beasts must have water, and so the zebras of the dry plains must needs make frequent visits to the nearest living sloughs and rivers. There, by the water’s edge, tall reeds and grasses almost always flourish, and there, where all beasts meet to drink, is the great place of danger for the ruminants, and all on whom the lion preys. In the open land they can often detect their enemy afar off, and depend on their fleetness for escape; but when they are down in the river-bed, among the reeds, he may approach unseen and leap among them without warning. It is probably at these drinking- places that the zebra’s pattern is most beneficently potent. From far or near the watching eye of the hunter (bestial or human) is likely to see nothing, or nothing but reed-stripes, where it might otherwise detect the contour of a zebra.” In a footnote he adds that, however largely lions and other rapacious mammals hunt by scent, it is only sight that serves them when they are down wind of their quarry; and that sight alone must guide their ultimate killing dash and spring. Now, this theory of Mr. Thayer’s about the benefit of the zebra’s Balention at drinking-places, as a shield against foes, lacks even the slightest foundation in fact; for it is self-evident that animals, when they come down to drink, necessarily move. The moment that any animal the size of a zebra moves, it at once becomes visible to the eye of its human or bestial foes, unless it skulks in the most cautious manner. The zebra never skulks, and, like most of the plains game, it never, at least when adult, seeks to escape observation—indeed, in the case of the zebra (unlike what is true of the antelope) I am not sure that even the young seek to escape observation. I have many times watched zebras and antelopes— wildebeest, hartebeest, gazelle, waterbuck, kob--coming down to water ; their conduct was substantially similar. The zebras, for 512 APPENDIX E instance, made no effort whatever to escape observation; they usually went to some drinking-place as clear of reeds as possible ; but sometimes they were forced to come down to drink where there was rather thick cover, in which case they always seemed more nervous, more on the alert, and quicker in their movements. They came down in herds, and they would usually move forward by fits and starts—that is, travel a few hundred yards, and then stop and stand motionless for some time, looking around. They were always very conspicuous, and it was quite impossible for any watcher to fail to make them out. As they came nearer to the water they seemed to grow more cautious. They would move forward some distance, halt, perhaps wheel and dash off for a hundred yards, and then after a little while return. As they got near the water they would again wait, and then march boldly down to drink—except in one case where, after numerous false starts, they finally seemed to suspect that there was something in the neighbourhood, and went off for good without drinking. Never in any case did I see a zebra come down to drink under conditions which would have rendered it possible for the most dull-sighted beast to avoid seeing it. Of course, I usually watched the pools and rivers when there was daylight ; but after nightfall the zebra’s stripes would be entirely invisible, so that their only effect at the drinking-place must be in the daytime; and in the daytime there was absolutely no effect, and the zebras that I saw could by no possibility have escaped observation from a lion, for they made no effort whatever thus to escape observation, but moved about continually, and, after drinking, retired to the open ground. The zebra’s coloration is certainly never of use to him in helping him escape observation at a drinking-place. But neither is it of use to him in escaping observation anywhere else. As I have said before, there are, of course, circumstances under which any pattern or coloration will harmonize with the environment. Once I came upon zebras standing in partially burned grass, some of the yellow stalks still erect, and here the zebras were undoubtedly less con- spicuous than the red-coated hartebeests with which they were associated ; but as against the one or two occasions where I have seen the zebra’s coat make it less conspicuous than most other animals, there have been scores where it has been more conspicuous. I think it would be a safe estimate to say that for one occasion on which the coloration of the zebra serves it for purposes of conceal- ment from any enemy, there are scores, or more likely hundreds, of occasions when it reveals it to an enemy; while in the great majority of instances it has no effect one way or the other. The different effects of light and shade muke different patterns of coloration more or less visible on different occasions. ‘There have PROTECTIVE COLORATION 513 been occasions when I have seen antelopes quicker than I have seen the zebra with which they happened to be associated. More often the light has been such that I have seen the zebra first. Where I was, in Africa, the zebra herds were on the same ground, and often associated, with eland, oryx, wildebeest, topi, hartebeest, Grant’s gazelle, and Thomson’s gazelle, Of all these animals, the wildebeest, because of its dark coloration, was the most conspicuous and most readily seen. ‘The topi also usually looked very dark. Both of these animals were ordinarily made out at longer distances than the others. The gazelles, partly from their small size and artly from their sandy coloration, were, I should say, usually a little harder to make out than the others. ‘The remaining animals were conspicuous or not, largely as the light happened to strike them. Ordinarily, if zebras were mixed with elands or oryx, I saw the zebras before seeing the eland and oryx, although I ought to add that my black companions on these occasions usually made out both sets of animals at the same time. But in mixed herds of hartebeests and zebras I have sometimes seen the hartebeests first, and sometimes the zebras.! The truth is that this plains game never seeks to escape observa- tion at all, and that the coloration patterns of the various animals are not concealing, and are of practically no use whatever in protecting the animals from their foes. The beasts above enumerated are coloured in widely different fashions. If any one of them was really obliteratively coloured, it would mean that some or all of the others were not so Seeanede But, as a matter of fact, they are none of them instances of concealing coloration ; none of the beasts seek to escape observation, or trust ” for safety to eluding the sight of their foes. When they lie down they almost always” lie down in very open ground, where they are readily seen, and where they can hope to see their foes. “When topi, roan antelope, hartebeest, and so forth, are standing head-on, the under parts look darker instead of lighter than the upper parts, so that in this common position there is no ‘‘ counter-shading.” ‘lhe roan and oryx have nearly uniform coloured coats which often do harmonize with their surroundings ; but their bold face- markings fo) are conspicuous.” None of these big or medium-sized plains 1 Mr. Thayer tries to show that the cross stripes on the legs of zebras are of protective value. He has forgotten that in the typical Burchell’s zebra the legs are white ; whether they are striped or not is evidently of no consequence from the protective standpoint. There is even less basis for Mr. Thayer’s theory that the stripings on the legs of elands and one or two other antelopes have any, even the slightest, protective e value. 2 A curious instance of the lengths to which some protective-coloration theorists ge is afforded by the fact that they actually treat these bold markings as obliterative or concealing. In actual fact the reverse is true ; these face- markings are much more apt to advertise the animal’s presence. 33 514 APPENDIX E animals, while healthy and unhurt, seeks to escape observation by hiding. This is the direct reverse of what occurs with many bush ante- lopes. Undoubtedly many of the latter do seek to escape observa- tion. I have seen waterbucks stand perfectly still, and then steal cautiously off through the brush; and I have seen duiker and steinbuck lie down and stretch their heads out flat on the ground when they noticed a horseman approaching from some distance. Yet even in these cases it is very hard to say whether their coloration is really protective. ‘The steinbuck, a very common little antelope, is of a foxy red, which is decidedly conspicuous. The duiker lives in the same localities, and seems to me to be more protectively coloured—at any rate, if the coloration is protective for one it certainly is not for the other. The bushbuck is a boldly-coloured beast, and I do not believe for a moment that it ever owes its safety to protective coloration. ‘The reedbuck, which in manners corresponds to our white-tailed deer, may very possibly at times be helped by its coloration, although my own belief is that all these bush creatures owe their power ‘of conceal- ment primarily to their caution, noiselessness, and power to remain motionless, rather than to any pattern of Goloration® But all of these animals undoubtedly spend much of their time in trying to elude observation. On the open plains, however, nothing of the kind happens. The little tommy gazelle, for instance, never strives to escape observation. It has a habit of constantly jerking its tail in a way which immediately attracts notice, even if it is not moving other- wise. When it lies down, its obliterative shading entirely dis- appears, because it has a very vivid black line along its side, and when recumbent—or indeed, for the matter of that, when standing up—this black line at once catches the eye. However, when stand- ing, it can be seen at once anyhow. ‘The bigger Grant’s gazelle is, as far as the adult male is concerned, a little better off than the tommy, because the bucks have not got the conspicuous black lateral stripe; but this is possessed by both the young and the does—who stand in much more need of concealing coloration. But as I have already so often said, neither concealment nor concealing coloration plays any part whatever in protecting these animals from their foes. ‘There is never any difficulty in seeing them ; the difficulty is to prevent their seeing the hunter. Mr. 'Thayer’s thesis is “ that all patterns and colours whatsoever of all animals that ever prey or are preyed on are under certain normal circumstances obliterative.” Either this sentence is entirely incorrect or else it means nothing; either no possible scheme of coloration can be imagined which is not protective (in which case, of course, the whole theory becomes meaningless), or else the state- PROTECTIVE COLORATION BLS ment so sweepingly made is entirely incorrect. As I have already shown, there are great numbers of animals to which it cannot apply ; and some of the very animals which do escape observation in com- plete fashion are coloured utterly differently when compared one with the other, although their habitats are the same. ‘The intricate pattern of the leopard, and the uniform, simple pattern of the cougar, seem equally efficient under precisely similar conditions ; and so do all the intermediate patterns when the general tint is neutral ; and even the strikingly-coloured melanistic forms of these creatures seem as well fed and successful as the others. Mono- coloured cougars and spotted jaguars, black leopards and spotted leopards, and other cats of all tints and shades, broken or unbroken, are frequently found in the same forests, dwelling under precisely similar conditions, and all equally successful in eluding observation and in catching their prey. One of the most extreme, and most unwarrantable, of the positions taken by the ultra-advocates of the protective-coloration theory is that in reference to certain boldly-marked black and white animals, like skunks and Colobus monkeys, whose coloration patterns they assert to be obliterative. In skunks, the coloration is certainly not protective in any way against foes, as every human being must know if he has ever come across skunks by night or by day in the wilderness ; their coloration advertises their presence to all other creatures which might prey on them. In all probability, moreover, it is not of the slightest use in helping them obtain the little beasts on which they themselves prey. Mr. Thayer's “ sky- pattern ” theory about skunks cannot apply, for bears, which are equally good mousers and insect-grubbers, have no white on them, nor have fishers, weasels, raccoons, or foxes; and in any event the “ sky-pattern” would not as often obliterate the skunk from the view of its prey as it would advertise it to its prey. It is to the last degree unlikely that any mouse or insect is ever more easily caught because of the white “sky-pattern” on the skunk; and it is absolutely certain that any of these little creatures that trust to their eyes at all must have their vision readily attracted by the skunk’s bold coloration; and the skunk’s method of hunting is incompatible with deriving benefit from its coloration. Besides, it usually hunts at night, and at night the white “ sky-pattern ” is not a sky-pattern at all, but is exceedingly conspicuous, serving as an advertisement. The big black and white Colobus monkey has been adduced as an instance of the “ concealing” quality of bold and conspicuous coloration patterns. Of course, as I have said before, there is no conceivable pattern which may not, under some wholly exceptional circumstances, be of use from the protective standpoint ; a soldier in a black frock-coat and top-hat, with white duck trousers, might 516 APPENDIX E conceivably in the course of some city fight get into a coal-cellar with a white-washed floor, and find that “the “coloration pattern ” of his preposterous uniform was protective; and really it would be no more misleading to speak of such a soldier’s dress as protective compared to khaki than it is to speak of the Colobus monkey’s coloration as protective when compared with the colorations of the duller-coloured monkeys of other species that are found in the same forests. When hunting with the wild ’Ndorobo, I often found it impossible to see the ordinary monkeys, which they tried to point out to me, before the latter fled; but I rarely failed to see the Colobus monkey when it was pointed out. In the tops of the giant trees, any monkey that stood motionless was to my eyes difficult to observe; but nine times out of ten it was the dull- coloured monkey, and not the black and white Colobus, which was most difficult to observe. I questioned the "Ndorobos as to which they found hardest to see, and, rather to my amusement, at first they could not understand my question, simply because they could not understand failing to make out either; but, when they did understand, they always responded that the black and white Colobus was the monkey easiest to see and easiest to kill. These monkeys stretch nearly across Africa, from a form at one extremity of the range which is ‘almost entirely black, to a form at the other extremity of the range which is mainly or most conspicuously white. Of course it is quite impossible that both forms can be protec- tively coloured ; and, as a matter of fact, neither is. I am not speaking of the general theory of protective coloration. I am speaking of certain phases thereof as to which I have made observations at first-hand. I have studied the facts as regards big game and certain other animals, and I am convinced that as regards these animals the protective-coloration theory either does not apply at all or applies so little as to render it necessary to accept with the utmost reserve the sweeping generalizations of Mr. Thayer and the protective-coloration extremists. It is an exceedingly interesting subject. It certainly seems that the theory must apply as regards many animals; but it is even more certain that it does not, as its advocates claim, apply universally ; and careful study and cautious generalizations are imperatively neces- sary in striving to apply it extensively, while fanciful and im- possible efforts to apply 1t where it certainly does not apply can do no real good. It is necessary to remember that some totally different principle, in addition to or in substitution for protective coloration, must have been at work where totally different colora- tions and colour patterns seem to bring the same results to the wearers. ‘The bear and the skunk are both catchers of small rodents, and when the colour patterns of the back, nose, and breast, for instance, are directly opposite in the two animals, there PROTECTIVE COLORATION 3 bye is at least need of very great caution in deciding that either represents obliterative coloration of a sort that benefits the creature in catching its prey. Similarly, to say that white herons and pelicans and roseate-coloured flamingoes and spoon-bills are helped by their coloration, when other birds that live exactly in the same fashion and just as successfully, are black, or brown, or black and white, or grey, or green, or blue, certainly represents mere presumption, as yet unaccompanied by a vestige of proof, and probably represents error. ‘There is probably much in the general theory of concealment coloration, but it is not possible to say how much until it is thoroughly tested by men who do not violate the advice of the French scientific professor to his pupils: “ Above all things remember in the course of your investigations that if you determine to find out something you will probably do so.” I have dealt chiefly with big game. But I think it high time that sober scientific men desirous to find out facts should not leave this question of concealing -coloration or protec- tive coloration to theorists who, however able, become so interested in their theory that they lose the capacity to state facts exactly. Mr. Thayer and the various gentlemen who share his views have undoubtedly made some very interesting discoveries, and it may well be that these discoveries are of widespread impor- tance. But they must be most carefully weighed, considered, and corrected by capable scientific men before it is possible to say how far the theory applies and what limitations there are to it. At present all that is absolutely certain is that it does not apply anywhere near as extensively as Mr. ‘Thayer alleges, and that he is so completely mistaken as to some of his facts as to make it necessary carefully to reconsider most of the others. I have shown that as regards most kinds of big game which inhabit open places and do not seek to escape observation, but trust to their own wariness for protection, his theories do not apply at all. hey certainly do not apply at all to various other mammals. Many of his sweeping assertions are certainly not always true, and may not be true in even a very small number of cases. ‘Thus, in his introduction, Mr. Thayer says of birds that the so-called “nuptial colours, etc., are confined to situations where the same colours are to be found in the wearer’s background, either at certain periods of his life or all the time,” and that apparently not one of these colours “exists anywhere in the world where there is not every reason to believe it the very best conceivable device for the concealment of its wearer, either throughout the main part of this wearer's life or under certain peculiarly important circumstances.’ It is really difficult to argue about a statement so flatly contra- dicted by ordinary experience. Taking at random two of the 518 APPENDIX E common birds around our own homes, it is only necessary to consider the bobolink and the scarlet tanager. The males of these two birds in the breeding season put on liveries which are not only not the “ very best conceivable,” but, on the contrary, are the very worst conceivable devices for the concealment of the wearers. If the breeding cock bobolink and breeding cock tanager are not coloured in the most conspicuous manner to attract atten- tion, if they are not so coloured as to make it impossible for them to be more conspicuous, then it is absolutely hopeless for man or Nature or any power above or under the earth to devise any scheme of coloration whatsoever which shall not be concealing or protective ; and in such cases Mr, Thayer’s whole argument is a mere play upon words. In sufficiently thick cover, whether of trees or grass, any small animal of any colour or shape may, if mononiee escape observation ; but the coloration patterns of the breeding bobolink and breeding tanager males, so far from being concealing or protective, are in the highest degree advertising ; and the same is true of multitudes of birds, of the red-winged blackbird, of the yellow-headed grackle, of the wood-duck, of the spruce grouse, of birds which ‘could be mentioned offhand by the handred aid probably, after a little study, by the thousand. As regards many of these birds, the coloration can never be protective or concealing ; as regards others, it may under certain rare combinations of conditions, like those set forth in some of Mr. 'Thayer’s ingenious but misleading coloured pictures, ' serve for concealment or “protection, but in an infinitely larger number of cases it serves simply to advertise and attract attention to the wearers. As regards these cases, and countless others, Mr. Thayer’s theories seem to me without substantial foundation in fact, and other influences than those he mentions must be responsible for the coloration. It may be that his theories really do not apply to a very large number of animals which are coloured white, or are pale in dint, beneath. For instance, in the cases of creatures like those of snakes and mice—where the ‘white or pale tint beneath can never be seen by either their foes or their prey—this ‘ counter-shading ” may be due to some cause wholly differing from anything concerned with protection or concealment. There are other problems of coloration for which Mr. Thayer professes to give an explanation where this explanation breaks down for a different reason. ‘The cougar’s coloration, for instance, is certainly in a high degree concealing and protective, or at any rate it is such that it does not interfere with the animal’s pro- tecting itself by concealment, for the cougar is one of the most 1 Some of the pictures are excellent, and undoubtedly put the facts truthfully and clearly ; others portray as normal conditions which are wholly abnormal and exceptional, and are therefore completely misleading. PROTECTIVE COLORATION 519 elusive of creatures, one of the most difficult to see, either by the hunter who fellows it or by the animal on which it preys. But the cougar is found in every kind of country—in northern pine- woods, in thick tropical forests, on barren plains and among rocky mountains. Mr. Thayer in his introduction states that ‘* one may read on an animal’s coat the main facts of his habits and habitat, without ever seeing him in his home.” It would be interesting to know how he would apply this statement to the cougar, and, if he knew nothing about the animal, tell from its coat which specimen lived in a Wisconsin pine-forest, which among stunted cedars in the Rocky Mountains, which on the snow-line of the Andes, which in the forest of the Amazon, and which on the plains of Patagonia. With which habitat is the cougar’s coat supposed especially to harmonize? A lioness is coloured like a cougar, and in Africa we found by actual experience that the very differently-coloured leopard and lioness and cheetah and serval were, when in precisely similar localities, equally difficult to observe. It almost seems as if with many afivials the matter of coloration is immaterial, so far as concealment is concerned, compared with the ability of the animal to profit by cover ad to crouch motionless or slink stealthily along. Again, there seems to be much truth in Mr. Thayer's statement of the concealing quality of most mottled snake-skins. But Mr. Thayer does not touch on the fact that in exactly the same localities as those where these mottled snakes dwell, there are often snakes entirely black or brown or green, and yet t all seem to get along equally well, to escape equally well from their foes, and prey with equal ease on smaller animals. In Africa, the two most common poisonous snakes we found were the black cobra and the mottled puff-adder. If the coloration of one was that best suited for concealment, then the reverse was certainly true of the colora- tion of the other. But perhaps the climax of Mr. Thayer’s theory is Tet ached when he suddenly applies it to human beings, saying: “ Among the aboriginal human races, the various war- -paints, tattooings, head decorations, and appendages, such as the long, erect mane of eagle feathers worn by North American Indians—all these, whatever purposes their wearers believe they serve, do tend to obliterate them, precisely as similar devices obliterate animals.” Now, this simply is not so, and it is exceedingly difficult to adertand how any man trained to proper scientific observation can believe it to be so. The Indian, and the savage generally, have a marvellous and wild-beast-like knack of concealing themselves. I have seen in Africa ’Ndorobo hunters, one clad in a white blanket and one in a red one, coming close Pawar elephants, and yet, thanks to their skill, less apt to be observed than I was in dull-coloured garments, 520 APPENDIX E So I have seen an Indian in a rusty frock-coat and a battered derby hat make a successful stalk on a deer which a white hunter would have had some difficulty in approaching. But when the ’Ndorobos got to what they—not I—considered close quarters, they quietly dropped the red or white blankets; and an Indian would take similar pains when it came to making what he regarded as a difficult stalk. The feathered head-dress to which Mr. Thayer alludes would be almost as conspicuous as a sun umbrella, and an Indian would no more take it out on purpose to go stalking in than a white hunter would attempt the saine feat with an open umbrella. The same is true of the paint and tattooing of which Mr. Thayer speaks, where they are sufficiently conspicuous to be visible from any distance. Not only do the war-bonnets and war-paint of the American Indians and other savages have no concealing or pro- tective quality, as Mr. Thayer supposes, but, as a matter of fact, they are highly conspicuous ; and this I know by actual experience, by having seen in the open savages thus arrayed, and compared them with the aspect of the same savages when hunting. Bible. Apocrypha. Borrow Shakespeare. Spenser Marlowe. Mahan Macaulay Homer APPENDIX F La Chanson de Roland. Nibelungenlied. Carlyle Shelley Bacon Lowell Emerson. Longfellow. Tennyson. Poe . Keats. Milton Dante Holmes Bret Harte . Browning Crothers 521 Tue original list of the “ Pigskin Library ” was as follows : Bible in Spain. Zincali, — Lavengro. Wild Wales. The Romany Rye. Faerie Queene. Sea Power. History. Essays. Poems. Iliad. Odyssey. Frederick the Great. Poems. Essays. Literary Essays. Biglow Papers. Poems. Tales. Poems. Paradise Lost (Books I. and II.). Inferno (Carlyle’s translation). Autocrat. Over the Teacups. Poems. Tales of the Argonauts. Luck of Roaring Camp. Selections. Gentle Reader. Pardoner’s Wallet, 522 APPENDIX F Mark Twain : : . Huckleberry Finn. Tom Sawyer. Bunyan’s “ Pilgrim’s Progress.” Euripides (Murray’s translation) . Hippolytus. Bacche. The Federalist. Gregorovius . ; . Rome. Scott : ; . Legend of Montrose. Guy Mannering. Waverley. Rob Roy. Antiquary. Cooper : ; . Pilot. Two Admirals. Froissart. Percy’s Reliques. Thackeray . : ‘ . Vanity Fair. Pendennis. Dickens : : : . Mutual Friend. Pickwick. I received so many inquiries about the “ Pigskin Library ” (as the list appeared in the first chapter of my African articles in Scribner's Magazine [see p. 23]), and so many comments were made upon it, often in connection with the list of books recently made public by ex-President Eliot, of Harvard, that I may as well myself add a word on the subject. In addition to the books originally belonging to the “ library,” various others were from time to time added. Among them, “ Alice in Wonderland” and “Through the Looking- Glass,” Dumas’ * Louves de Machekoule,” “ Tartarin de 'Tarascon” (not until after I had shot my lions!), Maurice Egan’s * Wiles of Sexton Maginnis,” James Lane Allen’s “ Summer in Arcady,” William Allen White's * A Certain Rich Man,” George Meredith’s “ Farina,” and d’Aurevilly’s “ Chevalier des Touches.” I also had sent out to me Darwin’s “ Origin of Species” and “ Voyage of the Beagle,” Huxley’s Essays, Frazer’s “ Passages from the Bible,” Braithwaite’s “ Book of Elizabethan Verse,” FitzGerald’s “ Omar Khayyém,” Gobineau’s “ Inégalité des Races Humaines” (a well-written book, containing some good guesses; but for a student to approach it for serious information would be much as if an abaltross should apply to a dodo for an essay on flight), “‘ Don Quixote,” Montaigne, Moliére, Goethe’s “ Faust,” Green's “Short Histor y of the English People,” Pascal, Voltaire’s ‘Siecle de Louis XIV.,” the “* Mémoires de M. Simon” (to read on the way home), and “'The Soul’s In- heritance,” by George Cabot Lodge. Where possible I had them bound in pigskin. “They were for use, not ornament. I almost always had some volume with me, either in my saddle-pocket or in the cartridge-bag which one of my gun-bearers carried to hold odds and ends. Often my reading would be done while resting THE “PIGSKIN LIBRARY ” 523 under a tree at noon, perhaps beside the carcass of a beast I had killed, or else while waiting for camp to be pitched ; and in either case it might be impossible to get water for washing. In conse- quence the books were stained with blood, sweat, gun-oil, dust, and ashes; ordinary bindings either vanished or became loath- some, whereas pigskin merely erew to look as a well-used saddle looks. Now, it ought to be evident, on a mere glance at the complete list, both that the books themselves are of unequal value, and also that they were chosen for various reasons, and for this particular trip. Some few of them I would take with me on any trip of like length ; but the majority I should of course change ‘for others— as cood and no better —were I to start on another such trip. On trips of various length in recent years, I have taken, among many other books, the ‘Memoirs of Marbot,” AEsc hylus, Sophocles, Aristotle, Joinville’s “* History of St. Louis,” the Odyssey (Pal- mer’s feanslation), volumes of Gibbon and Parkman, Lounsbury” S Chaucer, Theocritus, Lea’s “ History of the Inquisition,” Lord Acton’s Essays, and Ridgeway’s “ Prehistoric Greece.” Once I took Ferrero’s “ History oe: Rome,” and liked it so much that I got the author to come to America and stay at the White House ; once De La Gorce’s “ History of the Second Republic and Second Empire ”—an invaluable book. I did not regard these books as better or worse than those I left ae ; I took them because at the moment I wished to read them. ‘The choice would largely depend upon what I had just been reading. ‘This time I took Euripides, because I had just been reading “Murray's “ History of the Greek Epic.”! Having become interested in Mahaffy’s Essays on Hellenistic Greece, I took Polybius on my next trip ; having just read Benjamin Ide Wheeler’s “ History of Alexander,” I took Arrian on my next hunt. Something having started me reading German poetry, I once took Schiller, Koerner, and Heine to my ranch, Another time I started with a collection of essays on and transla- tions from early Irish poetry. Yet another time I took Morris’s translations of various Norse Sagas, including the Heimskringla, and liked them so much that I then incautiously took his transla- tion of Beowulf, only to find that while it had undoubtedly been translated out of Anglo-Saxon, it had not been translated into English, but merely into a language bearing a specious resemblance thereto. Once I took Sutherland’s “ History of the Growth of the Moral Instinct ”; but I did not often take scientific books, simply because as yet ‘scientific books rarely have literary value. Of course a really good scientific book should be as interesting to 1T am writing on the White Nile from memory. The titles I give may some- times be inaccurate, and I cannot, of course, begin to remember all the books I haye at different times taken ont with me. 524 APPENDIX F read as any other good book ; and the volume in question was taken because it fulfilled this requirement, its eminent Australian author being not only a learned but a brilliant man. I as emphatically object to nothing but heavy reading as I do to nothing but light reading, all that is indispensable being that the heavy and the light reading alike shall be both interesting and wholesome. So I have always. carried novels with me, including, as a rule, some by living authors, but (unless I had every confidence in the author) only if I had alre ady read the book. Among many, I remember offhand a few such as “The V irginian,” ‘ Lin McLean,” * Puck of Pook’s Hill,” “ Uncle Remus,” ** Aaron of the Wild Woods,” “ Letters of a Self-made Merchant to his Son,” “Many Cargoes,” ‘“‘The Gentleman from Indiana,” “ David Harum,” “ The Crisis,” “The Silent Places,” ‘“* Marse Chan,” ** Soapy Sponge’s Sporting Tour,” “ All on the Irish Shore,” “ The Blazed Trail,” “Stratagems and Spoils,” “ Knights in Fustian,” ** Selma,” “'Che Taskmasters,” Edith Wyatt’s “es Every Man to his Humour,” the novels and stories of Octave Thanet. I wish I could remember more of them, for, personally, I have certainly profited as much by reading really good and interesting novels and stories as by reading anything else ; and from the contemporary ones I have often 5 senehed: as in no other way I could have reached, an understanding of how real people feel in certain country districts, and in certain regions of great cities like Chicago and New York. Of course I also generally take out some of the novels of those great writers of the past whom one can read over and over again ; and occasionally one by some writer who was not great, like “The Semi-attached Couple ”—a charming little early V jctorian or pre- Victorian tale, which, I suppose, other people cannot like as I do, or else it would be reprinted. Above all, let me insist that the books which I have taken were, and could only be, a tiny fraction of those for which I cared and which I continually read, and that I care for them neither more nor less than for those I left at home. I took “ The Deluge” and “Pan Michael” and “Flight of a Tartar Tribe” because I had just finished “ Fire and Sword ”; es Moby Dick” because I had been re-reading “ Omoo” and “ Typee ”; ; Gogol’s s “Taras Bulba ” because I wished to get the Cossack view ‘of what was described by Sienkiewicz from the Polish side ; some of Maurice Jokai and “St. Peter’s Umbrella” (I am not at all sure about the titles) because my attention at the moment was on Hungary ; and the novels of Topelius when I happened to be thinking of Finland. I took Dumas’ cycle of romances dealing with the French Revolution because I had just finished Carlyle’s work thereon, and I felt that of the two the novelist was decidedly the better fierouael I took THE “PIGSKIN LIBRARY’ 525 * Salammbo” and “The Nabob”™ rather than scores of other French novels simply because at the moment I happened to see them and think that I would like to read them. I doubt if I ever took anything of Hawthorne’s, but this was eta not because I failed to recognize his genius. Now, all this means that I take with me on any trip, or on all trips put together, but a very small proportion of the books that I like; and that I like very many and very different kinds of books, and do not for a moment attempt anything so preposterous as a continual comparison between books which may appeal to totally different sets of emotions. For instance, one correspondent pointed out to me that Tennyson was “ trivial” compared to Browning, and another complained that I had omitted Walt Whitman ; another asked why I put Longfellow “on a level” with Tennyson. I believe I did take Walt Whitman on one hunt; and I like Browning, ‘Tennyson, and Longfellow, all of them, without thinking it necessary to compare them. It is largely a matter of personal taste. In a recent English review I glanced at an article on English verse of to-day, in which, after enumerating various writers of the first and second classes, the writer stated that Kipling was at the head of the third class of ‘ ballad-mongers.” It happened that I had never even heard of most of the men he mentioned in the first two classes, whereas I should be surprised to find that there was any one of Kipling’s poems which I did not already know. I do not quarrel with the taste of the critic in question, but I see no reason why anyone should be guided by it. So with Longfellow. A man who dislikes or looks down upon simple poetry—ballad poetry—will not care for Longfellow ; but if he really cares for “ Chevy Chase,” * Sir Patrick Spens, yee Corbies,” Michael Drayton’s “ Agincourt,” Scotts,“ Harlaw,” “Eve of St. John,” and the Flodden fight in “ Marmion,” he will be apt to like such poems as the “ Saga of King Olaf,” ‘“ Othere,” The Driving Cloud,” ‘‘ Belisarius,” “Helen of Tyre,” 0 nceladus,” * The Warden of the Cinque Ports,” “ Paul Revere,” and “ Simon Danz.” I am exceedingly fond of these, and of many, many other poems of Longfellow. ‘This does not interfere in ihe least with my admiration for “ Ulysses, PY Ehe Revenge, » «The Palace of Art,” the little poems in ‘The Princess,” and, in fact, most of Tennyson. Nor does my liking for Tennyson prevent my caring eatly for “ Childe Roland,” ‘* Love among the Ruins,” “ Proteus,” and nearly all the poems that I can understand, and some that I can merely guess at, in Browning. I do not fal the slightest need of trying to apply a common measuring-rule to these - three poets, any more than I find it necessary to compare Keats with Shelley, or Shelley with Poe. I enjoy them all. As regards Mr. Eliot's list, I think it slightly absurd to compare 526 APPENDIX F any list of good books with any other list of good books in the sense of saying that one list is ‘ better” or “ worse” than another. Of course a list may be made up of worthless or noxious books ; but there are so many thousands of good books that no list of small size is worth considering if it purports to give the “ best” books. ‘There is no such thing as the hundred best books, or the best five-foot library; but there can be drawn up a very large number of lists, each of which shall contain a hundred good books or fill a good five-foot library. ‘This is, I am sure, all that Mr. Eliot has tried to do. His is in most respects an excellent list, but it is of course in no sense a list of the best books for all people, or for all places and times. The question is largely one of the personal equation. Some of the books which Mr. Eliot includes I would not put in a five-foot library, nor yet in a fifty- foot library; and he includes various good books which are at least no better than many thousands (I speak literally) which he leaves out. his is of no consequence so long as it is frankly conceded that any such list must represent only the individual’s personal preferences, that it is merely a list of good books, and that there can be no such thing as a list of the best books. It would be useless even to attempt to make a list with such pre- tensions unless the library were to extend to many thousand volumes, for there are many voluminous writers, most of whose writings no educated man ought to be willing to spare. For instance, Mr. Eliot evidently does not care for history; at least, he includes no historians as such. Now, personally, I would not include, as Mr. Eliot does, third or fourth rate plays, such as those of Dryden, Shelley, Browning, and Byron (whose greatness as poets does not rest on such an exceedingly slender foundation as these dramas supply), and at the same time completely omit Gibbon and Thucydides, or even Xenophon and Napier. Macaulay and Scott are practically omitted from Mr. Eliot’s list; they are the two nineteenth-century authors that I should most regret to lose. Mr. Eliot includes the A‘neid and leaves out the Iliad ; to my mind this is like including Pope and leaving out Shakespeare. In the same way, Emerson’s “ English Traits” is included and Holmes’s “ Autocrat” excluded—an incomprehensible choice from my standpoint. So with the poets and novelists. It is a mere matter of personal taste whether one prefers giving a separate volume to Burns or to Wordsworth or to Browning ; it certainly represents no principle of selection. ‘I Promessi Sposi” is a good novel; to exclude in its favour “ Vanity Fair,” “ Anna Karénina,” * Les Misérables,” “* The Scarlet Letter,” or hundreds of other novels, is entirely excusable as a mere matter of personal taste, but not otherwise. Mr. Eliot’s volumes of miscellaneous essays, ‘* Famous Prefaces” and the like, are undoubtedly just what THE “PIGSKIN LIBRARY ” 527 certain people care for, and therefore what they ought to have, as there is no harm in such collections ; though, personally, I doubt whether there is much good, either, in this “tidbit” style of literature. Let me repeat that Mr. Eliot’s list is a good list, and that my protest is merely against the belief that it is possible to make any list of the kind which shall be more than a list as good as many scores or many hundreds of others. Aside from personal taste, we must take into account national tastes and the general change in taste from century to century. ‘There are four books so pre- eminent—the Bible, Shakespeare, Homer, and Dante—that I suppose there would be a general consensus of opinion among the cultivated men of all nationalities in putting them foremost ;! but as soon as this narrow limit was passed there would be the wildest divergence of choice, according to the individuality of the man making the choice, to the country in which he dwelt, and the century in which he lived. An Englishman, a Frenchman, a German, an Italian, would draw up totally different lists, simply because each must necessarily be the child of his own nation, 2 We are apt to speak of the judgment of “ posterity ” as final ; but * posterity ” is no single entity, and the ‘* posterity ” of one age has no necessary sympathy with the judgments of the ee posterity ” that preceded it by a few centuries. Montaigne, i ina very amusing and, on the whole, sound essay on training children, mentions with pride that when young he read Ovid “instead of wasting his time on “ * King Arthur, ‘ Lancelot du Lake, ... and such idle time-consuming and wit-besotting trash of books, wherein youth doth commonly amuse itself.” Of course the trashy books which he had specially in mind were the romances which Cervantes 1 Even this may represent too much optimism on my part. In Ingres’s picture on the crowning of Homer, the foreground is occupied by the figures of those whom the French artist conscientiously believed to be the greatest modern men of letters. They include half a dozen Frenchmen—only one of whom would probably have been included by a painter of some other nation—and Shakespeare, although reluctantly admitted, is put modestly behind another figure, and only a part “of his face is per mitted to peek through. The same would be ‘true, although of course to a less extent, of an American, an Englishman, a Scotchman, and an Irishman, in spite of the fact that all speak substantially the same language. I am entirely aware that if I made an anthology of poenis I should include a great many American poems—like Whittier's ‘‘ Snow- Bound,” ‘‘ Ichabod,” and ‘‘Laus Deo”’ ; like Lowell’s ‘‘ Commemoration Ode”’ and ‘Biglow Papers ””—which could not mean to an Englishman what they mean to me. In the same way, such an English anthology as the ‘‘Oxford Book of English Verse” is a good anthology—as good as many other anthologies—as long as it confines itself to the verse of british authors. But it would have been far better to exclude American authors entirely ; for the choice of the American verse included in the volume, compared in quantity and quality with the correspond- ing British verse of the same period which is selected, makes it impossible to treat the book seriously, if it is regarded as a compendium of the authors of both countries. 528 APPENDIX F not long afterwards destroyed at a stroke. But Malory’s book and others were then extant; and yet Montaigne, in full accord with the educated taste of his day, saw in them nothing that was not ridiculous. His choice of Ovid as representing a culture and wisdom immeasurably greater and more serious, shows how much the judgment of the “ posterity ” of the sixteenth century differed from that of the nineteenth, in which the highest literary thought was deeply influenced by the legends of Arthur’s knights, and hardly at all by Se ae Ovid wrote. Dante offers an even more striking instance. If‘ posterity’s” judgment could ever be accepted as final, it would seem to be when delivered by a man like Dante in speaking of the men of his own calling who had been dead from one to two thousand years. Well, Dante gives a list of the six greatest poets. One of them, he modestly mentions, is himself, and he was quite right. Then come Virgil and Homer, and then Horace, Ovid, and Lucan! Nowadays we simply could not under- stand such a choice, which omits the mighty Greek dramatists (with whom in the same canto Dante shows his acquaintance), and includes one poet whose works come about in the class of the * Columbiad.” With such an example before us, let us be modest about dogmatizing overmuch. ‘he ingenuity exercised in choosing the “« Hundred Best Books” is all right if accepted as a mere amuse- ment, giving something of the pleasure derived from a missing-word uzzle. But it does not mean much more. ‘There are very many thousands of good books; some of them meet one man’s needs, some another’s; and any list of such books should simply be accepted as meeting a given individual’s needs under given con- ditions of time and ‘surroundings. Kuartroum, JZarch 15, 1910. INDEX ABERDARE ranges, 228, 314 Abutilon, a flowering shrub on which elephant feed, 259 Africa, British East, 1; English rule in, 100; healthy climate of, 123 ; futur of, 143 ; spring in, 230; preservatio 1 of elephant in, 239 ; missiouary work | in, 368, 369 Africa, East, growth and development of, 34; natives of, 35-37 Africa, German East, 39 Akeley, Carl, 57, 340, 341-345 Akeley, Mrs., 340, 345 Ali, the tent-boy, 273, 331 Allen, Mr., 345 American flag, 17, 81, 369 American Mission-stations, 100, 101; Industrial, 144, 363 ; Mission at Sobat, | visit to, 454 Antelope, 47, 123, 271; roan antelope, 324, 326, 434 Ants, 361, 883 ; damage done by, 427 ; driver ants, 427 Arabs, 273 Ardwolf (a miniature hyena), 282 Askaris, or native soldiers, 18, 84 Asser, Colonel, 4385 Athi Plains, 42 Attenborough, Messrs., 207 Baboons, 215, 216 Bahima herdsmen, 374 Bahr el Ghazal, 451 Bahr el Zeraf, 453 Baker, Sir Samuel, 62 Bakhari, a gun-bearer, 271; ostriches described by, 274, 331 Banana plantation, 257 Bateleur eagle, the, 376 Bats, 302, 391, 392 Beetles, Goliath, 383 Belgian Government, courtesy of, 389 Belgian troops, soldiers of, 437 Birds, 32, 83; honey-bird, 106, 194; | extraordinary habit of, 335, 338 ; whydah finches, 130, 131, 141; “lily 529 trotters,’ 208; wealth of bird-life, 208, 213, 217; water birds, 221, 225, 284, 335, 376, 383, 384, 391, 398, 426, 427 ; wagtails, 435, 455, 459 Bishops in Africa. See Hanlon, Streicher, Tucker Black-water fever, 444 Boar, 202 Boers, the; 37, 38, 39, 40; identity of interest between Britons and, 41, 112, 347 Bondoni, 37, 80 Bongo, 358, 359 Borani caravan, a, 279 Botha, Mr., 346 Boyle, Mr., 365 Brandy, moderate use of, 456, 457 Brooks, Mr., 345 Browne, Mr., District Commissioner, 231 Buffalo, 57, 126, 181, 132, 133 e¢ seq., 240; bulls, 282; disease wiped out herds of, 283, 284, 302, 303, 304, 421, 422; great muscular power of, 423 Bulpett, Mr., 106 Burroughs, John, 335 Bushbuck, 227, 271, 334, 338, 377, 411, 412 Bustard, 189, 281, 411; great bustard, 137, 193 Butiaba, 385 Butler Bey, 436 Buxton, Edward North, 4; books on sport of, 322 ‘* Bwana,” Swahili title of, 99, 430 Cambridge Museum, 345 Camp, pitching, 83 ; at Kilimakiu, 86; fires in, 397 Caravan, a, 279 Carnegie, Andrew, Appendix A Champagne, case of, 444, 455 Chapman, Abel, 62 Chapman, Captain, 347, 348 Cheetah, 76, 121, 281 Christians, 274 Christmas Day, march on, 376 34 530 Clark, 265, 840, 345 Cobra, 198, 200 Cole, Barclay, 360 Collier, Robert, 340 Colobus monkey, 357, 425 Coloration of animals, effect of sunlight on, 181, 182, 199, 276, 338, Appen- dix E Congo, the, 377 Corbett, Mr., District Commissioner, 347-348 Corbett, Mrs., 347-348 Cormorants, 434 Coryndon, Major R. T., 59 Cow-catcher, ride on the, 18, 15 Cow heron, 182, 872, 426 Crewe, Lord, Appendix A Crocodile, 282, 806, 410, 411, 424 Cuckoos, mice eaten by, 353 Cuninghame, R. J., 4, 128, 138, 148, 154, 176, 188, 215, 241, 242, 248, 254, 277, 326, 362, 378, 415, 444, 446, 456, Appendix A Dance, funeral, 361 Dance, Kikuyu, 231 Dancing-rings, 130-131 Delamere, Lord, 354-360 Dikdik, 42, 200 Dogs, 123, 140 Donors of double elephant rifle, list of, 22 Donyo Sabuk, 107 Dorobo, a, 244 ; elephant’s death causes hysterics of, 249 Drummond, 62 Dugmore, A. R., Appendix E Duiker, 42, 229, 353, 417 Dust devils, 418 Dysentery, deaths from, 428, 436 Eerets, white, 396 Egyptian geese, 221 Eland, 88, 89, 157, 269; Patterson’s eland, 270, 271, 284; gait of, 287; fun with a herd of, 313, 314, 337; giant eland, 436, 489, 440, 441 INDEX Flies, game annoyed by, 299; tsetse fly, 354, 399; sleeping-sickness fly, 399 Flowers, 32, 229, 230, 331, 372 | Fox, African, 227 Francolins, 339 Freakishness of wild beasts, 285 | Game, reserve, 11; laws, 11; butchery of, 12; comparative danger in hunt- ing different kinds of, 57, 63, 64; stamping-grounds of, 183; varying habits of, 195, 196, 197 et seq. ; books on East African, 822; need of an adequate term to distinguish the sexes of African, 834; scent of, 381; in middle Africa, preservation of, 393 ; shot during trip, list of, 457 Garstin, Sir William, 453 - Gazelles, 26; Grant’s gazelles, 26, 42, 51; northern form of, 291 ; Roberts’ gazelles, 178,174; Thomson’s gazelles, 26, 42, 51, 174 renet kittens, 295 Gerenuk, 282, 291, 301 Giraffe, interruption of telegraph service by, 14, 44; characteristics of, 93-98 et seq., 169,170; peculiar gait of, 287; ‘*reticulated’’ form of, 296, 297, 298 ; indifference to water of, 302 ; interest- ing experience with a, 309, 310, 329, 330 ; note on, 330 | Girouard, Sir Percy, 363 Goanese, 8, 225 Goldfinch, Mr., encounter with a lion, 64 Gondokoro, 480; march to, 433, 444 Gouvimali, the gun-bearer, 166, 272, DTA. Ol2 soa naee Government farm, 221 Government House, 224 Grey, Sir Edward. Appendix A Grogan, Quentin, 389, 408, 409, 413, 414, 417, 421 _ Guaso Nyero, 153, 155, 268, 300, 331 Elephant, 57, 234, 235 et seqg., 245; | wonderful climbing powers of, 246 ; death of first, 248, 249, 258, 262; bad sight of, 389, 341, 342, 378, 380, 393, 403; large herd of, 426; men killed by, 428 Elukania, 49 Entebbe, 363 Equipment, 22 Euphorbias, 32, 180, 381 Fires, 397 Fish eagles, 426 Flamingoes, 317 Guerza, 146 Guinea-fowls, 301 Gun-bearers, 105, 106 ; rejoicings of the, 255 ; amusing English of the, 274 ; characteristics of the, 331, 332 Haddon, Mr., District Commissioner, 444 Hamburg, 4 Hanlon, Bishop, 369, 371 Hartebeest, 26; ‘‘ Kongoni,” Swahili name of, 42 ; Coke’s, 50, 128, 158; 159 ; Neuman’s, 315 ; Jackson’s, 326, 331, 339, 377; Nile, 411 Hay, John, 160 Heat, 433, 439 Heatley, Hugh H., 38, 123, 125, 126, 136, 142, 224 INDEX Heller, Edmund A., 3, 75, 92, 98, 187, 154, 188, 214, 229, 256, 260, 277, 330, 397, 407, 415, 444 Hill, Clifford, 20, 37, 67 Hill, Harold, 20, 37, 67, 68, 75, 76, 77,78 Hinde, Major, 9 Hinterland, 1 Hippo, 119, 120, 208, 209, 210, ete., 216, 217, etc., 240; porters chased by a, 341, 392, 401 Hobley, Mr., Provincial Commissioner, 320 Hog, the giant, 358, 359 Hoima, 384 Honey-bird, first sight of, 106 ; charac- teristic experience with a, 194; ex- | traordinary habit of, 335, 338 Hornaday, W. T., 405 Hornbills, 267 Horne, Mr., 251, 279, 283 Horses, the, 275, 354 Humphries, Mr., District Commissioner, 41, 65 Hunt, Leigh, 436, Appendix A Hurlburt, Mr., 144 Hutchinson, Captain, R.N.R., 385 Hyena, 58, 59, 162, 163, 183 ; difficulty in determining sex of, 328, 331, 345, 355 Hyraxes, 313, 358 Ibis stork, 221 Impalla, 42, 107, 108-111, 317 Indian trader, letter from an, 266 Ingowa, an, a war-dance of the natives, 265 Ivory, 234, 260 ; poachers of, 388 Jackal, 281 531 Khartoum, parting from comrades at, 455 Kijabe, 144, 145, 146, 226, 363 Kikuyu savages, 104, 105, 213, 226; dance of, 231, 232, 250, 266, 272 Kilimakiu, 37, 86 Kilimanjaro, 30 Kilindini, 361 King’s African Rifles, the, encamped at Neri, 265 Kirke, Mr., 347, 348, 351 Kisumu, 363 Kitanga, hills of, 29, 30 | Klipspringers, 55, 184 Klopper, Mr., 37, 39 Knowles, Mr., District Commissioner, 365 ; struck by lightning, 372 Kob, Uganda, 336, 337, 411, 447; lechwe, 446, 448, 449, 450, 452; Vaughan’s, 449; white-eared, 446, 453 Koba, 388 Koda, the river, 437 | Kolb, Dr., 356 | Kongoni, a Wakamba gun-bearer, 331, Jackson, Lieutenant-Governor, 60, 63, | 142, 265 Jordaan, Mr., 347, 348 Judd, H., 38, 107, 223 Juja Farm, 100, 104, 121 Juma Yohari, Kermit’s gun-bearer, 332, 362, 431 Jungle, the, 252 Jusserand, M., French Ambassador, 160 Kafu River, 384 Kamiti Ranch, 123 Kamiti River, 125, 126 Kampalla, 366 Kangani, 293, 307, 308 Kapiti Plains, 16, 42 Kassitura, Kermit’s gun-bearer, 395, 431, 443 Kavirondo, 226 Kavirondo crane, 130, 276, 289 Kearton, Mr., 265 Kenia, Mount, 232, 268 ; biological sur- vey of, 318, 319; Appendix D 332, 341, 378, 379, 395, 423 Koodoo, 315, 316 Lado country, the, 385, 388, 409, 444 Lake Albert Nyanza, 373, 385 Lake Hannington, 288, 317 Lake Ingouga, 260 Lake Naivasha, 195, 206, 226 Lake No, 446 Lake Sergoi, 345, 346 Lake Victoria Nyanza, 363 Lantana brush, a favourite cover for elephants, 256 Leopard, 44, 57, 112, 113, 214, 215; man-eating, 285, 337, 355; trap carried off by a, 401, 444 Lioness, 63, 77, 78, 164, 165, 185, 187 Lions, 57, 63, 65, 66 et seq.; death of first, 72, 74, 75, 160, 184-187, 189, 223 ; cow elephants charge, 264 ; party of eleven, 279 et seqg., 309, 350 ; stabbed to death by spears, 350; supposed monogamy of, 352 Lizards, blue-green, 313 ; monitor, 390, 409, 411; crocodile’s nest plundered by, 424 Loijs, Mr., 37, 39 Londiani, 323, 354 London, Mr., 317 Loring, J. Alden, 3, 137, 154, 202, 226, 397, 408, 405; variety of photos taken by, 424, 434, 444 ; Appendices Lucas, Mr., killed by a lion, 64 Machakos-boma, 21, 100 Magi, a sais, 338, 431, 443 532 Mahdism, 445 Mali, Kermit’s tent-boy, 332 Mammals, large, list of, Appendix B; small, 34, 154, 208 ; list of, Appendix B Man-eater, adventure with a, 10 Marabou stork, 271, 427 INDEX Naturalists, work of the modern, 17 ; pre-eminence of the, 188 ; need of ample observation by trustworthy field, 281 ; troubles of hunting as a, 298 ; difficult profession of, 407 | ’Ndorobo, primitive lives of the, 200 ; Masai, 34, 105, 158 ; kraal of the, 165, | 189 ; lions’ attack on, 203, 204 3 guides, 205, 226 ; dance of the, 232; | Neri, 228, 231, 268 villages of, 267 Massart, M., 436 Mau escarpment, 360 McCutcheon, John T., 340, 345 McMillans, 41, 104, 223, 225 Mearns, Surgeon - Lieutenant - Colonel Edgar A., 3, 137, 154, 202, 203, 226, 335, 397, 423, 444, 454, Appendix D Medlicott, 69-72 Meru Boma, 254, 257, 278, 284 Meru, wild hunters, 257 Mice, varieties of, 154, 213, 229 ; tree- mouse, 301, 383, 399 Middleton, Captain, 436 Millais, John G., ‘A Breath Veldt.” Appendix E Milne, Dr., 320 Missions: American, 100, 101; French Catholic, 144; American Industrial, 144 ; Kijabe, quarters of the, 366; Church of Eng- land, 369; Catholic, 369 ; Medical, 369; Mission of the White Fathers, 371 ; Sobat, 454 Mohammedanism, 14 Mombasa, 2, 6 Mombasa Club, dinner at, 7 Mongalla, 444 the cartoonist, Mongoose, interesting anecdote of a, | Pease, Miss, 72, 73 286, 358 Monkey, Colobus, 357, 425 Monkeys, 245 ; swim across a river, 309, 358, 376, 425, 434 Moose, anecdote of a, 287 Mosquitoes, 375, 390, 421 Mother Paul, 370 Mouton, Mr., 347-349 Mua Hills, 42 Mules, 399, 436 Music, instruments of, 382 Nairobi, 60, 148, 144, 223; race week at, 225; plague of wild beasts in, 320, 362; good-bye to friends at, 363 Nairobi Falls, 126 Nairobi River, 104, 126 Naivasha, Lake. See Lake Nakuru, 318, 363 Nandi, the, 347, 348, 350 ; by spears of, 350 ; rejoicings of, 351 Naples, arrival at, 5 Masai ‘Ndorobo, 241, 242, 243, 245; accident to the, 250 ; characteristics of the, 355, 356, 357 Neuman, Arthur, 306 Newland, Mr., 352, Appendix A Nile, the, 428, 445, 454, 455 Nimule, 428, 430, 432 Njoro, 354 Nuer, a, 450 Nyanza lakes, SeeLake | Nyika village, a, 361 _ ’Nzoi River, 323, 333 _ Oribi, 327, 331, 334, 353, 392 | Oryx, 270, 271, 276, 282, 292 from the | Ostrich, 294, 295, 296 Ostrich-farming, 129 Otters, 211 Owego Gazette, 221 | Owen, Colonel, 486, 444 226 ; Kampalla, head- | lion killed Ox-waggons, 147, 148, 346 Pagans, 14 Palms, 257 ; ivory-nut, 300 Papyrus swamps, 125, 126, 207, 425 Patterson, Colonel J. H., author of ‘©The Man-caters of Tsavo,” 9 ‘‘ Pax Europaica,” results of the, 279 Peary, news of finding of the Pole by, 288; cable from, 288 Pease, Sir Alfred, 20, 42, 61, 69, 125.035 102 Pelican, 221 Pennant, Captain Douglas, 320 Percival, 37, 67, 69 Piggott, L. Mr., District Commissioner, 285 | Pigskin Library, 24, 159 ; additions to, 362; Appendix F Pleistocene, 2 Poe, quotation from, 387 Police, New York, 370; note on, 370 Porcupines, 215 Porters, songs of the, 79, 431 ; character- istics of, costumes of, 81, 82; feasts of, 93, 427 ; white men christened by, 99, 141; game hal-lalled for, 188 ; short-sightedness of, 205, PO Pane rhino tosses a, 304, 325, 332 ; good-bye to the, 354; work of Uganda, 374; tags to designate, 412; faithfulness of the, 431; presents for, 431, 444; ‘ Posho,” food for the porters, 266 INDEX Potha, 75 Prinsloo, Mr., 37, 42 ** Protective coloration,” 43, 44, 45, 338, 358, Appendix E Puff-adder, 186, 193, 286, 383 Python, 111, 155 Quin, 378 Race week, 225 “Railway Journey, Most Interesting, in the World,” 10 Ranquet, M., 436 Ratel, or honey badger, 324 Rats, different species of, 213, 229, 383 Redjaf, 436 Reedbuck, mountain, 42, 55 ; Bohor, 327, 334, 337, 353, 377 Renkin, M. Appendix A Rewero Falls, 127 Rewero River, 104, 126 Rhinoceros, 57, 89-91 et seg., 115-118 ; habits of different species of, 172, 175, 180 ; ‘‘ Keitloa”’ type of horn of, 192 ; comparison with elephant of, 236 ; finest specimen of, 256, 262; porter tossed and gored by a, 304; the square-mouthed or white, 393-396, 400; difference in size of, 400, 401, 404-407 ; pictures of, 412, 413; horn measurement of, 414, 415; unusual | | Sleeping sickness, ravages of, 39, 58 position of, 420, 423 Rifles, 22 ; donors of the elephant rifle, | 22; first trial of the Holland, 90; work done by the different, 98 ; com- parison of, 116, 118, 119, 121, 157, 163, 164, 170, 176, 192, 198, 221, 254, 263, 442 Rift Valley, 425 Rohr, the, 449 Roosevelt, Kermit, 3, 23, 98; red-letter day of, 160, 173, 177, 191, 202, 225, 227; successful photos of wild ele- phant taken by, 256, 280, 281; un- equalled record in killing cheetahs of, 281, 315, 316 ; twentieth birthday of, 318, 328, 335, 338, 361; hunt for sable of, 362 ef seg., 380; good rhino pictures taken by, 412; health of, 428, 456; devotion of followers to, 430 ; in seeing and chasing game, skill of, 191, 441 Roosevelt, Theodore, sails from New York, 3; arrival at Mombasa of, 6; starts on a hunt alone, 250 ; fifty-first birthday of, 323; health throughout trip of, 456 Rumeruti, 315 Sable, the, 362 Safari,” 16, 80, 154; peace offering to 5385 the ‘‘ safari ants,” 267 ; attraction for natives of work of, 325; good-bye to the, 354; conduct of the, 354 ; ‘* wood safari,” 432 | Sahara, 366 Saises, or horse-boys, 19, 273, 274 Salt marsh, a, 199, 200 ; Samburu, the, cattle-owning nomads, 305 | Sanderson, Captain, Town Clerk, 820 Sandiford, Mr., 60 Seale for weighing game, 25, 313 Schilling, Carl G, ‘‘Flashlight and Rifle,’ Appendix E Scientific expedition, difficulty of trans- porting supplies on a, 288 Scotch settlers, engaged to take charge of the safari, 265 Selous, Frederick Courteney, 3, 5, 6, 42, 62, 180, 223 Serval cat, 281, 444 ‘*Shambas,’’ 233 ‘«Shenzis,” wild natives, 258, 272, 374; gifts to the, 444 Situtunga, 373 Skally, Mr., 347-348 Skins, difficulty in preparing, 137, 142, 436 Slatin Pasha, 436 Slatter, Captain Arthur, 37, 38, 89, 92, 94, 96, 97 364; preventive of, 365; sleeping- sickness fly. bite of, 399 Smith hopelessly crippled by a lion, 153 Smith, Captain, 320 Smith, William Lord, 345 Smithsonian, 3 Snakes, 193, 286 ; man bitten by a, 326, 383 Soldiers, Sikh, Sondanese, 445 Solvé, M., 452 Somalis, 105, 226 Songs, native: victory song, 75. 79, 213; on death of elephant, 255; Kikuyu savages’ songs, 266, 351, 431 Sotik, 144, 195 Soudan, success of English rule in the 445 Southern Cross, 30 Spearmen, Nandi, 350 Spirillum tick, 375 Springhaas, 214, 221 ; ‘‘shining”’ spring haas by night, 226, 227 ‘*Star-spangled Banner, The,” 369 Stations, condition of railroad, 14 Steinbuck, 42, 192, 273; conspicuous coat of the, 277, 353 Stevenson, 340, 345 Stigand, 62 372; Egyptian and 534 Stork, saddle-billed, or jabiru, 228 Stork, the whale-billed, 448, 452 Storms, majesty of the, 272 ; thunder- storms, 372 Straus, Oscar, Appendix A Streicher, Bishop, 369 Suavi River, 152 Sud, the, 445 Supplies, naturalists’, 17 Sururu, kraal of Chief, 416; camp out- side village of, 420 Swahili, the coast men, 18, 226, 325 Swahili (a kind of African chinook), 258, 273 Tana, 232 Tarlton, Leslie, 4, 20, 154, 162, 164, 188, 189, 241, 253, 256, 279, 283, 316, 326, 829, 333, 337, 838 ef seq., 362, Appendix A ‘*Teddy bears,” 358 Tent-boys, 278, 274, 332 Terriers, wart-hog killed by, 216 Thayer, Gerald H., book on ‘‘ Conceal- ing Coloration,” Appendix E “Thirst, The,” 146, 148 Throwing-sticks, 56 Ticks, 29, 110 Topi, 155, 159, 160, 173, 176 Tranquillity, the horse, 20, 96, 97, 329 ‘* Transport riding,” 147 Trails, Africa a country of, 86, 87 Traps, beasts caught in, 214, 215 Trees, 231, 245 ; many kinds of strange, 278, 290; ‘‘sausage-tree,’’ 339 ; bao- bab-tree, 361, 372, 381 Tsetse-fly, 354, 399 Tucker, Bishop, 369 Uasin Gishu, 323, 325, 331 Uganda, 58, 363; explorers of, people THE INDEX of, 866; government of, 367, 368, 369 ; houses in, 372 Uganda, King of, 366 ; visit to, 371 Uganda Railway, 12 Ulyate, 147 University of California, elephant skin presented to, 255 Unyoro, 384; King of, 384 Vegetation, character of the, 277 Wadelai, 389; natives of, 389 Wakamba, 35, 36, 75, 87, 89; trained to act as skinners, 92, 99, 226 | Wa-Meru the, a wild martial tribe, 251, 257, 278 Ward, Mr. F. A., 319 Wart-hog, 85, 127, 164 Waterbuck, 107, 108; singsing, 215, 227, 228, 301, 311, 336, 337, 338, 401, 417 Waterspout, a, 268 | Whale-billed stork, the, 451, 452 White, Mr. John Jay, 396 | White Nile, the, 388 Whydah finches, 130, 131; new kinds of whydah birds, 261 Wildebeest, 26, 27, 28, 48, 158 ; shyness of, Lids sa ers Williams, 203, 223 | Wingate, Major-General Sir Reginald, 435 Zebra, Burchell’s, 293, 299 Zebra, Grévy’s, 282; called by the porters ‘‘kangani,” 293 ; weight of a, 308 Zebras, protection of, 13, 44, 47-50, 129 ; savagery of, 224, 311; put in the pound at Nairobi, 321 Zoological garden, 15 END BILLING AND SONS, LIMITED, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD IN THE TORRID SUDAN. By H. Lincoln Tangye, F.R.G.S. With Illustrations. Second Impression. 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