— od
————
THEODORE
ROOSEVELT
a Fe
pe
Presented to the
LIBRARY of the
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO
by
DR. A. W. CONN
AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
BOOKS BY THEODORE ROOSEVELT
PUBLISHED BY CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
AFRICAN GAME TRAILS. An account of the African
Wanderings of an American Hunter-Naturalist.
Illustrated. Large 8vo .... . . $4.00 net
OUTDOOR PASTIMES OF AN AMERICAN HUNTER.
New Edition. Illustrated. 8vo . . . $3.00 net
OLIVER CROMWELL. Illustrated. 8vo . . $2.00
THE ROUGH RIDERS. Illustrated. 8vo . . $1.50
THE ROOSEVELT BOOK. Selections from the Writ-
ings of Theodore Roosevelt. 16mo . 50 cents net
THE ELKHORN EDITION. Complete Works of
Theodore Roosevelt. 25 volumes. Illustrated.
8vo. Sold by subscription.
AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
AN ACCOUNT OF THE
AFRICAN WANDERINGS
OF AN
AMERICAN HUNTER-NATURALIST
BY
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
IgQIo
CoryrIGHT, 1909, 1910, by
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
All rights reserved, including that of translation into
foreign languages, including the Scandinavian.
TO
KERMIT ROOSEVELT
MY SIDE-PARTNER
IN OUR
“GREAT ADVENTURE”
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Map showing Mr. Roosevelt’s route and hunting trips in Africa
FOREWORD
“T speak of Africa and golden joys”; the joy of wan-
dering 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 butter-
flies, 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 dread 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, foes before which he himself per-
ishes in his hundreds of thousands.
vii
viii FOREWORD
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 themselves.
The land teems. with beasts of the chase, infinite in num-
ber and incredible in variety. It holds the fiercest beasts
of ravin, and the fleetest and most timid of those beings 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 woodchucks, 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 ani-
mals 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.
The 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 beside the
boat; the giraffe looking over the tree tops at the nearing
FOREWORD ix
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. In after years there shall come to him memories of
the lion’s charge; of the gray 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, standing 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 de-
light 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 splendor of the
new stars; where the wanderer sees the awful glory of sun-
rise and sunset in the wide waste spaces of the earth, unworn
of man, and changed only by the slow change of the ages
through time everlasting.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT.
Kaartoum, March 15, 1910.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
A RaritroaD THROUGH THE PLEISTOCENE .
CHAPTER II
On an East AFRICAN RANCH .
CHAPTER III
Lion HuntTING ON THE Kapiti PLaIns.
CHAPTER IV
On SaFari. RHINO AND GIRAFFE
CHAPTER V
Juya Farm; Hippo anp Leoparp
CHAPTER VI
A BurraLo-Hunt By THE KamirTI
CHAPTER VII
TREKKING THROUGH THE THIRST TO THE SOTIK .
CHAPTER VIII
HUNTING IN THE SOTIK .
xi
PAGE
30
82
. 106
ieee
. 146
Pe yb
xii CONTENTS
CHAPTER IX
EO ARE URIVAGHA Qh 8 ao ly
CHAPTER X
ELepHant Huntinc on Mount KENIA
CHAPTER XI
Tue Guaso Nyrero; A RIVER OF THE EQUATORIAL DESERT .
CHAPTER XII
To THE Uasin GiIsHuU
CHAPTER XIII
UGANDA, AND THE GREAT Nyanza LAKEs
CHAPTER XIV
THe GREAT RHINOCEROS OF THE LADO
CHAPTER XV
Down THE Nite; THe Giant Evanp .
AppENDIxX A [PERSONAL ACKNOWLEDGMENTS] .
_ Appenpix B [Lists or Mammats; HELiER’s Notes]
AppeNnpDIx C [Lorinc’s Notes] .
Appenpix D [Brotocicat Survey or Mount Kenta]
AppenDix E [Protective CoLoraTION IN ANIMALS].
Appenpix F [Tue Picsxin Liprary]. |
INDEX
PAGE
- 198
a6
. 269
- 320
- 369
= me
- 438
- 471
- 472
. 483
. 489
. 491
; Bee
- 5a
ILLUSTRATIONS
Mr. Roosevelt and one of his big lions . . . . . « « Frontispiece
Photogravure from a photograph by Kermit Rasaaees
FACING PAGE
Map showing Mr. Roosevelt’s route and hunting trips in Africa
A herd of zebra and hartebeest .
One of the interesting features of African wild life i is the diss association
and companionship so often seen between two totally different species
of game.
Before he could get quite all the way round in his ee rush to
reach us, I struck him with my left-hand barrel . ‘ .
Photogravure 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
Photogravure 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 . Pera *
Photogravure 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” aa
Wildebeest at home .
Two bulls may suddenly ‘hee ‘ their acai ia for a moment or two
fight furiously.
Group—The wounded lioness ready to charge. The wounded lioness .
He came on steadily, ears laid back and uttering terrific coughing grunts .
Photogravure from a drawing by Philip R. Goodwin.
xiii
vii
28
Q2
116
142
156
166
172
174
180
190
194
XiV ILLUSTRATIONS
FACING PAGE
Group—What one has to shoot at when after rere on water. Mr.
Roosevelt’s hippo charging open-mouthed . ya
Charged straight for the boat, with open jaws, bent on mischief .
Photogravure from a drawing by Philip R. Goodwin.
Group—Black-backed jackal. Tree hyrax. Big gazelle buck. Pelican.
Spotted genet. White-tailed mongoose. Porcupine. Baboon
Towing in bull hippo, Lake Naivasha.
Kikuyu Ngama, Neri
Group—Camping after death of first bull. The porters exult over the
death of the bull eae May bie cr eget
Falls on slope of Kenia near first elephant camp
The charging bull elephant
“He could have touched me with his clade ”
Photogravure from a drawing by Philip R. Goodwin.
The first bull elephant .
A herd of elephant in an open forest of high timber
Group—The herd a 2 aig The same herd on the eve of
charging f SERN ar bie DENY Ny oti >
Mr. Roosevelt’s and Kermit’s camp near which they got the rhino and
elephant we iilithe Ta ta RRP orang
My boma where I camped alone
Group—An oryx bull. An oryx cow .
Group—The Guaso Nyero. - Ivory-nut palms on the Guaso Nyero .
Group—The old bull Athi giraffe. The reticulated giraffe
Group—Black-and-white crow. Sparrow-lark. Ant wheatear. Ostrich
nest. Rusty rock-rat. Sand-rat. African hedgehog. ‘‘Mole-rat”
Juma Yohari with the nes killed by Kermit Roosevelt at Lake
Hannington . Reinet at:
The broken horn of sincehne! ram Pe indpeaded 4 in 1 Oe buck’s faa
Tarlton and singsing shot by Mr. Roosevelt
The hyena which was swollen with elephant meat had gotten inside the
huge body a Pika ees a E
212
216
220
224
234
244
248
252
256
258
260
266
272
274
280
300
316
322
342
35°
ILLUSTRATIONS
Mr. Roosevelt and Kermit Roosevelt with giant eland horns
XV
FACING PAGE
Rearing, the lion struck the man, bearing down the shield 356
Photogravure from a drawing by Philip R. Goodwin.
Group—The spears that did the trick. Mr. Roosevelt ness
the speared lion ‘ 358
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 . : 360
Sailinye, the Dorobo, who was with Kermit Roosevelt when he shot
the bongo, holding up the bongo head 364
Dance of boys of the One tribe in honor of the chief’s son who had
just died . ; pita " 368
The situtunga shot by Kermit Roosevelt at Kampalla . . ~ 380
Group—Crocodile. Nile bushbuck. Cobus maria. Baker’s roan.
Ground horn-bill. Wagtail. Nightjar. Fish eagle . 398
The “white” rhino . 400
Photogravure from a Gewing na Philip R. Cacdulbi.
The papyrus afire 406
We walked up to within about twenty yards . 414
The cow and calf square-nosed rhino under the tree after aig dis-
turbed by the click of the camera ; 420
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. i ren ee ere Saree ic Ra
' One remained standing but the other “iigurtma sat down open its
haunches like a dog ite’ “er og ; - . 428
The monitor lizard robbing a crocodile’s nest . 432
Group—Kermit’s first giant eland am shot on the + Pee va
Giant eland bull : ; 450
452
He loved the great game as if he were their father.
—Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.
Tell me the course, the voyage, the ports and the new stars.
—Bliss Carman.
AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
CHAPTER I
A RAILROAD THROUGH THE PLEISTOCENE
THE great world movement which began with the voy-
ages 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 plateaus, and its forests
of deadly luxuriance, was utterly unknown to white men
half a century ago. The map of Ptolemy in the second cen-
tury of our era gave a more accurate view of the lakes,
mountains, and head-waters of the Nile than the maps pub-
lished at the beginning of the second half of the nineteenth
1
2 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
century, just before Speke, Grant, and Baker made their
great trips of exploration and adventure. Behind these
explorers came others; and then adventurous missionaries,
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 rea-
son, now for another, now as naturalists, now as geog-
raphers, 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 estab-
lished a protectorate; and ultimately, in order to get easy
access to this new outpost 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 wild
beast, did not and does not differ materially from what it was
in Europe in the late Pleistocene. The comparison is not
fanciful. The teeming multitudes of wild creatures, the stu-
pendous 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
THROUGH THE PLEISTOCENE 3
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 by-gone
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, 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-Lieut. Col. Edgar A. Mearns, U.S.A., retired; Mr.
Edmund Heller, of California, and Mr. J. Alden Loring,
of Owego, N. ie 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 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 hunt-
ers; the latter an Australian, who served through the South
African war; the former by birth a Scotchman, and a Cam-
4 - AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
bridge 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 Lap-
land, 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 head-
way the Germans have made among those who go down
to the sea in ships!—and at Naples trans-shipped 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 predomi-
nant; in his place there were Italian officers going out to a
desolate coast town on the edge of Somaliland; mission-
aries, 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, magis-
trates, 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 Englishmen, whether dashing army
officers or capable civilians; they reminded me of our own
men who have reflected such honor on the American name,
whether in civil and military positions in the Philippines and
Porto Rico, working on the Canal Zone in Panama, taking
=
THROUGH THE PLEISTOCENE 5
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 na-
tive 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 is ample 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 East Africa but
everywhere else.
On the ship, at Naples, we found Selous, also bound
for East Africa on a hunting trip; but hé, 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 be-
lieved 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 Selous;
and, so far as I now recall, no hunter of anything like his
experience has ever also possessed his gift of penetrating
observation joined to his power of vivid and accurate nar-
ration. He has killed scores of lion and rhinoceros and
atten
6 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
hundreds of elephant and bi 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 nat-
uralist 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 pictur-
esque harbor 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 inconceiv-
able 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 splendor
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.
We were welcomed to Government House in most cordial
fashion by the acting Governor, Lieutenant-Governor Jack-
son, who is not only a trained public official of long experience
THROUGH THE PLEISTOCENE 7
but a first-class field naturalist and a renowned big-game
hunter; indeed I could not too warmly express my appre-
ciation of the hearty and generous courtesy with which we
were received and treated alike by the official and the un-
official 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 Mom-
basa Club; and it was interesting to meet the merchants
and planters of the town and the neighborhood 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 to-
gether, doing scrupulous justice to the natives, but remem-
bering that progress and development in this particular kind
of new land depend exclusively upon the masterful leader-
ship 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 settlement; but the
hinterland is, and there everything should be done to en-
courage 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
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
8 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
advantage of everybody that the Indians should hold, be-
cause 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 labor, 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. Ac-
cordingly 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 Northwest 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 edu-
cated colored man from Jamaica; and we were shown much
courtesy by a colored 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 com-
pared with the native negro; and indeed to an American,
who must necessarily 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
———
THROUGH THE PLEISTOCENE 9
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, repre-
senting 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 van-
quished with ruthless impartiality; they found their com-
missariat 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 in-
discriminately 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 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
10 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
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 Patter-
son 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 on a 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. Evi-
dently 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 Englishman,
and the German, my informant, hearing the disturbance,
leaped out of his bunk actually onto 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 interesting railway journey in the
world. It was Governor Jackson’s special train, and in addi-
tion to his own party and ours there was only Selous; and
we travelled with the utmost comfort through a naturalist’s
wonderland. All civilized governments are now realizing
that it is their duty here and there to preserve, unharmed,
THROUGH THE PLEISTOCENE 11
tracts of wild nature, with thereon the wild things the de-
struction 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, pro-
vided 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 pre-
mium is thereby put on the activity of the unscrupulous
persons who are eager to break it. Similarly, game laws
should be drawn primarily in the interest of the whole peo-
ple, keeping steadily in mind certain facts that ought to
be self-evident to every one above the intellectual level of
those well-meaning persons who apparently think that
all shooting is wrong and that man could continue to exist
12 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
if all wild animals were allowed to increase unchecked.
There must be recognition of the fact that almost any wild
animal of the defenceless type, if its multiplication were
unchecked while its natural enemies, the dangerous carni-
vores, 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 else-
where 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 jeopard 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 Government has
conferred a boon upon mankind, and no less in the enact-
ment 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 throve so under protection as
to become sources of grave danger not only to the crops but
THROUGH THE PLEISTOCENE 13
to the lives of the natives, and they had to be taken off the
protected list and classed as vermin, to be shot in any num-
bers at any time; and only the great demand for ivory
prevented 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 necessitate further changes.
But, speaking generally, much wisdom and foresight, highly
creditable to both Government 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 comfort-
able seat across the cow-catcher, and on this, except at meal-
time, I spent most of the hours of daylight, usually in com-
pany 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 interest-
ing. 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 occasionally bustard, rose near by; bril-
liant 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 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
only happen to a railroad in the Pleistocene! 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 continually 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 neighborhood. 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 Mohammedan-
ism. But most of the natives are still wild pagans, and
many of them are unchanged in the slightest 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 powerless in any way to improve. Some
THROUGH THE PLEISTOCENE 15
of the savages we saw wore red blankets, and in deference
to white prejudice draped them so as to hide their naked-
ness. But others appeared—men and women—with liter-
ally 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 locomotive was a Bald-
win, 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 cop-
per 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 deformed 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 labor 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
16 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
open woods a couple of hundred yards to the right of the
train. Again, still closer, four 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 ungainly agility and galloped clear of the
danger. A long-tailed straw-colored 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 nur-
sery 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.
SS ee ee
ee
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THROUGH THE PLEISTOCENE 17
Soon after lunch we drew up at the little station of
Kapiti Plains, where our safari was awaiting us; “safari”
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 labor under the best conditions; we had
hundreds of traps for the small creatures; many boxes
of shot-gun cartridges 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 con-
ditions. 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 neces-
sarily 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 float-
ing 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 a dining tent and skinning tent; while be-
18 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
hind 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 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 wagons,
or pack trains of donkeys; but for a considerable expedition
it is still best to use a safari of native porters, of the type
by which the commerce and exploration 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
Arabicized 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 Swahili
trading caravans, under Arab leadership, which, in their
quest for ivory and slaves, trod out the routes which the
early white explorers followed. 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, missionary, or explorer must use either a Swahili
safari or one modelled on the Swahili basis. The part
played by the white-topped ox wagon 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,
ee
THROUGH THE PLEISTOCENE 19
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 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 per-
mitted. But in tropic 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 accommodations gener-
ally, 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 mo-
ment 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 Moham-
20 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
medan negroes, clad like the askaris, reported to me as my
gun-bearers, Muhamed and Bakari; 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 or other non-negro blood;
derived from the Hamitic, or bastard Semitic, or at least
non-negro, tribes which, pushing slowly and fitfully south-
ward 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, I named Tranquillity, 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. Cun-
inghame, lean, sinewy, bearded, exactly the type of hunter
and safari manager that one would wish for such an ex-
pedition as ours, had ridden up with us on the train, and at
the station we met Tarlton, and also two settlers of the
neighborhood, Sir Alfred Pease and Mr. Clifford Hill.
Hill 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
RNS WSS Sete pee
“ > ae Sor
THROUGH THE PLEISTOCENE 21
colonists who came to South Africa in 1820; they had never
been in England, and neither had Tarlton. It was exceed-
ingly interesting to meet these Australians and Africanders,
who typified in their lives and deeds the greatness of the
English Empire, and yet had never seen England.
As for Sir Alfred, Kermit and I were to be his guests
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 re-
sponsible 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 have found 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 com-
munication being two-wheeled carts, each drawn by four
humped oxen, driven by a well-nigh naked savage.
For forty-eight hours we were busy arranging our out-
fit; and the naturalists took much longer. ‘The provisions
were those usually included in an African hunting or ex-
22 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
ploring 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 leather, and the legs buttoning tight from
the knee to below the ankle, to avoid the need of leggings; |
a khaki-colored 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.*
* 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, Esq.
Rt. Hon. Lorp Avesury, D.C.L. (‘‘The Pleasures of Life,” etc.)
Major-Gen. Sir F. REGINALD WINGATE, K.C.B. (Governor-General of the
Soudan.)
Str Epmunp G. LopEr, Bart.
Hon. N. C. RoTHscHILp.
THE Eart or LONSDALE. (Master of Hounds.)
Sir R. G. Harvey, Bart.
Tue Rt. Hon. Lorp Curzon oF KEDLEsSTON, G.C.S.I., G.C.LE.
St. GEORGE LITTLEDALE, Esq.
Dr. P. CHALMERS MiTcHELL, F.R.S., F.Z.S. (Secretary of the Zoological Soc.)
C. E. Green, Esq. (Master of Essex Hounds.)
F. C. Setous, Ese. (‘A Hunter’s Wanderings,” etc.)
Count BLUCHER.
THROUGH THE PLEISTOCENE 23
Kermit’s battery was of the same type, except that in-
stead 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.
There was one other bit of impedimenta, less usual for
African travel, but perhaps almost as essential for real en-
joyment 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 aluminum and oil-cloth case, which, with its con-
tents, 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.
Lrevut.-Cort. C. DELME RapctirrE, C.M.G., M.V.O.
MAvRICE EGERTON, Esq.
Lorp DesxBoroucH, C.V.O.
CapTAIn M. McNEILL.
CLAUDE H. Tritton, Esq.
J. TuRNER-TuRNER, Esq.
Hon. L. W. Roruscuitp, M.P.
Rr. Hon. Sir E. Grey, Bart., M.P. (Foreign Secretary and author of ‘Dry
Fly Fishing.”’)
Sir M. DE C. Finptay, C.M.G. (British Minister at Dresden.)
C. Puitiiprs-Wottey, Esq., F.R.G.S. (‘Sport in the Caucasus.’’)
Rt. Hon. Sir G. O. TREVELYAN, Bart., D.C.L. (‘‘The American Revolution.’’)
WARBURTON PIKE, Esq.
Str Wm. E. Garstin, G.C.M.G.
His GRACE THE DukE or BEpForD, K.G. (‘‘A Great Estate.’’)
HER GRACE THE DucHEss oF BEDFORD.
Lorp Brassey, G.C.B., M.V.O. (Owner of The Sunbeam.)
Hon. T. A. Brassey. (Editor of the Naval Annual.)
Rays Witiams, Esq.
Major-Gen. A. A. A. Kintocu, C.B. (‘Large Game in Thibet.”’)
Sir Wa. Lee-Warner, K.C.S.I. (‘The Protected Princes of India.’’)
Tue Rt. Rev. THE Lorp BisHop or LONDON.
Mayjor-Gen. DALRYMPLE WHITE.
24 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
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 par-
ticular 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 cap-
tain 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 war. I had
a very ingenious beam or scale for weighing 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 over night in
COLONEL CLAUDE CANE.
Rt. Hon. SypNEY Buxton, M.P. (Postmaster General, ‘‘Fishing and Shooting.’’)
Major C. E. Rapctyrre, D.S.O.
Sir A. E. PEAsE, Bart. (“Cleveland Hounds.”’)
Sir H. H. Jounston, K.C.B., G.C.M.G. (‘The Uganda Protectorate.”) ;
ABEL CHAPMAN, Esq. (“‘Wild Spain.’’)
J. G. Mitrais, Esq., F.Z.S. (“A Breath from the Veldt.’’)
E. Lort-Puiuies, Esq. (Author of ornithological works.)
R. Kearton, Esq., F.Z.S. (‘Wild Nature’s Ways.”’)
J. H. Gurney, Esq., F.Z.S. (Works on ornithology.)
F, J. Jackson, C.B., C.M.G., LizutT.-GOVERNOR EAsT AFRICAN PROTECTORATE.
(‘Big Game,” Badminton Library.)
Cor. Sir F. Lucarp, K.C.M.G., C.B., D.S.O.
Lapy Lucarp. (‘‘A Tropical Dependency.”)
Stir CLremMenT L. Hirt, K.C.B., M.P. (Late Head of the African Department:
Foreign O.)
Sir H. SeTon-Karr, M.P., C.M.G. (‘‘My Sporting Holidays.’’)
CapTaAIN Boyp ALEXANDER. (‘From the Niger to the Nile.’’)
Sir J. Kirk, K.C.B., G.C.M.G. (Dr. Livingstone’s companion, 1858-64.)
MorETON FREWEN, Esq.
THe EArt oF WARWICK.
P. L. Sctater, Esq., D.Sc., Po.D. (Late Sec. Zool. Soc.)
Cor. J. H. Patterson, D.S.O. (“The Man-Eaters of Tsavo.”)
THROUGH THE PLEISTOCENE 25
the mountains. In my pockets I carried, of course, a knife,
a compass, and a water-proof matchbox. Finally, just be-
fore 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 carefully 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 the ground
began to rise here and there into low hills, or koppies, with
rock-strewn tops. It should have been the rainy season,
the season of “the big rains”; but the rains were late, as
26 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
the parched desolation of the landscape bore witness; nev-
ertheless 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 diffi-
culty; the only bushes were a few sparsely scattered mimo-
sas; 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 ga-
zelles. 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, Neuman, 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 underestimated
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.
But what I really wanted were two good specimens, bull
and cow, of the wildebeest. These powerful, ungainly
THROUGH THE PLEISTOCENE 27
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 condition 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 asso-
ciation 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 dan-
gerous; when tame, however, wildebeest are very dangerous
indeed, more so than an ordinary domestic bull. The wild,
queer-looking creatures prance and rolick 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 settled rutting time or breeding time; at
least we saw calves of all ages.
28 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
Our hunt after wildebeest this afternoon was successful;
but though by velt law each animal was mine, because I
hit it first, yet in reality the credit was communistic, 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, seem-
ingly not much the worse. We followed on horseback;
for I hate to let any wounded thing escape to suffer. But
meanwhile he had run into view of Kermit; and Kermit—
who is of an age and build which better fit him for suc-
cessful 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 difficulty 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 sped after it. By the time I
had reached my horse Pease was out of sight; but riding
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
THROUGH THE PLEISTOCENE 29
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 mer-
ciless 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
Tue house at which we were staying stood on the beau-
tiful Kitanga hills. “They were so named after an English-
man, 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 plains of the West, where
they slope upward to the foot-hills of the Rockies. It is a
30
ON AN EAST AFRICAN RANCH 31
white man’s country. Although under the equator, the
altitude is so high that the nights are cool, and the re-
gion 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 Mentana;
the hills were like our Western buttes; the half-dry water-
courses 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 irriga-
tion 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 weak-
lings; but the right kind of man, the settler who makes a
success in similar parts of our own West, can do well in
32 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
East Africa; while a man with money can undoubtedly do
very well indeed; and incidentally both men will be lead-
ing 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 oc-
casional 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 candela-
bra, and named accordingly; 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 color and size of
our own sage-brush, 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-lilies, and many others
of many kinds and colors, 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,
dull-colored and of the most brilliant plumage. For the
ON AN EAST AFRICAN RANCH 33
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 brill-
iantly colored, 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-colored
birds, almost like magpies, and with a kestrel-like habit of
hovering in the air over one spot; others very small and
prettily colored. 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 colored plantain-eaters in
the woods; and hornbills, with strange swollen beaks. A
true lark, colored 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 air. Little
pipits sang overhead like our Missouri skylarks. There
were night-jars; and doves of various kinds, one of which
uttered a series of notes slightly resembling the call of our
whippoorwill or chuckwills widow. The beautiful little sun-
birds were the most gorgeous of all. Then there were bus-
tards, great and small, and snake-eating secretary birds,
on the plains; and francolins, and African spurfowl with
brilliant naked throats, and sand grouse that flew in packs
uttering guttural notes. The wealth of bird life was be-
wildering. 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. The naturalists
34 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
caught shrews and mice in their traps; mole rats with vel-
vety 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 woodchucks, but their teeth were somewhat like
those of a wee rhinoceros, and they had little hoof-like 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 colored 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 sunlight, look-
ing like some huge, parti-colored 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 de-
lighted at the chance to see the parts where settlement
has already begun before plunging into the absolute wilder-
ness. ‘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 teem-
ing 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 resemblance 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 pas-
toral peoplés after their own fashion; and even the bravest
ON AN EAST AFRICAN RANCH 35
of them, the warlike Masai, are in no way formidable 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 neighborhood 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 abso-
lute 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 waste-
fully destructive of the forests. The chief of each little vil-
lage is recognized as the official headman by the British
official, is given support, and is required to help the authori-
ties 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 in their 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 conse-
quent failure of crops, the foolish creatures die by the hun-
dreds when they might readily be saved if they were willing
36 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
to eat the herds which they persist in treating as ornaments
rather than as made for use.
Many of the natives work for the settlers, as cattle-
keepers, as ostrich-keepers, or, after a fashion, as laborers.
The settlers evidently much prefer to rely upon the natives
for unskilled labor 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 neighborhood, we found
little Wakamba settlements. Untold ages separated em-
ployers 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 common government; the “just consent of the governed”
in their case, if taken literally, would mean idleness, famine,
and endless internecine warfare. They cannot govern them-
selves 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 some-
times worked about the house; and they took care of the
stock. The elders looked after the mild little humped cat-
tle—bulls, steers, and cows; and the children, often the
merest toddlers, took naturally to guarding the parties of
pretty little calves, during the day-time, 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.
ON AN EAST AFRICAN RANCH 37
There were a number of ranches in the neighborhood—
using ‘‘neighborhood” in the large Western sense, for they
were many miles apart. The Hills, Clifford and Harold,
were Africanders; they knew the country, and were work-
ing hard and doing well; and in the midst of their work
they spared the time to do their full part in insuring a suc-
cessful 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 Bondoni 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 wagon 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, every one—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 forgathered, of course,
as I too was of Dutch ancestry; they were strong, upstand-
ing 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
38 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
I met other Boers while out hunting—Erasmus, Botha,
Joubert, Meyer. They were descendants of the Voortrek-
kers 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
honorably 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 com-
munities 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 I met, both men and
women, were of as good a type as any one could wish for
in his own countrymen or could admire in another nation-
ality. 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,
ee
ON AN EAST AFRICAN RANCH 39
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 overland, 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 north-
ward, and once more found themselves under the British
flag. 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 con-
sideration such as that which, for our inestimable good fort-
une, now knits closely together in our own land the men
who wore the blue and the men who wore the gray 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 add-
ing East Africa to the domain of civilization; their work is
bound to be hard enough anyhow; and it would be a lam-
entable 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 fun-
damental 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
40 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
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 shaped, and filled with plaited raw hide, were
so attractive 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 cultivation, for corn and veg-
etables; and the wild velt 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
mustached, 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
eee ee
ON AN EAST AFRICAN RANCH 41
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,
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 repeating
it; and we were speedily on a most friendly footing.
The essential identity of interest between the Boer
and British settlers was shown by their attitude toward
the district commissioner, Mr. Humphery, 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 Humphery, 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, sympa-
thizing with the settlers and knowing and understanding
their needs. A new country in which white pioneer settlers
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
42 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
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 neighbors, 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—Ameri-
can friends, of whose farm and my stay thereon I shall
speak later—rode over 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 nat-
ural 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. Early one morn-
ing, 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 neighborhood, were
the zebra, wildebeest, hartebeest, Grant’s gazelle, and
ON AN EAST AFRICAN RANCH 43
““Tommies” or Thomson’s gazelle; the zebra, and the
hartebeest, usually known by the Swahili name of kon-
goni, being by far the most plentiful. Then there were
impalla, mountain reedbuck, duiker, steinbuck, and dimin-
utive 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 interest and
enjoyment a deer-forest or grouse-moor can afford.
The wildebeest or gnu were the shyest and least plenti-
ful, but in some ways the most interesting, because 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, some-
times showing white in the sunlight, but more often black,
rendered them more easily seen than any of their com-
panions. 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 “pro-
tective coloration” has no basis whatever in fact. Black
and white are normally the most conspicuous colors 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 grays, browns
and duns, harmonizes fairly well with at least some sur-
roundings, in most landscapes; and in but a few instances
among the larger mammals, and in almost none among
those frequenting the open plains, is there the slightest
44 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
reason for supposing that the creature gains any benefit
whatever from what is loosely called its “protective colora-
tion.” Giraffes, leopards and zebras, for instance, have
actually been held up as instances of creatures that are
“‘protectingly”’ colored 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 trust-
ing to eyesight would discover the giraffe so far away that
its coloring would seem uniform, that is, 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 color-
ing may under certain circumstances, and in an infinitesi-
mally 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 negligi-
ble—it has no effect whatever, one way or the other; and
it is safe to say that under no conditions is its coloring 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 individ-
uals, thrive as well as their spotted brothers; while on the
whole it is probably slightly more conspicuous than if it were
nearly unicolor, like the American cougar. As compared with
the cougar’s tawny hide the leopard’s coloration represents a
very slight disadvantage, and not an advantage, to the beast;
but its life is led under conditions which make either the
advantage or the disadvantage so slight as to be negligible;
or ee eee
ON AN EAST AFRICAN RANCH 45
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 approach-
ing 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 color of its hide is of no conse-
quence 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,
which it has also been somewhat the fashion of recent
years to hold up as an example of “protective coloration.”
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 speed-
ily 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 color—a dun hartebeest or a
nearly black bushbuck—may escape observation. At a
distance of over a few hundred yards the zebra’s coloration
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
46 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
such that any animal can be seen at all, a zebra will catch
the eye much more quickly than a Grant’s gazelle, for in-
stance. These gazelles, by the way, although much less
conspicuously colored 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 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 duiker and steinbuck, trust very much to their
power of hiding, and endeavor 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 gazelles 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 mak-
ing 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 con-
tain one or two or more bulls; and in addition, dotted here
and there over the plain, are single bulls or small parties of
SS ee
SS ee ee ee
ee
ON AN EAST AFRICAN RANCH 47
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. Some-
times 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 Linnzus, the first serious
effort at the systematization of living nature began, men
naturally groped in the effort to see correctly and to ex-
press 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 every-
thing an antelope that did not seem to come in one of the
48 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
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.
Zebra share with hartebeest the distinction of being
the most abundant game animal on the plains, throughout
the whole Athi region. The two creatures are fond of as-
sociating together, usually in mixed herds; but some-
times 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, 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 rest-
ing, feeding, and going to water. They and the harte-
beests formed the favorite prey of the numerous lions of
the neighborhood; 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 stam-
pedes 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 harte-
beest, 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
formidable foes, trusting in their hoofs and their strong
i i le ii
gE a aay
ON AN EAST AFRICAN RANCH 49
jaws; they will, when in a herd, drive off hyena 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. Or-
dinarily, as I saw them, they did not seem very shy of men;
but in this respect all the game displayed the widest differ-
ences, 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 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 hun-
dred 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 sun-
set, 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 quite apt to be resting,
either standing or lying down. ‘They are noisy. Harte-
beests 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
50 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
the syllables ‘‘qua-ha-ha”’; but of course our letters and syl-
lables 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 par-
ticularly apt to keep uttering their cry. Zebras are very
beautiful creatures, and it was an unending pleasure to
watch them. I never molested them save to procure speci-
mens for the museums, or food for the porters, who like
their rather rank flesh. They were covered with ticks
like the other game; on the groin, and many of the tender-
est 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 plentiful,
and almost as tame as the zebras. As with the other game
of equatorial Africa, we found the young of 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 insepara-
ble companions of the zebra; but though they were by pref-
erence 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 ant-hills, 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 ant-
E.
OREN ERROR ng gy neh
ON AN EAST AFRICAN RANCH 51
hills 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 adversary’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 ant-hill, 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 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 show-
ing 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 in-
clined backward, evidently in a spirit of fun and derision.
In the stomachs of those I 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; and a cow in high condition 315.
The Grant’s gazelle is the most beautiful of all these
plains creatures; it is about the size of a big whitetail deer;
52 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
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 color 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
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 lie down
————
a
OG pty 4 a — /—* = _ = a - =
ER rake i Gree Rete Tt een a et
eo ete Rete es
ON AN EAST AFRICAN RANCH 53
again. In the same way the habits of the game as to mi-
gration vary with the different districts, in Africa as in
America. There 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 dis-
trict 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 com-
plete 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 foot-
hills.
Unless there was something special on, like a lion- or
rhinoceros-hunt, I usually rode off followed only by my
sais and gun-bearers. I cannot describe the beauty and
the unceasing interest of these rides, through the teeming
herds of game. It was like retracing the steps of time for
sixty or seventy years, and being back in the days of Corn-
wallis 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 ex-
ception of the wildebeest, most of them were not shy, and I
could have taken scores of shots at a distance of a couple of
hundred yards or thereabout. 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
54 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
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 hillside 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 beehives;
these were sections of hollow logs hung from the branches;
they formed striking and characteristic features of the land-
scape. Wherever there was any moisture there were flow-
ers, brilliant of hue and many 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 shrill, barking neighs, would file off
across the horizon, or the high-withered hartebeests, snort-
ing 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.
ON AN EAST AFRICAN RANCH 55
I rarely had to take the trouble to stalk anything; the
shooting was necessarily at rather long range, but by ma-
neeuvring 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. Harte-
beest, 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 shooting at a wounded ani-
mal 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 duiker,
were the ones at which I shot worst; they were quite plen-
tiful, and they got up close, seeking to escape observation
56 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
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 well-nigh
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 reed-
buck, 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, 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 neigh-
boring 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 ra-
vines, and dozens of these were knocked over; while on
ON AN EAST AFRICAN RANCH 57
several occasions I saw francolins and spurfowl cut down
on the wing by a throwing-stick hurled from some un-
usually dexterous hand.
The beats, with the noise and laughter of the good-hu-
mored, 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 home-
ward 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
Tue dangerous game of Africa are the lion, buffalo,
elephant, rhinoceros, and leopard. The hunter who fol-
lows 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 Akeley, 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 Akeley 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 for-
ward with it and crushed in its chest with his knees until
he distinctly felt one of its ribs crack; this, said Akeley,
was the first moment when he felt he might conquer. Re-
doubling his efforts, with knees and hand, he actually
choked and crushed the life out of it, although his arm was
badly bitten. A leopard will charge at least as readily as
58
LION HUNTING ON THE KAPITI PLAINS 59
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 oc-
casion 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
60 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
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 estab-
lished 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, haunt-
ing these sleeping-sickness camps, and each night enter-
ing them, bursting into the huts and carrying off and eating
the dying people. To guard against them each little group
of huts was inclosed by a thick hedge; but after a while
the hyenas learned to break through the hedges, and con-
tinued their ravages; so that every night armed sentries had
to patrol the camps, and every night they could be heard fir-
ing at the marauders.
The men thus preyed on were sick to death, and for
the most part helpless. But occasionally men-in full vigor
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 Northwestern
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 wagon. A hyena, stealthily approach-
ing through the night, seized him by the hand, and dragged
him out of bed; but as he struggled and called out, the
LION HUNTING ON THE KAPITI PLAINS 61
beast left him and ran off into the darkness. In spite of his
torn hand the 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
uncertain light, toward the foot of the bed; it was the rav-
enous 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, I met Mr. and
Mrs. Sandiford. Mr. Sandiford is managing the railroad.
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 remarking, ‘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 gotten into the house while try-
ing to catch her or one of the dogs. A neighbor with a rifle
was summoned, and shot the leopard.
Hyenas not infrequently kill mules and donkeys, tear-
ing 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
62 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
broad daylight, ran after it, overtook it, and flew at it.
The hyena made no effective fight, although the dog—not
a third its 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 cack-
ling 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 vigor 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 ©
LION HUNTING ON THE KAPITI PLAINS 638
killed or wounded by lions, buffaloes, elephants, and rhinos.
All are dangerous game; each species has to its grewsome
credit a long list of mighty hunters slain or disabled. Among
those competent to express judgment there is the widest
difference of opinion as to the comparative danger in hunt-
ing 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 narration. 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 for-
midable capacity as a foe, the elephant equally unques-
tionably 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 pro-
fessional hunter like Selous, and who had fine opportunities
for observation, but who was a much less accurate observer
than Selous, put the rhino as unquestionably the most dan-
gerous, 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 seemingly third, and the lion last. The experts
of greatest experience thus absolutely disagree among them-
selves; and there is the same wide divergence of view
among good hunters and trained observers whose oppor-
64 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
tunities have been less. Mr. Abel Chapman, for instance,
regards both the elephant and the rhino as more danger-
ous than the lion; and many of the hunters I met in East
Africa seemed inclined to rank the buffalo as more danger-
ous 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 op-
ponent of the hunter, under ordinary conditions. This is
my own view. But we must ever keep in mind the fact
that the surrounding conditions, the geographical locality,
and the wide individual variation of temper within the
ranks of each species, must all be taken into account.
Under certain circumstances a lion may be easily killed,
whereas a rhino would be a dangerous foe. Under other
conditions 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 behavior.
At any rate, during the last three or four years, in Ger-
man and British East Africa and Uganda, over fifty white
men have been killed or mauled by lions, buffaloes, elephants,
and rhinos; and the lions have much the largest list of
victims to their credit. In Nairobi church-yard I was shown
the graves of seven men who had been killed by lions, and
of one who had been killed by a rhino. The first man
to meet us on the African shore was Mr. Campbell, Gov-
ernor Jackson’s A.D.C., and only a year previously he had
been badly mauled by a lion. We met one gentleman who
7
LION HUNTING ON THE KAPITI PLAINS 65
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 toward it;
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 hap-
pened. It was in the early days of the opening of the coun-
try, and an expedition was going toward 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 unfortu-
nate wounded man with his great fangs, and this time
made off with him into the surrounding darkness, killed
and ate him. Not far from the scene of this tragedy,
another had occurred. An English officer named Stewart,
while endeavoring 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
66 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
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; Lu-
cas went to his assistance, and was in his turn knocked
over, and the lion then lay on him and bit him 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. Cap-
tain Slatter had killed a big male with a mane a few months
previously. He was hunting it in company with Mr. Hum-
phery, the District Commissioner of whom I have already
spoken, and it gave them some exciting moments, for when
hit it charged savagely. Humphery 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 mech-
anism 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. Humphery 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 be-
gun to feel the effect of his wounds, and was too sick to re-
sume hostilities of its own accord. The gun-bearer was
badly but not fatally injured. Before this, Slatter, while
LION HUNTING ON THE KAPITI PLAINS 67
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 by the horse galloping off,
and he heard it staggering on for some sixty yards before
it fell. He and his 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 under-
went an extraordinary experience. He had been off some
distance with his Kaffir 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. Im-
mediately afterward 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
68 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
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 to look for the man. Crippled though
he was, the hunter managed to climb a small tree; and
though the lion might have gotten him out of it, the dog
interfered. 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 misunderstanding. 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 along-
side 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 drew 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 fore-
fathers 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,
LION HUNTING ON THE KAPITI PLAINS — 69
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 stand-point. They reminded
me, at every moment, of those Western ranchmen and home-
makers with whom I have always felt a special sense of com-
panionship and with whose ideals and aspirations I have
always felt a special sympathy. A couple of months before
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, alongside
or a little behind him. Then the grass grew short, and the
lions halted and continued to gaze after him until he dis-
appeared 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 occasionally took
70 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
the ostriches or stock of the settlers, or ravaged the herds
and flocks of the natives, but not often; for their favor-
ite 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 reedbeds; and this though
elsewhere they habitually prey on the buffalo. But where
zebras and hartebeests could be obtained without effort,
it was evidently not 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
vertebra 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.
LION HUNTING ON THE KAPITI PLAINS 71
One day we started from the ranch house in good sea-
son 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 bull-dog, and a Masai “boy,” a fine, bold-looking
savage, with a handsome head-dress and the usual formidable
spear; master, 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, chee-
tah, hyena, or wild dog. Soon we came upon lion spoor
in the sandy bed; first the footprints of 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 fin-
ger. It was just across the little ravine, there about four
72 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
yards wide and as many feet deep; and I shifted my posi-
tion, 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. Each was badly 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 harbor 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 Tran-
quillity, the stout and quiet sorrel.
ee ea RE eae
A eh er eae
LION HUNTING ON THE KAPITI PLAINS 73
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 crashings through
the thick brush. We were off our horses in an instant, I
throwing the reins over the head of mine; and without de-
lay the good old fellow began placidly grazing, quite un-
moved by the ominous sounds immediately in front.
I sprang to one side; and for a second or two we 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 maneless 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 for-
ward 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
endeavored 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
74 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
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 Al-
fred and Kermit missed the lion, which had swung to the
left, and they raced ahead too far to the right. Medlicott
and I, however, 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 horse-
back; but, especially when he lay down, it was most difh-
cult 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
LION HUNTING ON THE KAPITI PLAINS 75
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 includes
rheumatism does not vault lightly into the 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 we’ll see this thing
through,” and gentle-mannered Simba smiled a shy ap-
preciation 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, looking 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. Resting 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 foreleg in the air. He recovered ina moment
76 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
and stood up, evidently very sick, and once more faced
me, growling hoarsely. I think he was on the eve of charg-
ing. 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,” 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 tropic 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 grow almost frenzied.
The ride home through the moonlight, the vast barren land-
scape shining like silver on either hand, was one to be re-
membered; 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 waterhole in a little stream
called Potha, by a hill of the same name. Pease, Medlicott,
LION HUNTING ON THE KAPITI PLAINS 77
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 beat-
ers. 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 curi-
ous patterns, and carrying for arms little bows and
arrows.
Before lunch we beat a long, low hill. Harold Hill 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 dis-
concerting 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 es-
tablished 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. Sud-
denly Hill said, “Lion,” and endeavored to point it out to
78 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
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 an-
other 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 ad-
venture with the lion that chased him. 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, how-
ever, 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
LION HUNTING ON THE KAPITI PLAINS 79
the yellow-brown grass was a lion; and then I found such
difficulty in getting a bead on him that I overshot. How-
ever, 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 suc-
ceeded and I walked toward her through the long grass,
repressing the zeal of my two gun-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 any one; and she sank down into the long grass.
Hill and I advanced to look her up, our rifles at full cock,
80 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
and the gun-bearers close behind. It 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 inter-
ested him. A beater came running up and pointed toward
where he had seen her, and we walked toward the place.
At thirty yards distance Hill pointed, and, eagerly peering,
I made out the form of the lioness showing indistinctly
through the grass. She was half crouching, half sitting, her
head bent down; but she still had strength to do mischief.
She saw us, but before she could turn I sent a bullet through
her shoulders; down she went, and was dead when we
walked up. A cub had been seen, and another full-grown
lion, but they had slunk off and we got neither.
This was a full-grown, but young, lioness of average
size; her cubs must have been several months old. We
took her entire to camp to weigh; she weighed two hundred
and eighty-three pounds. ‘The first lion, which we had
difficulty in finding, as there were no identifying marks in
the plain of tall grass, was a good-sized male, weighing
about four hundred pounds, but not yet full-grown; al-
though he was probably the father of the cubs.
We were a long way from camp, and, after beating in
vain for the other lion, we started back; it was after night-
fall before we saw the camp-fires. It was two hours later
before the porters appeared, bearing on poles the skin of
the dead lion, and the lioness entire. —The moon was nearly
full, and it was interesting to see them come swinging
LION HUNTING ON THE KAPITI PLAINS 81
down the trail in the bright silver light, chanting in deep
tones, over and over again, a line or phrase that sounded
like:
“Zou-zou-boulé ma ja guntai; zou-zou-boulé ma ja guntai.”
Occasionally they would interrupt it by the repetition in
unison, at short intervals, of a guttural ejaculation, sound-
ing like “huzlem.” ‘They marched into camp, then up
and down the lines, before the rows of small fires; then,
accompanied by all the rest of the porters, they paraded up
to the big fire where I was standing. Here they stopped
and ended the ceremony by a minute or two’s vigorous
dancing amid singing and wild shouting. The firelight
gleamed and flickered across the grim dead beasts, and the
shining eyes and black features of the excited savages,
while all around the moon flooded the landscape with her
white light.
CHAPTER IV
ON SAFARI. RHINO AND GIRAFFE
Wuen we killed the last lions we were already on safari,
and the camp was pitched by a waterhole on the Potha,
a half-dried stream, little more than a string of pools and
reedbeds, winding down through the sun-scorched plain.
Next morning we started for another waterhole at the rocky
hill of Bondoni, about eight miles distant. |
Safari life is very pleasant, and also very picturesque.
The porters are strong, patient, good-humored savages,
with something childlike about them that makes one really
fond of them. Of course, like all savages and most children,
they have their limitations, and in dealing with them firm-
ness is even more necessary than kindness; but the man
is a poor creature who does not treat them with kindness
also, and I am rather sorry for him if he does not grow to
feel for them, and to make them in return feel for him, a real
and friendly liking. They are subject to gusts of passion,
and they are now and then guilty of grave misdeeds and
shortcomings; sometimes for no conceivable reason, at least
from the white man’s stand-point. But they are generally
cheerful, and when cheerful are always amusing; and they
work hard, if the white man is able to combine tact and
consideration with that insistence on the performance of
duty the lack of which they despise as weakness. Any
little change or excitement is a source of pleasure to them.
82
ON SAFARI. RHINO AND GIRAFFE 83
When the march is over they sing; and after two or three
days in camp they will not only sing, but dance when an-
other march is to begin. Of course at times they suffer
greatly from thirst and hunger and fatigue, and at times
they will suddenly grow sullen or rebel without what seems
to us any adequate cause; and they have an inconsequent
type of mind which now and then leads them to commit
follies all the more exasperating because they are against
their own interest no less than against the interest of their
employer. But they do well on the whole, and safari life
is attractive to them. ‘They are fed well; the government
requires that they be fitted with suitable clothes and given
small tents, so that they are better clad and sheltered than
they would be otherwise; and their wages represent money
which they could get in no other way. ‘The safari repre-
sents a great advantage to the porter; who in his turn alone
makes the safari possible.
When we were to march, camp was broken as early in
the day as possible. Each man had his allotted task, and
the tents, bedding, provisions, and all else were expeditiously
made into suitable packages. Each porter is supposed
to carry from fifty-five to sixty pounds, which may all be
in one bundle or in two or three. The American flag, which
flew over my tent, was a matter of much pride to the por-
ters, and was always carried at the head or near the head
of the line of march; and after it in single file came the
long line of burden bearers. As they started, some of them
would blow on horns or whistles and others beat little
tomtoms; and at intervals this would be renewed again and
again throughout the march; or the men might suddenly
begin to chant, or merely to keep repeating in unison some
84 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
one word or one phrase which, when we asked to have it
translated, might or might not prove to be entirely mean-
ingless. The headmen carried no burdens, and the tent
boys hardly anything, while the saises walked with the
spare horses. In addition to the canonical and required
costume of blouse or jersey and drawers, each porter wore
a blanket, and usually something else to which his soul
inclined. It might be an exceedingly shabby coat; it might
be, of all things in the world, an umbrella, an article for
which they had a special attachment. Often I would see
a porter, who thought nothing whatever of walking for
hours at midday under the equatorial sun with his head
bare, trudging along with solemn pride either under an
open umbrella, or carrying the umbrella (tied much like
Mrs. Gamp’s) in one hand, as a wand of dignity. Then
their head-gear varied according to the fancy of the indi-
vidual. Normally it was a red fez, a kind of cap only used
in hot climates, and exquisitely designed to be useless
therein because it gives absolutely no protection from the
sun. But one would wear a skin cap; another would sud-
denly put one or more long feathers in his fez; and another,
discarding the fez, would revert to some purely savage
head-dress which he would wear with equal gravity whether
it were, in our eyes, really decorative or merely comic. One
such head-dress, for instance, consisted of the skin of the
top of a zebra’s head, with the two ears. Another was
made of the skins of squirrels, with the tails both sticking
up and hanging down. Another consisted of a bunch of
feathers woven into the hair, which itself was pulled out
into strings that were stiffened with clay. Another was
really too intricate for description because it included the
ON SAFARI. RHINO AND GIRAFFE 85
man’s natural hair, some strips of skin, and an empty
tin can.
If it were a long journey and we broke it by a noonday
halt, or if it were a short journey and we reached camp
ahead of the safari, it was interesting to see the long file
of men approach. Here and there, leading the porters,
scattered through the line, or walking alongside, were the
askaris, the rifle-bearing soldiers. ‘They were not marks-
men, to put it mildly, and I should not have regarded them
as particularly efficient allies in a serious fight; but they
were excellent for police duty in camp, and were also of use
in preventing collisions with the natives. After the leading
askaris might come one of the headmen; one of whom,
by the way, looked exactly like a Semitic negro, and always
travelled with a large dirty-white umbrella in one hand;
while another, a tall, powerful fellow, was a mission boy
who spoke good English; I mention his being a mission
boy because it is so frequently asserted that mission boys
never turn out well. Then would come the man with the
flag, followed by another blowing on an antelope horn, or
perhaps beating an empty can as a drum; and then the
long line of men, some carrying their loads on their heads,
others on their shoulders, others, in a very few cases, on
their backs. As they approached the halting place their
spirits rose, the whistles and horns were blown, and the
improvised drums beaten, and perhaps the whole line would
burst into a chant.
On reaching the camping ground each man at once set
about his allotted task, and the tents were quickly pitched
and the camp put in order, while water and firewood were
fetched. The tents were pitched in long lines, in the first
86 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
of which stood my tent, flanked by those of the other white
men and by the dining tent. In the next line were the cook
tent, the provision tent, the store tent, the skinning tent,
and the like; and then came the lines of small white tents
for the porters. Between each row of tents was a broad
street. In front of our own tents in the first line an askari
was always pacing to and fro; and when night fell we
would kindle a camp-fire and sit around it under the stars.
Before each of the porters’ tents was a little fire, and be-
side it stood the pots and pans in which the porters did their
cooking. Here and there were larger fires, around which
the gun-bearers or a group of askaris or of saises might
gather. After nightfall the multitude of fires lit up the
darkness and showed the tents in shadowy outline; and
around them squatted the porters, their faces flickering
from dusk to ruddy light, as they chatted together or sud-
denly started some snatch of wild African melody in which
all their neighbors might join. After a while the talk and
laughter and singing would gradually die away, and as we
white men sat around our fire, the silence would be un-
broken except by the queer cry of a hyena, or much more
rarely by a sound that always demanded attention—the
yawning grunt of a questing lion.
If we wished to make an early start we would breakfast
by dawn and then we often returned to camp for lunch.
Otherwise we would usually be absent all day, carrying
our lunch with us. We might get in before sunset or we
might be out till long after nightfall; and then the gleam
of the lit fires was a welcome sight as we stumbled toward
them through the darkness. Once in, each went to his
tent to take a hot bath; and then, clean and refreshed, we
ON SAFARI. RHINO AND GIRAFFE 87
sat down to a comfortable dinner, with game of some sort
as the principal dish.
On the first march after leaving our lion camp at Potha
I shot a wart-hog. It was a good-sized sow, which, in com-
pany with several of her half-grown offspring, was grazing
near our line of march; there were some thorn-trees which
gave a little cover, and I killed her at a hundred and eighty
yards, using the Springfield, the lightest and handiest of all
my rifles. Her flesh was good to eat, and the skin, as with
all our specimens, was saved for the National Museum.
I did not again have to shoot a sow, although I killed half-
grown pigs for the table, and boars for specimens. ‘This
sow and her porkers were not rooting, but were grazing
as if they had been antelope; her stomach contained noth-
ing but chopped green grass. Wart-hogs are common
throughout the country over which we hunted. They are
hideous beasts, with strange protuberances on their cheeks;
and when alarmed they trot or gallop away, holding the
tail perfectly erect with the tassel bent forward. Usually
they are seen in family parties, but a big boar will often be
alone. They often root up the ground, but the stomachs of
those we shot were commonly filled with nothing but grass.
If the weather is cloudy or wet they may be out all day
long, but in hot, dry weather we generally found them
abroad only in the morning and evening. A pig is always
a comical animal; even more so than is the case with a
bear, which also impresses one with a sense of grotesque
humor—and this notwithstanding the fact that both boar
and bear may be very formidable creatures. A wart-hog
standing alertly at gaze, head and tail up, legs straddled
out, and ears cocked forward, is rather a figure of fun;
88 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
and not the less so when with characteristic suddenness he
bounces round with a grunt and scuttles madly off to safety.
Wart-hogs are beasts of the bare plain or open forest, and
though they will often lie up in patches of brush they do
not care for thick timber.
After shooting the wart-hog we marched on to our
camp at Bondoni. The gun-bearers were Mohammedans,
and the dead pig was of no service to them; and at their
request I walked out while camp was being pitched and
shot them a buck; this I had to do now and then, but |
always shot males, so as not to damage the species.
Next day we marched to the foot of Kilimakiu Moun-
tain, near Captain Slatter’s ostrich-farm. Our route lay
across bare plains thickly covered with withered short grass.
All around us as we marched were the game herds, zebras
and hartebeests, gazelles of the two kinds, and now and
then wildebeests. Hither and thither over the plain, cross-
ing and recrossing, ran the dusty game trails, each with
its myriad hoof-marks; the round hoof-prints of the zebra,
the heart-shaped marks that showed where the hartebeest
herd had trod, and the delicate etching that betrayed where
the smaller antelope had passed. Occasionally we crossed
the trails of the natives, worn deep in the hard soil by the
countless thousands of bare or sandalled feet that had
trodden them. Africa is a country of trails. Across the
high veldt, in every direction, run the tangled trails of the
multitudes of game that have lived thereon from time im-
memorial. The great beasts of the marsh and the forest
made therein broad and muddy trails which often offer
the only pathway by which a man can enter the sombre
depths. In wet ground and dry alike are also found the
ON SAFARI. RHINO AND GIRAFFE 89
trails of savage man. They lead from village to village,
and in places they stretch for hundreds of miles, where
trading parties have worn them in the search for ivory, or
in the old days when raiding or purchasing slaves. The
trails made by the men are made much as the beasts make
theirs. They are generally longer and better defined, al-
though I have seen hippo tracks more deeply marked than
any made by savage man. But they are made simply by
men following in one another’s footsteps, and they are
never quite straight. They bend now a little to one side,
now a little to the other, and sudden loops mark the spot
where some vanished obstacle once stood; around it the
first trail makers went, and their successors have ever
trodden in their footsteps, even though the need for so
doing has long passed away.
Our camp at Kilimakiu was by a grove of shady trees,
and from it at sunset we looked across the vast plain and
saw the far-off mountains grow umber and purple as the
light waned. Back of the camp, and of the farm-house
near which we were, rose Kilimakiu Mountain, beautifully
studded with groves of trees of many kinds. On its farther
side lived a tribe of the Wakamba. Their chief with all the
leading men of his village came in state to call upon me,
and presented me with a fat hairy sheep, of the ordinary
kind found in this part of Africa, where the sheep very
wisely do not grow wool. The headman was dressed in
khaki, and showed me with pride an official document
which confirmed him in his position by direction of the
government, and required him to perform various acts,
chiefly in the way of preventing his tribes-people from
committing robbery or murder, and of helping to stamp
90 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
out cattle disease. Like all the Wakamba they had flocks
of goats and sheep, and herds of humped cattle; but they
were much in need of meat and hailed my advent. They
were wild savages with filed teeth, many of them stark
naked, though some of them carried a blanket. Their
heads were curiously shaved so that the hair tufts stood out
in odd patterns, and they carried small bows, and arrows
with poisoned heads.
The following morning I rode out with Captain Slatter.
We kept among the hills. The long drought was still un-
broken. The little pools were dry and their bottoms baked
like iron, and there was not a drop in the watercourses.
Part of the land was open and part covered with a thin
forest or bush of scattered mimosa trees. In the open
country were many zebras and hartebeests, and the latter
were found even in the thin bush. In the morning we found
a small herd of eland at which, after some stalking, I got a
long shot and missed. The eland is the largest of all the
horned creatures that are called antelope, being quite as
heavy as a fattened ox. The herd I approached consisted
of a dozen individuals, two of them huge bulls, their coats
having turned a slaty blue, their great dewlaps hanging
down, and the legs looking almost too small for the massive
bodies. The reddish-colored cows were of far lighter build.
Eland are beautiful creatures and ought to be domesticated.
As I crept toward them I was struck by their likeness to
great, clean, handsome cattle. They were grazing or rest-
ing, switching their long tails at the flies that hung in
attendance upon them and lit on their flanks, just as if they
were Jerseys in a field at home. My bullet fell short, their
size Causing me to underestimate the distance, and away
ON SAFARI. RHINO AND GIRAFFE 91
they went at a run, one or two of the cows in the first hurry
and confusion skipping clean over the backs of others that
got in their way—a most unexpected example of agility in
such large and ponderous animals. After a few hundred
yards they settled down to the slashing trot which is their
natural gait, and disappeared over the brow of a hill.
The morning was a blank, but early in the afternoon
we saw the eland herd again. They were around a tree in
an open space, and we could not get near them. But in-
stead of going straight away they struck off to the right and
described almost a semicircle, and though they were over
four hundred yards distant, they were such big creatures
and their gait was so steady that I felt warranted in shoot-
ing. On the dry plain I could mark where my bullets
fell, and though I could not get a good chance at the bull
I finally downed a fine cow; and by pacing I found it to
be a little over a quarter of a mile from where I stood when
shooting.
It was about nine miles from camp, and I dared not
leave the eland alone, so I stationed one of the gun-bearers
by the great carcass and sent a messenger in to Heller, on
whom we depended for preserving the skins of the big
game. Hardly had this been done when a Wakamba man
came running up to tell us that there was a rhinoceros on
the hillside three-quarters of a mile away, and that he had
left a companion to watch it while he carried us the news.
Slatter and I immediately rode in the direction given, fol-
lowing our wild-looking guide; the other gun-bearer trotting
after us. In five minutes we had reached the opposite hill-
crest, where the watcher stood, and he at once pointed out
the rhino. The huge beast was standing in entirely open
92 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
country, although there were a few scattered trees of no
great size at some little distance from him. We left our
horses in a dip of the ground and began the approach;
I cannot say that we stalked him, for the approach was too
easy. The wind blew from him to us, and a rhino’s eyesight
is dull. Thirty yards from where he stood was a bush four
or five feet high, and though it was so thin that we could
distinctly see him through the leaves, it shielded us from
the vision of his small, piglike eyes as we advanced toward
it, stooping and in single file, I leading. The big beast
stood like an uncouth statue, his hide black in the sun-
light; he seemed what he was, a monster surviving over
from the world’s past, from the days when the beasts of
the prime ran riot in their strength, before man grew so
cunning of brain and hand as to master them. So little
did he dream of our presence that when we were a hundred
yards off he actually lay down.
Walking lightly, and with every sense keyed up, we
at last reached the bush, and I pushed forward the safety
of the double-barrelled Holland rifle which I was now to
use for the first time on big game. As I stepped to one side
of the bush so as to get a clear aim, with Slatter following,
the rhino saw me and jumped to his feet with the agility of
a polo pony. As he rose | put in the right barrel, the bullet
going through both lungs. At the same moment he wheeled,
the blood spouting from his nostrils, and galloped full on
us. Before he could get quite all the way round in his head-
long rush to reach us, I struck him with my left-hand
barrel, the bullet entering between the neck and shoulder
and piercing his heart. At the same instant Captain Slatter
fired, his bullet entering the neck vertebre. Ploughing up
eee eee
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92 _ AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
country, although there were a few scattered trees of no aa
great size at some little distance from him. We left our |
horses in a dip of the ground and began the approach;
I cannot say that we stalked him, for the approach was. too vis i
easy. The wind blew from him to us, and a rhino’s eyesight ‘
is dull. Thirty yards from where he stood was a bush fou
or five feet high, and though it was so thin that we could
distinctly see him through the leaves, it shielded us dia | }
the vision of his small, piglike eyes as we advanced toward —
it, stooping and in single file, I leading. The big hae bs 1
stood like an uncouth statue, his hide black in the sun- —
light; he seemed what he was, a monster surviving over
from the world’s past, from the days when the beasts of
the prime ran riot in their strength, before man grew so
cunning of brain and hand as to master them. So little
did he dream of our presence that when we were a hundred
yards off he actually lay down.
Walking lightly, and with every sense keyed up, we
at last reached the bush, and I pushed forward the safety
of the double-barrelled Holland rifle which I was now to
use for the first time on big game. As I stepped to one side
of the bush so as to get a clear aim, with Slatter following,
the rhino saw me and jumped to his feet with the agility of _ -
a polo pony. As he rose | put in the right barrel, the bullet
going through both lungs. At the same moment he wheeled,
the blood spouting from his nostrils, and galloped full on
us. Before he could get quite all the way round in his head-
long rush to reach us, I struck him with my left-hand
barrel, the bullet entering between the neck and shoulder — ;
and piercing his heart. At the same instant Captain Slatter
fired, his bullet entering the neck vertebra. Ploughing up
*~ a
ON SAFARI. RHINO AND GIRAFFE 93
the ground with horn and feet, the great bull rhino, still head
toward us, dropped just thirteen paces from where we stood.
This was a wicked charge, for the rhino meant mischief
and came on with the utmost determination. It is not safe
to generalize from a few instances. Judging from what I
have since seen, I am inclined to believe that both lion and
buffalo are more dangerous game than rhino; yet the first
two rhinos I met both charged, whereas we killed our first
four lions and first four buffaloes without any of them
charging, though two of each were stopped as they were
on the point of charging. Moreover, our experience with
this bull rhino illustrates what I have already said as to one
animal being more dangerous under certain conditions, and
another more dangerous under different conditions. If it
had been a lion instead of a rhino, my first bullet would,
I believe, have knocked all the charge out of it; but the
vitality of the huge pachyderm was so great, its mere bulk
counted for so much, that even such a hard-hitting rifle as
my double Holland—than which I do not believe there
exists a better weapon for heavy game—could not stop
it outright, although either of the wounds inflicted would
have been fatal in a few seconds.
Leaving a couple of men with the dead rhino, to protect.
it from the Wakamba by day and the lions by night, we rode
straight to camp, which we reached at sunset. It was
necessary to get to work on the two dead beasts as soon
as possible in order to be sure of preserving their skins.
Heller was the man to be counted on for this task. He it
was who handled all the skins, who, in other words, was
making the expedition of permanent value so far as big
game was concerned; and no work at any hour of the day
94 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
or night ever came amiss to him. He had already trained
eight Wakamba porters to act as skinners under his super-
vision. On hearing of our success, he at once said that we
ought to march out to the game that night so as to get to
work by daylight. Moreover, we were not comfortable at
leaving only two men with each carcass, for lions were both
bold and plentiful.
The moon rose at eight and we started as soon as she
was above the horizon. We did not take the horses, be-
cause there was no water where we were going, and fur-
thermore we did not like to expose them to a possible attack
by lions. The march out by moonlight was good fun, for
though I had been out all day, I had been riding, not walk-
ing, and so was not tired. A hundred porters went with us
so as to enable us to do the work quickly and bring back
to camp the skins and all the meat needed, and these por-
ters carried water, food for breakfast, and what little was
necessary for a one-night camp. We tramped along in sin-
gle file under the moonlight, up and down the hills, and
through the scattered thorn forest. Kermit and Medlicott
went first, and struck such a pace that after an hour we had
to halt them so as to let the tail end of the file of porters
catch up. Then Captain Slatter and I set a more de-
corus pace, keeping the porters closed up in line behind us.
In another hour we began to go down a long slope toward
a pin-point of light in the distance which we knew was the
fire by the rhinoceros. The porters, like the big children they
were, felt in high feather, and began to chant to an accom-
paniment of whistling and horn-blowing as we tramped
through the dry grass which was flooded with silver by the
- moon, now high in the heavens.
ON SAFARI. RHINO AND GIRAFFE 95
As soon as we reached the rhino, Heller with his
Wakamba skinners pushed forward the three-quarters of a
mile to the eland, returning after midnight with the skin
and all the best parts of the meat.
Around the dead rhino the scene was lit up both by the
moon and by the flicker of the fires. The porters made
their camp under a small tree a dozen rods to one side of
the carcass, building a low circular fence of branches on
which they hung their bright-colored blankets, two or
three big fires blazing to keep off possible lions. Half as
far on the other side of the rhino a party of naked savages
had established their camp, if camp it could be called,
for really all they did was to squat down round a couple
of fires with a few small bushes disposed round about.
The rhino had been opened, and they had already taken
out of the carcass what they regarded as titbits and what
we certainly did not grudge them. Between the two camps
lay the huge dead beast, his hide glistening in the moon-
light. In each camp the men squatted around the fires
chatting and laughing as they roasted strips of meat on
long sticks, the fitful blaze playing over them, now leaving
them in darkness, now bringing them out into a red relief.
Our own tent was pitched under another tree a hundred
yards off, and when I went to sleep, I could still hear the
drumming and chanting of our feasting porters; the sav-
ages were less at ease, and their revel was quiet.
Early next morning I went back to camp, and soon after
reaching there again started out for a hunt. In the after-
noon I came on giraffes and got up near enough to shoot at
them. But they are such enormous beasts that I thought
them far nearer than they were. My bullet fell short, and
96 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
they disappeared among the mimosas, at their strange
leisurely looking gallop. Of all the beasts in an African
landscape none is more striking than the giraffe. Usually
it is found in small parties or in herds of fifteen or twenty
or more individuals. Although it will drink regularly if
occasion offers, it is able to get along without water for
months at a time, and frequents by choice the dry plains or
else the stretches of open forest where the trees are scattered
and ordinarily somewhat stunted. Like the rhinoceros—
the ordinary or prehensile-lipped rhinoceros—the giraffe is
a browsing and not a grazing animal. The leaves, buds,
and twigs of the mimosas or thorn-trees form its customary
food. Its extraordinary height enables it to bring into play
to the best possible advantage its noteworthy powers of
vision, and no animal is harder to approach unseen. Again
and again I have made it out a mile off or rather have seen
it a mile off when it was pointed out to me, and looking at
it through my glasses, would see that it was gazing steadily
at us. It is a striking-looking animal and handsome in its
way, but its length of leg and neck and sloping back make
it appear awkward even at rest. When alarmed it may
go off at a long swinging pace or walk, but if really fright-
ened it strikes into a peculiar gallop or canter. The tail is
cocked and twisted, and the huge hind legs are thrown
forward well to the outside of the forelegs. The movements
seem deliberate and the giraffe does not appear to be going
at a fast pace, but if it has any start a horse must gallop
hard to overtake it. When it starts on this gait, the neck
may be dropped forward at a sharp angle with the straight
line of the deep chest, and the big head is thrust in advance.
They are defenceless things and, though they may kick
ON SAFARI. RHINO AND GIRAFFE 97
at a man who incautiously comes within reach, they are in
no way dangerous.
The following day I again rode out with Captain Slat- —
ter. During the morning we saw nothing except the ordi-
nary game, and we lunched on a hill-top, ten miles distant
from camp, under a huge fig-tree with spreading branches
and thick, deep green foliage. Throughout the time we
were taking lunch a herd of zebras watched us from near
by, standing motionless with their ears pricked forward,
their beautifully striped bodies showing finely in the sun-
light. We scanned the country round about with our
glasses, and made out first a herd of elands, a mile in
our rear, and then three giraffes a mile and a half in our
front. I wanted a bull eland, but I wanted a giraffe still
more, and we mounted our horses and rode toward where
the three tall beasts stood, on an open hillside with trees
thinly scattered over it. Half a mile from them we left the
horses in a thick belt of timber beside a dry watercourse,
and went forward on foot.
There was no use in trying a stalk, for that would
merely have aroused the giraffe’s suspicion. But we knew
they were accustomed to the passing and repassing of
Wakamba men and women, whom they did not fear if they
kept at a reasonable distance, so we walked in single file
diagonally in their direction; that is, toward a tree which
I judged to be about three hundred yards from them. I
was carrying the Winchester loaded with full metal-patched
bullets. I wished to get for the museum both a bull and a
cow. One of the three giraffes was much larger than the
other two, and as he was evidently a bull I thought the two
others were cows,
98 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
As we reached the tree the giraffes showed symptoms
of uneasiness. One of the smaller ones began to make off,
and both the others shifted their positions slightly, curling
their tails. I instantly dropped on my knee, and getting the
bead just behind the big bull’s shoulder, I fired with the
three-hundred-yard sight. I heard the “‘ pack”’ of the bullet
as it struck just where I aimed; and away went all three
giraffes at their queer rocking-horse canter. Running for-
ward I emptied my magazine, firing at the big bull and also
at one of his smaller companions, and then, slipping into
the barrel what proved to be a soft-nosed bullet, I fired at
the latter again. The giraffe was going straightaway and
it was a long shot, at four or five hundred yards; but by
good luck the bullet broke its back and down it came.
The others were now getting over the crest of the hill,
but the big one was evidently sick, and we called and
beckoned to the two saises to hurry up with the horses.
The moment they arrived we jumped on, and Captain
Slatter cantered up a neighboring hill so as to mark the
direction in which the giraffes went if I lost sight of them.
Meanwhile I rode full speed after the giant quarry. I
was on the tranquil sorrel, the horse I much preferred in
riding down game of any kind, because he had a fair turn
of speed, and yet was good about letting me get on and off.
As soon as I reached the hill-crest I saw the giraffes ahead
of me, not as far off as I had feared, and I raced toward them
without regard to rotten ground and wart-hog holes. The
wounded one lagged behind, but when I got near he put
on a spurt, and as I thought I was close enough I leaped
off, throwing the reins over the sorrel’s head, and opened
fire. Down went the big bull, and I thought my task was
ee
nee ee oS
ON SAFARI. RHINO AND GIRAFFE 99
done. But as I went back to mount the sorrel he struggled
to his feet again and disappeared after his companion
among the trees, which were thicker here, as we had reached
the bottom of the valley. So I tore after him again, and in
a minute came to a dry watercourse. Scrambling into
and out of this I saw the giraffes ahead of me just begin-
ning the ascent of the opposite slope; and touching the
horse with the spur we flew after the wounded bull. This
time I made up my mind I would get up close enough; but
Tranquillity did not quite like the look of the thing ahead
ofhim. He did not refuse to come up to the giraffe, but he
evidently felt that, with such an object close by and evident
in the landscape, it behooved him to be careful as to what
might be hidden therein, and he shied so at each bush we
passed that we progressed in series of loops. So off I jumped,
throwing the reins over his head, and opened fire once more;
and this time the great bull went down for good.
Tranquillity recovered his nerve at once and grazed
contentedly while I admired the huge proportions and
beautiful coloring of my prize. In a few minutes Captain
Slatter loped up, and the gun-bearers and saises followed.
As if by magic, three or four Wakamba turned up immedi-
ately afterward, their eyes glistening at the thought of the
feast ahead for the whole tribe. It was mid-afternoon,
and there was no time to waste. My sais, Simba, an excel-
lent long-distance runner, was sent straight to camp to get
Heller and pilot him back to the dead giraffes. Beside
each of the latter, for they had fallen a mile apart, we left
a couple of men to build fires. Then we rode toward camp.
To my regret, the smaller giraffe turned out to be a young
bull and not a cow.
100 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
At this very time, and utterly without our knowledge,
there was another giraffe hunt going on. Sir Alfred had
taken out Kermit and Medlicott, and they came across a
herd of a dozen giraffes right out in the open plains. Med-
licott’s horse was worn out and he could not keep up, but
both the others were fairly well mounted. Both were light
men and hard riders, and although the giraffes had three-
quarters of a mile the start, it was not long before both
were at the heels of the herd. They singled out the big bull,
which by the way turned out to be an even bigger bull than
mine, and fired at him as they galloped. In such a head-
long helter-skelter chase, however, it is no easy matter to
score a hit from horseback unless one is very close up; and
Sir Alfred made up his mind to try to drive out the bull
from the rest of the herd. He succeeded; but at this mo-
ment his horse put a forefoot into a hole and turned a com-
plete somersault, almost wrenching out his shoulder. Sir
Alfred was hurled off head over heels, but even as he rolled
over, clutching his rifle, he twisted himself round to his
knees, and took one last shot at the flying giraffe. This
left Kermit alone and he galloped hard on the giraffe’s
heels, firing again and again with his Winchester. Finally
his horse became completely done out and fell behind;
whereupon Kermit jumped off, and being an excellent
long-distance runner, ran after the giraffe on foot for more
than a mile. But he did not need to shoot again. The
great beast had been mortally wounded and it suddenly
slowed down, halted, and fell over dead. As a matter of
curiosity we kept the Winchester bullets both from Ker-
mit’s giraffe and from mine. I made a point of keeping
as many as possible of the bullets with which the different
a a a a
Se Ee
oes
ON SAFARI. RHINO AND GIRAFFE 101
animals were slain so as to see just what was done by the
different types of rifles we had with us.
When I reached camp I found that Heller had already
started. Next morning I rode down to see him and found
him hard at work with the skins; but as it would take him
two or three days to finish them and put them in condition
for transport, we decided that the safari should march
back to the Potha camp, and that from thence we would
send Percival’s ox wagon to bring back to the camp all the
skins, Heller and his men accompanying him. The plan
was carried out, and the following morning we shifted the
big camp as proposed.
Heller, thus left behind, came near having an unpleas-
ant adventure. He slept in his own tent, and his Wakam-
ba skinners slept under the fly not far off. One night they
let the fires die down and were roused at midnight by
hearing the grunting of a hungry lion apparently not a
dozen yards off in the darkness. Heller quickly lit his
lantern and sat up with his shot-gun loaded with bird shot,
the only weapon he had with him. ‘The lion walked round
and round the tent, grunting at intervals. Then, after some
minutes of suspense, he drew off. While the grunting had
been audible, not a sound came from the tent of the Wa-
kambas, who all cowered under their blankets in perfect
silence. But once he had gone there was a great chatter-
ing, and in a few minutes the fires were roaring, nor were
they again suffered to die down.
Heller’s skinners had grown to work very well when
under his eye. He had encountered much difficulty in get-
ting men who would do the work, and had tried the rep-
resentatives of various tribes, but without success until
102 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
he struck the Wakamba. These were real savages’ who
filed their teeth and delighted in raw flesh, and Heller’s
explanation of their doing well was that their taste for the
raw flesh kept them thoroughly interested in their job, so
that they learned without difficulty. The porters speedily
christened each of the white men by some title of their
own, using the ordinary Swahili title of Bwana (master) as
a prefix. Heller was the Bwana Who Skinned; Loring,
who collected the small mammals, was named, merely
descriptively, the Mouse Master, Bwana Pania. I was
always called Bwana Makuba, the chief or Great Master;
Kermit was first called Bwana Medogo, the young mas-
ter, and afterward was christened “the Dandy,” Bwana
Merodadi.
From Potha the safari went in two days to McMillan’s
place, Juja Farm, on the other side of the Athi. I stayed
behind, as I desired to visit the American Mission Station
at Machakos. Accordingly, Sir Alfred and I rode thither.
Machakos has long been a native town, for it was on the
route formerly taken by the Arab caravans that went from
the coast to the interior after slaves and ivory. Riding
toward it we passed herd after herd of cattle, sheep, and
goats, each guarded by two or three savage herdsmen.
The little town itself was both interesting and attractive.
Besides the natives there were a number of Indian traders
and the English Commissioner and Assistant Commissioner,
with a small body of native soldiers. The latter not a long
time before had been just such savages as those round about
them, and the change for the better wrought in their phy-
sique and morale by the ordered discipline to which they
had submitted themselves could hardly be exaggerated.
a i a
— ————
ON SAFARI. RHINO AND GIRAFFE 103
When we arrived, the Commissioner and his assistant were °
engaged in cross-examining some neighboring chiefs as to
the cattle sickness. The English rule in Africa has been
of incalculable benefit to Africans themselves, and indeed
this is true of the rule of most European nations. Mistakes
have been made, of course, but they have proceeded at least
as often from an unwise effort to accomplish too much
in the way of beneficence, as from a desire to exploit the
natives. Each of the civilized nations that has taken posses-
sion of any part of Africa has had its own peculiar good
qualities and its own peculiar defects. Some of them have
done too much in supervising and ordering the lives of the
natives, and in interfering with their practices and customs.
The English error, like our own under similar conditions,
has, if anything, been in the other direction. The effort
has been to avoid wherever possible all interference with
tribal customs, even when of an immoral and repulsive
character, and to do no more than what is obviously neces-
sary, such as insistence upon keeping the peace and prevent-
ing the spread of cattle disease. Excellent reasons can be
advanced in favor of this policy, and it must always be
remembered that a fussy and ill-considered benevolence is
more sure to awaken resentment than cruelty itself; while
the natives are apt to resent deeply even things that are ob-
viously for their ultimate welfare. Yet I cannot help think-
ing that with caution and wisdom it would be possible to
proceed somewhat farther than has yet been the case in
the direction of pushing upward some at least of the East
African tribes; and this though I recognize fully that many
of these tribes are of a low and brutalized type. Having
said this much in the way of criticism, I wish to add my
104 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
tribute of unstinted admiration for the disinterested and
efficient work being done, alike in the interest of the white
man and the black, by the government officials whom I
met in East Africa. They are men in whom their country
has every reason to feel a just pride.
We lunched with the American missionaries. Mission
work among savages offers many difficulties, and often the
wisest and most earnest effort meets with dishearteningly
little reward; while lack of common-sense, and of course,
above all, lack of a firm and resolute disinterestedness, in-
sures the worst kind of failure. There are missionaries who
do not do well, just as there are men in every conceivable
walk of life who do not do well; and excellent men who
are not missionaries, including both government officials
and settlers, are only too apt to jump at the chance of criti-
cising a missionary for every alleged sin of either omission
or commission. Finally, zealous missionaries, fervent in the
faith, do not always find it easy to remember that sav-
ages can only be raised by slow steps, that an empty adhe-
rence to forms and ceremonies amounts to nothing, that
industrial training is an essential in any permanent upward
movement, and that the gradual elevation of mind and
character is a prerequisite to the achievement of any kind
of Christianity which is worth calling such. Nevertheless,
after all this has been said, it remains true that the good
done by missionary effort in Africa has been incalculable.
There are parts of the great continent, and among them
I include many sections of East Africa, which can be made
a white man’s country; and in these parts every effort
should be made to favor the growth of a large and prosper-
ous white population. But over most of Africa the problem
in Neila ee ee
ON SAFARI. RHINO AND GIRAFFE | 105
for the white man is to govern, with wisdom and firmness,
and when necessary with severity, but always with an eye
single to their own interests and development, the black
and brown races. To do this needs sympathy and devotion
no less than strength and wisdom, and in the task the part
to be played by the missionary and the part to be played
by the official are alike great, and the two should work hand
in hand.
After returning from Machakos, I spent the night at Sir
Alfred’s, and next morning said good-by with most genu-
ine regret to my host and his family. Then, followed by
my gun-bearers and sais, I rode off across the Athi Plains.
Through the bright white air the sun beat down merci-
lessly, and the heat haze wavered above the endless flats
of scorched grass. Hour after hour we went slowly for-
ward, through the morning, and through the burning heat
of the equatorial noon, until in mid-afternoon we came to
the tangled tree growth which fringed the half-dried bed of
the Athi. Here I off-saddled for an hour; then, mounting,
I crossed the river bed where it was waterless, and before
evening fell I rode up to Juja Farm.
CHAPTER V
JUJA FARM; HIPPO AND LEOPARD
At Juja Farm we were welcomed with the most gener-
ous hospitality by my fellow-countryman and his wife, Mr.
and Mrs. W. N. McMillan. Selous had been staying with
them, and one afternoon I had already ridden over from
Sir Alfred’s ranch to take tea with them at their other house,
on the beautiful Mua hills.
Juja Farm lies on the edge of the Athi Plains, and the
house stands near the junction of the Nairobi and Rewero
Rivers. The house, like almost all East African houses,
was of one story, a broad, vine-shaded veranda running
around it. There were numerous out-buildings of every
kind; there were flocks and herds, cornfields, a vegetable
garden, and, immediately in front of the house, a very
pretty flower garden, carefully tended by unsmiling Ki-
kuyu savages. All day long these odd creatures worked
at the grass and among the flower beds; according to the
custom of their tribe their ears were slit so as to enable
them to stretch the lobes to an almost unbelievable extent,
and in these apertures they wore fantastically carved na-
tive ornaments. One of them had been attracted by the
shining surface of an empty tobacco can, and he wore this
in one ear to match the curiously carved wooden drum he
carried in the other. Another, whose arms and legs were
massive with copper and iron bracelets, had been given a
106
JUJA FARM; HIPPO AND LEOPARD © 107
blanket because he had no other garment; he got along
quite well with the blanket excepting when he had to use
the lawn mower, and then he would usually wrap the blan-
ket around his neck and handle the lawn mower with the
evident feeling that he had done all that the most exacting
conventionalism could require.
The house boys and gun-bearers, and most of the boys
who took care of the horses, were Somalis, whereas the
cattle keepers who tended the herds of cattle were Masai,
and the men and women who worked in the fields were
Kikuyus. The three races had nothing to do with one
another, and the few Indians had nothing to do with any of
them. The Kikuyus lived in their beehive huts scattered
in small groups; the Somalis all dwelt in their own little
village on one side of the farm; and half a mile off the
Masai dwelt in their village. Both the Somalis and Masai
were fine, daring fellows; the Somalis were Mohammedans
and horsemen; the Masai were cattle herders, who did their
work as they did their fighting, on foot, and were wild
heathen of the most martial type. They looked carefully
after the cattle, and were delighted to join in the chase of
dangerous game, but regular work they thoroughly de-
spised. Sometimes when we had gathered a mass of Ki-
kuyus or of our own porters together to do some job, two
or three Masai would stroll up to look on with curiosity,
sword in belt and great spear in hand; their features were
well cut, their hair curiously plaited, and they had the erect
carriage and fearless bearing that naturally go with a sol-
dierly race.
Within the house, with its bedrooms and dining-room,
its library and drawing-room, and the cool, shaded veranda,
108 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
everything was so comfortable that it was hard to realize
that we were far in the interior of Africa and almost under
the equator. Our hostess was herself a good rider and
good shot, and had killed her lion; and both our host and
a friend who was staying with him, Mr. Bulpett, were not
merely mighty hunters who had bagged every important
variety of large and dangerous game, but were also ex-
plorers of note, whose travels had materially helped in
widening the area of our knowledge of what was once
the dark continent.
Many birds sang in the garden, bulbuls, thrushes, and
warblers; and from the narrow fringe of dense woodland
along the edges of the rivers other birds called loudly, some
with harsh, some with musical voices. Here for the first
time. we saw the honey-guide, the bird that insists upon
leading any man it sees to honey, so that he may rob the
hive and give it a share. |
Game came right around the house. Hartebeests, wilde-
beests, and zebras grazed in sight on the open plain. The
hippopotami that lived close by in the river came out at
night into the garden. A couple of years before a rhino
had come down into the same garden in broad daylight, and
quite wantonly attacked one of the Kikuyu laborers, tossing
him and breaking his thigh. It had then passed by the
house out to the plain, where it saw an ox cart, which it
immediately attacked and upset, cannoning off after its
charge and passing up through the span of oxen, breaking
all the yokes but fortunately not killing an animal. Then
it met one of the men of the house on horseback, imme-
diately assailed him, and was killed for its pains.
My host was about to go on safari for a couple of
JUJA FARM; HIPPO AND LEOPARD 109
months with Selous, and to manage their safari they had
one of the noted professional hunters of East Africa, Mr.
H. Judd; and Judd was kind enough to take me out hunt-
ing almost every day that we were at Juja. We would
breakfast at dawn and leave the farm about the time that
it grew light enough to see: ordinarily our course was
eastward, toward the Athi, a few miles distant. These
morning rides were very beautiful. In our front was the
mountain mass of Donyo Sabuk, and the sun rose behind
it, flooding the heavens with gold and crimson. The
morning air blew fresh in our faces, and the unshod feet
of our horses made no sound as they trod the dew-drenched
grass. On every side game stood to watch us, herds of
hartebeests and zebras, and now and then a herd of wilde-
beests or a few straggling old wildebeest bulls. Sometimes
the zebras and kongoni were very shy, and took fright
when we were yet a long way off; at other times they would
stand motionless and permit us to come within fair gun-
shot, and after we had passed we could still see them re-
garding us without their having moved. The wildebeests
were warier; usually when we were yet a quarter of a mile
or so distant, the herd, which had been standing with heads
up, their short, shaggy necks and heavy withers giving the
animals an unmistakable look, would take fright, and,
with heavy curvets, and occasional running in semicircles,
would make off, heads held down and long tails lashing
the air.
In the open woods which marked the border between
the barren plains and the forested valley of the Athi, Kermit
and I shot waterbuck and impalla. The waterbuck is a
stately antelope with long, coarse gray hair and fine car-
110 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
riage of the head and neck; the male alone carries horns.
We found them usually in parties of ten or a dozen, both
of bulls and cows; but sometimes a party of cows would go
alone, or three or four bulls might be found together. In
spite of its name, we did not find it much given to going in
the water, although it would cross the river fearlessly when-
ever it desired; it was, however, always found not very far
from water. It liked the woods and did not go many miles
from the streams, yet we frequently saw it on the open
plains a mile or two from trees, feeding in the vicinity of
the zebra and the hartebeest. This was, however, usually
quite early in the morning or quite late in the afternoon.
In the heat of the day it clearly preferred to be in the for-
est, along the stream’s edge, or in the bush-clad ravines.
The impalla are found in exactly the same kind of
country as the waterbuck, and often associate with them.
To my mind they are among the most beautiful of all ante-
lope. They are about the size of a white-tailed deer, their
beautiful annulated horns making a single spiral, and
their coat is like satin with its contrasting shades of red
and white. They have the most graceful movements of
any animal I know, and it is extraordinary to see a herd
start off when frightened, both bucks, and does bounding
clear over the tops of the tall bushes, with a peculiar bird-
like motion and lightness. Usually a single old buck will
be found with a large company of does and fawns; the
other bucks go singly or in small parties. It was in the
middle of May, and we saw fawns of all ages. When in
the open, where, like the waterbuck, it often went in the
morning and evening, the impalla was very shy, but I did
not find it particularly so among the woods. In connec-
SR IT
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JUJA FARM; HIPPO AND LEOPARD ill
tion with shooting two of the impalla, there occurred little
incidents which are worthy of mention.
In one case I had just killed a waterbuck cow, hitting
it at a considerable distance and by a lucky fluke, after a
good deal of bad shooting. We started the porters in with
the waterbuck, and then rode west through an open coun-
try, dotted here and there with trees and with occasional
ant-hills. In a few minutes we saw an impalla buck, and
I crept up behind an ant-hill and obtained a shot at about
two hundred and fifty yards. The buck dropped, and as I
was putting in another cartridge I said to Judd that I
didn’t like to see an animal drop like that, so instanta-
neously, as there was always the possibility that it might
only be creased, and that if an animal so hurt got up, it
always went off exactly as if unhurt. When we raised our
eyes again to look for the impalla it had vanished. I was
sure that we would never see it again, and Judd felt much
the same way, but we walked in the direction toward which
its head had been pointed, and Judd ascended an ant-hill
to scan the surrounding country with his glasses. He did
so, and after a minute remarked that he could not see the
wounded impalla; when a sudden movement caused us
to look down, and there it was, lying at our very feet, on
the side of the ant-hill, unable to rise. I had been using a
sharp-pointed bullet in the Springfield, and this makes
a big hole. The bullet had gone too far back, in front of
the hips. I should not have wondered at all if the animal
had failed to get up after falling, but I did not understand
why, as it recovered enough from the shock to be able to
get up, it had not continued to travel, instead of falling
after going one hundred yards. Indeed, I am inclined to
112 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
think that a deer or prong-buck, hit in the same fashion,
would have gone off and would have given a long chase
before being overtaken. Judging from whai others have
said, I have no doubt that African game is very tough
and succumbs less easily to wounds than is the case with
animals of the northern temperate zone; but in my own
experience, I several times saw African antelopes succumb to
wounds quicker than the average northern animal would
have succumbed toa similar wound. One was this impalla.
Another was the cow eland I first shot; her hind leg was
broken high up, and the wound, though crippling, was
not such as would have prevented a moose or wapiti from
hobbling away on three legs; yet in spite of hard strug-
gles the eland was wholly unable to regain her feet.
The impalla thus shot, by the way, although in fine
condition and the coat of glossy beauty, was infested by
ticks; around the horns the horrid little insects were clus-
tered in thick masses for a space of a diameter of some
inches. It was to me marvellous that they had not set
up inflammation or caused great sores, for they were so
thick that at a distance of a few feet they gave the appear-
ance of there being some big gland or bare place at the root
of each horn.
The other impalla buck also showed an unexpected
softness, succumbing to a wound which I do not believe
would have given me either a white-tailed or a black-tailed
deer. I had been vainly endeavoring to get a waterbuck
bull, and as the day was growing hot I was riding home-
ward, scanning the edge of the plain where it merged into
the trees that extended out from the steep bank that hemmed
in one side of the river-bottom. From time to time we
JUJA FARM; HIPPO AND LEOPARD © 113
would see an impalla or a waterbuck making its way from
the plain back to the river-bottom, to spend the day in the
shade. One of these I stalked, and after a good deal of
long-range shooting broke a hind leg high up. It got out
of sight and we rode along the edge of the steep descent
which led down into the river-bottom proper. In the bot-
tom there were large, open, grassy places, while the trees
made a thick fringe along the river course. We had given
up the impalla and turned out toward the plain, when one
of my gun-bearers whistled to us and said he had seen the
wounded animal cross the bottom and go into the fringe
of trees bounding a deep pool in which we knew there were
both hippos and crocodiles. We were off our horses at
once, and, leaving them at the top, scrambled down the
descent and crossed the bottom to the spot indicated. The
impalla had lain down as soon as it reached cover, and as
we entered the fringe of wood I caught a glimpse of it
getting up and making off. Yet fifty yards farther it
stopped again, standing right on the brink of the pool, so
close that when I shot it, it fell over into the water.
When, after arranging for this impalla to be carried
back to the farm, we returned to where our horses had
been left, the boys told us with much excitement that there
was a large snake near by; and sure enough a few yards
off, coiled up in the long grass under a small tree, was a
python. I could not see it distinctly, and using a solid bul-
let I just missed the backbone, the bullet going through
the body about its middle. Immediately the snake lashed
at me with open jaws, and then, uncoiling, came gliding
rapidly in our direction. I do not think it was charging;
I think it was merely trying to escape. But Judd, who
114 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
was utterly unmoved by lion, leopard, or rhino, evidently
held this snake in respect, and yelled to me to get out of
the way. Accordingly, I jumped back a few feet, and the
snake came over the ground where I had stood; its evil
genius then made it halt for a moment and raise its head
to a height of perhaps three feet, and I killed it by a shot
through the neck. ‘The porters were much wrought up
about the snake, and did not at all like my touching it and
taking it up, first by the tail and then by the head. It was
only twelve feet long. We tied it to a long stick and sent
it in by two porters.
Another day we beat for lions, but without success.
We rode to a spot a few miles off, where we were joined by
three Boer farmers. ‘They were big, upstanding men,
looking just as Boer farmers ought to look who had been
through a war and had ever since led the adventurous life
of frontier farmers in wild regions. They were accom-
panied by a pack of big, rough-looking dogs, but were on
foot, walking with long and easy strides. The dogs looked
a rough-and-ready lot, but on this particular morning
showed themselves of little use; at any rate they put up
nothing.
But Kermit had a bit of deserved good luck. While
the main body of us went down the river-bed, he and Mc-
Millan, with a few natives, beat up a side ravine, down
the middle of which ran the usual dry watercourse fringed
with patches of brush. In one of these they put up a leop-
ard, and saw it slinking forward ahead of them through
the bushes. Then they lost sight of it, and came to the con-
clusion that it was in a large thicket. So Kermit went on
one side of it and McMillan on the other, and the beaters
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JUJA FARM; HIPPO AND LEOPARD © 115
approached to try and get the leopard out. Of course none
of the beaters had guns; their function was merely to make
a disturbance and rouse the game, and they were cautioned
on no account to get into danger. But the leopard did not
wait to be driven. Without any warning, out he came and
charged straight at Kermit, who stopped him when he was
but six yards off with a bullet in the forepart of the body;
the leopard turned, and as he galloped back Kermit hit him
again, crippling him in the hips. The wounds were fatal,
and they would have knocked the fight out of any animal
less plucky and savage than the leopard; but not even in
Africa is there a beast of more unflinching courage than
this spotted cat. The beaters were much excited by the
sight of the charge and the way in which it was stopped,
and they pressed jubilantly forward, too heedlessly; one
of them, who was on McMillan’s side of the thicket, went
too near it, and out came the wounded leopard at him.
It was badly crippled or it would have got the beater at
once; as it was, it was slowly overtaking him as he ran
through the tall grass) when McMillan, standing on an
ant-heap, shot it again. Yet, in spite of having this third
bullet in it, it ran down the beater and seized him, worrying
him with teeth and claws; but it was weak because of its
wounds, and the powerful savage wrenched himself free,
while McMillan fired into the beast again; and back it
went through the long grass into the thicket. There was a
pause, and the wounded beater was removed to a place of
safety, while a messenger was sent on to us to bring up
the Boer dogs. But while they were waiting, the leopard,
on its own initiative, brought matters to a crisis, for out it
came again straight at Kermit, and this time it dropped
116 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
dead to Kermit’s bullet. No animal could have shown
a more fearless and resolute temper. It was an old female,
but small, its weight being a little short of seventy pounds.
The smallest female cougar I ever killed was heavier than
this, and one very big male cougar which I killed in Colo-
rado was three times the weight. Yet I have never heard of
any cougar which displayed anything like the spirit and
ferocity of this little leopard, or which in any way approached
it as a dangerous foe. It was sent back to camp in com-
pany with the wounded beater, after the wounds of the
latter had been dressed; they were not serious, and he was
speedily as well as ever.
The rivers that bounded Juja Farm, not only the Athi,
but the Nairobi and Rewero, contained hippopotami and
crocodiles in the deep pools. I was particularly anxious
to get one of the former, and early one morning Judd and
I rode off across the plains, through the herds of grazing
game seen dimly in the dawn, to the Athi. We reached
the river, and, leaving our horses, went down into the
wooded bottom, soon after sunrise. Judd had with him
a Masai, a keen-eyed hunter, and I my two gun-bearers.
We advanced with the utmost caution toward the brink
of a great pool; on our way we saw a bushbuck, but of
course did not dare to shoot at it, for hippopotami are wary,
except in very unfrequented regions, and any noise will
disturb them. As we crept noiselessly up to the steep
bank which edged the pool, the sight was typically African.
On the still water floated a crocodile, nothing but his eyes
and nostrils visible. The bank was covered with a dense
growth of trees, festooned with vines; among the branches
sat herons; a little cormorant dived into the water; and
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116 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
dead to Kermit’s bullet. No animal could have shown
a more fearless and resolute temper. It was an old female, — 7
but small, its weight being a little short of seventy pounds. __
The smallest female cougar I ever killed was heavier than
this, and one very big male cougar which I killed in Colo- 4
rado was three times the weight. Yet I have never heard of
any cougar which displayed anything like the spirit and
ferocity of this little leopard, or which in any way approached
it as a dangerous foe. It was sent back to camp in com-
pany with the wounded beater, after the wounds of the
latter had been dressed; they were not serious, and he was
speedily as well as ever.
The rivers that bounded Juja Farm, not only the Athi, |
but the Nairobi and Rewero, contained hippopotami and
crocodiles in the deep pools. 1 was particularly anxious
to get one of the former, and early one morning Judd and
I rode off across the plains, through the herds of grazing —
game seen dimly in the dawn, to the Athi. We reached
the river, and, leaving our horses, went down into the
wooded bottom, soon after sunrise. Judd had with him
a Masai, a keen-eyed hunter, and I my two gun-bearers.
We advanced with the utmost caution toward the brink
of a great pool; on our way we saw a bushbuck, but of |
course did not dare to shoot at it, for hippopotami are wary,
except in very unfrequented regions, and any noise will
disturb .them. As we crept noiselessly up to the steep
bank which edged the pool, the sight was typically African.
On the still water floated a crocodile, nothing but his eyes
and nostrils visible. The bank was covered with a dense —
growth of trees, festooned with vines; among the branches __
sat herons; a little cormorant dived into the water; and ahs .
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a very small and brilliantly colored kingfisher, with a red
beak and large turquoise crest, perched unheedingly with-
in a few feet of us. Here and there a dense growth of the
tall and singularly graceful papyrus rose out of the water,
the feathery heads, which crowned the long smooth green
stems, waving gently to and fro.
We scanned the waters carefully, and could see no sign
of hippos, and, still proceeding with the utmost caution, we
moved a hundred yards farther down to another lookout.
Here the Masai detected a hippo head a long way off on
the other side of the pool; and we again drew back and
started cautiously forward to reach the point opposite which
he had seen the head.
But we were not destined to get that hippo. Just as
we had about reached the point at which we had intended
to turn in toward the pool, there was a succession of snorts
in our front and the sound of the trampling of heavy feet
and of a big body being shoved through a dense mass of
tropical bush. My companions called to me in loud whis-
pers that it was a rhinoceros coming at us, and to “Shoot,
shoot.” In another moment the rhinoceros appeared,
twitching its tail and tossing and twisting its head from side
to side as it came toward us. It did not seem to have very
good horns, and I would much rather not have killed it;
but there hardly seemed any alternative, for it certainly
showed every symptom of being bent on mischief. My
first shot, at under forty yards, produced no effect what-
ever, except to hasten its approach. I was using the Win-
chester, with full-jacketed bullets; my second bullet went
in. between the neck and shoulder, bringing it to a halt. I
fired into the shoulder again, and as it turned toward the
118 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
bush I fired into its flank both the bullets still remaining
in my magazine.
For a moment or two after it disappeared we heard
the branches crash, and then there was silence. In such
cover a wounded rhino requires cautious handling, and as
quietly as possible we walked through the open forest
along the edge of the dense thicket into which the animal
had returned. The thicket was a tangle of thorn bushes,
reeds, and small, low-branching trees; it was impossible
to see ten feet through it, and a man could only penetrate
it with the utmost slowness and difficulty, whereas the
movements of the rhino were very little impeded. At the
far end of the thicket we examined the grass to see if the
rhino had passed out, and sure enough there was the spoor,
with so much blood along both sides that it was evident
the animal was badly hit. It led across this space and into
another thicket of the same character as the first; and
again we stole cautiously along the edge some ten yards
out. I had taken the heavy Holland double-barrel, and
with the safety catch pressed forward under my thumb, I
trod gingerly through the grass, peering into the thicket
and expectant of developments. In a minute there was
a furious snorting and crashing directly opposite us in the
thicket, and I brought up my rifle; but the rhino did not
quite place us, and broke out of the cover in front, some
thirty yards away; and I put both barrels into and behind
the shoulder. The terrific striking force of the heavy gun
told at once, and the rhino wheeled, and struggled back
into the thicket, and we heard it fall. With the utmost
caution, bending and creeping under the branches, we made
our way in, and saw the beast lying with its head toward us.
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JUJA FARM; HIPPO AND LEOPARD _ 119
We thought it was dead, but would take no chances; and I
put in another, but as it proved needless, heavy bullet.
It was an old female, considerably smaller than the bull
I had already shot, with the front horn measuring four-
teen inches as against his nineteen inches; as always with
rhinos, it was covered with ticks, which clustered thickly
in the folds and creases of the skin, around and in the ears,
and in all the tender places. McMillan sent out an ox
wagon and brought it in to the house, where we weighed it.
It was a little over two thousand two hundred pounds.
It had evidently been in the neighborhood in which we
found it for a considerable time, for a few hundred yards
away we found its stamping ground, a circular spot where
the earth had been all trampled up and kicked about, ac-
cording to the custom of rhinoceroses; they return day
after day to such places to deposit their dung, which is then
kicked about with the hind feet. As with all our other
specimens, the skin was taken off and sent back to the
National Museum. ‘The stomach was filled with leaves
and twigs, this kind of rhinoceros browsing on the tips of
the branches by means of its hooked, prehensile upper lip.
Now I did not want to kill this rhinoceros, and I am
not certain that it really intended to charge us. It may
very well be that if we had stood firm it would, after much
threatening and snorting, have turned and made off; vet-
eran hunters like Selous could, I doubt not, have afforded
to wait and see what happened. But I let it get within forty
yards, and it still showed every symptom of meaning mis-
chief, and at a shorter range I could not have been sure of
stopping it in time. Often under such circumstances the
rhino does not mean to charge at all, and is acting in a
120 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
spirit of truculent and dull curiosity; but often, when its
motions and actions are indistinguishable from those of an
animal which does not mean mischief, it turns out that a
given rhino does mean mischief. A year before I arrived
in East Africa a surveyor was charged by a rhinoceros
entirely without provocation; he was caught and killed.
Chanler’s companion on his long expedition, the Austrian
Von Hohnel, was very severely wounded by a rhino and
nearly died; the animal charged through the line of march
of the safari, and then deliberately turned, hunted down
Von Hohnel, and tossed him. Again and again there have
been such experiences, and again and again hunters who
did not wish to kill rhinos have been forced to do so in
order to prevent mischief. Under such circumstances it is
not to be expected that men will take too many chances
when face to face with a creature whose actions are threat-
ening and whose intentions it is absolutely impossible to
divine. In fact, I do not see how the rhinoceros can be per-
manently preserved, save in very out-of-the-way places or
in regular game reserves. There is enough interest and ex-
citement in the pursuit to attract every eager young hunter,
and, indeed, very many eager old hunters; and the beast’s
stupidity, curiosity, and truculence make up a combination
of qualities which inevitably tend to insure its destruction.
As we brought home the whole body of this rhinoceros,
and as I had put into it eight bullets, five from the Win-
chester and three from the Holland, I was able to make
a tolerably fair comparison between the two. With the
full-jacketed bullets of the Winchester I had mortally
wounded the animal; it would have died in a short time,
and it was groggy when it came out of the brush in its
SERS i ger ae
A RAD De RII
JUJA FARM; HIPPO AND LEOPARD © 121
final charge; but they inflicted no such smashing blow as
the heavy bullets of the Holland. Moreover, when they
struck the heavy bones they tended to break into frag-
ments, while the big Holland bullets ploughed through.
The Winchester and the Springfield were the weapons
one of which I always carried in my own hand, and for
any ordinary game I much preferred them to any other
rifles. The Winchester did admirably with lions, giraffes,
elands, and smaller game, and, as will be seen, with hippos.
For heavy game like rhinoceroses and buffaloes, I found
that for me personally the heavy Holland was unquestion-
ably the proper weapon. But in writing this I wish most
distinctly to assert my full knowledge of the fact that the
choice of a rifle is almost as much a matter of personal
idiosyncrasy as the choice of a friend. The above must
be taken as merely the expression of my personal pref-
erences. It will doubtless arouse as much objection among
the ultra-champions of one type of gun as among the ultra-
champions of another. The truth is that any good mod-
ern rifle is good enough. The determining factor is the
man behind the gun.
In the afternoon of the day on which we killed the rhino
Judd took me out again to try for hippos, this time in the
Rewero, which ran close by the house. We rode upstream
a couple of miles. Then we sent back our horses and
walked down the river bank as quietly as possible, Judd
scanning the pools, and the eddies in the running stream,
from every point of vantage. Once we aroused a crocodile,
which plunged into the water. The stream was full of
fish, some of considerable size; and in the meadow land on
our side we saw a gang of big, black wild-geese feeding.
122 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
But we got within half a mile of McMillan’s house with-
out seeing a hippo, and the light was rapidly fading.
Judd announced that we would go home, but took one last
look around the next bend, and instantly sank to his knees,
beckoning to me. I crept forward on all fours, and he
pointed out to me an object in the stream, fifty yards off,
under the overhanging branch of a tree, which jutted out
from the steep bank opposite. In that light I should not
myself have recognized it as a hippo head; but it was one,
looking toward us, with the ears up and the nostrils, eyes,
and forehead above water. I aimed for the centre; the
sound told that the bullet had struck somewhere on the
head, and the animal disappeared without a splash. Judd
was sure | had killed, but I was by no means so confident
myself, and there was no way of telling until next morning,
for the hippo always sinks when shot and does not rise to
the surface for several hours. Accordingly, back we walked
to the house.
At sunrise next morning Cuninghame, Judd, and I,
with a crowd of porters, were down at the spot. There was
a very leaky boat in which Cuninghame, Judd, and I
embarked, intending to drift and paddle downstream while
the porters walked along the bank. We did not have far
to go, for as we rounded the first point we heard the por-
ters break into guttural exclamations of delight, and there
ahead of us, by a little island of papyrus, was the dead
hippo. With the help of the boat it was towed to a con-
venient landing-place, and then the porters dragged it
ashore. It was a cow, of good size for one dwelling in a
small river, where they never approach the dimensions
of those making their homes in a great lake like the Vic-
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JUJA FARM; HIPPO AND LEOPARD 123
toria Nyanza. ‘This one weighed nearly two thousand eight
hundred pounds, and I could well believe that a big lake
bull would weigh between three and four tons.
In wild regions hippos rest on sandy bars, and even
come ashore to feed, by day; but wherever there are in-
habitants they land to feed only at night. Those in the
Rewero continually entered McMillan’s garden. Where
they are numerous they sometimes attack small boats and
kill the people in them; and where they are so plentiful
they do great damage to the plantations of the natives, so
much so that they then have to be taken off the list of
preserved game and their destruction encouraged. ‘Their
enormous jaws sweep in quantities of plants, or lush grass,
or corn, or vegetables, at a mouthful, while their appetites
are as gigantic as their bodies. In spite of their short legs,
they go at a good gait on shore, but the water is their real
home, and they always seek it when alarmed. They
dive and float wonderfully, rising to the surface or sinking
to the bottom at will, and they gallop at speed along the
bottoms of lakes or rivers, with their bodies wholly sub-
merged; but as is natural enough, in view of their big bodies
and short legs, they are not fast swimmers for any length
of time. They make curious and unmistakable trails along
the banks of any stream in which they dwell; their short
legs are wide apart, and so when they tread out a path
they leave a ridge of high soil down the centre. Where
they have lived a long time, the rutted paths are worn
deep into the soil, but always carry this distinguishing
middle ridge.
The full-jacketed Winchester bullet had gone straight
into the brain; the jacket had lodged in the cranium, but
124 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
the lead went on, entering the neck and breaking the atlas
vertebra.
At Juja Farm many animals were kept in cages. They
included a fairly friendly leopard, and five lions, two of
which were anything but friendly. There were three
cheetahs, nearly full-grown; these were continually taken
out on leashes, Mrs. McMillan strolling about with them
and leading them to the summer-house. They were good-
tempered, but they did not lead well. Cheetahs are in-
teresting beasts; they are aberrant cats, standing very
high on their legs, and with non-retractile claws like a dog.
They are nearly the size of a leopard, but are not ordi-
narily anything like as ferocious, and prey on the smaller
antelope, occasionally taking something as big as a half-
grown kongoni. For a short run, up to say a quarter of a
mile or even perhaps half a mile, they are the swiftest an-
imals on earth, and with a good start easily overtake the
fastest antelope; but their bolt is soon shot, and on the
open plain they can readily be galloped down with a horse.
When they sit on their haunches their attitude is that neither
of a dog nor of a cat so much as of a big monkey. On the
whole, they are much more easily domesticated than most
other cats, but, as with all highly developed wild creatures,
they show great individual variability of character and dis-
position. They have a very curious note, a bird-like chirp,
in uttering which they twist the upper lip as if whistling.
When I first heard it I was sure that it was uttered by some
bird, and looked about quite a time before finding that it
was the call of a cheetah.
Then there was a tame wart-hog, very friendly, indeed,
which usually wandered loose, and was as comical as pigs
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JUJA FARM; HIPPO AND LEOPARD - 125
generally are, with its sudden starts and grunts. Finally,
there was a young Tommy buck and a Grant’s gazelle doe,
both of which were on good terms with every one and
needed astonishingly little looking after to prevent their
straying. When I was returning to the house on the morn-
ing I killed the rhinoceros, I met the string of porters and
the ox wagon just after they had left the gate on their way
to the carcass. The Grant doe had been attracted by the
departure, and was following immediately behind the last
porter; a wild-looking Masai warrior, to whom, as I learned,
the especial care of the gazelle had been intrusted for that
day, was running as hard as he could after her from the
gate; when he overtook her he ran in between her and the
rearmost porter, and headed her for the farm gate, utter-
ing what sounded like wild war-cries and brandishing his
spear. They formed a really absurd couple, the little doe
slowly and decorously walking back to the farm, quite un-
moved by the clamor and threats, while her guardian, the
very image of what a savage warrior should look when on
the war-path, walked close behind, waving his spear and
uttering deep-toned shouts, with what seemed a ludicrous
disproportion of effort to the result needed.
Antelopes speedily become very tame and recognize
clearly their friends. Leslie Tarlton’s brother was keeping
a couple of young kongoni and a partly grown Grant on
his farm just outside Nairobi. (The game comes right to
the outskirts of Nairobi; one morning Kermit walked out
from the McMillans’ town-house, where we were stay-
ing, in company with Percival, the game ranger, and got
photographs of zebras, kongoni, and Kavirondo cranes;
and a leopard sometimes came up through the garden on to
126 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
the veranda of the house itself.) Tarlton’s young ante-
lopes went freely into the country round about, but never
fled with the wild herds; and they were not only great friends
with Tarlton’s dogs, but recognized them as protectors.
Hyenas and other beasts frequently came round the farm
after nightfall, and at their approach the antelopes fled
at speed to where the dogs were, and then could not be
persuaded to leave them.
We spent a delightful week at Juja Farm, and then
moved to Kamiti Ranch, the neighboring farm, owned by
Mr. Hugh H. Heatley, who had asked me to visit him for
a buffalo hunt. While in the highlands of British East
Africa it is utterly impossible for a stranger to realize that |
he is under the equator; the climate is delightful and healthy.
It is a white man’s country, a country which should be filled
with white settlers; and no place could be more attrac-
tive for visitors. ‘There is no more danger to health inci-
dent to an ordinary trip to East Africa than there is to an
ordinary trip to the Riviera. Of course, if one goes on a
hunting trip there is always a certain amount of risk, in-
cluding the risk of fever, just as there would be if a man
camped out in some of the Italian marshes. But the or-
dinary visitor need have no more fear of his health than if
he were travelling in Italy, and it is hard to imagine a trip
better worth making than the trip from Mombasa to Nairobi
and on to the Victoria Nyanza.
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CHAPTER VI
A BUFFALO-HUNT BY THE KAMITI
Heatiey’s RancH comprises twenty thousand acres
lying between the Rewero and Kamiti Rivers. It is seven-
teen miles long, and four across at the widest place. It
includes some as beautiful bits of natural scenery as can
well be imagined, and though Heatley—a thorough farmer,
and the son and grandson of farmers—was making it a
successful farm, with large herds of cattle, much improved
stock, hundreds of acres under cultivation, a fine dairy, and
the like, yet it was also a game reserve such as could not
be matched either in Europe or America. From Juja
Farm we marched a dozen miles and pitched our tent close
beside the Kamiti.
The Kamiti is a queer little stream, running for most
of its course through a broad swamp of tall papyrus. Such
a swamp is almost impenetrable. ‘The papyrus grows
to a height of over twenty feet, and the stems are so close
together that in most places it is impossible to see anything
at a distance of six feet. Ten yards from the edge, when
within the swamp, I was wholly unable to tell in which
direction the open ground lay, and could get out only by
either following my back track or listening for voices.
Underfoot, the mud and water are hip-deep. This swamp
was the home of a herd of buffalo numbering perhaps
a hundred individuals. ‘They are semi-aquatic beasts, and
127
128 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
their enormous strength enables them to plough through
the mud and water and burst their way among the papyrus
stems without the slightest difficulty, whereas a man is
nearly helpless when once he has entered the reedbeds.
They had made paths hither and thither across the swamp,
these paths being three feet deep in ooze and black water.
There were little islands in the swamp on which they could
rest. “Toward its lower end, where it ran into the Nairobi,
the Kamiti emerged from the papyrus swamp and became
a rapid brown stream of water with only here and there a
papyrus cluster along its banks.
The Nairobi, which cut across the lower end of the
farm, and the Rewero, which bounded it on the other side
from the Kamiti, were as different as possible from the
latter. Both were rapid streams broken by riffle and water-
fall, and running at the bottom of tree-clad valleys. The
Nairobi Falls, which were on Heatley’s Ranch, were sin-
gularly beautiful. Heatley and I visited them one evening
after sunset, coming home from a day’s hunt. It was
a ride I shall long remember. We left our men, and
let the horses gallop. As the sun set behind us, the long
lights changed the look of the country and gave it a beauty
that had in it an element of the mysterious and the unreal.
The mountains loomed both larger and more vague than
they had been in the bright sunlight, and the plains lost
their look of parched desolation as the afterglow came and
went. We were galloping through a world of dim shade
and dying color; and, in this world, our horses suddenly
halted on the brink of a deep ravine from out of which
came the thunder ofa cataract. We reined up on a jutting
point. The snowy masses of the fall foamed over a ledge
A BUFFALO-HUNT BY THE KAMITI | 129
on our right, and below at our feet was a great pool of
swirling water. ‘Thick foliaged trees, of strange shape
and festooned with creepers, climbed the sheer sides of the
ravine. A black-and-white eagle perched in a blasted
tree-top in front; and the bleached skull of a long-dead
rhinoceros glimmered white near the brink to one side.
On another occasion we took our lunch at the foot of
Rewero Falls. These are not as high as the falls of the
Nairobi, but they are almost as beautiful. We clambered
down into the ravine a little distance below and made our
way toward them, beside the brawling, rock-choked torrent.
Great trees towered overhead, and among their tops the
monkeys chattered and screeched. The fall itself was
broken in two parts like a miniature Niagara, and the
spray curtain shifted to and fro as the wind blew.
The lower part of the farm, between the Kamiti and
Rewero and on both sides of the Nairobi, consisted of
immense rolling plains, and on these the game swarmed in
almost incredible numbers. There were Grant’s and
Thomson’s gazelles, of which we shot one or two for the
table. ‘There was a small herd of blue wildebeest, and
among them one unusually large bull with an unusually
fine head; Kermit finally killed him. There were plenty
of wart-hogs, which were to be found feeding right out in
the open, both in the morning and the evening. One day
Kermit got a really noteworthy sow with tusks much longer
than those of the average boar. He ran into her on horse-
back after a sharp chase of a mile or two, and shot her
from the saddle as he galloped nearly alongside, holding
his rifle as the old buffalo-runners used to hold theirs,
that is, not bringing it to his shoulder. I killed two or three
130 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
half-grown pigs for the table, but I am sorry to say that I
missed several chances at good boars. Finally one day I
got up to just two hundred and fifty yards from a good boar
as he stood broadside to me; firing with the little Spring-
field I put the bullet through both shoulders, and he was
dead when we came up.
But of course the swarms of game consisted of zebra
and hartebeest. At no time, when riding in any direction
across these plains, were we ever out of sight of them.
Sometimes they would act warily and take the alarm when
we were a long distance off. At other times herds would
stand and gaze at us while we passed within a couple of
hundred yards. One afternoon we needed meat for the
safari, and Cuninghame and I rode out to get it. Within
half a mile we came upon big herds both of hartebeest and
zebra. ‘They stood to give me long-range shots at about
three hundred yards. I wounded a zebra, after which
Cuninghame rode. While he was off, I killed first a zebra
and then a hartebeest, and shortly afterward a cloud of dust
announced that Cuninghame was bringing a herd of game
toward me. I knelt motionless, and the long files of red
coated hartebeest and brilliantly striped zebra came gallop-
ing past. They were quite a distance off, but I had time
for several shots at each animal I selected, and I dropped
one more zebra and one more hartebeest, in addition, I
regret to add, to wounding another hartebeest. The four
hartebeest and zebra lay within a space of a quarter of a
mile; and half a mile further 1 bagged a tommy at two
hundred yards—his meat was for our own table, the kon-
goni and the zebra being for the safari.
On another day, when Heatley and I were out together,
es ee ——
— ee ee
A BUFFALO-HUNT BY THE KAMITI | 181
he stationed me among some thin thorn-bushes on a little
knoll, and drove the game by me, hoping to get me a shot
at some wildebeest. The scattered thorn-bushes were only
four or five feet high, and so thin that there was no difh-
culty in looking through them and marking every move-
ment of the game as it approached. The wildebeest took
the wrong direction and never came near me—though they
certainly fared as badly as if they had done so, for they
passed by Kermit, and it was on this occasion that he
killed the big bull. A fine cock ostrich passed me and I
much wished to shoot at him, but did not like to do so,
because ostrich-farming is one of the staple industries of
the region, and it is not well to have even the wild birds
shot. The kongoni and the zebra streamed by me, herd
after herd, hundreds and hundreds of them, many passing
within fifty yards of my shelter, now on one side, now on
the other; they went at an easy lope, and I was interested
to see that many of the kongoni ran with their mouths
open. This is an attitude which we usually associate with
exhaustion, but such cannot have been the case with the
kongoni—they had merely cantered for a mile or so. The
zebra were, as usual, noisy, a number of them uttering
their barking neigh as they passed. I do not know how it
is ordinarily, but these particular zebra, all stallions by the
way, kept their mouths open throughout the time they were
neighing, and their ears pricked forward; they did not |
keep their mouths open while merely galloping, as did the
kongoni. We had plenty of meat, and the naturalists had
enough specimens; and I was glad that there was no need
to harm the beautiful creatures. They passed so close
that I could mark every slight movement, and the ripple of
132 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
the muscles under the skin. The very young fawns of the
kongoni seemed to have little fear of a horseman, if he ap-
proached while they were lying motionless on the ground;
but they would run from a man on foot.
There were interesting birds, too. Close by the woods
at the river’s edge, we saw a big black ground hornbill
walking about, on the lookout for its usual dinner of small
snakes and lizards. Large flocks of the beautiful Kavirondo
cranes stalked over the plains and cultivated fields, or flew
by with mournful, musical clangor. But the most interest-
ing birds we saw were the black whydah finches. The
female is a dull-colored, ordinary-looking bird, somewhat
like a female bobolink. The male in his courtship dress is
clad in a uniform dark glossy suit, and his tail-feathers
are almost like some of those of a barn-yard rooster, being
over twice as long as the rest of the bird, with a downward
curve at the tips. The females were generally found in
flocks, in which there would often be a goodly number of
males also, and when the flocks put on speed the males
tended to drop behind. The flocks were feeding in Heat-
ley’s grain-fields, and he was threatening vengeance upon
them. I was sorry, for the male birds certainly have habits
of peculiar interest. ‘They were not shy, although if we
approached too near them in their favorite haunts, the
grassland adjoining the papyrus beds, they would fly off
and perch on the tops of the papyrus stems. The long
tail hampers the bird in its flight, and it is often held at
rather an angle downward, giving the bird¢a peculiar and
almost insect-like appearance. But the marked and ex-
traordinary peculiarity was the custom the cocks had of
dancing in artificially made dancing-rings. For a mile and
A BUFFALO-HUNT BY THE KAMITI _ 133
a half beyond our camp, down the course of the Kamiti,
the grassland at the edge of the papyrus was thickly strewn
with these dancing-rings. Each was about two feet in di-
ameter, sometimes more, sometimes less. A tuft of grow-
ing grass perhaps a foot high was left in the centre. Over
the rest of the ring the grass was cut off close by the roots,
and the blades strewn evenly over the surface of the ring.
The cock bird would alight in the ring and hop to a
height of a couple of feet, wings spread and motionless, tail
drooping, and the head usually thrown back. As he came
down he might or might not give an extra couple of little
hops. After a few seconds he would repeat the motion,
sometimes remaining almost in the same place, at other
times going forward during and between the hops so as
finally to go completely round the ring. As there were
many scores of these dancing-places within a compara-
tively limited territory, the effect was rather striking when
a large number of birds were dancing at the same time. As
one walked along, the impression conveyed by the birds
continually popping above the grass and then immediately
sinking back, was somewhat as if a man was making peas
_jump in a tin tray by tapping on it. The favorite dancing
times were in the early morning, and, to a less extent, in the
evening. We saw dancing-places of every age, some with
the cut grass which strewed the floor green and fresh,
others with the grass dried into hay and the bare earth
showing through.
But the ganie we were after was the buffalo herd that
haunted the papyrus swamp. As I have said before, the
buffalo is by many hunters esteemed the most dangerous of
African game. It is an enormously powerful beast with, in
134 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
this country, a coat of black hair which becomes thin in the
old bulls, and massive horns which rise into great bosses at
the base, these bosses sometimes meeting in old age so as
to cover the forehead with a frontlet of horn. Their habits
vary much in different places. Where they are much
persecuted, they lie in the densest cover, and only venture
out into the open to feed at night. But Heatley, though
he himself had killed a couple of bulls, and the Boer farmer
who was working for him another, had preserved the herd
from outside molestation, and their habits were doubtless
much what they would have been in regions where man is
a rare visitor.
The first day we were on Heatley’s farm, we saw the
buffalo, to the number of seventy or eighty, grazing in the
open, some hundreds of yards from the papyrus swamp,
and this shortly after noon. For a mile from the papyrus
swamp the country was an absolutely flat plain, gradually
rising into a gentle slope, and it was an impossibility to
approach the buffalo across this plain save in one way to
be mentioned hereafter. Probably when the moon was
full the buffalo came out to graze by night. But while we
were on our hunt the moon was young, and the buffalo
evidently spent most of the night in the papyrus, and came
out to graze by day. Sometimes they came out in the early
morning, sometimes in the late evening, but quite as often
in the bright daylight. We saw herds come out to graze at
ten o’clock in the morning, and again at three in the after-
noon. They usually remained out several hours, first
grazing and then lying down. Flocks of the small white
cow-heron usually accompanied them, the birds stalking
about among them or perching on their backs; and occa-
A BUFFALO-HUNT BY THE KAMITI © 135
sionally the whereabouts of the herd in the papyrus swamp
could be determined by seeing the flock of herons perched
on the papyrus tops. We did not see any of the red-billed
tick-birds on the buffalo; indeed, the only ones that we saw
in this neighborhood happened to be on domestic cattle—
in other places we found them very common on rhinoceros.
At night the buffalo sometimes came right into the cultivated
fields, and even into the garden close by the Boer farmer’s
house; and once at night he had shot a bull. The bullet
went through the heart but the animal ran to the papyrus
swamp, and was found next day dead just within the edge.
Usually the main herd, of bulls, cows, and calves, kept to-
gether; but there were outlying bulls found singly or in
small parties. Not only the natives but the whites were in-
clined to avoid the immediate neighborhood of the papy-
rus swamp, for there had been one or two narrow escapes
from unprovoked attacks by the buffalo. The farmer told
us that a man who was coming to see him had been regu-
larly followed by three bulls, who pursued him for quite a
distance. ‘There is no doubt that under certain circum-
stances buffalo, in addition to showing themselves exceed-
ingly dangerous opponents when wounded by hunters, be-
come truculent and inclined to take the offensive themselves.
There are places in East Africa where as regards at least
certain herds this seems to be the case; and in Uganda the
buffalo have caused such loss of life, and such damage to the
native plantations, that they are now ranked as vermin and
not as game, and their killing is encouraged in every possi-
ble way. The list of white hunters that have been killed
by buffalo is very long, and includes a number of men of
note, while accidents to natives are of constant occurrence.
136 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
The morning after making our camp, we started at dawn
for the buffalo ground, Kermit and I, Cuninghame and
Heatley, and the Boer farmer with three big, powerful
dogs. We walked near the edge of the swamp. The why-
dah birds were continually bobbing up and down in front
of us as they rose and fell on their dancing-places, while
the Kavirondo cranes called mournfully all around. Be-
fore we had gone two miles, buffalo were spied, well ahead,
feeding close to the papyrus. The line of the papyrus
which marked the edge of the swamp was not straight, but
broken by projections and indentations; and by following it
closely and cutting cautiously across the points, the oppor-
tunity for stalking was good. As there was not a tree of
any kind anywhere near, we had to rely purely on our
shooting to prevent damage from the buffalo. Kermit and
I had our double-barrels, with the Winchesters as spare
guns, while Cuninghame carried a 577, and Heatley a
magazine rifle.
Cautiously threading our way along the edge of the
swamp, we got within a hundred and fifty yards of the
buffalo before we were perceived. There were four bulls,
grazing close by the edge of the swamp, their black bodies
glistening in the early sun-rays, their massive horns show-
ing white, and the cow-herons perched on their backs.
They stared sullenly at us with outstretched heads from
under their great frontlets of horn. The biggest of the four
stood a little out from the other three, and at him I fired,
the bullet telling with a smack on the tough hide and going
through the lungs. We had been afraid they would at once
turn into the papyrus, but instead of this they started
straight across our front directly for the open country.
A BUFFALO-HUNT BY THE KAMITI | 1387
This was a piece of huge good luck. Kermit put his first
barrel into the second bull, and I my second barrel into one
of the others, after which it became impossible to say which
bullet struck which animal, as the firing became general.
They ran a quarter of a mile into the open, and then the
big bull I had first shot, and which had no other bullet in
him, dropped dead, while the other three, all of which were
wounded, halted beside him. We walked toward them,
rather expecting a charge; but when we were still over two
hundred yards away they started back for the swamp,
and we began firing. The distance being long, I used
my Winchester. Aiming well before one bull, he dropped
to the shot as if poleaxed, falling straight on his back with
his legs kicking; but in a moment he was up again and
after the others. Later I found that the bullet, a full-
metal patch, had struck him in the head but did not pene-
trate to the brain, and merely stunned him for the moment.
All the time we kept running diagonally to their line of flight.
They were all three badly wounded, and when they reached
the tall rank grass, high as a man’s head, which fringed
the papyrus swamp, the two foremost lay down, while
the last one, the one I had floored with the Winchester,
turned, and with nose outstretched began to come toward
us. He was badly crippled, however, and with a soft-
nosed bullet from my heavy Holland I knocked him down,
this time for good. The other two then rose, and though
each was again hit they reached the swamp, one of them
to our right, the other to the left where the papyrus came
out in a point.
We decided to go after the latter, and advancing very
cautiously toward the edge of the swamp, put in the three
138 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
big dogs. A moment after, they gave tongue within the
papyrus; then we heard the savage grunt of the buffalo and
saw its form just within the reeds; and as the rifles cracked,
down it went. But it was not dead, for we heard it grunt
savagely, and the dogs bayed as loudly as ever. Heatley
now mounted his trained shooting-pony and rode toward
the place, while we covered him with our rifles, his plan
being to run right across our front if the bull charged. The
bull was past charging, lying just within the reeds, but he
was still able to do damage, for in another minute one of
the dogs came out by us and ran straight back to the farm-
house, where we found him dead on our return. He had
been caught by the buffalo’s horns when he went in too
close. Heatley, a daring fellow, with great confidence in
both his horse and his rifle, pushed forward as we came up,
and saw the bull lying on the ground while the two other
dogs bit and worried it; and he put a bullet through its
head.
The remaining bull got off into the swamp, where a
week later Heatley found his dead body. Fortunately
the head proved to be in less good condition than any of
the others, as one horn was broken off about half-way up;
so that if any of the four had to escape, it was well that this
‘should have been the one.
Our three bulls were fine trophies. The largest, with
the largest horns, was the first killed, being the one that
fell to my first bullet; yet it was the youngest of the three.
The other two were old bulls. The second one killed had
smaller horns than the other, but the bosses met in the
middle of the forehead for a space of several inches, mak-
ing a solid shield. I had just been reading a pamphlet by
Mr. Roosevelt and Kermit Roosevelt with the first buffalo
A BUFFALO-HUNT BY THE KAMITI _ 139
a German specialist who had divided the African buffalo
into fifteen or twenty different species, based upon differ-
ences in various pairs of horns. The worth of such fine
distinctions, when made on insufficient data, can be gath-
ered from the fact that on the principles of specific divi-
sion adopted in the pamphlet in question, the three bulls we
had shot would have represented certainly two and possi-
bly three different species.
Heller was soon on the ground with his skinning-tent
and skinners, and the Boer farmer went back to fetch the
ox wagon on which the skins and meat were brought in
to camp. Laymen can hardly realize, and I certainly did
not realize, what an immense amount of work is involved
in preparing the skins of large animals such as buffalo,
rhino, hippo, and above all elephant, in hot climates. On
this first five weeks’ trip we got over seventy skins, includ-
ing twenty-two species ranging in size from a dikdik to a
rhino, and all of these Heller prepared and sent to the Smith-
sonian. Mearns and Loring were just as busy shooting birds
and trapping small mammals. Often while Heller would be
off for a few days with Kermit and myself, Mearns and Loring
would be camped elsewhere, in a region better suited for the
things they were after. While at Juja Farm they went down
the Nairobi in a boat to shoot water-birds, and saw many
more crocodiles and hippo than I did. Loring is a remark-
ably successful trapper of small mammals. I do not believe
there is a better collector anywhere. Dr. Mearns, in addition
to birds and plants, never let pass the opportunity to collect
anything else from reptiles and fishes to land shells. More-
over, he was the best shot in our party. He killed two great
bustards with the rifle, and occasionally shot birds like
140 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
vultures on the wing with a rifle. I do not believe that
three better men than Mearns, Heller, and Loring, for such
an expedition as ours, could be found anywhere.
It was three days later before we were again successful
with buffalo. On this occasion we started about eight in
the morning, having come to the conclusion that the herd
was more apt to leave the papyrus late than early. Our
special object was to get a cow. We intended to take ad-
vantage of a small half-dried watercourse, an affluent of
the Kamiti, which began a mile beyond where we had
killed our bulls, and for three or four miles ran in a course
generally parallel to the swamp, and at a distance which
varied, but averaged perhaps a quarter of a mile. When we
reached the beginning of this watercourse, we left our
horses and walked along it. Like all such watercourses, it
wound in curves. The banks were four or five feet high,
the bottom was sometimes dry and sometimes contained
reedy pools, while at intervals there were clumps of papy-
rus. Heatley went ahead, and just as we had about con-
cluded that the buffalo would not come out, he came back
to tell us that he had caught a glimpse of several, and be-
lieved that the main herd was with them. Cuninghame, a
veteran hunter and first-class shot, than whom there could be
no better man to have with one when after dangerous game,
took charge of our further movements. We crept up the
watercourse until about opposite the buffalo, which were
now lying down. Cuninghame peered cautiously at them,
saw there were two or three, and then led us on all fours
toward them. There-were patches where the grass was short,
and other places where it was three feet high, and after a good
deal of cautious crawling we had covered half the distance
A BUFFALO-HUNT BY THE KAMITI 141
toward them, when one of them made us out, and several
rose from their beds. They were still at least two hundred
yards off—a long range for heavy rifles; but any closer
approach was impossible, and we fired. Both the leading
bulls were hit, and at the shots there rose from the grass not
half a dozen buffalo, but seventy or eighty, and started at a
gallop parallel to the swamp and across our front. In the
rear were a number of cows and calves, and I at once sin-
gled out a cow and fired. She plunged forward at the shot
and turned toward the swamp, going slowly and dead lame,
for my bullet had struck the shoulder and had gone into the
cavity of the chest. But at this moment our attention was
distracted from the wounded cow by the conduct of the
herd, which, headed by the wounded bulls, turned in a
quarter-circle toward us, and drew up in a phalanx facing
us with outstretched heads. It was not a nice country in
which to be charged by the herd, and for a moment things
trembled in the balance. There was a perceptible motion
of uneasiness among some of our followers. “‘Stand steady!
Don’t run!” I called out. “And don’t shoot!” called out
Cuninghame; for to do either would invite a charge. A few
seconds passed, and then the unwounded mass of the herd
resumed their flight, and after a little hesitation the wounded
bulls followed. We now turned our attention to the wounded
cow, which was close to the papyrus. She went down to
our shots, but the reeds and marsh-grass were above our
heads when we drew close to the swamp. Once again
Heatley went in with his white horse, as close as it was even
reasonably safe, with the hope either of seeing the cow,
or of getting her to charge him and so give us a fair chance
at her. But nothing happened and we loosed the two dogs.
142 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
They took up the trail and went some little distance into the
papyrus, where we heard them give tongue, and immedi-
ately afterward there came the angry grunt of the wounded
buffalo. It had risen and gone off thirty yards into the
papyrus, although mortally wounded—the frothy blood
from the lungs was actually coming out of my first bullet-
hole. Its anger now made it foolish, and it followed the
dogs to the edge of the papyrus. Here we caught a glimpse
of it. Down it went to our shots, and in a minute we heard
the moaning bellow which a wounded buffalo often gives be-
fore dying. Immediately afterward we could hear the dogs
worrying it, while it bellowed again. It was still living as I
came up, and though it evidently could not rise, there was a
chance of its damaging one of the dogs, so I finished it off
with a shot from the Winchester. Heller reached it that af-
ternoon, and the skin and meat were brought in by the porters
before nightfall.
Cuninghame remained with the body while the rest of
us rode off and killed several different animals we wanted.
In the afternoon I returned, having a vaguely uncomfort-
able feeling that as it grew dusk the buffalo might possi-
bly make their appearance again. Sure enough, there they
were. A number of them were in the open plain, although
close to the swamp, a mile and a half beyond the point
where the work of cutting up the cow was just being fin-
ished, and the porters were preparing to start with their
loads. It seemed very strange that after their experience in
the morning any of the herd’ should be willing to come into
the open so soon. But there they were. They were grazing
to the number of about a dozen. Looking at them through
the glasses I could see that their attention was attracted to
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A BUFFALO-HUNT BY THE KAMITI 143
us. They gazed at us for quite a time, and then walked
slowly in our direction for at least a couple of hundred yards.
For a moment I was even doubtful whether they did not in-
tend to come toward us and charge. But it was only cu-
riosity on their part, and after having gazed their fill, they
sauntered back to the swamp and disappeared. There
was no chance to get at them, and moreover darkness was
rapidly falling.
Next morning we broke camp. The porters, strapping
grown-up children that they were, felt as much pleasure
and excitement over breaking camp after a few days’ rest
as over reaching camp after a fifteen-mile march. On this
occasion, after they had made up their loads, they danced
in a ring for half an hour, two tin cans being beaten as
tomtoms. Then off they strode in a long line with their
burdens, following one another in Indian file, each greet-
ing me with a smile and a deep “Yambo, Bwana!” as
he passed. I had grown attached to them, and of course
especially to my tent boys, gun-bearers, and saises, who quite
touched me by their evident pleasure in coming to see me
and greet me if I happened to be away from them for two
or three days.
Kermit and I rode off with Heatley to pass the night at
his house. This was at the other end of his farm, in a
totally different kind of country, a country of wooded hills,
with glades and dells and long green grass in the valleys.
It did not in the least resemble what one would naturally
expect in equatorial Africa. On the contrary it reminded
me of the beautiful rolling wooded country of middle Wis-
consin. But of course everything was really different. There
were monkeys and leopards in the forests, and we saw
144 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
whydah birds of a new kind, with red on the head and
throat, and brilliantly colored woodpeckers, and black-and-
gold weaver-birds. Indeed, the wealth of bird life was
such that it cannot be described. Here, too, there were
many birds with musical voices, to which we listened in the
éarly morning. The best timber was yielded by the tall
mahogo tree, a kind of sandal-wood. ‘This was the tree
selected by the wild fig for its deadly embrace. The wild
fig begins as a huge parasitic vine, and ends as one of the
largest and most stately, and also one of the greenest and
most shady, trees in this part of Africa. It grows up the
mahogo as a vine and gradually, by branching, and by the
spreading of the branches, completely envelops the trunk
and also grows along each limb, and sends out great limbs
of its own. Every stage can be seen, from that in which
the big vine has begun to grow up along the still flourishing
mahogo, through that in which the tree looks like a curious
composite, the limbs and thick foliage of the fig branching
out among the limbs and scanty foliage of the still living
mahogo, to the stage in which the mahogo is simply a dead
skeleton seen here and there through the trunk or the foliage
of the fig. Finally nothing remains but the fig, which grows
to be a huge tree.
Heatley’s house was charming, with its vine-shaded
veranda, its summer-house and out-buildings, and the
great trees clustered round about. He was fond of sport in
the right way, that is, he treated it as sport and not busi-
ness, and did not allow it to interfere with his prime work
of being a successful farmer. He had big stock-yards
for his cattle and swine, and he was growing all kinds of
things of both the temperate and the tropic zones: wheat
A BUFFALO-HUNT BY THE KAMITI 145
and apples, coffee and sugar-cane. The bread we ate
and the coffee we drank were made from what he had
grown on his own farm. There were roses in the garden
and great bushes of heliotrope by the veranda, and the
drive to his place was bordered by trees from Australia
and beds of native flowers.
Next day we went into Nairobi, where we spent a most
busy week, especially the three naturalists; for the task
of getting into shape for shipment and then shipping the
many hundreds of specimens—indeed, all told there were
thousands of specimens—was of herculean proportions.
Governor Jackson—a devoted ornithologist and _prob-
ably the best living authority on East African birds, tak-
ing into account the stand-points of both the closet natur-
alist and the field naturalist—spent hours with Mearns,
helping him to identify and arrange the species.
Nairobi is a very attractive town, and most interesting,
with its large native quarter and its Indian colony. One
of the streets consists of little except Indian shops and
bazaars. Outside the business portion, the town is spread
over much territory, the houses standing isolated, each by
itself, and each usually bowered in trees, with vines shad-
ing the verandas, and pretty flower-gardens round about.
Not only do I firmly believe in the future of East Africa
for settlement as a white man’s country, but I feel that it
is an ideal playground alike for sportsmen, and for travel-
lers who wish to live in health and comfort, and yet to see
what is beautiful and unusual,
CHAPTER VII
TREKKING THROUGH THE THIRST TO THE SOTIK
On June 5th we started south from Kijabe to trek through
the thirst, through the waterless country which lies across
the way to the Sotik.
The preceding Sunday, at Nairobi, I had visited the
excellent French Catholic Mission, had been most cour-
teously received by the fathers, had gone over their planta-
tions and the school in which they taught the children of
the settlers (much to my surprise, among them were three
Parsee children, who were evidently put on a totally differ-
ent plane from the other Indians, even the Goanese), and
had been keenly interested in their account of their work
and of the obstacles with which they met.
At Kijabe I spent several exceedingly interesting hours
at the American Industrial Mission. Its head, Mr. Hurl-
burt, had called on me in Washington at the White House,
in the preceding October, and I had then made up my
mind that if the chance occurred I must certainly visit his
mission. It is an interdenominational mission, and is car-
ried on in a spirit which combines to a marked degree broad
sanity and common sense with disinterested fervor. Of
course, such work, under the conditions which necessarily
obtain in East Africa, can only show gradual progress; but
I am sure that missionary work of the Kijabe kind will be
an indispensable factor in the slow uplifting of the natives.
146
TREKKING THROUGH THE THIRST 147
There is full recognition of the fact that industrial training
is a foundation stone in the effort to raise ethical and moral
standards. Industrial teaching must go hand in hand with
moral teaching—and in both the mere force of example and
the influence of firm, kindly sympathy and understanding,
count immeasurably. There is further recognition of the
fact that in such a country the missionary should either
already know how to, or else at once learn how to, take the
lead himself in all kinds of industrial and mechanical work.
Finally the effort is made consistently to teach the native
how to live a more comfortable, useful, and physically and
morally cleanly life, not under white conditions, but under
the conditions which he will actually have to face when he
goes back to his people, to live among them, and, if things
go well, to be in his turn a conscious or unconscious mission-
ary for good.
At lunch, in addition to the missionaries and their wives
and children, there were half a dozen of the neighboring
settlers, with their families. It is always a good thing to see
the missionary and the settler working shoulder to shoulder.
Many parts of East Africa can, and I believe will, be made
into a White Man’s country; and the process will be helped,
not hindered, by treating the black man well. At Kijabe,
nearly under the equator, the beautiful scenery was almost
northern in type; at night we needed blazing camp-fires
and the days were as cool as September on Long Island or
by the southern shores of the Great Lakes. It is a very
healthy region; the children of the missionaries and set-
tlers, of all ages, were bright and strong; those of Mr. and
Mrs. Hurlburt had not been out of the country for eight
years, and showed no ill effects whatever; on the contrary, I
148 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
quite believed Mrs. Hurlburt when she said that she re-
garded the fertile wooded hills of Kijabe, with their for-
ests and clear brooks, as forming a true health resort.
The northern look of the place was enhanced by the
fact that the forests contained junipers; but they also con-
tained monkeys, a small green monkey, and the big guerza,
with its long silky hair and bold black-and-white coloring.
Kermit, Heller, and Loring shot several. There were
rhinoceros and buffalo in the neighborhood. A few days
previously some buffalo had charged, unprovoked, a couple
of the native boys of the mission, who had escaped only by
their agility in tree-climbing. On one of his trips to an
outlying mission station, Mr. Hurlburt had himself nar-
rowly escaped a serious accident. Quite wantonly, a cow
rhino, with a calf, charged the safari almost before they
knew of its presence. It attacked Hurlburt’s mule, which
fortunately he was not riding, and tossed and killed it; it
passed through the line, and then turned and again charged
it, this time attacking one of the porters. The porter dodged
behind a tree, and the rhino hit the tree, knocked off a
huge flake of bark and wood, and galloped away.
The trek across ‘‘the thirst,” as any waterless country
is apt to be called by an Africander, is about sixty miles,
by the road. On our horses we could have ridden it in a
night; but on a serious trip of any kind loads must be
carried, and laden porters cannot go fast, and must rest at
intervals. We had rather more than our porters could
carry, and needed additional transportation for the water
for the safari; and we had hired four ox wagons. ‘They
were under the lead of a fine young Colonial Englishman
named Ulyate, whose great-grandfather had come to South
ver
TREKKING THROUGH THE THIRST 149
Africa in 1820, as part of the most important English emi-
gration that ever went thither. His father and sisters had
lunched with us at the missionaries’ the day before; his
wife’s baby was too young for her to come. It was the best
kind of pioneer family; all the members, with some of their
fellow colonials, had spent much of the preceding three
years in adventurous exploration of the country in their ox
wagons, the wives and daughters as valiant as the men;
one of the two daughters I met had driven one of the ox
wagons on the hardest and most dangerous trip they made,
while her younger sister led the oxen. It was on this trip
that they had pioneered the way across the waterless route
I was to take. For those who, like ourselves, followed the
path they had thus blazed, there was no danger to the
men, and merely discomfort to the oxen; but the first trip
was a real feat, for no one could tell what lay ahead, or
what exact route would be practicable. ‘The family had
now settled on a big farm, but also carried on the business
of ‘‘transport riding,” as freighting with wagons is called
in Africa; and they did it admirably.
With Ulyate were three other white wagon-drivers, all
colonials; two of them English, the third Dutch, or Boer.
There was also a Cape boy, a Kaffir wagon-driver; utterly
different from any of the East African natives, and dressed
in ordinary clothes. In addition there were various na-
tives—primitive savages in dress and habit, but coming
from the cattle-owning tribes. Each ox-team was guided
by one of these savages, who led the first yoke by a leath-
ern thong, while the wagon-driver, with his long whip,
stalked to and fro beside the line of oxen, or rode in the
wagon. The huge wagons, with their white tops or “sails,”
150 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
were larger than those our own settlers and freighters used.
Except one small one, to which there were but eight oxen,
each was drawn by a span of seven or eight yoke; they
were all native humped cattle.
We had one hundred and ninety-six porters, in addition
to the askaris, tent boys, gun-bearers, and saises. The
management of such a safari is a work of difficulty; but
no better man for the purpose than Cuninghame could be
found anywhere, and he had chosen his headmen well.
In the thirst, the march goes on by day and night. The
longest halt is made in the day, for men and animals both
travel better at night than under the blazing noon. We were
fortunate in that it was just after the full of the moon, so
that our night treks were made in good light. Of course,
on such a march the porters must be spared as much as
possible; camp is not pitched, and each white man uses for
the trip only what he wears, or carries on his horse—and.
the horse also must be loaded as lightly as possible. I took
nothing but my army overcoat, rifle and cartridges, and three
canteens of water. Kermit did the same.
The wagons broke camp about ten, to trek to the water,
a mile and a half off, where the oxen would be outspanned
to take the last drink for three days; stock will not drink
early in the morning nearly as freely as if the march is be-
gun later. We, riding our horses, followed by the long
line of burdened porters, left at half-past twelve, and in a
couple of hours overtook the wagons. ‘The porters were
in high spirits. In the morning, before the start, they
twice held regular dances, the chief musician being one
of their own number who carried an extraordinary kind
of native harp; and after their loads were allotted they
te ac a ie alee od RT a Frcs a eS
TREKKING THROUGH THE THIRST 151
marched out of camp singing and blowing their horns and
whistles. Three askaris brought up the rear to look after
laggards, and see that no weak or sick man fell out with-
out our knowing or being able to give him help.
The trail led first through open brush, or low, dry forest,
and then out on the vast plains, where the withered grass
was dotted here and there with low, scantily leaved thorn-
trees, from three to eight feet high. Hour after hour we
drew slowly ahead under the shimmering sunlight. The
horsemen walked first, with the gun-bearers, saises, and
usually a few very energetic and powerful porters; then
came the safari in single file; and then the lumbering
white-topped wagons, the patient oxen walking easily, each
team led by a half-naked savage with frizzed hair and a
spear or throwing-stick in his hand, while at intervals the
long whips of the drivers cracked like rifles. The dust
rose in clouds from the dry earth, and soon covered all
of us; in the distance herds of zebra and_hartebeest
gazed at us as we passed, and we saw the old spoor of
rhino, beasts we hoped to avoid, as they often charge such
a caravan.
Slowly the shadows lengthened; the light waned, the
glare of the white, dusty plain was softened, and the bold
outlines of the distant mountains grew dim. Just before
nightfall we halted on the further side of a dry watercourse.
The safari came up singing and whistling, and the men
put down their loads, lit fires, and with chatter and laugh-
ter prepared their food. ‘The crossing was not good, the
sides of the watercourse being steep; and each wagon
was brought through by a double span, the whips crack-
ing lustily as an accompaniment to the shouts of the drivers,
152 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
as the thirty oxen threw their weight into the yokes by which
they were attached to the long trek tow. ‘The horses were
fed. We had tea, with bread and cold meat—and a most
delicious meal it was—and then lay dozing or talking be-
side the bush-fires. At half-past eight, the moon having
risen, we were off again. The safari was still in high spirits,
and started with the usual chanting and drumming.
We pushed steadily onward across the plain, the dust
rising in clouds under the spectral moonlight. Sometimes
we rode, sometimes we walked to ease our horses. ‘The
Southern Cross was directly ahead, not far above the hori-
zon. Higher and higher rose the moon, and brighter grew
the flood of her light. At intervals the barking call of zebras
was heard on either hand. It was after midnight when
we again halted. The porters were tired, and did not sing
as they came up; the air was cool, almost nipping, and
they at once huddled down in their blankets, some of them
building fires. We, the white men, after seeing our horses
staked out, each lay down in his overcoat or jacket and
slicker, with his head on his saddle, and his rifle beside
him, and had a little over two hours’ sleep. At three we
were off again, the shivering porters making no sound as
they started; but once under way the more irrepressible
spirits speedily began a kind of intermittent chant, and
most of the rest by degrees joined in the occasional grunt
or hum that served as chorus.
For four hours we travelled steadily, first through the
moonlight, and then through the reddening dawn. Jackals
shrieked, and the plains plover wailed and scolded as they
circled round us. When the sun was well up, we halted;
the desolate flats stretched far and wide on every side and
Nie AS a ae 4
SO ee
TREKKING THROUGH THE THIRST 153
rose into lofty hills ahead of us. The porters received their
water and food, and lay down to sleep, some directly in the
open, others rigging little sun shelters under the scattering
thorn-bushes. The horses were fed, were given half a
pail of water apiece, and were turned loose to graze with
the oxen; this was the last time the oxen would feed freely,
unless there was rain; and this was to be our longest halt.
We had an excellent breakfast, like our supper the night
before, and then slept as well as we could.
Noon came, and soon afterward we again started. The
country grew hilly, and brushy. It was too dry for much
game, but we saw a small herd of giraffe, which are in-
dependent of water. Now riding our horses, now leading
them, we travelled until nearly sunset, when we halted at
the foot of a steep divide, beyond which our course lay
across slopes that gradually fell to the stream for which
we were heading. Here the porters had all the food and
water they wished, and so did the horses; and, each with
a double span of oxen, the wagons were driven up the ~
slope, the weary cattle straining hard in the yokes.
Black clouds had risen and thickened in the west,
boding rain. Three-fourths of our journey was over; and
it was safe to start the safari and then leave it to come on
by itself, while the ox wagons followed later. At nine, be-
fore the moon struggled above the hill-crests to our left, we
were off. Soon we passed the wagons, drawn up abreast,
a lantern high on a pole, while the tired oxen lay in their
yokes, attached to the trek tow. An hour afterward we
left the safari behind, and rode ahead, with only our saises
and gun-bearers. Gusts of rain blew in our faces, and grad-
ually settled into a steady, gentle downpour. Our horses
154 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
began to slip in the greasy soil; we knew the rain would
refresh the cattle, but would make the going harder.
At one we halted, in the rain, for a couple of hours’ rest.
Just before this we heard two lions roaring, or rather grunt-
ing, not far in front of us; they were after prey. Lions
are bold on rainy nights, and we did not wish to lose any
of our horses; so a watch was organized, and we kept ready
for immediate action, but the lions did not come. The
native boys built fires, and lay close to them, relieving one
another, and us, as sentinels. Kermit and I had our army
overcoats, which are warm and practically water-proof;
the others had coats almost as good. We lay down in the
rain, on the drenched grass, with our saddle-cloths over
our feet, and our heads on our saddles, and slept comfort-
ably for two hours.
At three we mounted and were off again, the rain still
falling. There were steep ravines to cross, slippery from
the wet; but we made good time, and soon after six off-
saddled on the farther side of a steep drift or ford in the
little Suavi River. It is a rapid stream flowing between
high, well-wooded banks; it was an attractive camp site,
and, as we afterward found, the nights were so cool as to
make great camp-fires welcome. At half-past ten the safari
appeared, in excellent spirits, the flag waving, to an accom-
paniment of chanting and horn-blowing; and, to their
loudly expressed satisfaction, the porters were told that
they should have an extra day’s rations, as well as a day’s
rest. Camp was soon pitched; and all, of every rank,
slept soundly that night, though the lions moaned near by.
The wagons did not get in until ten the following morning.
By that time the oxen had been nearly three days without
—
TREKKING THROUGH THE THIRST = 155
water, so, by dawn, they were unyoked and driven down to
drink before the drift was attempted, the wagons being left
a mile or two back. The approaches to the drift were steep
and difficult, and, with two spans to each, the wagons
swayed and plunged, over the twisted bowlder-choked trails
down into the river-bed, crossed it, and, with lurching and
straining, men shouting and whips cracking, drew slowly
up the opposite bank.
After a day’s rest, we pushed on, in two days’ easy travel-
ling, to the Guaso Nyero of the south. Our camps were
pleasant, by running streams of swift water; one was really
beautiful, in a grassy bend of a rapid little river, by huge
African yew-trees, with wooded cliffs in front. It was
cool, rainy weather, with overcast skies and misty morn-
ings, so that it seemed strangely unlike the tropics. The
country was alive with herds of Masai cattle, sheep, and
donkeys. The Masai, herdsmen by profession and war-
riors by preference, with their great spears and ox-hide
shields, were stalwart savages, and showed the mixture
of types common to this part of Africa, which is the edge
of an ethnic whirlpool. Some of them were of seemingly
pure negro type; others except in their black skin had
little negro about them, their features being as clear-cut
as those of ebony Nilotic Arabs. They were dignified,
but friendly and civil, shaking hands as soon as they came
up to us.
On the Guaso Nyero was a settler from South Africa,
with his family; and we met another settler travelling with
a big flock of sheep which he had bought for trading pur-
poses. The latter, while journeying over our route with
cattle, a month before, had been attacked by lions one night.
156 , AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
They seized his cook as he lay by the fire, but fortunately
grabbed his red blanket, which they carried off, and the
terrified man escaped; and they killed a cow and a calf.
Ulyate’s brother-in-law, Smith, had been rendered a hope-
less cripple for life, six months previously, by a lioness he
had wounded. Another settler while at one of our camping-
places lost two of his horses, which were killed although
within a boma. One night lions came within threatening
neighborhood of our ox wagons; and we often heard them
moaning in the early part of the night, roaring when full
fed toward morning; but we were not molested.
The safari was in high feather, for the days were cool,
the work easy, and we shot enough game to give them
meat. When we broke camp after breakfast, the porters
would all stand ranged by their loads; then Tarlton would
whistle, and a chorus of whistles, horns, and tomtoms would
answer, as each porter lifted and adjusted his burden, fell
into his place, and then joined in some shrill or guttural
chorus as the long line swung off at its marching pace.
After nightfall the camp-fires blazed in the cool air, and
as we stood or sat around them each man had tales to
tell: Cuninghame and Tarlton of elephant-hunting in the
Congo, and of perilous adventures hunting lion and buffalo;
Mearns of long hikes and fierce fighting in the steaming
Philippine forests; Loring and Heller of hunting and col-
lecting in Alaska, in the Rockies, and among the deserts of
the Mexican border; and always our talk came back to
strange experiences with birds and beasts, both great and
‘small, and to the ways of the great game. The three
naturalists revelled in the teeming bird life, with its wealth
of beauty and color—nor was the beauty only of color
Waxbills and ; .
one weaver- oe wo Young
bird drinking 7 dikdik
wit ~ ‘es ne 4 hs’ Tame serval
A courser : : ail : i ; ‘ . kitten
An elephant 2 Ts CaNGs “ Fe riod . A banded
shrew é ae < " : 3 ; mongoose
Colobus
monkey
TREKKING THROUGH THE THIRST 157
and shape, for at dawn the bird songs made real music.
The naturalists trapped many small mammals: big-eared
mice looking like our white-footed mice, mice with spiny
fur, mice that lived in trees, rats striped like our chip-
munks, rats that jumped like jerboas, big cane-rats, dor-
mice, and tiny shrews. Meercats, things akin to a small
mongoose, lived out in the open plains, burrowing in com-
panies like prairie dogs, very spry and active, and looking
like picket pins when they stood up on end to survey us.
I killed a nine-foot python which had swallowed a rab-
bit. Game was not plentiful, but we killed enough for
the table. I shot a wildebeest bull one day, having edged
up to it on foot, after missing it standing; I broke it down
with a bullet through the hips as it galloped across my front
at three hundred yards. Kermit killed our first topi, a bull;
a beautiful animal, the size of a hartebeest, its glossy coat
with a satin sheen, varying from brown to silver and purple.
By the Guaso Nyero we halted for several days; and
we arranged to leave Mearns and Loring in a permanent
camp, so that they might seriously study and collect the
birds and small mammals while the rest of us pushed
wherever we wished after the big game. ‘The tents were
pitched, and the ox wagons drawn up on the southern side
of the muddy river, by the edge of a wide plain, on which
we could see the game grazing as we walked around camp.
The alluvial flats bordering the river, and some of the
higher plains, were covered with an open forest growth, the
most common tree looking exactly like a giant sage-brush,
thirty feet high; and there were tall aloes and cactus and
flat-topped mimosa. We found a wee hedgehog, with much
white about it. He would cuddle up in my hand snuffing
158 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
busily with his funny little nose. We did not have the heart
to turn the tame, friendly little fellow over to the natural-
ists, and so we let him go. Birds abounded. One kind
of cuckoo called like a whippoorwill in the early morning
and late evening, and after nightfall. Among our friendly
visitors were the pretty, rather strikingly colored little
chats—Livingstone’s wheatear—which showed real curi-
Osity in coming into camp. They were nesting in bur-
rows on the open plains round about. Mearns got a white
egg and a nest at the end of a little burrow two feet long;
wounded, the birds ran into holes or burrows. They sang
attractively on the wing, often at night. The plover-like
coursers, very pretty birds, continually circled round us
with querulous clamor. Gorgeously colored, diminutive
sunbirds, of many different kinds, were abundant; they
had an especial fondness for the gaudy flowers of the tall
mint which grew close to the river. We got a small co-
bra, less than eighteen inches long; it had swallowed
another snake almost as big as itself; unfortunately the
head of the swallowed snake was digested, but the body
looked like that of a young puff-adder.
The day after reaching this camp I rode off for a hunt,
accompanied by my two gun-bearers and with a dozen
porters following, to handle whatever I killed. One of my
original gun-bearers, Mahomet, though a good man in the
field, had proved in other respects so unsatisfactory that he
had been replaced by another, a Wakamba heathen named
Gouvimali—I could never remember his name until, as a
mnemonic aid, Kermit suggested that I think of Gouverneur
Morris, the old Federalist statesman, whose life I had once
studied. He was a capital man for the work.
ol Lin ote Bie spetiig at atari eee eles ee a ieee i gc en
TREKKING THROUGH THE THIRST 159
Half a mile from camp I saw a buck tommy with a good
head, and as we needed his delicious venison for our own
table, I dismounted and after a little care killed him as he
faced me at two hundred and ten yards. Sending him
back by one of the porters, I rode on toward two topi we
saw far in front. But there were zebra, hartebeest, and
wildebeest in between, all of which ran; and the topi proved
wary. I was still walking after them when we made out
two eland bulls ahead and to our left. The ground was too
open to admit of the possibility of a stalk; but leaving my
horse and the porters to follow slowly, the gun-bearers
and I walked quartering toward them. They hesitated
about going, and when I had come as close as I dared, I
motioned to the two gun-bearers to continue walking, and
dropped on one knee. I had the little Springfield, and was
anxious to test the new sharp-pointed military bullet on
some large animal. The biggest bull was half facing me,
just two hundred and eighty yards off; I fired a little bit
high and a trifle to the left; but the tiny ball broke his
back and the splendid beast, heavy as a prize steer, came
plunging and struggling to the ground. The other bull
started to run off, but after I had walked a hundred yards
forward, he actually trotted back toward his companion;
then halted, turned, and galloped across my front at a
distance of a hundred and eighty yards; and him too I
brought down with a single shot. The little full-jacketed,
sharp-pointed bullet made a terrific rending compared
with the heavier, ordinary-shaped bullet of the same com-
position.
I was much pleased with my two prizes, for the Na-
tional Museum particularly desired a good group of eland.
160 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
They were splendid animals, like beautiful heavy cattle;
and I could not sufficiently admire their sleek, handsome,
striped coats, their shapely heads, fine horns, and massive
bodies. The big bull, an old one, looked blue at a distance;
he was very heavy and his dewlap hung down just as with
cattle. His companion, although much less heavy, was a
full-grown bull in his prime, with longer horns; for the
big one’s horns had begun to wear down at the tips. In
their stomachs were grass blades and, rather to my surprise,
aloe leaves.
We had two canvas cloths with us, which Heller had in-
structed me to put over anything I shot, in order to pro-
tect it from the sun; so, covering both bulls, I left a porter
with them, and sent in another to notify Heller—who came
out with an ox wagon to bring in the skins and meat. I
had killed these two eland bulls, as well as the buck ga-
zelle (bringing down each with a single bullet) within three-
quarters of an hour after leaving camp.
I wanted a topi, and continued the hunt. The coun-
try swarmed with the herds and flocks of the Masai, who
own a wealth of live stock. Each herd of cattle and don-
keys or flock of sheep was guarded by its herdsmen; bands
of stalwart, picturesque warriors, with their huge spears
and ox-hide shields, occasionally strolled by us; and we
passed many bomas, the kraals where the stock is gathered
at night, with the mud huts of the owners ringingthem. Yet
there was much game in the country also, chiefly zebra and
hartebeest; the latter, according to their custom, contin-
ually jumping up on ant-hills to get a clearer view of me,
and sometimes standing on them motionless for a consider-
able time, as sentries to scan the country around,
SS Le ee eee
TREKKING THROUGH THE THIRST 161
At last we spied a herd of topi, distinguishable from
the hartebeest at a very long distance by their dark coloring,
the purples and browns giving the coat a heavy shading
which when far off, in certain lights, looks almost black.
Topi, hartebeest, and wildebeest belong to the same group,
and are specialized, and their peculiar physical and men-
tal traits developed, in the order named. The wildebeest
is the least normal and most grotesque and odd-looking of
the three, and his idiosyncrasies of temper are also the
most marked. The hartebeest comes next, with his very
high withers, long face, and queerly shaped horns; while
the topi, although with a general hartebeest look, has the
features of shape and horn less pronounced, and bears a
greater resemblance to his more ordinary kinsfolk. In the
same way, though it will now and then buck and plunge
when it begins to run after being startled, its demeanor is
less pronounced in this respect. The topi’s power of leap-
ing is great; I have seen one when frightened bound clear
over a companion, and immediately afterward over a high
ant-hill.
The herd of topi we saw was more shy than the neigh-
boring zebra and hartebeest. There was no cover and I
spent an hour trying to walk up to them by manceuvring
in one way and another. They did not run clear away,
but kept standing and letting me approach to distances
varying from four hundred and fifty to six hundred yards;
tempting me to shoot, while nevertheless I could not esti-
mate the range accurately, and was not certain whether I
was over or under-shooting. So I fired more times than
I care to mention before I finally got my topi—at just five
hundred and twenty yards. It was a handsome cow, weigh-
162 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
ing two hundred and sixty pounds; for topi are some-
what smaller than kongoni. The beauty of its coat, in
texture and coloring, struck me afresh as I looked at the
sleek creature stretched out on the grass. Like the eland,
it was free from ticks; for the hideous pests do not fre-
quent this part of the country in any great numbers.
I reached camp early in the afternoon, and sat down at
the mouth of my tent to enjoy myself. It was on such occa-
sions that the ‘‘Pigskin Library” proved itself indeed a
blessing. In addition to the original books we had picked
up one or two old favorites on the way: Alice’s Adventures,
for instance, and Fitzgerald—I say Fitzgerald, because
reading other versions of Omar Khayyam always leaves
me with the feeling that Fitzgerald is the major partner in
the book we really like. Then there was a book I had
not read, Dumas’s ‘‘Louves de Machecoul.” This was
presented to me at Port Said by M. Jusserand, the brother
of an old and valued friend, the French ambassador at
Washington—the vice-president of the “Tennis Cabinet.”
We had been speaking of Balzac, and I mentioned regret-
fully that I did not at heart care for his longer novels ex-
cepting the ““Chouans”; and, as John Hay once told me,
in the eye of all true Balzacians to like the “Chouans”
merely aggravates the offence of not liking the novels which
they deem really great. M. Jusserand thereupon asked
me if I knew Dumas’s Vendean novel; being a fairly good
Dumas man, I was rather ashamed to admit that I did not;
whereupon he sent it to me, and I enjoyed it to the full.
The next day was Kermit’s red-letter day. We were
each out until after dark; I merely got some of the ordinary
game, taking the skins for the naturalists, the flesh for our
TREKKING THROUGH THE THIRST 163
following; he killed two cheetahs, and a fine maned lion,
finer than any previously killed. ‘There were three chee-
tahs together. Kermit, who was with Tarlton, galloped
the big male, and, although it had a mile’s start, ran into it
in three miles, and shot it as it lay under a bush. He
afterward shot another, a female, who was lying on a
stone koppie. Neither made any attempt to charge; the
male had been eating a tommy. ‘The lion was with a
lioness, which wheeled to one side, as the horsemen gal-
loped after her maned mate. He turned to bay after a run
of less than a mile, and started to charge from a distance
of two hundred yards; but Kermit’s first bullets mortally
wounded him and crippled him so that he could not come
at any pace and was easily stopped before covering half the
distance. Although nearly a foot longer than the biggest
of the lions I had already killed, he was so gaunt—whereas
they were very fat—that he weighed but little more, only
four hundred and twelve pounds.
The following day I was out by myself, after impalla
and Roberts’ gazelle; and the day after | went out with
Tarlton to try for lion. We were away from camp for
over fifteen hours. Each was followed by his sais and
gun-bearers, and we took a dozen porters also. The day
may be worth describing, as a sample of the days when we
did not start before dawn for a morning’s hunt.
We left camp at seven, steering for a high, rocky hill,
four miles off. We passed zebra and hartebeest, and on the
hill came upon Chanler’s reedbuck; but we wanted none of
these. Continually, Tarlton stopped to examine some
distant object with his glasses, and from the hill we scanned
the country far and wide; but we saw nothing we desired
164 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
and continued on our course. The day was windy and
cool, and the sky often overcast. Slowly we walked across
the stretches of brown grassland, sometimes treeless, some-
times scantily covered with an open growth of thorn-trees,
each branch armed with long spikes, needle-sharp; and
among the thorns here and there stood the huge cactus-like
euphorbias, shaped like candelabra, groups of tall aloes,
and gnarled wild olives of great age, with hoary trunks
and twisted branches. Now and then there would be a dry
watercourse, with flat-topped acacias bordering it, and
perhaps some one pool of thick greenish water. There
was game always in view, and about noon we sighted three
rhinos, a bull, a cow, and a big calf, nearly a mile ahead of
us. We were travelling down wind, and they scented us,
but did not charge, making off in a semicircle and halting
when abreast of us. We examined them carefully through
the glasses. The cow was bigger than the bull, and had
fair horns, but nothing extraordinary; and as we were
twelve miles from camp, so that Heller would have had to
come out for the night if we shot her, we decided to leave
her alone. Then our attention was attracted by seeing
the game all gazing in one direction, and we made out a
hyena; I got a shot at it, at three hundred yards, but missed.
Soon afterward we saw another rhino, but on approaching
it proved to be about two-thirds grown, with a stubby horn.
We did not wish to shoot it, and therefore desired to avoid
a charge; and so we passed three or four hundred yards to
leeward, trusting to its bad eyesight. Just opposite it,
when it was on our right, we saw another hyena on our left,
about as far off as the rhino. I decided to take a shot, and
run the chance of disturbing the rhino. So I knelt down
TREKKING THROUGH THE THIRST = 165
and aimed with the little Springfield, keeping the Holland
by me to be ready for events. I never left camp, on foot or
on horseback, for any distance, no matter how short, with-
out carrying one of the repeating rifles; and when on a
hunt my two gun-bearers carried, one the other magazine
rifle, and one the double-barrelled Holland.
Tarlton, whose eye for distance was good, told me the
hyena was over three hundred yards off; it was walking
slowly to the left. I put up the three-hundred-yard sight,
and drew a rather coarse bead; and down went the hyena
with its throat cut; the little sharp-pointed, full-jacketed
bullet makes a slashing wound. The distance was just
three hundred and fifty long paces. As soon as I had
pulled trigger I wheeled to watch the rhino. It started
round at the shot and gazed toward us with its ears cocked
forward, but made no movement to advance. While a
couple of porters were dressing the hyena, I could not
help laughing at finding that we were the centre of a
thoroughly African circle of deeply interested spectators.
We were in the middle of a vast plain, covered with sun-
scorched grass and here and there a stunted thorn; in the
background were isolated barren hills, and the mirage wa-
vered in the distance. Vultures wheeled overhead. The
rhino, less than half a mile away, stared steadily at us.
Wildebeest—their heavy forequarters and the carriage of
their heads making them look like bison—and hartebeest
were somewhat nearer, in a ring all round us, intent upon
our proceedings. Four topi became so much interested that
they approached within two hundred and fifty yards and
stood motionless. A buck tommy came even closer, and a
zebra trotted by at about the same distance, uttering its
166 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
queer bark or neigh. It continued its course past the rhino,
and started a new train of ideas in the latter’s muddled rep-
tilian brain; round it wheeled, gazed after the zebra, and
then evidently concluded that everything was normal, for
it lay down to sleep.
On we went, past a wildebeest herd lying down; at
a distance they looked exactly like bison as they used to
lie out on the prairie in the old days. We halted for an
hour and a half to rest the men and horses, and took our
lunch under a thick-trunked olive-tree that must have been
a couple of centuries old. Again we went on, ever scanning
through the glasses every distant object which we thought
might possibly be a lion, and ever being disappointed. A
serval-cat jumped up ahead of us in the tall grass, but I
missed it. Then, trotting on foot, I got ahead of two wart-
hog boars, and killed the biggest; making a bad initial
miss and then emptying my magazine at it as it ran.
We sent it in to camp, and went on, following a donga,
or small watercourse, fringed with big acacias. ‘The
afternoon was wearing away, and it was time for lions to
be abroad.
The sun was near the horizon when Tarlton thought he
saw something tawny in the watercourse ahead of us, be-
hind a grassy ant-hill, toward which we walked after dis-
mounting. Some buck were grazing peacefully beyond it,
and for a moment we supposed that this was what he had
seen. But as we stood, one of the porters behind called
out “Simba”; and we caught a glimpse of a big lioness
galloping down beside the trees, just beyond the donga;
she was out of sight in an instant. Mounting our horses,
we crossed the donga; she was not to be seen, and we
=
vo
-
~
tn
TREKKING THROUGH THE THIRST 167
loped at a smart pace parallel with the line of trees, hoping
to see her in the open. But, as it turned out, as soon as
she saw us pass, she crouched in the bed of the donga; we
had gone by her a quarter of a mile when a shout from one
of our followers announced that he had seen her, and back
we galloped, threw ourselves from our horses, and walked
toward where the man was pointing. Tarlton took his big
double-barrel and advised me to take mine, as the sun
had just set and it was likely to be close work; but I shook
my head, for the Winchester 405 is, at least for me per-
sonally, the “medicine gun” for lions. In another mo-
ment up she jumped, and galloped slowly down the other
side of the donga, switching her tail and growling; I scram-
bled across the donga, and just before she went round a
clump of trees, eighty yards off, I fired. The bullet hit
her fair, and going forward injured her spine. Over she
rolled, growling savagely, and dragged herself into the
watercourse; and running forward I finished her with two
bullets behind the shoulder. She was a big, fat lioness,
very old, with two cubs inside her; her lower canines were
much worn and injured. She was very heavy, and prob-
ably weighed considerably over three hundred pounds.
The light was growing dim, and camp was eight or ten
miles away. The porters—they are always much excited
over the death of a lion—wished to carry the body whole to
camp, and I let them try. While they were lashing it to a
pole another lion began to moan hungrily half a mile away.
Then we started; there was no moon, but the night was
clear and we could guide ourselves by the stars. The por-
ters staggered under their heavy load, and we made slow
progress; most of the time Tarlton and I walked, with
168 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
our double-barrels in our hands, for it was a dangerous
neighborhood. Again and again we heard lions, and twice
one accompanied us for some distance, grunting occasion-
ally, while we kept the men closed. Once the porters were
thrown into a panic by a succession of steam-engine-like
snorts on our left, which announced the immediate proxim-
ity of a rhino, They halted in a huddle while Tarlton and
I ran forward and crouched to try to catch the great beast’s
loom against the sky-line; but it moved off. Four miles
from camp was a Masai kraal, and we went toward this
when we caught the gleam of the fires; for the porters were
getting exhausted.
The kraal was in shape a big oval, with a thick wall of
thorn-bushes, eight feet high, the low huts standing just
within this wall, while the cattle and sheep were crowded into
small bomas in the centre. The fires gleamed here and there
within, and as we approached we heard the talking and
laughing of men and women, and the lowing and bleating
of the pent-up herds and flocks. We hailed loudly, explain-
ing our needs. At first they were very suspicious. They
told us we could not bring the lion within, because it would
frighten the cattle, but after some parley consented to our
building a fire outside, and skinning the animal. They
passed two brands over the thorn fence, and our men
speedily kindled a blaze, and drew the lioness beside it.
By this time the Masai were reassured, and a score of
their warriors, followed soon by half a dozen women,
came out through a small opening in the fence, and
crowded close around the fire, with boisterous, noisy good
humor. ‘They showed a tendency to chaff our porters.
One, the humorist of the crowd, excited much merriment
oe ee ee ee ee ee > ae
TREKKING THROUGH THE THIRST _ 169
by describing, with pantomimic accompaniment of gest-
ures, how when the white man shot a lion it might bite
a swahili, who thereupon would call for his mother. But
they were entirely friendly, and offered me calabashes of
milk. The men were tall, finely shaped savages, their
hair plastered with red mud, and drawn out into longish
ringlets; they were naked except for a blanket worn, not
round the loins, but over the shoulders; their ears were slit,
and from them hung bone and wooden ornaments; they
wore metal bracelets and anklets, and chains which passed
around their necks, or else over one side of the neck and
under the opposite arm. The women had pleasant faces,
and were laden with metal ornaments—chiefly wire ank-
lets, bracelets, and necklaces—of many pounds weight.
The features of the men were bold and clear-cut, and their
bearing warlike and self-reliant; as the flame of the fire
glanced over them, and brought their faces and bronze
figures into lurid relief against the darkness, the likeness
was striking, not to the West Coast negroes, but to the en-
gravings on the tombs, temples, and palaces of ancient
Egypt; they might have been soldiers in the armies of
Thothmes or Rameses. They stood resting on their long
staffs, and looked at me as I leaned on my rifle; and they
laughed and jested with their women, who felt the lion’s
teeth and claws and laughed back at the men; our gun-
bearers worked at the skinning, and answered the jests of
their warlike friends with the freedom of men who them-
selves followed a dangerous trade; the two horses stood
quiet just outside the circle; and over all the firelight
played and leaped.
It was after ten when we reached camp, and I enjoyed
Lett
=
170 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
a hot bath and a shave before sitting down to a supper of
eland venison and broiled spurfowl; and surely no supper
ever tasted more delicious.
Next day we broke camp. My bag for the five days
illustrates ordinary African shooting in this part of the con-
tinent. Of course I could have killed many other things;
but I shot nothing that was not absolutely needed, both for
scientific purposes and for food; the skin of every animal I
shot was preserved for the National Museum. The bag in-
cluded fourteen animals, of ten different species: one lioness,
one hyena, one wart-hog boar, two zebra, two eland, one
wildebeest, two topi, two impalla, one Roberts’ gazelle, one
Thomson’s gazelle. Except the lioness and one impalla
(both of which I shot running), all were shot at rather
long ranges; seven were shot standing, two walking, five
running. The average distance at which they were shot
was a little over two hundred and twenty yards. I used
sixty-five cartridges, an amount which will seem excessive
chiefly to those who are not accustomed actually to count
the cartridges they expend, to measure the distances at
which they fire, and to estimate for themselves the range,
on animals in the field when they are standing or running
a good way off. Only one wounded animal got away; and
eight of the animals I shot had to be finished with one bullet
—two in the case of the lioness—as they lay on the ground.
Many of the cartridges expended really represented range-
finding.
CHAPTER VIII
HUNTING IN THE SOTIK
Our next camp was in the middle of the vast plains, by
some limestone springs, at one end of a line of dark acacias.
There were rocky koppies two or three miles off on either
hand. From the tents, and white-topped wagons, we could
see the game grazing on the open flats, or among the scat-
tered wizened thorns. The skies were overcast, and the
nights cool; in the evenings the camp-fires blazed in front
of the tents, and after supper we gathered round them,
talking, or sitting silently, or listening to Kermit strum-
ming on his mandolin.
The day after reaching this camp we rode out, hoping
to get either rhino or giraffe; we needed additional speci-
mens of both for the naturalists, who especially wanted
cow giraffes. It was cloudy and cool, and the common
game was shy; though we needed meat, I could not get
within fair range of the wildebeest, hartebeest, topi, or big
gazelle; however I killed a couple of tommies, one by a
good shot, the other running, after I had missed him in
rather scandalous fashion while he was standing.
An hour or two after leaving the tents we made out
on the sky-line a couple of miles to our left some objects
which scrutiny showed to be giraffe. After coming within
a mile the others halted and I rode ahead on the tranquil
sorrel, heading for a point toward which the giraffe were
171
172 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
walking; stalking was an impossibility, and I was pre-
pared either to manceuvre for a shot on foot, or to ride
them, as circumstances might determine. I carried the
little Springfield, being desirous of testing the small, solid,
sharp-pointed army bullet on the big beasts. As I rode,
a wildebeest bull played around me within two hundred
yards, prancing, flourishing his tail, tossing his head and
uttering his grunting bellow; it almost seemed as if he knew
I would not shoot at him, or as if for the moment he had
been infected with the absurd tameness which the giraffe
showed.
There were seven giraffes, a medium-sized bull, four
cows, and two young ones; and, funnily enough, the young
ones were by far the shyest and most suspicious. I did
not want to kill a bull unless it was exceptionally large;
whereas I did want two cows and a young one, for the
museum. When quarter of a mile away I dismounted,
threw the reins over Tranquillity’s head—whereat the good
placid old fellow at once began grazing—and walked di-
agonally toward the biggest cow, which was ahead of the
others. The tall, handsome ungainly creatures were noth-
ing like as shy as the smaller game had shown themselves
that morning, and of course they offered such big targets
that three hundred yards was a fair range for them. At
two hundred and sixty yards I fired at the big cow as she
stood almost facing me, twisting and curling her tail. The
bullet struck fair and she was off at a hurried, clumsy
gallop. I gave her another bullet, but it was not neces-
sary, and down she went. The second cow, a fine young
heifer, was now cantering across my front, and with two
more shots I got her; the sharp-pointed bullets penetrating
PT a
Giraffe at home
From photographs by Kermit Roosevelt
Ss é
HUNTING IN THE SOTIK 173
well, and not splitting into fragments, but seeming to cause
a rending shock.
I met with much more difficulty in trying to kill the
young one I needed. I walked and trotted a mile after the
herd. ‘The old ones showed little alarm, standing again
and again tolookatme. Finally I shot one of the two young
ones, at four hundred and ten long paces, while a cow stood
much nearer, and the bull only three hundred yards off.
But this was not all. The four survivors did not leave even
after such an experience, but stayed in the plain, not far
off, for several hours, and thereby gave Kermit a chance
to do something much better worth while than shooting
them. His shoulder was sore, and he did not wish to use a
rifle, and so was devoting himself to his camera, which
one of his men always carried. With this, after the exercise
of much patience, he finally managed to take a number of
pictures of the giraffe, getting within fifty yards of the bull.
Nor were the giraffe the only animals that showed a
tameness bordering on stupidity. Soon afterward we made
out three rhino, a mile away. They were out in the bare
plain, alternately grazing and enjoying a noontide rest;
the bull by himself, the cow with her calf a quarter of a
mile off. There was not a scrap of cover, but we walked
up wind to within a hundred and fifty yards of the bull.
Even then he did not seem to see us, but the tick-birds,
which were clinging to his back and sides, gave the alarm,
and he trotted to and fro, uncertain as to the cause of the
disturbance. If Heller had not had his hands full with the
giraffes I might have shot the bull rhino; but his horn
and bulk of body, though fair, were not remarkable, and I
did not molest him. He went toward the cow, which left
174 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
her calf and advanced toward him in distinctly bellicose
style; then she recognized him, her calf trotted up, and
the three animals stood together, tossing their heads, and
evidently trying to make out what was near them. But
we were down wind, and they do not see well, with their
little twinkling pig’s eyes. We were anxious not to be
charged by the cow and calf, as her horn was very poor, and
it would have been unpleasant to be obliged to shoot her.
and so we drew off.
Next day, when Kermit and I were out alone with our
gun-bearers we saw another rhino, a bull, with a stubby
horn. This rhino, like the others of the neighborhood, was
enjoying his noonday rest in the open, miles from cover;
“Look at him,” said Kermit, “standing there in the middle
of the African plain, deep in prehistoric thought.” Indeed
the rhinoceros does seem like a survival from the elder
world that has vanished; he was in place in the pliocene;
he would not have been out of place in the miocene; but
nowadays he can only exist at all in regions that have lagged
behind, while the rest of the world, for good or for evil, has
gone forward. Like other beasts rhinos differ in habits in
different places. This prehensile-lipped species is every-
where a browser, feeding on the twigs and leaves of the
bushes and low trees; but in their stomachs I have found
long grass stems mixed with the twig tips and leaves of
stunted bush. In some regions they live entirely in rather
thick bush; whereas on the plains over which we were
hunting the animals haunted the open by preference, feed-
ing through thin bush, where they were visible miles away,
and usually taking their rest, either standing or lying, out
on the absolutely bare plains. They drank at the small
jarasooy jtusay XQ sydvssojoyg wos
« }YSnoy? su0jstysad ut daap ‘urejd uvorypy oy jo ayppru ayi uy,, livyes ay) SurAaains Ourypy
(aja, oy] UO) YoRq s,ayeUI ay} UO Udas 9q ULO SpAIq-yoI], “ApIwey OUTYA V
HUNTING IN THE SOTIK 175
shallow rain pools, seemingly once every twenty-four
hours; and I saw one going to water at noon, and others
just at dark; and their hours for feeding and resting were
also irregular, though they were apt to lie down or stand
motionless during the middle of the day. Doubtless in
very hot weather they prefer to rest under a tree; but we
were hunting in cool weather, during which they paid no
heed whatever to the sun. Their sight is very bad, their
scent and hearing acute.
On this day Kermit was shooting from his left shoulder,
and did very well, killing a fine Roberts’ gazelle, and three
topi; I also shot a topi bull, as Heller wished a good series
for the National Museum. The topi and wildebeest I shot
were all killed at long range, the average distance for the
first shot being over three hundred and fifty yards; and in
the Sotik, where hunters were few, the game seemed if any-
thing shyer than on the Athi Plains, where hunters were
many. But there were wide and inexplicable differences
in this respect among the animals of the same species. One
day I wished to get a doe tommy for the museum; I saw
scores, but they were all too shy to let me approach within
shot; yet four times I passed within eighty yards of bucks
of the same species which paid hardly any heed to me.
Another time I walked for five minutes alongside a big
party of Roberts’ gazelles, within a hundred and fifty yards,
trying in vain to pick out a buck worth shooting; half an
hour afterward I came on another party which contained
such a buck, but they would not let me get within a
quarter of a mile.
Wildebeest are usually the shyest of all game. Each
herd has its own recognized beat, to which it ordinarily
176 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
keeps. Near this camp, there was a herd almost always —
to be found somewhere near the southern end of a big hill
two miles east of us; while a solitary bull was invariably
seen around the base of a small hill a couple of miles south-
west of us. The latter was usually in the company of a
mixed herd of Roberts’ and Thomson’s gazelles. Here,
as everywhere, we found the different species of game as-
sociating freely with one another. One little party inter-
ested us much. It consisted of two Roberts’ bucks, two
Roberts’ does, and one Thomson’s doe, which was evi-
dently a maitresse femme, of strongly individualized char-
acter. The four big gazelles had completely surrendered
their judgment to that of the little tommy doe. She was the
acknowledged leader; when she started they started and
followed in whatever direction she led; when she stopped
they stopped; if she found a given piece of pasture good,
upon it they grazed contentedly. Around this camp the topi
were as common as hartebeest; they might be found singly,
or in small parties, perhaps merely of a bull, a cow, and a
calf; or they might be mixed with zebra, wildebeest, and
hartebeest. Like the hartebeest, but less frequently, they
would mount ant-hills to get a better look over the country.
The wildebeest were extraordinarily tenacious of life, and the
hartebeest and topi only less so. After wounded individ-
uals of all three kinds I more than once had sharp runs on
horseback. On one occasion I wounded a wildebeest bull
a couple of miles from camp; I was riding my zebra-shaped
brown pony, who galloped well; and after a sharp run
through the bush I overhauled the wildebeest; but when I
jumped off, the pony bolted for camp, and as he disap-
peared in one direction my game disappeared in the other.
HUNTING IN THE SOTIK 177
At last a day came when I saw a rhino with a big body
and a good horn. We had been riding for a couple of hours;
the game was all around us. ‘Two giraffes stared at us
with silly curiosity rather than alarm; twice I was within
range of the bigger one. At last Bakhari, the gun-bearer,
pointed to a gray mass on the plain, and a glance through
the glasses showed that it was a rhino lying asleep with his
legs doubled under him. He proved to be a big bull, with
a front horn nearly twenty-six inches long. I was anxious
to try the sharp-pointed bullets of the little Springfield
rifle on him; and Cuninghame and I, treading cautiously,
walked up wind straight toward him, our horses following
a hundred yards behind. He was waked by the tick-birds,
and twisted his head to and fro, but at first did not seem to
hear us, although looking in our direction. When we were
a hundred yards off he rose and faced us, huge and threat-
ening, head up and tail erect. But he lacked heart after
all. I fired into his throat, and instead of charging, he
whipped round and was off at a gallop, immediately dis-
appearing over a slight rise. We ran back to our horses,
mounted, and galloped after him. He had a long start, and,
though evidently feeling his wound, was going strong; and
it was some time before we overtook him. I tried to gal-
lop alongside, but he kept swerving; so jumping off (fort-
unately, I was riding Tranquillity) I emptied the maga-
zine at his quarters and flank. Rapid galloping does not
tend to promote accuracy of aim; the rhino went on; and,
remounting, I followed, overtook him, and repeated the
performance. ‘This time he wheeled and faced round, evi-
dently with the intention of charging, but a bullet straight in
his chest took all the fight out of him, and he continued
178 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
his flight. But his race was evidently run, and when I next
overtook him I brought him down. I had put nine bullets
in him; and though they had done their work well, and I
was pleased to have killed the huge brute with the little
sharp-pointed bullets of the Springfield, I was confirmed in ~
my judgment that for me personally the big Holland rifie
was the best weapon for heavy game, although I did not
care as much for it against lighter-bodied beasts like lions.
In all we galloped four miles after this wounded rhino bull.
We sent a porter to bring out Heller, and an ox wagon
on which to take the skin to camp. While waiting for them
I killed a topi bull, at two hundred and sixty yards, with one
bullet, and a wildebeest bull with a dozen; I crippled him
with my first shot at three hundred and sixty yards, and
then walked and trotted after him a couple of miles, getting
running and standing shots at from three hundred to five
hundred yards. I hit him several times. As with every-
thing else I shot, the topi and wildebeest were preserved
as specimens for the museum, and their flesh used for food.
Our porters had much to do, and they did it well, partly
because they were fed well. We killed no game of which
we did not make the fullest use. It would be hard to con-
vey to those who have not seen it on the ground an accurate
idea of its abundance. When I was walking up to this
rhino, there were in sight two giraffes, several wildebeest
bulls, and herds of hartebeest, topi, zebra, and the big and
little gazelles.
In addition to being a mighty hunter, and an adept in
the by no means easy work of handling a large safari in
the wilderness, Cuninghame was also a good field naturalist
and taxidermist; and at this camp we got so many speci-
HUNTING IN THE SOTIK 179
mens that he was obliged to spend most of his time helping
Heller; and they pressed into the work at times even Tarl-
ton. Accordingly Kermit and I generally went off by our-
selves, either together or separately. Once however Kermit
went with Tarlton, and was as usual lucky with cheetahs,
killing two. ‘Tarlton was an accomplished elephant, buf-
falo, and rhino hunter, but he preferred the chase of the lion
to all other kinds of sport; and if lions were not to be found
he liked to follow anything else he could gallop on horse-
back. Kermit was also a good and hard rider. On this
occasion they found a herd of eland, and galloped into it.
The big bull they overhauled at once, but saw that his
horns were poor and left him. Then they followed a fine
cow with an unusually good head. She started at a rattling
pace, and once leaped clear over another cow that got in
her way; but they rode into her after a mile’s smart gallop
—not a racing gallop by any means—and after that she
was as manageable as a tame ox. Cantering and trotting
within thirty yards of her on either quarter they drove
her toward camp; but when it was still three-quarters of
a mile distant they put up a cheetah, and tore after it; and
they overtook and killed it just before it reached cover. A
cheetah with a good start can only be overtaken by hard
running. ‘This one behaved just as did the others they
ran down. For quarter of a mile no animal in the world
has a cheetah’s speed; but he cannot last. When chased
the cheetahs did not sprint, but contented themselves with
galloping ahead of the horses; at first they could easily
keep their distance, but after a mile or two their strength
and wind gave out, and then they always crouched flat to
the earth, and were shot without their making any attempt
180 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
to charge. But a wart-hog boar which Kermit ran down
the same day and shot with his revolver did charge, and
wickedly.
While running one of his cheetahs Kermit put up two
old wildebeest bulls, and they joined in the procession,
looking as if they too were pursuing the cheetah; the chee-
tah ran first, the two bulls, bounding and switching their
tails, came next, and Kermit, racing in the rear, gained
steadily. Wildebeest are the oddest in nature and conduct,
and in many ways the most interesting, of all antelopes.
There is in their temper something queer, fiery, eccentric,
and their actions are abrupt and violent. A single bull will
stand motionless with head raised to stare at an intruder
until the latter is quarter of a mile off; then down goes his
head, his tail is lashed up and around, and off he gallops,
plunging, kicking, and shaking his head. He may go
straight away, he may circle round, or even approach nearer
to, the intruder; and then he halts again to stare motion-
less, and perhaps to utter his grunt of alarm and defiance.
A herd when approached, after fixed staring will move off,
perhaps at a canter. Soon the leaders make a half wheel,
and lead their followers in a semicircle; suddenly a couple
of old bulls leave the rest, and at a tearing gallop describe a
semicircle in exactly the opposite direction, racing by their
comrades as these canter the other way. With one accord
the whole troop may then halt and stare again at the object
they suspect; then off they all go at a headlong run, kick-
ing and bucking, tearing at full speed in one direction, then
suddenly wheeling in semicircles so abrupt as to be almost
zigzags, the dust flying in clouds; and two bulls may sud-
denly drop to their knees and for a moment or two fight
Mite y 6
w
ve
Two bulls may suddenly drop to their knees and for a moment or twe
HUNTING IN THE SOTIK 181
furiously in their own peculiar fashion. By careful stalk-
ing Kermit got some good pictures of the wildebeest in
spite of their wariness. Like other game they seem most
apt to lie down during the heat of the day; but they may
lie down at night too; at any rate, I noticed one herd of
hartebeest which after feeding through the late afternoon
lay down at nightfall. |
After getting the bull rhino, Heller needed a cow and
calf to complete the group; and Kermit and I got him
what he needed, one day when we were out alone with our
gun-bearers. About the middle of the forenoon we made
out the huge gray bulk of the rhino, standing in the bare
plain, with not so much as a bush two feet high within
miles; and we soon also made out her calf beside her.
Getting the wind right we rode up within a quarter of a
mile, and then dismounted and walked slowly toward her.
It seemed impossible that on that bare plain we could
escape even her dull vision, for she stood with her head in
our direction; yet she did not see us, and actually lay
down as we walked toward her. Careful examination
through the glasses showed that she was an unusually big
cow, with thick horns of fair length—twenty-three inches
and thirteen inches respectively. Accordingly we proceeded,
making as little noise as possible. At fifty yards she made
us out, and jumped to her feet with unwieldy agility. Kneel-
ing I sent the bullet from the heavy Holland just in front of
her right shoulder as she half faced me. It went through
her vitals, lodging behind the opposite shoulder; and at
once she began the curious death waltz which is often,
though by no means always, the sign of immediate disso-
lution in a mortally wounded rhino. Kermit at once put
182 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
a bullet from his Winchester behind her shoulder; for it is
never safe to take chances with a rhino; and we shot the
calf, which when dying uttered a screaming whistle, al-
most like that of a small steam-engine. In a few seconds
both fell, and we walked up to them, examined them, and
then continued our ride, sending in a messenger to bring
Cuninghame, Heller, and an ox wagon to the carcasses.
The stomach of this rhino contained some grass stems
and blades, some leaves and twig tips of bushes, but chiefly
the thick, thorny, fleshy leaves of a kind of euphorbia. As
the juice of the euphorbia’s cactus-like leaves is acrid
enough to blister—not to speak of the thorns—this suffices
to show what a rhino’s palate regards as agreeably stimu-
lating. This species of rhino, by the way, affords a curious
illustration of how blind many men who live much of their
lives outdoors may be to facts which stare them in the
face. For years most South African hunters, and most
naturalists, believed in the existence of two species of pre-
hensile-lipped, or so-called “black,” rhinoceros: one with
the front horn much the longer, one with the rear horn at
least equal to the front. It was Selous, a singularly clear-
sighted and keen observer, who first proved conclusively
that the difference was purely imaginary. Now, the curi-
ous thing is that these experienced hunters usually attrib-
uted entirely different temperaments to these two imagi-
nary species. The first kind, that with the long front horn,
they described as a miracle of dangerous ferocity, and the
second as comparatively mild and inoffensive; and these
veterans (Drummond is an instance) persuaded them-
selves that this was true, although they were writing in each
case of identically the same animal!
‘TO pee a en
i
j
2
:
;
i
HUNTING IN THE SOTIK 183
After leaving the dead rhinos we rode for several miles,
over a plain dotted with game, and took our lunch at
the foot of a big range of hills, by a rapid little brook, run-
ning under a fringe of shady thorns. Then we rode back
to camp. Lines of zebra filed past on the horizon. Os-
triches fled while we were yet far off. Topi, hartebeest,
wildebeest, and gazelle gazed at us as we rode by, the sun-
light throwing their shapes and colors into bold relief
against the parched brown grass. I had an hour to my-
self after reaching camp, and spent it with Lowell’s “Es-
says.” I doubt whether any man takes keener enjoyment
in the wilderness than he who also keenly enjoys many
other sides of life; just as no man can relish books more
than some at least of those who also love horse and rifle
and the winds that blow across lonely plains and through
the gorges of the mountains.
Next morning a lion roared at dawn so near camp that
we sallied forth after him. We did not find him, but we
enjoyed our three hours’ ride through the fresh air before
breakfast, with the game as usual on every hand. Some
of the game showed tameness, some wildness, the difference
being not between species and species, but between given
individuals of almost every species. While we were ab-
sent two rhinos passed close by camp, and stopped to stare
curiously at it; we saw them later as they trotted away, but
their horns were not good enough to tempt us.
At a distance the sunlight plays pranks with the color-
ing of the animals. Cock ostriches always show jet black,
and are visible at a greater distance than any of the com-
mon game; the neutral tint of the hens making them far
less conspicuous. Both cocks and hens are very wary,
184 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
sharp-sighted, and hard to approach. Next to the cock
ostrich in conspicuousness comes the wildebeest, because
it shows black in most lights; yet when headed away from
the onlooker, the sun will often make the backs of a herd
look whitish in the distance. Wildebeest are warier than
most other game. Round this camp the topi were as tame
as the hartebeest; they look very dark in most lights, only
less dark than the wildebeest, and so are also conspicuous.
The hartebeest change from a deep brown to a light foxy
red, according to the way they stand toward the sun;
and when a herd was feeding away from us, their white
sterns showed when a very long way off. The zebra’s
stripes cease to be visible after he is three hundred yards
off, but in many lights he glistens white in the far dis-
tance, and is then very conspicuous; on this day I came
across a mixed herd of zebra and eland in thin bush,
and when still a long way off the zebras caught the eye,
while their larger companions were as yet hardly to be
made out without field-glasses. The gazelles usually show
as sandy colored, and are therefore rather less conspicuous
than the others when still; but they are constantly in mo-
tion, and in some lights show up as almost white. When
they are far off the sun rays may make any of these ani-
mals look very dark or very light. In fact all of them are
conspicuous at long distances, and none of them make any
effort to escape observation as do certain kinds that haunt
dense bush and forest. But constant allowance must be
made for the wide variations among individuals. Ordi-
narily tommies are the tamest of the game, with the big
gazelle and the zebra next; but no two herds will behave
alike; and I have seen a wildebeest bull look at me motion-
HUNTING IN THE SOTIK 185
less within a hundred and fifty yards, while the zebras,
tommies, and big gazelles which were his companions fled
in panic; and I left him still standing, as I walked after the
gazelles, to kill a buck for the table. The game is usually
sensitive to getting the hunter’s wind; but on these plains
I have again and again seen game stand looking at us within
fairly close range to leeward, and yet on the same day
seen the same kind of game flee in mad fright when twice
the distance to windward. Sometimes there are inexplicable
variations between the conduct of beasts in one locality and
in another. In East Africa the hyenas seem only occasion-
ally to crunch the long bones of the biggest dead animals;
whereas Cuninghame, who pointed out this fact to me,
stated that in South Africa the hyenas, of the same kind,
always crunched up the big bones, eating both the marrow
and fragments of the bone itself.
Now and then the game will choose a tree as a rubbing
post, and if it is small will entirely destroy the tree; and I
have seen them use for the same purpose an oddly shaped
stone, one corner of which they had worn quite smooth.
They have stamping grounds, small patches of bare earth
from which they have removed even the roots of the grass
and bushes by the trampling of their hoofs, leaving nothing
but a pool of dust. One evening I watched some zebras
stringing slowly along in a line which brought them past
a couple of these stamping grounds. As they came in
succession to each bare place half the herd, one after an-
other, lay down and rolled to and fro, sending up spurts of
dust so thick that the animal was hidden from sight; while
perhaps a companion, which did not roll, stood near by,
seemingly to enjoy the dust.
186 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
On this same evening we rode campward facing a won-
derful sunset. The evening was lowering and overcast.
The darkening plains stretched dim and vague into the
far distance. The sun went down under a frowning sky,
behind shining sheets of rain; and it turned their radiance
to an angry splendor of gold and murky crimson.
At this camp the pretty little Livingstone’s wheatears
or chats were very familiar, flitting within a few yards
of the tents. They were the earliest birds to sing. Just
before our eyes could distinguish the first faint streak of
dawn first one and then another of them would begin to
sing, apparently either on the ground or in the air, until
there was a chorus of their sweet music. Then they were
silent again until the sun was about to rise. We always
heard them when we made a very early start to hunt. By
the way, with the game of the plains and the thin bush, we
found that nothing was gained by getting out early in the
morning; we were quite as apt to get what we wanted
in the evening or indeed at high noon.
The last day at this camp Kermit, Tarlton, and I spent
on a twelve-hours’ lion hunt. I opened the day inauspi-
ciously, close to camp, by missing a zebra, which we wished
for the porters. Then Kermit, by a good shot, killed a tom-
my buck with the best head we had yet gotten. Early in
the afternoon we reached our objective, some high kop-
pies, broken by cliffs and covered with brush. There
were klipspringers on these koppies, little rock-loving
antelopes, with tiny hoofs and queer brittle hair; they are
marvellous jumpers and continually utter a bleating whis-
tle. I broke the neck of one as it ran at a distance of a
hundred and fifty yards; but the shot was a fluke, and did
HUNTING IN THE SOTIK 187
not make amends for the way I had missed the zebra in
the morning. Among the thick brush on these hills were ©
huge euphorbias, aloes bearing masses of orange flowers,
and a cactus-like ground plant with pretty pink blossoms.
All kinds of game from the plains, even rhino, had wan-
dered over these hill-tops.
But what especially interested us was that we immedi-
ately found fresh beds of lions, and one regular lair. Again
and again, as we beat cautiously through the bushes, the
rank smell of the beasts smote our nostrils. At last, as we
sat at the foot of one koppie, Kermit spied through his
glasses a lion on the side of the koppie opposite, the last
and biggest; and up it we climbed. On the very summit was
a mass of cleft and broken bowlders, and while on these
Kermit put up two lions from the bushes which crowded
beneath them. I missed a running shot at the lioness, as
she made off through the brush. He probably hit the lion,
and, very cautiously, with rifles at the ready, we beat through
the thick cover in hopes to find it; but in vain. Then
we began a hunt for the lioness, as apparently she had not
left the koppie. Soon one of the gun-bearers, who was
standing on a big stone, peering under some thick bushes,
beckoned excitedly to me; and when I jumped up beside
him he pointed at the lioness. In a second I made her
out. The sleek sinister creature lay not ten paces off, her
sinuous body following the curves of the rock as she crouched
flat looking straight at me. A stone covered the lower part,
and the left of the upper part, of her head; but I saw her
two unwinking green eyés looking into mine. As _ she
could have reached me in two springs, perhaps in one,
I wished to shoot straight; but I had to avoid the rock
188 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
which covered the lower part of her face, and moreover I
fired a little too much to the left. The bullet went through
the side of her head, and in between the neck and shoulder,
inflicting a mortal, but not immediately fatal, wound.
However it knocked her off the little ledge on which she
was lying, and instead of charging she rushed up hill. We
promptly followed, and again clambered up the mass
of bowlders at the top. Peering over the one on which
I had climbed there was the lioness directly at its foot, not
twelve feet away, lying flat on her belly; I could only
see the aftermost third of her back. I at once fired into
her spine; with appalling grunts she dragged herself a few ~
paces down hill; and another bullet behind the shoulder
finished her.
She was skinned as rapidly as possible; and just before
sundown we left the koppie. At its foot was a deserted
Masai cattle kraal and a mile from this was a shallow,
muddy pool, fouled by the countless herds of game that
drank thereat. Toward this we went, so that the thirsty
horses and men might drink their full. As we came near
we saw three rhinoceros leaving the pool. It was already
too dusk for good shooting, and we were rather relieved
when, after some inspection, they trotted off and stood at
a little distance in the plain. Our men and horses drank,
and then we began our ten miles’ march through the dark-
ness to camp. One of Kermit’s gun-bearers saw a puff
adder (among the most deadly of all snakes); with de-
lightful nonchalance he stepped on its head, and then held
it up for me to put my knife through its brain and neck.
I slipped it into my saddle pocket, where its blood stained
the pigskin cover of the little pocket Nibelungenlied which
HUNTING IN THE SOTIK 189
that day I happened to carry. Immediately afterward
there was a fresh alarm from our friends the three rhinos; —
dismounting, and crouching down, we caught the loom of
their bulky bodies against the horizon; but a shot in the
ground seemed to make them hesitate, and they finally con-
cluded not to charge. So, with the lion skin swinging be-
hind between two porters, a moribund puff adder in my
saddle pocket, and three rhinos threatening us in the dark-
ness to one side, we marched campward through the African
night.
Next day we shifted camp to a rush-fringed pool by a
grove of tall, flat-topped acacias at the foot of a range of
low, steep mountains. Before us the plain stretched, and
in front of our tents it was dotted by huge candelabra
euphorbias. I shot a buck for the table just as we pitched
camp. There were Masai kraals and cattle herds near by,
and tall warriors, pleasant and friendly, strolled among
our tents, their huge razor-edged spears tipped with furry
caps to protect the points. Kermit was off all day with
Tarlton, and killed a magnificent lioness. In the morning,
on some high hills, he obtained a good impalla ram, after
persevering hours of climbing and running—for only one
of the gun-bearers and none of the whites could keep up
with him on foot when he went hard. In the afternoon
at four he and Tarlton saw the lioness. She was followed
by three three-parts grown young lions, doubtless her cubs,
and, without any concealment, was walking across the
open plain toward a pool by which lay the body of a wilde-
beest bull she had killed the preceding night. The smaller
lions saw the hunters and shrank back, but the old lioness
never noticed them until they were within a hundred and
190 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
fifty yards. Then she ran back, but Kermit crumpled her
up with his first bullet. He then put another bullet in her,
and as she seemed disabled walked up within fifty yards,
and took some photos. By this time she was recovering,
and, switching her tail she gathered her hind quarters
under her for a charge; but he stopped her with another
bullet, and killed her outright with a fourth.
We heard that Mearns and Loring, whom we had left
ten days before, had also killed a lioness. A Masai brought
in word to them that he had marked her down taking her
noonday rest near a kongoni she had killed; and they rode
out, and Loring shot her. She charged him savagely; he
shot her straight through the heart, and she fell literally
at his feet. The three naturalists were all good shots, and
were used to all the mishaps and adventures of life in the
wilderness. Not only would it have been indeed difficult
to find three better men for their particular work—Heller’s
work, for instance, with Cuninghame’s help, gave the
chief point to our big-game shooting—but it would have
been equally difficult to find three better men for any
emergency. I could not speak too highly of them; nor in-
deed of our two other companions, Cuninghame and Tarl-
ton, whose mastery of their own field was as noteworthy
as the pre-eminence of the naturalists in their field.
The following morning the headmen asked that we
get the porters some meat; Tarlton, Kermit, and I sallied
forth accordingly. The country was very dry, and the
game in our immediate neighborhood was not plentiful
and was rather shy. I killed three kongoni out of a herd,
at from two hundred and fifty to three hundred and ninety
paces; one topi at three hundred and thirty paces, and a
The wounded lioness ready to charge
The wounded lioness
From photographs by Kermit Roosevelt
HUNTING IN THE SOTIK 191
Roberts’ gazelle at two hundred and seventy. Meanwhile
the other two had killed a kongoni and five of the big ga-
zelles; wherever possible the game being hallalled in ortho-
dox fashion by the Mahometans among our attendants,
so as to fit it for use by their coreligionists among the por-
ters. Then we saw some giraffes, and galloped them to
see if there was a really big bull in the lot. They had a
long start, but Kermit and Tarlton overtook them after
a couple of miles, while I pounded along in the rear. How-
ever there was no really good bull, Kermit and Tarlton
pulled up, and we jogged along toward the koppies where
two days before I had shot the lioness. I killed a big bus-
tard, a very handsome, striking-looking bird, larger than a
turkey, by a rather good shot at two hundred and thirty
yards.
It was now mid-day, and the heat waves quivered above
the brown plain. The mirage hung in the middle distance,
and beyond it the bold hills rose like mountains from a
lake. In mid-afternoon we stopped at a little pool, to give
the men and horses water; and here Kermit’s horse sud-
denly went dead lame, and we started it back to camp with
a couple of men, while Kermit went forward with us on
foot, as we rode round the base of the first koppies. After
we had gone a mile loud shouts called our attention to one
of the men who had left with the lame horse. He was
running back to tell us that they had just seen a big maned
lion walking along in the open plain toward the body of
a zebra he had killed the night before. Immediately Tarl-
ton and I galloped in the direction indicated, while the
heart-broken Kermit ran after us on foot, so as not to miss
the fun; the gun-bearers and saises stringing out behind
192 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
him. In a few minutes Tarlton pointed out the lion, a
splendid old fellow, a heavy male with a yellow and black
mane; and after him we went. There was no need to go
fast; he was too burly and too savage to run hard, and we
were anxious that our hands should be reasonably steady
when we shot; all told, the horses, galloping and canter-
ing, did not take us two miles.
The lion stopped and lay down behind a bush; jumping
off I took a shot at him at two hundred yards, but only
wounded him slightly in one paw; and after a moment’s
sullen hesitation off he went, lashing his tail. We mounted
our horses and went after him; Tarlton lost sight of him,
but I marked him lying down behind a low grassy ant-hill.
Again we dismounted at a distance of two hundred yards;
Tarlton telling me that now he was sure to charge. In all
East Africa there is no man, not even Cuninghame him-
self, whom I would rather have by me than Tarlton, if in
difficulties with a charging lion; on this occasion, however,
I am glad to say that his rifle was badly sighted, and shot
altogether too low.
Again J knelt and fired; but the mass of hair on the lion
made me think he was nearer than he was, and I undershot,
inflicting a flesh wound that was neither crippling nor
fatal. He was already grunting savagely and tossing his
tail erect, with his head held low; and at the shot the great
sinewy beast came toward us with the speed of a greyhound.
Tarlton then, very properly, fired, for lion hunting is no
child’s play, and it is not good to run risks. Ordinarily it is
a very mean thing to experience joy at a friend’s miss;
but this was not an ordinary case, and I felt keen delight
when the bullet from the badly sighted rifle missed, strik-
Hy
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pi
HUNTING IN THE SOTIK 193
ing the ground many yards short. I was sighting carefully,
from my knee, and I knew I had the lion all right; for
though he galloped at a great pace, he came on steadily—
ears laid back, and uttering terrific coughing grunts—and
there was now no question of making allowance for dis-
tance, nor, as he was out in the open, for the fact that he
had not before been distinctly visible. The bead of my
foresight was exactly on the centre of his chest as I pressed
the trigger, and the bullet went as true as if the place had
been plotted with dividers. The blow brought him up all
standing, and he fell forward on his head. The soft-nosed
Winchester bullet had gone straight through the chest
cavity, smashing the lungs and the big blood-vessels of the
heart. Painfully he recovered his feet, and tried to come
on, his ferocious courage holding out to the last; but he
staggered, and turned from side to side, unable to stand
firmly, still less to advance at a faster pace than a walk.
He had not ten seconds to live; but it is a sound principle
to take no chances with lions. Tarlton hit him with his
second bullet, probably in the shoulder; and with my next
shot I broke his neck. I had stopped him when he was
still a hundred yards away; and certainly no finer sight
could be imagined than that of this great maned lion as he
charged. Kermit gleefully joined us as we walked up to
the body; only one of our followers had been able to keep
up with him on his two-miles run. He had had a fine view
of the charge, from one side, as he ran up, still three hun-
dred yards distant; he could see all the muscles play as the
lion galloped in, and then everything relax as he fell to the
shock of my bullet.
The lion was a big old male, still in his prime. Between
194 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
uprights his length was nine feet four inches, and his weight
four hundred and ten pounds, for he was not fat. We
skinned him and started for camp, which we reached after
dark. There was a thunder-storm in the south-west, and
in the red sunset that burned behind us the rain clouds
turned to many gorgeous hues. Then daylight failed, the
clouds cleared, and, as we made our way across the form-
less plain, the half moon hung high overhead, strange stars
shone in the brilliant heavens, and the Southern Cross lay
radiant above the sky-line.
Our next camp was pitched on a stony plain, by a
winding stream-bed still containing an occasional rush-
fringed pool of muddy water, fouled by the herds and flocks
of the numerous Masai. Game was plentiful around this
camp. We killed what we needed of the common kinds,
and in addition each of us killed a big rhino. The two
rhinos were almost exactly alike, and their horns were of the
so-called “Keitloa” type; the fore horn twenty-two inches
long, the rear over seventeen. The day I killed mine I used
all three of my rifles. We all went out together, as Kermit
was desirous of taking photos of my rhino, if I shot one;
he had not been able to get good ones of his on the previous
day. We also took the small ox wagon, so as to bring into
camp bodily the rhino—if we got it—and one or two zebras,
of which we wanted the flesh for the safari, the skeletons
for the Museum. The night had been cool, but the day
was sunny and hot. At first we rode through a broad val-
ley, bounded by high, scrub-covered hills. The banks
of the dry stream were fringed with deep green acacias, and
here and there in relief against their dark foliage flamed
the orange-red flowers of the tall aloe clumps. With the
thirty eerie Soc
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194 APRICAN GAME TRAILS
uprights tsis engl ees mine feet four inches, and his weight -
four hwelee’ ee ten pounds, for he was not fat. a
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Our next camp was pitched on a stony plain, by a
winding stream-bed still containing an occasional rush-
fringed pool of muddy water, fouled by the herds and flocks -
of the numerous Masai. Game was plentiful around this
camp. We killed what we needed of the common kinds,
and in addition each of us killed a big rhino. The two
rhinos were almost exactly alike, and their horns were of the
so-called ‘‘Keitloa” type; the fore horn twenty-two inches
long, the rear over seventeen. The day I killed mine I used
all three of my rifles. We all went out together, as Kermit
was desirous of taking photos of my rhino, if I shot one;
he had not been able to get good ones of his on the previous
day. We also took the small ox wagon, so as to bring into
camp bodily the rhino—if we got it—and one or two zebras,
of which we wanted the flesh for the safari, the skeletons
for the Museum. The night had been cool, but the day —
was sunny and hot. At first we rode through a broad val-
of the dry stream were fringed with deep green sbagees 2
the orange-red flowers of the tall aloe clumps. With the
A bae
HUNTING IN THE SOTIK 195
Springfield I shot a steinbuck and a lesser bustard. Then
we came out on the vast rolling brown plains. With the
Winchester I shot two zebra stallions, missing each stand-
ing, at long range, and then killing them as they ran; one
after a two-miles hard gallop, on my brown pony, which
had a good turn of speed. I killed a third zebra stallion
with my Springfield, again missing it standing and killing
it running. In mid-afternoon we spied our rhino, and
getting near saw that it had good horns. It was in the
middle of the absolutely bare plain, and we walked straight
up to the dull-sighted, dull-witted beast; Kermit with his
camera, I with the Holland double-barrel. The tick-birds
warned it, but it did not make us out until we were well
within a hundred yards, when it trotted toward us, head
and tail up. At sixty yards I put the heavy bullet straight
into its chest, and knocked it flat with the blow; as it tried
to struggle to its feet I again knocked it flat, with the left-
hand barrel; but it needed two more bullets before it died,
screaming like an engine whistle. Before I fired my last
shot I had walked up directly beside the rhino; and just
then Tarlton pointed me out a greater bustard, stalking
along with unmoved composure at a distance of a hun-
dred and fifty yards; I took the Springfield, and kneeling
down beside the rhino’s hind quarters I knocked over
the bustard, and then killed the rhino. We rode into camp
by moonlight. Both these rhinos had their stomachs filled
with the closely chewed leaves and twig tips of short brush
mixed with grass—rather thick-stemmed grass—and in
one case with the pulpy, spiny leaves of a low, ground-
creeping euphorbia. ;
At this camp we killed five poisonous snakes: a light-
196 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
colored tree snake, two puff adders, and two seven-foot
cobras. One of the latter three times “spat” or ejected its
poison at us, the poison coming out from the fangs like white
films or threads, to a distance of several feet. A few years
ago the singular power of this snake, and perhaps of certain
other African species, thus to eject the poison at the face of
an assailant was denied by scientists; but it is now well
known. Selous had already told me of an instance which
came under his own observation; and Tarlton had once been
struck in the eyes and for the moment nearly blinded by the
poison. He found that to wash the eyes with milk was of
much relief. On the bigger puff adder, some four feet long,
were a dozen ticks, some swollen to the size of cherries; ap-
parently they were disregarded by their sluggish and deadly
host. Heller trapped some jackals, of two species; and two
striped hyenas, the first we had seen; apparently more timid
and less noisy beasts than their bigger spotted brothers.
One day Kermit had our first characteristic experience
with a honey bird; a smallish bird, with its beak like a gros-
beak’s and its toes like a wood-pecker’s, whose extraordinary
habits as a honey guide are known to all the natives of Africa
throughout its range. Kermit had killed an eland bull, and
while he was resting, his gun-bearers drew his attention to
the calling of the honey bird in a tree near by. He got up,
and as he approached the bird, it flew to another tree in front
and again began its twitter. This was repeated again and
again as Kermit walked after it. Finally the bird darted
round behind his followers, in the direction from which they
had come; and for a moment they thought it had played them
false. But immediately afterward they saw that it had merely
overshot its mark, and had now flown back a few rods to
Nag ae
Re Pil a
HUNTING IN THE SOTIK 197
the honey tree, round which it was flitting, occasionally
twittering. When they came toward the tree it perched ©
silent and motionless in another, and thus continued while
they took some honey—a risky business, as the bees were
vicious. They did not observe what the bird then did;
but Cuninghame told me that in one instance where a
honey bird led him to honey he carefully watched it and
saw it picking up either bits of honey and comb, or else,
more probably, the bee grubs out of the comb, he could
not be certain which.
To my mind no more interesting incident occurred at
this camp.
CHAPTER IX
TO LAKE NAIVASHA
From this camp we turned north toward Lake Nai-
vasha.
The Sotik country through which we had hunted was
sorely stricken by drought. The grass was short and with-
ered and most of the waterholes were drying up, while
both the game and the flocks and herds of the nomad Masai
gathered round the watercourses in which there were still
occasional muddy pools, and grazed their neighborhood
bare of pasturage. It was an unceasing pleasure to watch
the ways of the game and to study their varying habits.
Where there was a river from which to drink, or where there
were many pools, the different kinds of buck, and the zebra,
often showed comparatively little timidity about drinking,
and came boldly down to the water’s edge, sometimes in
broad daylight, sometimes in darkness; although even
under those conditions they were very cautious if there was
cover at the drinking place. But where the pools were few
they never approached one without feeling panic dread of
their great enemy the lion, who, they knew well, might be
lurking around their drinking place. At sucha pool I once
saw a herd of zebras come to water at nightfall. ‘They stood
motionless some distance off; then they slowly approached,
and twice on false alarms wheeled and fled at speed; at last
the leaders ventured to the brink of the pool and at once the
198
Vo Se a
TO LAKE NAIVASHA 199
whole herd came jostling and crowding in behind them, the
water gurgling down their thirsty throats; and immediately
afterward off they went at a gallop, stopping to graze some
hundreds of yards away. The ceaseless dread of the lion
felt by all but the heaviest game is amply justified by his
ravages among them. They are always in peril from him
at the drinking places; yet in my experience I found that
in the great majority of cases they were killed while feeding
or resting far from water, the lion getting them far more
often by stalking than by lying in wait. A lion will eat a
zebra (beginning at the hind quarters, by the way, and some-
times having, and sometimes not having, previously disem-
bowelled the animal), or one of the bigger buck at least once
a week—perhaps once every five days. The dozen lions we
had killed would probably, if left alive, have accounted for
seven or eight hundred buck, pig, and zebra within the next
year. Our hunting was a net advantage to the harmless
game.
The zebras were the noisiest of the game. After them
came the wildebeest, which often uttered their queer grunt;
sometimes a herd would stand and grunt at me for some
minutes as I passed, a few hundred yards distant. The
topi uttered only a kind of sneeze, and the hartebeest a
somewhat similar sound. The so-called Roberts’ gazelle
was merely the Grant’s gazelle of the Athi, with the lyrate
shape of the horns tending to be carried to an extreme
of spread and backward bend. The tommy bucks carried
good horns; the horns of the does were usually aborted,
and were never more than four or five inches long. The
. most notable feature about the tommies was the incessant
switching of their tails, as if jerked by electricity. In the
200 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
Sotik the topis all seemed to have calves of about the same
age, as if born from four to six months earlier; the young
of the other game were of every age. The males of all the
antelope fought much among themselves. The gazelle
bucks of both species would face one another, their heads
between the forelegs and the horns level with the ground,
and each would punch his opponent until the hair flew.
Watching the game, one was struck by the intensity and
the evanescence of their emotions. Civilized man now
usually passes his life under conditions which eliminate
the intensity of terror felt by his ancestors when death by
violence was their normal end, and threatened them during
every hour of the day and night. It is only in nightmares
that the average dweller in civilized countries now under-
goes the hideous horror which was the regular and frequent
portion of his ages-vanished forefathers, and which is still
an everyday incident in the lives of most wild creatures.
But the dread is short-lived, and its horror vanishes with
instantaneous rapidity. In these wilds the game dreaded
the lion and the other flesh-eating beasts rather than man.
We saw innumerable kills of all the buck, and of zebra,
the neck being usually dislocated, and it being evident that
none of the lion’s victims, not even the truculent wilde-
beest or huge eland, had been able to make any fight against
him. The game is ever on the alert against this greatest of
foes, and every herd, almost every individual, is in immi-
nent and deadly peril every few days or nights, and of course
suffers in addition from countless false alarms. But no
sooner is the danger over than the animals resume their
feeding, or love making, or their fighting among themselves.
Two bucks will do battle the minute the herd has stopped
TO LAKE NAIVASHA 201
running from the foe that has seized one of its number, and
a buck will cover a doe in the brief interval between the -
first and the second alarm, from hunter or lion. Zebra
will make much noise when one of their number has been
killed; but their fright has vanished when once they be-
gin their barking calls.
Death by violence, death by cold, death by starvation—
these are the normal endings of the stately and beautiful
creatures of the wilderness. The sentimentalists who prattle
about the peaceful life of nature do not realize its utter
mercilessness; although all they would have to do would
be to look at the birds in the winter woods, or even at the
insects on a cold morning or cold evening. Life is hard
and cruel for all the lower creatures, and for man also
in what the sentimentalists call a “‘state of nature.” The
savage of to-day shows us what the fancied age of gold of
our ancestors was really like; it was an age when hunger,
cold, violence, and iron cruelty were the ordinary accom-
paniments of life. If Matthew Arnold, when he expressed
the wish to know the thoughts of Earth’s “vigorous, primi-
tive” tribes of the past, had really desired an answer to his
question, he would have done well to visit the homes of the
existing representatives of his “vigorous, primitive” ances-
tors, and to watch them feasting on blood and guts; while
as for the “‘pellucid and pure” feelings of his imaginary
primitive maiden, they were those of any meek, cowlike
creature who accepted marriage by purchase or of con-
venience, as a matter of course.
It was to me a perpetual source of wonderment to
notice the difference in the behavior of different individuals
of the same species, and in the behavior of the same in-
202 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
dividual at different times; as, for example, in the matter
of wariness, of the times for going to water, of the times
for resting, and, as regards dangerous game, in the matter
of ferocity. Their very looks changed. At one moment
the sun would turn the zebras of a mixed herd white, and
the hartebeest straw colored, so that the former could be
seen much farther off than the latter; and again the con-
ditions would be reversed when under the light the zebras
would show up gray, and the hartebeest as red as foxes.
I had now killed almost all the specimens of the com-
mon game that the museum needed. However, we kept
the skin or skeleton of whatever we shot for meat. Now
and then, after a good stalk, I would get a boar with un- :
usually fine tusks, a big gazelle with unusually long and ‘
graceful horns, or a fine old wildebeest bull, its horns thick f
and battered, its knees bare and calloused from its habit
of going down on them when fighting or threatening fight.
On our march northward, we first made a long day’s
journey to what was called a salt marsh. An hour or two
after starting we had a characteristic experience with a
rhino. It was a bull, with poor horns, standing in a plain
which was dotted by a few straggling thorn-trees and wild
olives. The safari’s course would have taken it to windward
of the rhino, which then might have charged in sheer irrit-
able bewilderment; so we turned off at right angles. The
long line of porters passed him two hundred yards away,
while we gun men stood between with our rifles ready;
except Kermit, who was busy taking photos. The rhino
saw us, but apparently indistinctly. He made little dashes
to and fro, and finally stood looking at us, with his big
ears cocked forward; but he did nothing more, and we left
TO LAKE NAIVASHA 203
him standing, plunged in meditation—probably it would be
more accurate to say, thinking of absolutely nothing, as if he .
had been a huge turtle. After leaving him we also passed
by files of zebra and topi who gazed at us, intent and
curious, within two hundred yards, until we had gone by
and the danger was over; whereupon they fled in fright.
The so-called salt marsh consisted of a dry watercourse,
with here and there a deep muddy pool. ‘The ground .
was impregnated with some saline substance, and the
game licked it, as well as coming to water. Our camp
was near two reedy pools, in which there were big yellow-
billed ducks, while queer brown herons, the hammerhead,
had built big nests of sticks in the tall acacias. Bush cuckoos
gurgled in the underbrush by night and day. Brilliant roll-
ers flitted through the trees. There was much sweet bird
music in the morning. Funny little elephant shrews with
long snouts, and pretty zebra mice, evidently of diurnal
habit, scampered among the bushes or scuttled into their
burrows. { Tiny dikdiks, antelopes no bigger than hares,
with swollén muzzles, and their little horns half hidden by
tufts of hair, ran like rabbits through the grass; the females
were at least as large as the males. (Another seven-foot
cobra was killed. ) There were brilliant masses of the red
aloe flowers, and of yellow-blossomed vines. Around the
pools the ground was bare, and the game trails leading to
the water were deeply rutted by the hooves of the wild
creatures that had travelled them for countless generations.
The day after reaching this camp, Cuninghame and
I hunted on the plains. Before noon we made out with our
glasses two rhino lying down, a mile off. As usual with
these sluggish creatures we made our preparations in
204 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
leisurely style, and with scant regard to the animal itself.
Moreover we did not intend to kill any rhino unless its
horns were out of the common. I first stalked and shot a
buck Roberts’ gazelle with a good head. Then we off-sad-
dled the horses and sat down to lunch under a huge thorn-
tree, which stood by itself, lonely and beautiful, and offered
a shelter from the blazing sun. The game was grazing
on every side; and I kept thinking of all the life of the
wilderness, and of its many tragedies, which the great tree
must have witnessed during the centuries since it was a
seedling.
Lunch over, I looked to the loading of the heavy rifle,
and we started toward the rhinos, well to leeward. But
the wind shifted every which way; and suddenly my gun-
bearers called my attention to the rhinos, a quarter of a
mile off, saying, “He charging, he charging.” Sure enough,
they had caught our wind, and were rushing toward us. I
jumped off the horse and studied the oncoming beasts
through my field-glass; but head on it was hard to tell
about the horns. However, the wind shifted again, and
when two hundred yards off they lost our scent, and turned
to one side, tails in the air, heads tossing, evidently much
wrought up. They were a large cow and a young heifer,
nearly two-thirds grown. As they trotted sideways I could
see the cow’s horns, and her doom was sealed; for they were
of good length, and the hind one (it proved to be two feet
long) was slightly longer than the stouter front one; it was
a specimen which the museum needed.
So after them we trudged over the brown plain. But
they were uneasy, and kept trotting and walking. They
never saw us with their dull eyes; but a herd of wildebeest
ee ae
TO LAKE NAIVASHA 205
galloping by renewed their alarm; it was curious to see
them sweeping the ground with their long, ugly heads, en-
deavoring to catch the scent. A mile’s rapid walk brought
us within two hundred yards, and we dared not risk the
effort for a closer approach lest they should break and run.
The cow turned broadside to, and I hit her behind the
shoulder; but I was not familiar with the heavy Holland
rifle at that range, and my bullet went rather too low. I
think the wound would eventually have proved fatal; but
both beasts went off at a gallop, the cow now and then
turning from side to side in high dudgeon, trying to catch
the wind of her foe. We mounted our horses, and after a
couple of miles’ canter overhauled our quarry. Cuning-
hame took me well to leeward, and ahead, of the rhinos,
which never saw us; and then we walked to within a hun-
dred yards, and I killed the cow. But we were now much
puzzled by the young one, which refused to leave; we did
not wish to kill it, for it was big enough to shift for itself; but
it was also big enough to kill either of us. We drew back,
hoping it would go away; but it did not. So when the gun-
bearers arrived we advanced and tried to frighten it; but
this plan also failed. It threatened to charge, but could not
quite make up its mind. Watching my chance I then creased
its stern with a bullet from the little Springfield, and after
some wild circular galloping it finally decided to leave.
Kermit, about this time, killed a heavy boar from horse-
back after a three-miles run. The boar charged twice,
causing the horse to buck and shy. Finally, just as he was
going into his burrow backward, Kermit raced by and shot
him, firing his rifle from the saddle after the manner of the
old-time Western buffalo runners.
206 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
We now rejoined Mearns and Loring on the banks
of the Guaso Nyero. They had collected hundreds of birds
and small mammals, among them several new species. We
had already heard that a Mr. Williams, whom we had met
at McMillan’s ranch, had been rather badly mauled by a
lion, which he had mortally wounded, but which managed
to charge home. Now we found that Dr. Mearns had been
quite busily engaged in attending to cases of men who
were hurt by lions. Loring nearly got in the category. He
killed his lioness with a light automatic rifle, utterly unfit
for use against African game. Though he actually put a
bullet right through the beast’s heart, the shock from the
blow was so slight that she was not stopped even for a sec-
ond; he hit her four times in all, each shot being mortal—
for he was an excellent marksman,—and she died nearly
at his feet, her charge carrying her several yards by him.
Mearns had galloped into a herd of wildebeest and killed
the big bull of the herd, after first running clean through
a mob of zebras, which, as he passed, skinned their long
yellow teeth threateningly at him, but made no attempt
actually to attack him.
A settler had come down to trade with the Masai during
our absence. He ran into a large party of lions, killed two,
and wounded a lioness which escaped after mauling one
of his gun-bearers. The gun-bearer rode into camp, and
the Doctor treated his wounds. Next day Mearns was
summoned to a Masai kraal sixteen miles off to treat the
wounds of two of the Masai; it appeared that a body of
them had followed and killed the wounded lioness, but that
two of their number had been much maltreated in the fight.
One, especially, had been fearfully bitten, the lioness hav-
TO LAKE NAIVASHA 207
ing pulled the flesh loose from the bones with her fixed
teeth. The Doctor attended to all three cases. The gun- |
bearer recovered; both the Masai died, although the Doc-
tor did all in his power for the two gallant fellows. ‘Their
deaths did not hinder the Masai from sending to him all
kinds of cases in which men or boys had met with accidents.
He attended to them all, and gained a high reputation with
the tribe; when the case was serious the patient’s kinsfolk
would usually present him with a sheep or war-spear, or
something else of value. He took a great fancy to the
Masai, as indeed all of us did. They are a fine, manly set
of savages, bold and independent in their bearing. They
never eat vegetables, subsisting exclusively on milk, blood,
and flesh; and are remarkably hardy and enduring.
Kermit found a cave which had recently been the abode ”
of a party of *Ndorobo, the wild hunter-savages of the
wilderness, who are more primitive in their ways of life
than any other tribes of this region. They live on honey
and the flesh of the wild beasts they kill; they are naked,
with few and rude arms and utensils; and, in short, carry
on existence as our own ancestors did at a very early period
of palzolithic time. Around this cave were many bones.
Within it were beds of grass, and a small roofed enclosure of
thorn-bushes for the dogs. Fire sticks had been left on the
walls, to be ready when the owners’ wanderings again
brought them back to the cave; and also very curious soup
sticks, each a rod with one of the vertebra of some animal —
stuck on the end, designed for use in stirring their boiled
meat.
From our camp on the Guaso Nyero we trekked in a
little over four days to a point on Lake Naivasha where we
208 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
intended to spend some time. The first two days were
easy travelling, the porters not being pressed and there
being plenty of time in the afternoons to pitch camp com-
fortably; then the wagons left us with their loads of hides
and skeletons and spare baggage. The third day we rose long
before dawn, breakfasted, broke camp, and were off just
at sunrise. There was no path; at one time we followed
game trails, at another the trails made by the Masai sheep
and cattle, and again we might make our own trail. We
had two Masai guides, tireless runners, as graceful and
sinewy as panthers; they helped us; but Cuninghame
had to do most of the pathfinding himself. It was a diffi-
cult country, passable only at certain points, which it was
hard to place with exactness. We had seen that each porter
had his water bottle full before starting; but, though will-
ing, good-humored fellows, strong as bulls, in forethought
they are of the grasshopper type; and all but a few ex-
hausted their supply by mid-afternoon. At this time we
were among bold mountain ridges, and here we struck
the kraal of some Masai, who watered their cattle at some
spring pools, three miles to one side, up a valley. It was too
far for the heavily laden porters; but we cantered our horses
thither and let them drink their fill; and then cantered along
the trail left by the safari until we overtook the rear men just
as they were going over the brink of the Mau escarpment.
The scenery was wild and beautiful; in the open places
the ground was starred with flowers of many colors; we
rode under vine-tangled archways through forests of strange
trees.
‘Down the steep mountain side went the safari, and at
its foot struck off nearly parallel to the high ridge. On our
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TO LAKE NAIVASHA 209
left the tree-clad mountain side hung above us; ravines,
with mimosas clustering in them, sundered the foot-hills, -
and wound until they joined into what looked like rivers;
the thick grass grew waist high. It looked like a well-
watered country; but it was of porous, volcanic nature, and
the soil was a sieve. After nightfall we came to where we
hoped to find water; but there was not a drop in the dried
pools; and we had to make a waterless camp. A drizzling
rain had set in, enough to wet everything, but not enough
to give any water for drinking. It was eight o’clock before
the last of the weary, thirsty burden-carriers stumbled
through the black, bowlder-strewn ravine on whose farther
side we were camped, and threw down his load among his
fellows, who were already clustered around the little fires
they had started in the tall grass. We slept as we were, and
comfortably enough; indeed, there was no hardship for
us white men, with our heavy overcoats, and our food and
water—which we shared with our personal attendants;
but I was uneasy for the porters, as there was another long
and exhausting day’s march ahead. Before sunrise we
started; and four hours later, in the bottom of a deep
ravine, Cuninghame found a pool of green water in a
scooped-out cavity in the rock. It was a pleasant sight
to see the thirsty porters drink. Then they sat down, built
fires and boiled their food; and went on in good heart.
Two or three times we crossed singularly beautiful
ravines, the trail winding through narrow clefts that were
almost tunnels, and along the brinks of sheer cliffs, while
the green mat of trees and vines was spangled with many
colored flowers. Then we came to barren ridges and bare,
dusty plains; and at nightfall pitched camp near the shores
210 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
of Lake Naivasha. It is a lovely sheet of water, surrounded
by hills and mountains, the shores broken by rocky prom-
ontories, and indented by papyrus-fringed bays. Next
morning we shifted camp four miles to a place on the farm,
and near the house, of the Messrs. Attenborough, settlers
on the shores of the lake, who treated us with the most
generous courtesy and hospitality—as, indeed, did all the
settlers we met. They were two brothers; one had lived
twenty years on the Pacific Coast, mining in the Sierras,
and the other had just retired from the British navy, with
the rank of commander; they were able to turn their hands
to anything, and were just the men for work in a new coun-
try—for a new country is a poor place for the weak and in-
competent, whether of body or mind. ‘They had a steam
launch and a big heavy row-boat, and they most kindly
and generously put both at our disposal for hippo hunting.
At this camp I presented the porters with twenty-five
sheep, as a recognition of their good conduct and hard work;
whereupon they improvised long chants in my honor, and
feasted royally.
We spent one entire day with the row-boat in a series
of lagoons near camp, which marked an inlet of the lake.
We did not get any hippo, but it was a most interesting
day. A broad belt of papyrus fringed the lagoons and
jutted out between them. The straight green stalks with
their feathery heads rose high and close, forming a mass so
dense that it was practically impenetrable save where the
huge bulk of the hippos had made tunnels. Indeed, even
for the hippos it was not readily penetrable. The green
monotony of a papyrus swamp becomes wearisome after a
while; yet it is very beautiful, for each reed is tall, slender,
TO LAKE NAIVASHA 211
graceful, with its pale flowering crown; and they are typ-
ical of the tropics, and their mere sight suggests a vertical
sun and hot, steaming swamps, where great marsh beasts
feed and wallow and bellow, amidst a teeming reptilian life.
A fringe of papyrus here and there adds much to the beauty
of a lake, and also to the beauty of the river pools, where
clumps of them grow under the shade of the vine-tangled
tropical trees.
The open waters of the lagoons were covered with water-
lilies, bearing purple or sometimes pink flowers. Across the
broad lily pads ran the curious “lily trotters,” or jacanas,
richly colored birds, with toes so long and slender that the
lily pads support them without sinking. They were not
shy, and their varied coloring—a bright chestnut being
the most conspicuous hue—and singular habits made them
very conspicuous. There was a wealth of bird life in the
lagoons. Small gulls, somewhat like our black-headed
gull, but with their hoods gray, flew screaming around us,
Black and white kingfishers, tiny red-billed kingfishers, with
colors so brilliant that they flashed like jewels in the sun, and
brilliant green bee-eaters with chestnut breasts perched
among the reeds. Spur-winged plover clamored as they
circled overhead near the edges of the water. Little rails and
red-legged water hens threaded the edges of the papyrus,
and grebes dived in the open water. A giant heron, the Go-
liath, flew up at our approach; and there were many smaller
herons and egrets, white or parti-colored. There were small,
dark cormorants, and larger ones with white throats; and
African ruddy ducks, and teal and big yellow-billed ducks,
somewhat like mallards. Among the many kinds of ducks
was one which made a whistling noise with its wings as
212 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
it flew. Most plentiful of all were the coots, much resem-
bling our common bald-pate coot, but with a pair of horns
or papille at the hinder end of the bare frontal space.
There were a number of hippo in these lagoons. One
afternoon after four o’clock I saw two standing half out of
water in a shallow, eating the water-lilies. They seemed
to spend the fore part of the day sleeping or resting in the
papyrus or near its edge; toward evening they splashed
and waded among the water-lilies, tearing them up with
their huge jaws; and during the night they came ashore
to feed on the grass and land plants. In consequence those
killed during the day, until the late afternoon, had their
stomachs filled, not with water plants, but with grasses
which they must have obtained in their night journeys on
dry land. At night I heard the bulls bellowing and roar-
ing. They fight savagely among themselves, and where
they are not molested, and the natives are timid, they
not only do great damage to the gardens and crops, tram-
pling them down and shovelling basketfuls into their huge
mouths, but also become dangerous to human beings, at-
tacking boats or canoes in a spirit of wanton and ferocious
mischief. At this place, a few weeks before our arrival, a
young bull, badly scarred, and evidently having been mis-
handled by some bigger bull, came ashore in the daytime
and actually attacked the cattle, and was promptly shot
in consequence. They are astonishingly quick in their
movements for such shapeless-looking, short-legged things.
Of course they cannot swim in deep water with anything
like the speed of the real swimming mammals, nor move
on shore with the agility and speed of the true denizens of
the land; nevertheless, by sheer muscular power and in
RE ELE ET
What one has to shoot at when after hippo on water
g open-mouthed
Db
Ir. Roosevelt’s hippo chargin
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ll
Kern
hy
From photographs
TO LAKE NAIVASHA 213
spite of their shape, they move at an unexpected rate of
speed both on dry land and in deep water; and in shallow
water, their true home, they gallop very fast on the bot-
tom, under water. Ordinarily only their heads can be seen,
and they must be shot in the brain. If they are found in
a pool with little cover, and if the shots can be taken close
by, from firm ground, there is no sport whatever in killing
them. But the brain is small and the skull huge, and if
they are any distance off, and especially if the shot has to
be taken from an unsteady boat, there is ample oppor-
tunity to miss.
On the day we spent with the big row-boat in the lagoons
both Kermit and I had shots; each of us hit, but neither
of us got his game. My shot was at the head of a hippo
facing me in a bay about a hundred yards off, so that I had
to try to shoot very low between the eyes; the water was
smooth, and I braced my legs well and fired off-hand. I
hit him, but was confident that I had missed the brain, for
he lifted slightly, and then went under, nose last; and
when a hippo is shot in the brain the head usually goes —
under nose first. An exasperating feature of hippo shoot-
ing is that, save in exceptional circumstances, where the
water is very shallow, the animal sinks at once when killed
outright, and does not float for one or two or three hours;
so that one has to wait that length of time before finding
out whether the game has or has not been bagged. On
this occasion we never saw a sign of the animal after I
fired, and as it seemed impossible that in that situation the Vf
hippo could get off unobserved, my companions thought I /
had killed him; I thought not, and unfortunately my judg-
ment proved to be correct.
214 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
Another day, in the launch, I did much the same thing.
Again the hippo was a long distance off, only his head
" appearing, but unfortunately not in profile, much the best
position for a shot; again I hit him; again he sank and,
look as hard as we could, not a sign of him appeared, so
that every one was sure he was dead; and again no body
ever floated. But on this day Kermit got his hippo. He
hit it first in the head, merely a flesh wound; but the startled
creature then rose high in the water and he shot it in the
lungs. It now found difficulty in staying under, and con-
tinually rose to the surface with a plunge like a porpoise,
going as fast as it could toward the papyrus. After it we
went, full speed, for once in the papyrus we could not have
followed it; and Kermit finally killed it, just before it
reached the edge of the swamp, and, luckily, where the
water was so shallow that we did not have to wait for it to
float, but fastened a rope to two of its turtle-like legs, and
towed it back forthwith.
There were otters in the lake. One day we saw two
playing together near the shore; and at first we were all
of us certain that it was some big water snake. It was not
until we were very close that we made out the supposed
one big snake to be two otters; it was rather interesting,
as giving one of the explanations of the stories that always
appear about large water snakes, or similar monsters, ex-
isting in almost every lake of any size in a wild country.
On another day I shot another near shore; he turned over
and over, splashing and tumbling; but just as we were
about to grasp him, he partially recovered and dived to
safety in the reeds.
On the second day we went out in the launch I got
ee
—— ee ee
TO LAKE NAIVASHA 215
my hippo. We steamed down the lake, not far from the
shore, for over ten miles, dragging the big, clumsy row-
boat, in which Cuninghame had put three of our porters
who knew how to row. Then we spied a big hippo walk-
ing entirely out of water on the edge of the papyrus, at the
farther end of a little bay which was filled with water-
lilies. Thither we steamed, and when a few rods from
the bay, Cuninghame, Kermit, and I got into the row-boat;
Cuninghame steered, Kermit carried his camera, and I
steadied myself in the bow with the little Springfield rifle.
The hippo was a self-confident, truculent beast; it went
under water once or twice, but again came out to the papy-
rus and waded along the edge, its body out of water. We
headed toward it, and thrust the boat in among the water-
lilies, finding that the bay was shallow, from three to six
feet deep. While still over a hundred yards from the
hippo, I saw it turn as if to break into the papyrus, and at
once fired into its shoulder, the tiny pointed bullet smash-
ing the big bones. Round spun the great beast, plunged
into the water, and with its huge jaws open came straight
for the boat, floundering and splashing through the thick-
growing water-lilies. I think that its chief object was to
get to deep water; but we were between it and the deep
water, and instead of trying to pass to one side it charged
straight for the boat, with open jaws, bent on mischief.
But I hit it again and again with the little sharp-pointed
bullet. Once I struck it between neck and shoulder; once,
as it rushed forward with its huge jaws stretched to their
threatening utmost, I fired right between them, whereat
it closed them with the clash of a sprung bear trap; and
then, when under the punishment it swerved for a mo-
216 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
ment, I hit it at the base of the ear, a brain shot which
dropped it in its tracks. Meanwhile Kermit was busily tak-
ing photos of it as it charged, and, as he mentioned after-
ward, until it was dead he never saw it except in the “find-
er” of his camera. The water was so shallow where I had
killed the hippo that its body projected slightly above the
surface. It was the hardest kind of work getting it out from
among the water-lilies; then we towed it to camp behind
the launch.
The engineer of the launch was an Indian Moslem.
The fireman and the steersman were two half-naked and
much-ornamented Kikuyus. The fireman wore a blue bead
chain on one ankle, a brass armlet on the opposite arm,
a belt of short steel chains, a dingy blanket (no loin cloth),
and a skull cap surmounted by a plume of ostrich feathers.
The two Kikuyus were unconsciously entertaining com-
panions. Without any warning they would suddenly start
a song or chant, usually an impromptu recitative of what-
ever at the moment interested them. They chanted for
half an hour over the feat of the “ B’wana Makuba” (great
master or chief, my name) in killing the hippo; laying
especial stress upon the quantity of excellent meat it would
furnish, and how very good the eating would be. Usually
one would improvise the chant, and the other join in the
chorus. Sometimes they would solemnly sing compli-
mentary songs to one another, each in turn chanting the
manifold good qualities of his companion.
Around this camp were many birds. The most note-
worthy was a handsome gray eagle « owl, bigger than our
great horned owl, to which it is closely akin. It did not
Seana ratte ee
hoot or scream, its voice being a kind of grunt, followed in
ijanasooy “apy fq paysruan{ suotgisosap most pun sydosBojoyg worl ummpoory ‘y dywygq «q unosq
yoryostu uo yuaq ‘smel uado yy ‘yeoq a4} 103 }yBreays paBseyD
PAtanw A Pyspsh KH Googe lous HyporoBrahy2 aq lrowt qezcaghysowz sswmaszpweq PA PLA" Boorsnets
216 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
ment, I hit it at the base of the ear, a brain shot which
dropped it in its tracks. Meanwhile Kermit was busily tak-
ing photos of it as it charged, and, as he mentioned after-
ii 3 tintil it was dead he never saw it except in the “find-
” of his camera. The water was so shallow where I had
killed the hippo that its body projected slightly above the ©
surface. It was the hardest kind of work getting it out from
among the water-lilies; then we towed it to camp behind
the launch.
The engineer of the launch was an Indian Moslem.
athe fireman and the steersman were two half-naked and
much-ornamented Kikuyus. The fireman wore a blue bead
hain on one ankle, a brass armlet on the opposite arm,
‘a belt of short steel chains, a dingy blanket (no loin cloth),
nd a skull cap surmounted by a plume of ostrich feathers.
The two Kikuyus were unconsciously entertaining com-
anions. Without any warning they would suddenly start
a song or chant, usually an impromptu recitative of what-
ver at the moment interested them. They chanted for
half an hour over the feat of the “B’wana Makuba” (great
‘master or chief, my name) in killing the hippo; laying
especial stress upon the quantity of excellent meat it would
furnish, and how very good the eating would be. Usually
one would improvise the chant, and the other join in the
chorus. Sometimes they would solemnly sing compli-
mentary songs to one another, each in turn chanting the
manifold good qualities of his companion.
Around this camp were many birds. The most note-
worthy was a handsome
great horned owl, to which it is closely akin. It did not
a aieaealeiett
oot OF scream, its voice being a kind of grunt, followed in
ov Wi
TO LAKE NAIVASHA 217
a second or two by a succession of similar sounds, uttered
more quickly and in a lower tone. These big owls fre-
quently came round camp after dark, and at first their
notes completely puzzled me, as I thought they must be
made by some beast. The bulbuls sang well. Most of
the birds were in no way like our home birds.
Loring trapped quantities of mice and rats, and it was
curious to see how many of them had acquired characters
which caused them superficially to resemble American
animals with which they had no real kinship. The sand
rats that burrowed in the dry plains were in shape, in color,
eyes, tail, and paws strikingly like our pocket gophers,
which have similar habits. So the long-tailed gerbilles,
or gerbille-like rats, resembled our kangaroo rats; and
there was a blunt-nosed, stubby-tailed little rat superficially
hardly to be told from our rice rat. But the most charac-
teristic rodent, the big long-tailed, jumping springhaas, re-
sembled nothing of ours; and there were tree rats and
spiny mice. There were gray monkeys in the trees around
camp, which the naturalists shot.
Heller trapped various beasts; beautifully marked
genets, and a big white-tailed mongoose which was very
savage. But his most remarkable catch was a leopard. He
had set a steel trap, fastened to a loose thorn-branch, for
mongoose, civets, or jackals; it was a number two Blake,
such as in America we use for coons, skunks, foxes, and
perhaps bobcats and coyotes. In the morning he found
it gone, and followed the trail of the thorn-branch until
it led into a dense thicket, from which issued an ominous
growl. His native boy shouted “simba”; but it was a
leopard, not a lion. He could not see into the thicket; so
218 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
he sent back to camp for his rifle, and when it came he
climbed a tree and endeavored to catch a glimpse of the
animal. He could see nothing, however; and finally fired
into the thicket rather at random. The answer was a fu-
rious growl, and the leopard charged out to the foot of the
tree, much hampered by the big thorn-branch. He put a
bullet into it, and back it went, only to come out and to
receive another bullet; and he killed it. It was an old male,
in good condition, weighing one hundred and twenty-six
pounds. ‘The trap was not big enough to contain his whole
paw, and he had been caught firmly by one toe. The
thorn-bush acted as a drag, which prevented him from
going far, and yet always yielded somewhat when he pulled.
A bear thus caught would have chewed up the trap or else
pulled his foot loose, even at the cost of sacrificing the toe;
but the cats are more sensitive to pain. This leopard was
smaller than any full-grown male cougar I have ever killed,
and yet cougars often kill game rather heavier than leopards
usually venture upon; yet very few cougars indeed would
show anything like the pluck and ferocity shown by this
leopard, and characteristic of its kind.
Kermit killed a waterbuck of a kind new to us, the
singsing. He also killed two porcupines and two baboons.
The porcupines are terrestrial animals, living in burrows
to which they keep during the daytime. They are much
heavier than, and in all their ways totally different from,
our sluggish tree porcupines. The baboons were numerous
around this camp, living both among the rocks and in the
tree tops. They are hideous creatures. They ravage
the crops and tear open new-born lambs to get at the milk
inside them; and where the natives are timid and unable
TO LAKE NAIVASHA 219
to harm them, they become wantonly savage and aggres-
sive and attack and even kill women and children. In |
Uganda, Cuninghame had once been asked by a native
chief to come to his village and shoot the baboons, as they
had just killed two women, badly bitten several children,
and caused such a reign of terror that the village would be
abandoned if they were not killed or intimidated. He him-
self saw the torn and mutilated bodies of the dead women;
and he stayed in the village a week, shooting so many ba-
boons that the remainder were thoroughly cowed. Baboons
and boars are the most formidable of all foes to the dogs
that hunt them—just as leopards are of all wild animals
those most apt to prey on dogs. A baboon’s teeth and
hands are far more formidable weapons than those of any
dog, and only a very few wholly exceptional dogs of huge
size, and great courage and intelligence, can, single-handed,
contend with an old male. But we saw a settler whose three
big terriers could themselves kill a full-grown wart-hog boar;
an almost unheard-of feat. They backed up one another
with equal courage and adroitness, their aim being for
two to seize the hind legs; then the third, watching his
chance, would get one foreleg, when the boar was speedily
thrown, and when weakened, killed by bites in his stomach.
Hitherto we had not obtained a bull hippo, and I made
up my mind to devote myself to getting one, as otherwise
the group for the museum would be incomplete. Save in
exceptional cases I do not think hippo hunting, after the
first one has been obtained, a very attractive sport, because
usually one has to wait an hour before it is possible to tell
whether or not a shot has been successful, and also be-
cause, a portion of the head being all that is usually visible,
220 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
it is exceedingly difficult to say whether the animal seen
is a bull or a cow. As the time allowed for a shot is very
short, and any hesitation probably insures the animal’s
escape, this means that two or three hippo may be killed,
quite unavoidably, before the right specimen is secured.
Still there may be interesting and exciting incidents in a
hippo hunt. Cuninghame, the two Attenboroughs, and I
started early in the launch, towing the big, clumsy row-boat,
with as crew three of our porters who could row. We
steamed down the lake some fifteen miles to a wide bay,
indented by smaller bays, lagoons, and inlets, all fringed
by a broad belt of impenetrable papyrus, while the beauti-
ful purple lilies, with their leathery-tough stems and broad
surface-floating leaves, filled the shallows. At the mouth
of the main bay we passed a floating island, a mass of papy-
rus perhaps a hundred and fifty acres in extent, which had
been broken off from the shore somewhere, and was float-
ing over the lake as the winds happened to drive it.
In an opening in the dense papyrus masses we left the
launch moored, and Cuninghame and I started in the row-
boat to coast the green wall of tall, thick-growing, feather-
topped reeds. Under the bright sunshine the shallow flats
were alive with bird life. Gulls, both the gray-hooded and
the black-backed, screamed harshly overhead. The chest-
nut-colored lily trotters tripped daintily over the lily pads,
and when they flew, held their long legs straight behind
them, so that they looked as if they had tails like pheasants.
Sacred ibis, white with naked black head and neck, stalked
along the edge of the water, and on the bent papyrus small
cormorants and herons perched. Everywhere there were
coots and ducks, and crested grebes, big and little. Huge
———————— eee eer
a
A tree hyrax |
A buck of the
big gazelle,
with unusual-
ly fine head,
shot at Salt-
marsh camp |
A pelican
A spotted
genet
A white-tail
mongoose
A porcupine
A baboon
TO LAKE NAIVASHA 221
white pelicans floated on the water. Once we saw a string
of flamingoes fly by, their plumage a wonderful red.
Immediately after leaving the launch we heard a hippo,
hidden in the green fastness on our right, uttering a med-
itative soliloquy, consisting of a succession of squealing
grunts. Then we turned a point, and in a little bay saw
six or eight hippo, floating with their heads above water.
There were two much bigger than the others, and Cuning-
hame, while of course unable to be certain, thought these
were probably males. The smaller ones, including a cow
and her calf, were not much alarmed, and floated quietly,
looking at us, as we cautiously paddled and drifted nearer;
but the bigger ones dove and began to work their way past
us toward deep water. We could trace their course by
the twisting of the lily pads. Motionless the rowers lay on
their oars; the line of moving lily pads showed that one
of the big hippo was about to pass the boat; suddenly
the waters opened close at hand and a monstrous head ap-
peared. “Shoot,” said Cuninghame; and I fired into the
back of the head just as it disappeared. It sank out of sight
without a splash, almost without a ripple, the lily pads
ceased twisting; a few bubbles of air rose to the surface;
evidently the hippo lay dead underneath. Poling to the
spot, we at once felt the huge body with our oar blades.
But, alas, when the launch came round, and we raised the
body, it proved to be that of a big cow.
So I left Cuninghame to cut off the head for the muse-
um, and started off by myself in the boat with two rowers,
neither of whom spoke a word of English. For an hour
we saw only the teeming bird life. Then, in a broad, shal-
low lagoon, we made out a dozen hippo, two or three very
222 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
big. Cautiously we approached them, and when seventy
yards off I fired at the base of the ear of one of the largest.
Down went every head, and utter calm succeeded. I
had marked the spot where the one at which I shot had
disappeared, and thither we rowed. When we reached the
place, I told one of the rowers to thrust a pole down and see
if he could touch the dead body. He thrust according, and
at once shouted that he had found the hippo; in another
moment his face altered, and he shouted much more loudly
that the hippo was alive. Sure enough, bump went the
hippo against the bottom of the boat, the jar causing us
all to sit suddenly down—for we were standing. Another
bump showed that we had again been struck; and the
shallow, muddy water boiled, as the huge beasts, above
and below the surface, scattered every which way. ‘Their
eyes starting, the two rowers began to back water out of
the dangerous neighborhood, while I shot at an animal whose
head appeared to my left, as it made off with frantic haste;
for I took it for granted that the hippo at which I had
first fired (and which was really dead) had escaped. This
one disappeared as usual, and I had not the slightest idea
whether or not I had killed it. I had small opportunity to
ponder the subject, for twenty feet away the water bubbled
and a huge head shot out facing me, the jaws wide open.
There was no time to guess at its intentions, and | fired on
the instant. Down went the head, and I felt the boat quiver
as the hippo passed underneath. Just here the lily pads
were thick; so I marked its course, fired as it rose, and
down it went. But on the other quarter of the boat a beast,
evidently of great size—it proved to be a big bull—now ap-
peared, well above water; and I put a bullet into its brain.
TO LAKE NAIVASHA 223
I did not wish to shoot again unless I had to, and stood
motionless, with the little Springfield at the ready. A head ©
burst up twenty yards off, with a lily pad plastered over one
eye, giving the hippo an absurd resemblance to a discom-
fited prize-fighter, and then disappeared with great agita-
tion. Two half-grown beasts stupid from fright appeared,
and stayed up for a minute or two at a time, not knowing
what to do. Other heads popped up, getting farther and
farther away. By degrees everything vanished, the water
grew calm, and we rowed over to the papyrus, moored our-
selves by catching hold of a couple of stems, and awaited
events. Within an hour four dead hippos appeared: a very
big bull and three big cows. Of course, I would not have
shot the latter if it could have been avoided; but under the
circumstances I do not see how it was possible to help it.
The meat was not wasted; on the contrary it was a god-
send, not only to our own porters, but to the natives round
about, many of whom were on short commons on account
of the drought.
Bringing over the launch we worked until after dark
to get the bull out of the difficult position in which he lay.
It was nearly seven o’clock before we had him fixed for
towing on one quarter, the row-boat towing on the other,
by which time two hippos were snorting and blowing within
a few yards of us, their curiosity much excited as to what
was going on. The night was overcast; there were drench-
ing rain squalls, and a rather heavy sea was running, and I
did not get back to camp until after three. Next day the
launch fetched in the rest of the hippo meat.
From this camp we went into Naivasha, on the line of
the railway. In many places the road was beautiful, lead-
224 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
ing among the huge yellow trunks of giant thorn-trees, the
ground rising sheer on our left as we cantered along the
edge of the lake. We passed impalla, tommies, zebra, and
wart-hog; and in one place saw three waterbuck cows feed-
ing just outside the papyrus at high noon. They belonged
to a herd that lived in the papyrus and fed on the grassy
flats outside; and their feeding in the open exactly at noon
was another proof of the fact that the custom of feeding in
the early morning and late evening is with most game en-
tirely artificial and the result of fear of man. Birds
abounded. Parties of the dark-colored ant-eating wheat-
ear sang sweetly from trees and bushes, and even from
the roofs of the settlers’ houses. The tri-colored starlings
—black, white, and chestnut—sang in the air, as well as
when perched on twigs. Stopping at the government farm
(which is most interesting; the results obtained in im-
proving the native sheep, goats, and cattle by the use of
imported thoroughbred bulls and rams have been as-
tonishingly successful) we saw the little long-tailed, red-
billed, black and white whydahs flitting around the out-
buildings as familiarly as sparrows. Water birds of all
kinds thronged the meadows bordering the papyrus, and
swam and waded among the water-lilies; sacred ibis, her-
ons, beautiful white spoonbills, darters, cormorants, Egyp-
tian geese, ducks, coots, and water hens. I got up within
rifle range of a flock of the queer ibis stork, black and white
birds with curved yellow bills, naked red faces, and won-
derful purple tints on the edges and the insides of the wings;
with the little Springfield I shot one on the ground and
another on the wing, after the flock had risen.
That night Kermit and Dr. Mearns went out with
SursoT uapiy “sf &q ydvasojoyg v moay
eyseaten ayey ‘oddry [nq ut Summoy,
Sg GE LA Brat
TO LAKE NAIVASHA 225
lanterns and shot-guns, and each killed one of the spring-
haas, the jumping hares, which abounded in the neigh- .
borhood. These big, burrowing animals, which progress
by jumping like kangaroos, are strictly nocturnal, and their
eyes shine in the glare of the lanterns.
Next day I took the Fox gun, which had already on
ducks, guinea-fowl, and francolin shown itself an excep-
tionally hard-hitting and close-shooting weapon, and col-
lected various water birds for the naturalists; among
others, a couple of Egyptian geese. I also shot a white pel-
ican with the Springfield rifle; there was a beautiful rosy
flush on the breast. ‘
Here we again got news of the outside world. While \,
on safari the only newspaper which any of us ever saw was _
the Owego Gazette, which Loring, in a fine spirit of neigh-
borhood loyalty, always had sent to him in his mail. To
the Doctor, by the way, I had become knit in a bond of
close intellectual sympathy ever since a chance allusion
to “William Henry’s Letters to His Grandmother” had
disclosed the fact that each of us, ever since the days of his
youth, had preserved the bound volumes of “Our Young
Folks,” and moreover firmly believed that there never had /
been its equal as a magazine, whether for old or young;
even though the Plancus of our golden consulship was the
not wholly happy Andrew Johnson.
CHAPTER X
ELEPHANT HUNTING ON MOUNT KENIA
On July 24th, in order to ship our fresh accumulations
of specimens and trophies, we once more went into Nairobi.
It was a pleasure again to see its tree-bordered streets and
charming houses bowered in vines and bushes, and to
meet once more the men and women who dwelt in the
houses. I wish it were in my power to thank individually
the members of the many East African households of which
I shall always cherish warm memories of friendship and
regard.
At Nairobi I saw Selous, who had just returned from
a two months’ safari with McMillan, Williams, and Judd.
Their experience shows how large the element of luck
is in lion hunting. Selous was particularly anxious to kill
a good lion; there is nowhere to be found a more skilful or
more hard-working hunter; yet he never even got a shot.
Williams, on the other hand, came across three. Two he
killed easily. The third charged him. He was carrying a
double-barrelled .450, but failed to stop the beast; it
seized him by the leg, and his life was saved by his Swahili
gun-bearer, who gave the lion a fatal shot as it stood over
him. He came within an ace of dying; but when I saw
him, at the hospital, he was well on the road to recovery.
One day Selous while on horseback saw a couple of lionesses,
and galloped after them, followed by Judd, seventy or
226
ELEPHANT HUNTING 227
eighty yards behind. One lioness stopped and crouched
under a bush, let Selous pass, and then charged Judd.
She was right alongside him, and he fired from the hip;
the bullet went into her eye; his horse jumped and swerved
at the shot, throwing him off, and he found himself sitting
on the ground, not three yards from the dead lioness.
Nothing more was seen of the other.
Continually I met men with experiences in their past
lives which showed how close the country was to those
primitive conditions in which warfare with wild beasts was
one of the main features of man’s existence. At one dinner
my host and two of my fellow-guests had been within a
year or eighteen months severely mauled by lions. All
three, by the way, informed me that the actual biting caused
them at the moment no pain whatever; the pain came later.
On meeting Harold Hill, my companion on one of my
Kapiti Plains lion hunts, I found that since I had seen him
he had been roughly handled by a dying leopard. The
government had just been obliged to close one of the trade
routes to native caravans because of the ravages of a man-
eating lion, which carried men away from the camps. A
safari which had come in from the north had been charged
by a rhino, and one of the porters tossed and killed, the
horn being driven clean through his loins. At Heatley’s
farm three buffalo (belonging to the same herd from which
we had shot five) rushed out of the papyrus one afternoon
at a passing buggy, which just managed to escape by a
breakneck run across the level plain, the beasts chasing it
for a mile. One afternoon, at Government House, I met
a government official who had once succeeded in driving
into a corral seventy zebras, including more stallions than
228 « AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
mares; their misfortune in no way abated their savagery
toward one another, and as the limited space forbade the
escape of the weaker, the stallions fought to the death with
teeth and hoofs during the first night, and no less than
twenty were killed outright or died of their wounds.
Most of the time in Nairobi we were the guests of ever-
hospitable McMillan, in his low, cool house, with its broad,
vine-shaded veranda, running around all four sides, and its
garden, fragrant and brilliant with innumerable flowers.
Birds abounded, singing beautifully; the bulbuls were the
most noticeable singers, but there were many others. The
dark ant-eating chats haunted the dusky roads on the out-
skirts of the town, and were interesting birds; they were
usually found in parties, flirted their tails up and down
as they sat on bushes or roofs or wires, sang freely in chorus
until after dusk, and then retired to holes in the ground for
the night. A tiny owl with a queer little voice called con-
tinually not only after nightfall, but in the bright afternoons.
Shrikes spitted insects on the spines of the imported cactus
in the gardens.
It was race week, and the races, in some of which Kermit
rode, were capital fun. The white people—army officers,
government officials, farmers from the country roundabout,
and their wives—rode to the races on ponies or even on
camels, or drove up in rickshaws, in gharries, in bullock
tongas, occasionally in automobiles, most often in two-
wheel carts or rickety hacks drawn by mules and driven by
a turbaned Indian or a native in a cotton shirt. There
were Parsees, and Goanese dressed just like the Europeans.
There were many other Indians, their picturesque women-
kind gaudy in crimson, blue, and saffron. The constabu-
ELEPHANT HUNTING 229
lary, Indian and native, were in neat uniforms and well
set up, though often barefooted. Straight, slender Somalis —
with clear-cut features were in attendance on the horses.
Native negroes, of many different tribes, flocked to the
race-course and its neighborhood. The Swahilis, and those
among the others who aspired toward civilization, were well
clad, the men in half European costume, the women in
flowing, parti-colored robes. But most of them were clad,
or unclad, just as they always had been. Wakamba, with
filed teeth, crouched in circles on the ground. Kikuyu
passed, the men each with a blanket hung round the shoul-
ders, and girdles of chains, and armlets and anklets of
solid metal; the older women bent under burdens they
carried on the back, half of them in addition with babies
_ slung somewhere round them, while now and then an un-
married girl would have her face painted with ochre and
vermilion. A small party of Masai warriors kept close
together, each clutching his shining, long-bladed war spear,
their hair daubed red and twisted into strings. A large
band of Kavirondo, stark naked, with shield and spear and
head-dress of nodding plumes, held a dance near the race-
track. As for the races themselves, they were carried on in
the most sporting spirit, and only the Australian poet Pat-
terson could adequately write of them.
On August 4th I returned to Lake Naivasha, stopping
on the way at Kijabe to lay the corner-stone of the new
mission building. Mearns and Loring had stayed at
Naivasha and had collected many birds and small mammals.
That night they took me out on a springhaas hunt. Thanks
to Kermit we had discovered that the way to get this cu-
rious and purely nocturnal animal was by “shining” it with
230 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
a lantern at night, just as in our own country deer, coons,
owls, and other creatures can be killed. Springhaas live
in big burrows, a number of them dwelling together in one
community, the holes close to one another, and making
what in the West we would call a “‘town” in speaking of
prairie dogs. At night they come out to feed on the grass.
They are as heavy as a big jack-rabbit, with short forelegs,
and long hind legs and tail, so that they look and on occasion
move like miniature kangaroos, although, in addition to
making long hops or jumps, they often run almost like an or-
dinary rat or rabbit. They are pretty creatures, fawn-colored
above, and white beneath, with the terminal half of the
tail very dark. In hunting them we simply walked over
the flats for a couple of hours, flashing the bull’s-eye lantern
on all sides, until we saw the light reflected back by a spring-
haas’s eyes. Then I would approach to within range, and
hold the lantern in my left hand so as to shine both on the
sight and on the eyes in front, resting my gun on my left wrist.
The number 3 shot, in the Fox double-barrel, would always
do the business, if I held straight enough. There was noth-
ing but the gleam of the eyes to shoot at; and this might
suddenly be raised or lowered as the intently watching ani-
mal crouched on all-fours or raised itself on its hind legs.
I shot half a dozen, all that the naturalists wanted. Then
I tried to shoot a fox; but the moon had risen from behind
a cloud bank; I had to take a long shot and missed; but my
companions killed several, and found that they were a new
species of the peculiar African long-eared fox.
While waiting for the safari to get ready, Kermit went
off on a camping trip and shot two bushbuck, while I spent
a couple of days trying for singsing waterbuck on the edge of
Ri
PR are em
SIS Doc tambon
es
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— y
a oe a
ta A atedy “i
Ge a
ee re Ce ee
ELEPHANT HUNTING 231
the papyrus. I missed a bull, and wounded another which I
did not get. This was all the more exasperating because —
interspersed with the misses were some good shots: I killed
a fine waterbuck cow at a hundred yards, and a buck
tommy for the table at two hundred and fifty; and, after
missing a handsome black and white, red-billed and red-
legged jabiru, or saddle-billed stork, at a hundred and fifty
yards, as he stalked through the meadow after frogs, I cut
him down on the wing at a hundred and eighty, with the
little Springfield rifle. The waterbuck spent the daytime
outside, but near the edge of, the papyrus; I found them
grazing or resting, in the open, at all times between early
morning and late afternoon. Some of them spent most of
the day in the papyrus, keeping to the watery trails made
by the hippos and by themselves; but this was not the
general habit, unless they had been persecuted. When
frightened they often ran into the papyrus, smashing the
dead reeds and splashing the water in their rush. They are
noble-looking antelope, with long, shaggy hair, and their
chosen haunts beside the lake were very attractive. Clumps
of thorn-trees and flowering bushes grew at the edge of
the tall papyrus here and there, and often formed a matted
jungle, the trees laced together by creepers, many of them
brilliant in their bloom. The climbing morning-glories some-
times completely covered a tree with their pale-purple flow-
ers; and other blossoming vines spangled the green over
which their sprays were flung with masses of bright yellow.
Four days’ march from Naivasha, where we again left
Mearns and Loring, took us to Neri. Our line of march
lay across the high plateaus and mountain chains of the
Aberdare range. The steep, twisting trail was slippery with
232 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
mud. Our last camp, at an altitude of about ten thousand
feet, was so cold that the water froze in the basins, and
the shivering porters slept in numbed discomfort. ‘There
was constant fog and rain, and on the highest plateau the
bleak landscape, shrouded in driving mist, was northern to
all the senses. ‘The ground was rolling, and through the
deep valleys ran brawling brooks of clear water; one little
foaming stream, suddenly tearing down a hill-side, might
have been that which Childe Roland crossed before he
came to the dark tower.
There was not much game, and it generally moved abroad
by night. One frosty evening we killed a duiker by shin-
ing its eyes. We saw old elephant tracks. The high, wet
levels swarmed with mice and shrews, just as our arctic
and alpine meadows swarm with them. The species were
really widely different from ours, but many of them showed
curious analogies in form and habits; there was a short-
tailed shrew much like our mole shrew, and a long-haired,
short-tailed rat like a very big meadow mouse. ‘They were
so plentiful that we frequently saw them, and the grass
was cut up by their runways. They were abroad during
the day, probably finding the nights too cold, and in an
hour Heller trapped a dozen or two individuals belonging
to seven species and five different genera. ‘There were
not many birds so high up. There were deer ferns; and
Spanish moss hung from the trees and even from the bam-
boos. The flowers included utterly strange forms, as for
instance giant lobelias ten feet high. Others we know
in our gardens; geraniums and red-hot-pokers, which in
places turned the glades to a fire color. Yet others either
were like, or looked like, our own wild flowers: orange
ELEPHANT HUNTING * 233
lady-slippers, red gladiolus on stalks six feet high, pansy-
like violets, and blackberries and yellow raspberries. There |
were stretches of bushes bearing masses of small red or
large white flowers shaped somewhat like columbines,
or like the garden balsam; the red flower bushes were under
the bamboos, the white at a lower level. The crests and
upper slopes of the mountains were clothed in the green
uniformity of the bamboo forest, the trail winding dim under
its dark archway of tall, close-growing stems. Lower down
were junipers and yews, and then many other trees, with
among them tree ferns and strange dragon trees with lily-
like frondage. Zone succeeded zone from top to bottom,
each marked by a different plant life.
In this part of Africa, where flowers bloom and birds
sing all the year round, there is no such burst of bloom and
song as in the northern spring and early summer. ‘There is
nothing like the mass of blossoms which carpet the meadows
of the high mountain valleys and far northern meadows,
during their brief high tide of life, when one short joyous
burst of teeming and vital beauty atones for the long death
of the iron fall and winter. So it is with the bird songs.
Many of them are beautiful, though to my ears none quite
as beautiful as the best of our own bird songs. At any rate
there is nothing that quite corresponds to the chorus that
during May and June moves northward from the Gulf
States and southern California to Maine, Minnesota, and
Oregon, to Ontario and Saskatchewan; when there comes
the great vernal burst of bloom and song; when the may-
flower, bloodroot, wake-robin, anemone, adder’s tongue,
liverwort, shadblow, dogwood, redbud, gladden the woods;
when mocking-birds and cardinals sing in the magnolia
234 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
groves of the South, and hermit thrushes, winter wrens,
and sweetheart sparrows in the spruce and hemlock forests
of the North; when bobolinks in the East and meadow-
larks East and West sing in the fields; and water ousels by
the cold streams of the Rockies, and canyon wrens in their
sheer gorges; when from the Atlantic seaboard to the
Pacific wood thrushes, veeries, rufous-backed thrushes,
robins, bluebirds, orioles, thrashers, cat-birds, house finches,
song sparrows—some in the East, some in the West, some
both East and West—and many, many other singers thrill
the gardens at sunrise; until the long days begin to shorten,
and tawny lilies burn by the roadside, and the indigo bunt-
ings trill from the tops of little trees throughout the hot
afternoons.
We were in the Kikuyu country. On our march we met
several parties of natives. I had been much inclined to
pity the porters, who had but one blanket apiece; but
when I saw the Kikuyus, each with nothing but a smaller
blanket, and without the other clothing and the tents of
the porters, I realized how much better off the latter were
simply because they were on a white man’s safari. At
Neri boma we were greeted with the warmest hospitality
by the District Commissioner, Mr. Browne. Among other
things, he arranged a great Kikuyu dance in our honor.
Two thousand warriors, and many women, came in; as
well as a small party of Masai moran. The warriors were
naked, or half-naked; some carried gaudy blankets, others
girdles of leopard skin; their ox-hide shields were colored
in bold patterns, their long-bladed spears quivered and
gleamed. Their faces and legs were painted red and yellow;
the faces of the young men who were about to undergo the
4ajja FT punupy &q ydvasojoyg v m0
WAN ‘wuresNy nAnyry
sapien hy eG
east
ELEPHANT HUNTING 235
rite of circumcision were stained a ghastly white, and their
bodies fantastically painted. The warriors wore bead neck-
laces and waist belts and armlets of brass and steel, and
spurred anklets of monkey skin. Some wore head-dresses
made out of a lion’s mane or from the long black and white
fur of the Colobus monkey; others had plumes stuck in
their red-daubed hair. They chanted in unison a deep-
toned chorus, and danced ryhthmically in rings, while
the drums throbbed and the horns blared; and they
danced by us in column, springing and chanting. The
women shrilled applause, and danced in groups by
themselves. The Masai circled and swung in a panther-
like dance of their own, and the measure, and their own
fierce singing and calling, maddened them until two of their
number, their eyes staring, their faces working, went into
fits of berserker frenzy, and were disarmed at once to pre-
vent mischief. Some of the tribesmen held wilder dances
still in the evening, by the light of fires that blazed in a
grove where their thatched huts stood.
The second day after reaching Neri the clouds lifted
and we dried our damp clothes and blankets. Through
the bright sunlight we saw in front of us the high rock
peaks of Kenia, and shining among them the fields of ever-
lasting snow which feed her glaciers; for beautiful, lofty
Kenia is one of the glacier-bearing mountains of the equator.
Here Kermit and Tarlton went northward on a safari of
their own, while Cuninghame, Heller, and I headed for
Kenia itself. For two days we travelled through a well-
peopled country. The fields of corn—always called mealies
in Africa—of beans, and sweet potatoes, with occasional
plantations of bananas, touched one another in almost un-
236 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
interrupted succession. In most of them we saw the Ki-
kuyu women at work with their native hoes; for among the
Kikuyus, as among other savages, the woman is the drudge
and beast of burden. Our trail led by clear, rushing
streams, which formed the head-waters of the Tana;
among the trees fringing their banks were graceful palms,
and there were groves of tree ferns here and there on the
sides of the gorges.
On the afternoon of the second day we struck upward
among the steep foot-hills of the mountain, riven by deep
ravines. We pitched camp in an open glade, surrounded
by the green wall of tangled forest, the forest of the tropical
mountain sides.
The trees, strange of kind and endless in variety, grew
tall and close, laced together by vine and creeper, while
underbrush crowded the space between their mossy trunks,
and covered the leafy mould beneath. Toward dusk crested
ibis flew overhead with harsh clamor, to seek their night
roosts; parrots chattered, and a curiously home-like touch
was given by the presence of a thrush in color and shape al-
most exactly like our robin. Monkeys called in the depths
Ne \ _ of the forest, and after dark tree-frogs piped and croaked,
\\and the tree hyraxes uttered their wailing cries.
Elephants dwelt permanently in this mountainous re-
gion of heavy woodland. On our march thither we had
already seen their traces in the ‘‘shambas,” as the culti-
vated fields of the natives are termed; for the great beasts
are fond of raiding the crops at night, and their inroads
often do serious damage. In this neighborhood their habit
is to live high up in the mountains, in the bamboos, while
the weather is dry; the cows and calves keeping closer to the
ELEPHANT HUNTING 237
bamboos than the bulls. A spell of wet weather, such as
we had fortunately been having, drives them down in the .
dense forest which covers the lower slopes. Here they
may either pass all their time, or at night they may go still
further down, into the open valley where the shambas lie;
or they may occasionally still do what they habitually did
in the days before the white hunters came, and wander far
x away, making migrations that are sometimes seasonal, and
metimes irregular and unaccountable.
o other animal, not the lion himself, is so constant a
theme of talk, and a subject of such unflagging interest
round the camp-fires of African hunters and in the native
villages of the African wilderness, as the elephant. Indeed
the elephant has always profoundly impressed the imagina-
tion of mankind. It is, not only to hunters, but to natural-
ists, and to all people who possess any curiosity about
wild creatures and the wild life of nature, the most in-
teresting of all animals. Its huge bulk, its singular form,
the value of its ivory, its great intelligence—in which it is
only matched, if at all, by the highest apes, and possibly by
one or two of the highest carnivores—and its varied habits,
all combine to give it an interest such as attaches to no
other living creature below the rank of man. In line of
descent and in physical formation it stands by itself,
wholly apart from all the other great land beasts, and
differing from them even more widely than they differ
from one another. The two existing species—the African,
which is the larger and finer animal, and the Asiatic—
differ from one another as much as they do from the
mammoth and similar extinct forms which were the con-
temporaries of early man in Europe and North America.
\\
WN
238 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
The carvings of our paleolithic forefathers, etched on
bone by cavern dwellers, from whom we are sundered by
ages which stretch into an immemorial past, show that in
their lives the hairy elephant of the north played the same
part that his remote collateral descendant now plays in the
lives of the savages who dwell under a vertical sun beside
the tepid waters of the Nile and the Congo.
In the first dawn of history, the sculptured records of
the kings of Egypt, Babylon, and Nineveh show the immense
importance which attached in the eyes of the mightiest
monarchs of the then world to the chase and the trophies
of this great strange beast. The ancient civilization of In-
dia boasts as one of its achievements the taming of the ele-
phant; and in the ancient lore of that civilization the
elephant plays a distinguished part.
The elephant is unique among the beasts of great bulk
in the fact that his growth in size has been accompanied by
growth in brain power. With other beasts growth in bulk
of body has not been accompanied by similar growth of
mind. Indeed sometimes there seems to have been mental
retrogression. ‘The rhinoceros, in several different forms,
is found in the same regions as the elephant, and in one of
its forms it is in point of size second only to the elephant
among terrestrial animals. Seemingly the ancestors of the
two creatures, in that period, separated from us by uncounted
hundreds of thousands of years, which we may conven-
iently designate as late miocene or early pliocene, were sub-
stantially equal in brain development. But in one case
increase in bulk seems to have induced lethargy and atrophy
of brain power, while in the other case brain and body have
both grown. At any rate the elephant is now one of the
ELEPHANT HUNTING 239
wisest and the rhinoceros one of the stupidest of big mam-
mals. In consequence the elephant outlasts the rhino, al-
though he is the largest, carries infinitely more valuable
spoils, and is far more eagerly and persistently hunted.
Both animals wandered freely over the open country of East
Africa thirty years ago. But the elephant learns by ex-
perience infinitely more readily than the rhinoceros. Asa
tule, the former no longer lives in the open plains, and in
many places now even crosses them if possible only at night.
But those rhinoceros which formerly dwelt in the plains for
the most part continued to dwell there until killed out. So
itis at the present day. Not the most foolish elephant would
under similar conditions behave as the rhinos that we studied
and hunted by Kilimakiu and in the Sotik behaved. No
elephant, in regions where they have been much persecuted
by hunters, would habitually spend its days lying or standing
in the open plain; nor would it, in such places, repeatedly,
and in fact uniformly, permit men to walk boldly up to it
without heeding them until in its immediate neighborhood.
The elephant’s sight is bad, as is that of the rhinoceros;
but a comparatively brief experience with rifle-bearing man
usually makes the former take refuge in regions where
scent and hearing count for more than sight; while no ex-
perience has any such effect on the rhino. The rhinos that
now live in the bush are the descendants of those which
always lived in the bush; and it is in the bush that the
species will linger long after it has vanished from the open;
and it is in the bush that it is most formidable.
Elephant and rhino differ as much in their habits as in
their intelligence. The former is very gregarious, herds of
several hundred being sometimes found, and is of a restless,
240 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
wandering temper, often shifting his abode and sometimes
making long migrations. ‘The rhinoceros is a lover of
solitude; it is usually found alone, or a bull and cow, or
cow and calf may be in company; very rarely are as many
as half a dozen found together. Moreover, it is compara-
tively stationary in its habits, and as a general thing stays
permanently in one neighborhood, not shifting its position
for very many miles unless for grave reasons.
Ve The African elephant has recently been divided into a
( number of sub-species; but as within a century its range
“was continuous over nearly the whole continent south of the
Sahara, and as it was given to such extensive occasional
wanderings, it is probable that the examination of a suffi-
cient series of specimens would show that on their confines
these races grade into one another. In its essentials the
beast is almost everywhere the same, although, of course,
there must be variation of habits with any animal which
exists throughout so wide and diversified a range of terri-
tory; for in one place it is found in high mountains, in an-
other in a dry desert, in another in low-lying marshes or
wet and dense forests.
In East Africa the old bulls are usually found singly
or in small parties by themselves. These have the biggest
tusks; the bulls in the prime of life, the herd bulls or breed-
ing bulls, which keep in herds with the cows and calves,
usually have smaller ivory. Sometimes, however, very
old but vigorous bulls are found with the cows; and I am
inclined to think that the ordinary herd bulls at times also
keep by themselves, or at least in company with only a few
cows, for at certain seasons, generally immediately after
the rains, cows, most of them with calves, appear in great
ELEPHANT HUNTING 241
numbers at certain places, where only a few bulls are ever
found. Where undisturbed elephant rest, and wander
about at all times of the day and night, and feed without
much regard to fixed hours. Morning or evening, noon or
midnight, the herd may be on the move, or its members
may be resting; yet, during the hottest hours of noon they
seldom feed, and ordinarily stand almost still, resting—for
elephant very rarely lie down unless sick. Where they are
afraid of man, their only enemy, they come out to feed in
thinly forested plains, or cultivated fields, when they do so
at all, only at night, and before daybreak move back into
the forest to rest. Elsewhere they sometimes spend the day
in the open, in grass or low bush. Where we were, at this
time, on Kenia, the elephants sometimes moved down at
night to feed in the shambas, at the expense of the crops
of the natives, and sometimes stayed in the forest, feeding
by day or night on the branches they tore off the trees, or,
occasionally, on the roots they grubbed up with their tusks.
They work vast havoc among the young or small growth of
a forest, and the readiness with which they uproot, overturn,
or break off medium sized trees conveys a striking impres-
sion of their enormous strength. I have seen a tree a foot
in diameter thus uprooted and overturned.
The African elephant has never, like his Indian kins
man, been trained to man’s use. There is still hope that
the feat may be performed; but hitherto its probable eco-
nomic usefulness has for various reasons seemed so ques-
tionable that there has been scant encouragement to un-
dergo the necessary expense and labor. Up to the present
time the African elephant has yielded only his ivory as an |
asset of value. This, however, has been of such great value /
{ \
\\
242 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
as wellnigh to bring about the mighty beast’s utter extermi-
nation. Ivory hunters and ivory traders have penetrated
Africa to the haunts of the elephant since centuries before
our era, and the elephant’s boundaries have been slowly
receding throughout historic time; but during the century
just past its process has been immensely accelerated, until
now there are but one or two out-of-the-way nooks of the
Dark Continent to the neighborhood of which hunter and
trader have not penetrated. Fortunately the civilized
powers which now divide dominion over Africa have waked
up in time, and there is at present no danger of the exter-
mination of the lord of all four-footed creatures. Large
reserves have been established on which various herds of
elephants now live what is, at least for the time being, an
entirely safe life. Furthermore, over great tracts of terri-
tory outside the reserves regulations have been promul-
gated which, if enforced as they are now enforced, will
prevent any excessive diminution of the herds. In British
East Africa, for instance, no cows are allowed to be shot
save for special purposes, as for preservation in a museum,
or to safeguard life and property; and no bulls with tusks
weighing less than thirty pounds apiece. ‘This renders
safe almost all the females and an ample supply of breeding
males. ‘Too much praise cannot be given the governments
and the individuals who have brought about this happy
result; the credit belongs especially to England and, to va-
rious Englishmen. It would bea veritable and most tragic
calamity if the lordly elephant, the giant among existing
four-footed creatures, should be permitted to vanish from
the face of the earth.
But of course protection is not permanently possible
ELEPHANT HUNTING 243
over the greater part of that country which is well fitted
for settlement; nor anywhere, if the herds grow too numer- —
ous. It would be not merely silly, but worse than silly, to
try to stop all killing of elephants. The unchecked in-
crease of any big and formidable wild beast, even though
not a flesh eater, is incompatible with the existence of man 7
when he has emerged from the stage of lowest gl”
This is not a matter of theory, but of proved fact. In place
after place in Africa where protection has been extended
to hippopotamus or buffalo, rhinoceros or elephant, it has |
been found necessary to withdraw it because the protected (
animals did such damage to property, or became such )
menaces to human life. Among all four species cows with
calves often attack men without provocation, and old bulls 5
are at any time likely to become infected by a spirit of /
wanton and ferocious mischief and apt to become man- \
killers. I know settlers who tried to preserve the rhinoceros )
which they found living on their big farms, and who were /
obliged to abandon the attempt, and themselves to kill the
rhinos because of repeated and wanton attacks on human
beings by the latter. Where we were by Neri, a year or two
before our visit, the rhinos had become so dangerous, killing
one white man and several natives, that the District Com-
missioner who preceded Mr. Browne was forced to under-
take a crusade against them, killing fifteen. Both in South
Africa and on the Nile protection extended to hippopota- |
mus has in places been wholly withdrawn because of the /
damage done by the beasts to the crops of the natives, or 3
because of their unprovoked assaults on canoes and boats.
In one instance a last surviving hippo was protected for
years, but finally grew bold because of immunity, killed a |
244 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
boy in sheer wantonness, and had to be himself slain. In
Uganda the buffalo were for years protected, and grew so
bold, killed so many natives, and ruined so many villages,
~~ that they are now classed as vermin and their destruction
in every way encouraged. In the very neighborhood where
I was hunting at Kenia, but six weeks before my coming,
a cow buffalo had wandered down into the plains and run
amuck, had attacked two villages, had killed a man and a
boy, and had then been mobbed to death by the spearmen.
Elephant, when in numbers, and when not possessed of
the fear of man, are more impossible neighbors than hippo,
rhino, or buffalo; but they are so eagerly sought after by
ivory hunters that it is only rarely that they get the chance
to become really dangerous to life, although in many places
their ravages among the crops are severely felt by the un-
\fortunate natives who live near them.
The chase of the elephant, if persistently followed, en-
tails more fatigue and hardship than any other kind of
African hunting. As regards risk, it is hard to say whether
it is more or less dangerous than the chase of the lion and
the buffalo. Both Cuninghame and Tarlton, men of wide
experience, ranked elephant hunting, in point of danger,
as nearly on the level with lion hunting, and as more dan-
gerous than buffalo hunting; and all three kinds as far
more dangerous than the chase of the rhino. Personally, I
believe the actual conflict with a lion, where the conditions
are the same, to be normally the more dangerous sport;
though far greater demands are made by elephant hunting
on the qualities of personal endurance and hardihood and
resolute perseverance in the face of disappointment and
difficulty. Buffalo, seemingly, do not charge as freely as
Camping after death of the first bull
The porters exult over the death of the bull
From photographs by Edmund Heller
ELEPHANT HUNTING 245
elephant, but are more dangerous when they do charge.
Rhino when hunted, though at times ugly customers, seem
to me certainly less dangerous than the other three; but
from sheer stupid truculence they are themselves apt to take
the offensive in unexpected fashion, being far more prone
to such aggression than are any of the others—man-eating
lions always excepted.
Very few of the native tribes in Africa hunt the elephant
systematically. But the ’Ndorobo, the wild bush people of
East Africa, sometimes catch young elephants in the pits
they dig with slow labor, and very rarely they kill one with
a kind of harpoon. The ’Ndorobo are doubtless in part de-
scended from some primitive bush people, but in part also
derive their blood from the more advanced tribes near which
their wandering families happen to live; and they grade
into the latter, by speech and through individuals who seem
to stand half-way between. Thus we had with us two Masai
’Ndorobo, true wild people, who spoke a bastard Masai;
who had formerly hunted with Cuninghame, and who came
to us because of their ancient friendship with him. ‘These
shy woods creatures were afraid to come to Neri by day-
light, when we were camped there, but after dark crept to
Cuninghame’s tent. Cuninghame gave them two fine red
blankets, and put them to sleep in a little tent, keeping
their spears in his own tent, as a measure of precaution
to prevent their running away. ‘The elder of the two, he
informed me, would certainly have a fit of hysterics when
we killed our elephant! Cuninghame was also joined by
other old friends of former hunts, Kikuyu ’Ndorobo these,
who spoke Kikuyu like the people who cultivated the fields
that covered the river-bottoms and hill-sides of the adjoin-
246 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
ing open country, and who were, indeed, merely outlying,
forest-dwelling members of the lowland tribes. In the deep
woods we met one old Dorobo, who had no connection with
any more advanced tribe, whose sole belongings were his
spear, skin cloak, and fire stick, and who lived purely on
honey and game; unlike the bastard *"Ndorobo, he was
ornamented with neither paint nor grease. But the ’Ndo-
robo who were our guides stood farther up in the social scale.
The men passed most of their time in the forest, but up
the mountain sides they had squalid huts on little clearings,
with shambas, where their wives raised scanty crops. To
the ’Ndorobo, and to them alone, the vast, thick forest was
an open book; without their aid as guides both Cuning-
hame and our own gun-bearers were at fault, and found
their way around with great difficulty and slowness. The
bush people had nothing in the way of clothing save a blan-
ket over the shoulders, but wore the usual paint and grease
and ornaments; each carried a spear which might have a
long and narrow, or short and broad blade; two of them
wore head-dresses of tripe—skull-caps made from the in-
side of a sheep’s stomach.
For two days after reaching our camp in the open glade
on the mountain side it rained. We were glad of this, be-
cause it meant that the elephants would not be in the bam-
boos, and Cuninghame and the ’Ndorobo went off to hunt
for fresh signs. Cuninghame is as skilful an elephant
hunter as can be found in Africa, and is one of the very
few white men able to help even the wild bushmen at their
work. By the afternoon of the second day they were fairly
well satisfied as to the whereabouts of the quarry.
The following morning a fine rain was still falling when
ELEPHANT HUNTING 247
Cuninghame, Heller, and I started on our hunt; but by
noon it had stopped. Of course we went in single file and —
on foot; not even a bear hunter from the cane-brakes of the
lower Mississippi could ride through that forest. We left
our home camp standing, taking blankets and a coat and
change of underclothing for each of us, and two small
Whymper tents, with enough food for three days; I also
took my wash kit and a book from the Pigskin Library.
First marched the ’Ndorobo guides, each with his spear, his
blanket round his shoulders, and a little bundle of corn and
sweet potato. Then came Cuninghame, followed by his
gun-bearer. Then I came, clad in khaki-colored flannel
shirt and khaki trousers buttoning down the legs, with hob-
nailed shoes and a thick slouch hat; I had intended to
wear rubber-soled shoes, but the soaked ground was too
slippery. ce Ss baal followed, carrying the Hol-
land and the Springfield. Then came Heller, at the head
of a dozen porters and skinners; he and they were to fall
behind when we actually struck fresh elephant spoor, but
to follow our trail by the help of a Dorobo who was left
with them.
For three hours our route lay along the edge of the
woods. We climbed into and out of deep ravines in which
groves of tree ferns clustered. We waded through streams
of swift water, whose course was broken by cataract and
rapid. We passed through shambas, and by the doors of
little hamlets of thatched beehive huts. We met flocks of
goats and hairy, fat-tailed sheep guarded by boys; strings
of burden-bearing women stood meekly to one side to let
us pass; parties of young men sauntered by, spear in
hand.
248 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
Then we struck into the great forest, and in an instant
the sun was shut from sight by the thick screen of wet
foliage. It was a riot of twisted vines, interlacing the trees
and bushes. Only the elephant paths, which, of every age,
crossed and recrossed it hither and thither, made it passable.
One of the chief difficulties in hunting elephants in the
forest is that it is impossible to travel, except very slowly
and with much noise, off these trails, so that it is some-
times very difficult to take advantage of the wind; and
although the sight of the elephant is dull, both its sense
of hearing and its sense of smell are exceedingly acute.
Hour after hour we worked our way onward through
tangled forest and matted jungle. There was little sign
of bird or animal life. A troop of long-haired black and
white monkeys bounded away among the tree tops. Here
and there brilliant flowers lightened the gloom. We
ducked under vines and climbed over fallen timber. Poison-
ous nettles stung our hands. We were drenched by the
wet boughs which we brushed aside. Mosses and ferns
grew rank and close. The trees were of strange kinds.
There were huge trees with little leaves, and small trees
with big leaves. There were trees with bare, fleshy limbs,
that writhed out through the neighboring branches, bear-
ing sparse clusters of large frondage. In places the forest
was low, the trees thirty or forty feet high, the bushes that
choked the ground between, fifteen or twenty feet high. In
other places mighty monarchs of the wood, straight and
tall, towered aloft to an immense height; among them were
trees whose smooth, round boles were spotted like syca-
mores, while far above our heads their gracefully spread-
ing branches were hung with vines like mistletoe and draped
Falls on slope of Kenia near first elephant camp
From a photograph by Edmund Heller
ELEPHANT HUNTING 249
with Spanish moss; trees whose surfaces were corrugated
and knotted as if they were made of bundles of great creep-
ers; and giants whose buttressed trunks were four times a
man’s length across.
Twice we got on elephant spoor, once of a single bull,
once of a party of three. Then Cuninghame and the
*Ndorobo redoubled their caution. They would minutely
examine the fresh dung; and above all they continually
tested the wind, scanning the tree tops, and lighting matches
to see from the smoke what the eddies were near the ground.
Each time after an hour’s stealthy stepping and crawling
along the twisted trail a slight shift of the wind in the al-
most still air gave our scent to the game, and away it went
before we could catch a glimpse of it; and we resumed our
walk. The elephant paths led up hill and down—for the
beasts are wonderful climbers—and wound in and out in
every direction. They were marked by broken branches
and the splintered and shattered trunks of the smaller
trees, especially where the elephant had stood and fed,
trampling down the bushes for many yards around. Where
they had crossed the marshy valleys they had punched big
round holes, three feet deep, in the sticky mud.
As evening fell we pitched camp by the side of a little
brook at the bottom of a ravine, and dined ravenously on
bread, mutton, and tea. The air was keen, and under our
blankets we slept in comfort until dawn. Breakfast was
soon over and camp struck; and once more we began our
cautious progress through the dim, cool archways of the
mountain forest.
Two hours after leaving camp we came across the fresh
trail of a small herd of perhaps ten or fifteen elephant
250 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
cows and calves, but including two big herd bulls. At
once we took up the trail. Cuninghame and his bush
people consulted again and again, scanning every track
and mark with minute attention. The sign showed that
the elephants had fed in the shambas early in the night,
had then returned to the mountain, and stood in one place
resting for several hours, and had left this sleeping ground
some time before we reached it. After we had followed the
trail a short while we made the experiment of trying to
force our own way through the jungle, so as to get the wind
more favorable; but our progress was too slow and noisy,
and we returned to the path the elephants had beaten.
Then the ’Ndorobo went ahead, travelling noiselessly and at
speed. One of them was clad in a white blanket, and an-
other in a red one, which were conspicuous; but they
were too silent and cautious to let the beasts see them,
and could tell exactly where they were and what they were
doing by the sounds. When these trackers waited for us
they would appear before us like ghosts; once one of them
dropped down from the branches above, having climbed
a tree with monkey-like agility to get a glimpse of the great
game.
At last we could hear the elephants, and under Cuning-
hame’s lead we walked more cautiously than ever. The
‘wind was right, and the trail of one elephant led close along-
side that of the rest of the herd, and parallel thereto. It
was about noon. The elephants moved slowly, and we
listened to the boughs crack, and now and then to the
curious internal rumblings of the great beasts. Carefully,
every sense on the alert, we kept pace withthem. My
double-barrel was in my hands, and wherever possible, as
ELEPHANT HUNTING 251
I followed the trail, I stepped in the huge footprints of the
elephant, for where such a weight had pressed there were
no sticks left to crack under my feet. It made our veins
thrill thus for half an hour to creep stealthily along, but a
few rods from the herd, never able to see it, because of the
extreme denseness of the cover, but always hearing first one
and then another of its members, and always trying to
guess what each one might do, and keeping ceaselessly
ready for whatever might befall. A flock of hornbills flew
up with noisy clamor, but the elephants did not heed them.
At last we came in sight of the mighty game. The trail
took a twist to one side, and there, thirty yards in front of
us, we made out part of the gray and massive head of an
elephant resting his tusks on the branches of a young tree. _
A couple of minutes passed before, by cautious scrutiny, we
were able to tell whether the animal was a cow or a bull,
and whether, if a bull, it carried heavy enough tusks. Then
we saw that it was a big bull with good ivory. It turned
its head in my direction and I saw its eye; and I fired a
little to one side of the eye, at a spot which I thought would
lead to the brain. I struck exactly where I aimed, but the
head of an elephant is enormous and the brain small, and
the bullet missed it. However, the shock momentarily
stunned the beast. He stumbled forward, half falling, and
as he recovered I fired with the second barrel, again aiming
for the brain. This time the bullet sped true, and as I
lowered the rifle from my shoulder, I saw the great lord of
the forest come crashing to the ground.
But at that very instant, before there was a moment’s
time in which to reload, the thick bushes parted immedi-
ately on my left front, and through them surged the vast
*
x
‘\
252 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
bulk of a charging bull elephant, the matted mass of tough
creepers snapping like packthread before his rush. He was
so close that he could have touched me with his trunk.
I leaped to one side and dodged behind a tree trunk,
opening the rifle, throwing out the empty shells, and slipping
in two cartridges. Meanwhile Cuninghame fired right and
left, at the same time throwing himself into the bushes on
the other side. Both his bullets went home, and the bull
stopped short in his charge, wheeled, and immediately
disappeared in the thick cover. We ran forward, but the
forest had closed over his wake. We heard him trumpet
shrilly, and then all sounds ceased.
The *Ndorobo, who had quite properly disappeared
when this second bull charged, now went forward and soon
returned with the report that he had fled at speed, but was
evidently hard hit, as there was much blood on the spoor.
If we had been only after ivory we should have followed
him at once; but there was no telling how long a chase he
might lead us; and as we desired to save the skin of the
dead elephant entire, there was no time whatever to spare.
It is a formidable task, occupying many fr to preserve
nnecessary delays;
So back we turned to where the dead tusker lay, and I
felt proud indeed as I stood by the immense bulk of the
slain monster and put my hand on the ivory. The tusks
weighed a hundred and thirty pounds the pair. ‘There
was the usual scene of joyful excitement among the gun-
bearers—who had behaved excellently—and among the
wild bush people who had done the tracking for us; and, as
The charging bull elephant
“He could have touched me with his trunk ”’
Drawn by Philip R. Goodwin from photographs and from descriptions furnished by Mr. Roosevelt
baal
\
‘
252 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
bulk of a charging bull elephant, the matted mass of tough a
creepers snapping like packthread before his rush. psieny
so close that he could have touched me with his trunk. 4
I leaped to one side and dodged behind a tree trunk, ‘a
opening the rifle, throwing out the empty shells, and slipping
in two cartridges. Meanwhile Cuninghame fired right and —
left, at the same time throwing himself into the bushes on
the other side. Both his bullets went home, and the bull
stopped short in his charge, wheeled, and immediately —
disappeared in the thick cover. We ran forward, but the —
forest had closed over his wake. We heard him rumpet q
shrilly, and then all sounds ceased. a
The ’Ndorobo, who had quite properly disasspeuieial . & |
when this second bull charged, now went forward and soon
returned with the report that he had fled at speed, but was
evidently hard hit, as there was much blood on the spoor.
If we had been only after ivory we should have followed
him at once; but there was no telling how long a chase he
might lead us; and as we desired to save the skin of the
dead elephant entire, there was no time whatever to spare.
It is a formidable task, occupying many days, to preserve ia
an elephant for mounting in a museum, and if the skin is
to be properly saved, it must be taken off without an hour’ sd r
ic
ai
i
Sey delay Be
“So back we turned to where the dead tusker lay, and I
felt proud indeed as I stood by the immense bulk of ies :
was the usual scene ta e re ent —
bearersq-who, had" “behaw dn excellenily-and among the —
wild bush people FoR ewan ne
Te
ries
Frey shee
ex he
ELEPHANT HUNTING 253
Cuninghame had predicted, the old Masai Dorobo, from
pure delight, proceeded to have hysterics on the body of
the dead elephant. The scene was repeated when Heller
and the porters appeared half an hour later. Then, chat-
tering like monkeys, and as happy as possible, all, porters,
gun-bearers, and ’Ndorobo alike, began the work of skin-
ning and cutting up the quarry, under the leadership and
supervision of Heller and Cuninghame, and soon they were
all splashed with blood from head to foot. One of the
trackers took off his blanket and squatted stark naked in-
side the carcass the better to use his knife. Each laborer
rewarded himself by cutting off strips of meat for his private
store, and hung them in red festoons from the branches
round about. There was no let up in the work until it was
stopped by darkness.
Our tents were pitched in a small open glade a hun-
dred yards from the dead elephant. The night was clear,
the stars shone brightly, and in the west the young moon
hung just above the line of tall tree tops. Fires were speed-
ily kindled and the men sat around them, feasting and sing-
ing in a strange minor tone until late in the night. The
flickering light left them at one moment in black obscurity,
and the next brought into bold relief their sinewy crouching
figures, their dark faces, gleaming eyes, and flashing teeth.
When they did sleep, two of the *Ndorobo slept so close
to the fire as to burn themselves; an accident to which they
are prone, judging from the many scars of old burns on
their legs. I toasted slices of elephant’s heart on a pronged
stick before the fire, and found it delicious; for I was hun-
gry, and the night was cold. We talked of our success and
exulted over it, and made our plans for the morrow; and
254 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
then we turned in under our blankets for another night’s
sleep.
Next morning some of the ’Ndorobo went off on the trail
of Cuninghame’s elephant to see if it had fallen, but found
that it had travelled steadily, though its wounds were
probably mortal. ‘There was no object in my staying, for
Heller and Cuninghame would be busy for the next ten
days, and would ultimately have to use all the porters in
taking off and curing the skin, and transporting it to Neri;
so I made up my mind to go down to the plains for a hunt
by myself. ‘Taking one porter to carry my bedding, and
with my gun-bearers, and a Dorobo as guide, I struck off
through the forest for the main camp, reaching it early in
the afternoon. Thence I bundled off a safari to Cuning-
hame and Heller, with food for a week, and tents and
clothing; and then enjoyed the luxury of a shave and a warm
bath. Next day was spent in writing and making prepara-
tions for my own trip. A Kikuyu chief, clad in a cloak of
___-hyrax skins, and carrying his war spear, came to congratu-
E late me on killing the elephant and to present me with a
sheep. Early the following morning everything was in
readiness; the bull-necked porters lifted their loads, [I
stepped out in front, followed by my led horse, and in ten
hours’ march we reached Neri boma, with its neat buildings, E
its trees, and its well-kept flower beds.
ine My hunting and travelling during the following fort-
night will be told in the next chapter. On the evening
of September 6th we were all together again at Meru
boma, on the north-eastern slopes of Kenia—Kermit, Tarl-
ton, Cuninghame, Heller, and I. Thanks to the unfailing
kindness of the Commissioner, Mr. Horne, we were given
SN ee
ELEPHANT HUNTING 255
full information of the elephant in the neighborhood. He
had no ’Ndorobo, but among the Wa-Meru, a wild mar-
tial tribe, who lived close around him, there were a num-
ber of hunters, or at least of men who knew the forest and
the game, and these had been instructed to bring in any
news.
We had, of course, no idea that elephant would be
found close at hand. But next morning, about eleven,
Horne came to our .camp with four of his black scouts,
who reported that three elephants were in a patch of thick
jungle beside the shambas, not three miles away. Horne
said that the elephants were cows, that they had been in
the neighborhood some days, devastating the shambas,
and were bold and fierce, having charged some men who
sought to drive them away from the cultivated fields; it is
curious to see how little heed these elephants pay to the
natives. I wished a cow for the museum, and also another
bull. So off we started at once, Kermit carrying his camera.
I slipped on my rubber-soled shoes, and had my gun-
bearers accompany me barefooted, with the Holland and
the Springfield rifles. We followed foot-paths among the
fields until we reached the edge of the jungle in which the
elephants stood.
This jungle lay beside the forest, and at this point
separated it from the fields. It consisted of a mass of rank-
growing bushes, allied to the cotton-plant, ten or twelve
feet high, with only here and there a tree. It was not good
‘ground in which to hunt elephant, for the tangle was prac-
tically impenetrable to a hunter save along the elephant
trails, whereas the elephants themselves could move in
any direction at will, with no more difficulty than a man
256 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
would have in a hay-field. The bushes in most places rose
just above their backs, so that they were completely hid
from the hunter even a few feet away. Yet the cover af-
forded no shade to the mighty beasts, and it seemed strange
that elephants should stand in it at mid-day with the sun out.
There they were, however, for, looking cautiously into the
cover from behind the bushes on a slight hill crest quarter
of a mile off, we could just make out a huge ear now and
then as it lazily flapped.
On account of the wind we had to go well to one side
before entering the jungle. Then in we went in single
file, Cuninghame and Tarlton leading, with a couple of our
naked guides. The latter showed no great desire to get too
close, explaining that the elephants were ‘‘very fierce.”
Once in the jungle, we trod as quietly as possible, thread-
ing our way along the elephant trails, which crossed and
recrossed one another. Evidently it was a favorite haunt,
for the sign was abundant, both old and new. In the im-
penetrable cover it was quite impossible to tell just where
the elephants were, and twice we sent one of the savages up
a tree to locate the game. ‘The last time the watcher, who
stayed in the tree, indicated by signs that the elephant were
not far off; and his companions wished to lead us round
to where the cover was a little lower and thinner. But
to do so would have given them our wind, and Cuninghame
refused, taking into his own hands the management of the
stalk. I kept my heavy rifle at the ready, and on we went,
in watchful silence, prepared at any moment for a charge.
We could not tell at what second we might catch our first
glimpse at very close quarters of “the beast that hath
between his eyes the serpent for a hand,’”’ and when thus
auovysuiuny “fy hq yfvsaSojoyg V utorsT
juvydaya 1@q 3s4Y oY
OH
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ELEPHANT HUNTING 257
surprised the temper of “the huge earth-shaking beast”
is sometimes of the shortest.
Cuninghame and Tarlton stopped for a moment to con-
sult; Cuninghame stooped, and Tarlton mounted his
shoulders and stood upright, steadying himself by my
hand. Down he came and told us that he. had seen a
small tree shake seventy yards distant; although upright on
Cuninghame’s shoulders he could not see the elephant it-
self. Forward we stole for a few yards, and then a piece
of good luck befell us, for we came on the trunk of a great
fallen tree, and scrambling up, we found ourselves perched
in a row six feet above the ground. ‘The highest part of
the trunk was near the root, farthest from where the ele-
phants were; and though it offered precarious footing, it
also offered the best lookout. Thither I balanced, and
looking over the heads of my companions I at once made
out the elephant. At first I could see nothing but the
shaking branches, and one huge ear occasionally flapping.
Then I made out the ear of another beast, and then the
trunk of a third was uncurled, lifted, and curled again; it
showered its back with earth. The watcher we had left
behind in the tree top coughed; the elephants stood mo-
tionless, and up went the biggest elephant’s trunk, feeling for
the wind; the watcher coughed again, and then the bushes
and saplings swayed and parted as three black bulks came
toward us. The cover was so high that we could not see
their tusks, only the tops of their heads and their backs
being visible. The leader was the biggest, and at it I fired
when it was sixty yards away, and nearly broadside on,
but heading slightly toward me. I had previously warned
every one to kneel. The recoil of the heavy rifle made
258 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
me rock, as I stood unsteadily on my perch, and I failed
to hit the brain. But the bullet, only missing the brain
by an inch or two, brought the elephant to its knees; as it
rose I floored it with the second barrel. The blast of the
big rifle, by the way, was none too pleasant for the other
, men on the log and made Cuninghame’s nose bleed. Re-
loading, I fired twice at the next animal, which was now
turning. It stumbled and nearly fell, but at the same
moment the first one rose again, and I fired both barrels
into its head, bringing it once more to the ground. Once’
again it rose—an elephant’s brain is not an easy mark to
hit under such conditions—but as it moved slowly off,
half stunned, I snatched the little Springfield rifle, and
this time shot true, sending the bullet into its brain. As it
fell I took another shot at the wounded elephant, now dis-
appearing in the forest, but without effect.
On walking up to our prize it proved to be not a cow,
but a good-sized adult (but not old) herd bull, with thick,
short tusks, weighing about forty pounds apiece. Ordi-
narily, of course, a bull, and not a cow, is what one desires,
although on this occasion I needed a cow to complete the
group for the National Museum. However, Heller and
Cuninghame spent the next few days in preserving the skin,
which I afterward gave to the University of California; and
I was too much pleased with our luck to feel inclined to
grumble. We were back in camp five hours after leaving
it. Our gun-bearers usually felt it incumbent on them to
keep a dignified bearing while in our company. But the
death of an elephant is always a great event; and one of
the gun-bearers as they walked ahead of us campward,
soon began to improvise a song, reciting the success of
ground
of a tree five or six feet from the
nit Roosevelt
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ELEPHANT HUNTING 259
the hunt, the death of the elephant, and the power of the
rifles; and gradually, as they got farther ahead, the more
light-hearted among them began to give way to their spirits
and they came into camp frolicking, gambolling, and dan-
cing as if they were still the naked savages that they had
been before they became the white man’s followers.
Two days later Kermit Kermit got his bull. He and Tarlton
had camped about ten ten miles off in a magnificent forest,
and late the first afternoon received news that a herd of ele-
phants was in the neighborhood. They were off by dawn,
and in a few hours came on the herd. It consisted chiefly
of cows and calves, but there was one big master bull, with
fair tusks. It was open forest with long grass. By careful
stalking they got within thirty yards of the bull, behind
whom was a line of cows. Kermit put both barrels of his
heavy double +450 into the tusker’s head, but without even
staggering him; and as he walked off Tarlton also fired
both barrels into him, with no more effect; then, as he
slowly turned, Kermit killed him with a shot in the brain
from the .405 Winchester. Immediately the cows lifted
their ears, and began trumpeting and threatening; if they
had come on in a body at that distance, there was not
much chance of turning them or of escaping from them:
and after standing stock still for a minute or two, Kermit
and Tarlton stole quietly off for a hundred yards, and
waited until the anger of the cows cooled and they had
moved away, before going up to the dead bull. Then they
followed the herd again, and Kermit got some photos
which, as far as I know, are better than any that have
ever before been taken of wild elephant. He took them
close up, at imminent risk of a charge.
260 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
The following day the two hunters rode back to Meru,
making a long circle. The elephants they saw were not
worth shooting, but they killed the finest rhinoceros we had
yet seen. They saw it in an open space of tall grass, sur-
rounded by lantana brush, a flowering shrub with close-
growing stems, perhaps twenty feet high and no thicker
than a man’s thumb; it forms a favorite cover for elephants
and rhinoceros, and is wellnigh impenetrable to hunters.
Fortunately this particular rhino was outside it, and Ker-
mit and Tarlton got up to about twenty-five yards from
him. Kermit then put one bullet behind his shoulder,
and as he whipped round to charge, another bullet on the
point of his shoulder; although mortally wounded, he
showed no signs whatever of being hurt, and came at the
hunters with great speed and savage desire to do harm.
Then an extraordinary thing happened. Tarlton fired,
inflicting merely a flesh wound in one shoulder, and the
/ big, fearsome brute, which had utterly disregarded the two ©
fatal shots, on receiving this flesh wound, wheeled and ran.
Both firing, they killed him before he had gone many yards.
He was a bull, with a thirty-inch horn.
By this time Cuninghame and Heller had finished the
skin and skeleton of the bull they were preserving. Near
the carcass Heller trapped an old male leopard, a savage
beast; its skin was in fine shape, but it was not fat, and
weighed just one hundred pounds. Now we all joined,
and shifted camp to a point eight or nine miles distant
from Meru boma, and fifteen hundred feet lower among the
foot-hills. It was much hotter at this lower level; palms
were among the trees that bordered the streams. On the
day we shifted camp Tarlton and I rode in advance to
lhe herd getting uneasy
From a photograph, copyright, by Kermit Roosevelt
The same herd on the eve of charging
Immediately after taking this picture, Kermit had to quietly make his escape, slipping off among the trees to
avoid the charge; he did not wish to shoot any of the herd if it could be avoided
From a photograph, copyright, by Kermit Roosevelt
ELEPHANT HUNTING 261
look for elephants, followed by our gun-bearers and half a
dozen wild Meru hunters, each carrying a spear or a bow
and arrows. When we reached the hunting grounds, open
country with groves of trees and patches of jungle, the
Meru went off in every direction to find elephant. We
waited their return under a tree, by a big stretch of culti-
vated ground. The region was well peopled, and all the
way down the path had led between fields, which the Meru
women were tilling with their adze-like hoes, and banana
plantations, where among the bananas other trees had
been planted, and the yam vines trained up their trunks.
These cool, shady banana plantations, fenced in with tall
hedges and bordered by rapid brooks, were really very
attractive. Among them were scattered villages of conical
thatched huts, and level places plastered with cow dung
on which the grain was threshed; it was then stored in huts
raised on posts. There were herds of cattle, and flocks of
sheep and goats; and among the burdens the women
bore we often saw huge bottles of milk. In the shambas
there were platforms, and sometimes regular thatched huts,
placed in the trees; these were for the watchers, who
were to keep the elephants out of the shambas at night.
Some of the natives wore girdles of banana leaves, looking,
as Kermit said, much like the pictures of savages in Sun-
day-school books.
Early in the afternoon some of the scouts returned
with news that three bull elephants were in a piece of for-
est a couple of miles distant, and thither we went. It
was an open grove of heavy thorn timber beside a strip of
swamp; among the trees the grass grew tall, and there
were many thickets of abutilon, a flowering shrub a dozen
262 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
feet high. On this the elephant were feeding. ‘Tarlton’s
favorite sport was lion hunting, but he was also a first-
class elephant hunter, and he brought me up to these bulls
in fine style. Although only three hundred yards away,
it took us two hours to get close tothem. ‘Tarlton and the
“‘shenzis”—wild natives, called in Swahili (a kind of Afri-
can chinook) ‘‘wa-shenzi’—who were with us, climbed
tree after tree, first to place the elephants, and then to see
if they carried ivory heavy enough to warrant my shooting
them. At last Tarlton brought me to within fifty yards
of them. ‘Two were feeding in bush which hid them from
view, and the third stood between, facing us. We could
only see the top of his head and back, and not his tusks, and
could not tell whether he was worth shooting. Much puz-
zled we stood where we were, peering anxiously at the huge
half-hidden game. Suddenly there was a slight eddy in
the wind, up went the elephant’s trunk, twisting to and fro
in the air; evidently he could not catch a clear scent; but
in another moment we saw the three great dark forms
moving gently off through the bush. As rapidly as possi-
ble, following the trails already tramped by the elephants,
we walked forward, and after a hundred yards Tarlton
pointed to a big bull with good tusks standing motionless
behind some small trees seventy yards distant. As I aimed
at his head he started to move off; the first bullet from the
heavy Holland brought him to his knees, and as he rose I
knocked him flat with the second. He struggled to rise;
but, both firing, we kept him down; and I finished him
with a bullet in the brain from the little Springfield. Al-
though rather younger than either of the bulls I had already
shot, it was even larger. In its stomach were beans from
ELEPHANT HUNTING 263
the shambas, abutilon tips, and bark, and especially the
twigs, leaves, and white blossoms of a smaller shrub. The
tusks weighed a little over a hundred pounds the pair.
We still needed a cow for the museum; and a couple
of days later, at noon, a party of natives brought in word
that they had seen two cows in a spot five miles away.
Piloted by a naked spearman, whose hair was done into a
—
cue, we rode toward the place. For most of the distance
we followed old elephant trails, in some places mere tracks
beaten down through stiff grass which stood above the
head of a man on horseback, in other places paths rutted
deep into the earth. We crossed a river, where monkeys
chattered among the tree tops. On an open plain we saw
a rhinoceros cow trotting off with her calf. At last we came
to a hill-top with, on the summit, a noble fig-tree, whose
giant limbs were stretched over the palms that clustered
beneath. Here we left our horses and went forward on
foot, crossing a palm-fringed stream in a little valley. From
the next rise we saw the backs of the elephants as they
stood in a slight valley, where the rank grass grew ten or
twelve feet high. It was some time before we could see the
ivory so as to be sure of exactly what we were shooting.
Then the biggest cow began to move slowly forward, and
we walked nearly parallel to her, along an elephant trail,
until from a slight knoll I got a clear view of her at a dis-
tance of eighty yards. As she walked leisurely along, almost
broadside to me, I fired the right barrel of the Holland
into her head, knocking her flat down with the shock; and
when she rose I put a bullet from the left barrel through
her heart, again knocking her completely off her feet;
and this time she fell permanently. She was a very old
264 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
cow, and her ivory was rather better than in the average
of her sex in this neighborhood, the tusks weighing about
eighteen pounds apiece. She had been ravaging the sham-
bas over night—which accounted in part for the natives
being so eager to show her to me—and in addition to leaves
and grass, her stomach contained quantities of beans.
There was a young one—just out of calfhood, and quite
able to take care of itself—with her; it ran off as soon as the
mother fell.
Early next morning Cuninghame and Heller shifted
part of the safari to the stream near where the dead ele-
phant lay, intending to spend the following three days in
taking off and preparing the skin. Meanwhile Tarlton,
Kermit, and I were to try our luck in a short hunt on the
other side of Meru boma, at a little crater lake called Lake
Ingouga. We could not get an early start, and reached
Meru too late to push on to the lake the same day.
The following morning we marched to the lake in two
hours and a half. We spent an hour in crossing a broad
tongue of woodland that stretched down from the wonder-
ful mountain forest lying higher on the slopes. The trail
was blind in many places because elephant paths of every
age continually led along and across it, some of them being
much better marked than the trail itself, as it twisted though
the sun-flecked shadows underneath the great trees. Then
we came out on high downs, covered with tall grass and
littered with volcanic stones; and broken by ravines which
were choked with dense underbrush. There were high
hills, and to the left of the downs, toward Kenia, these
were clad in forest. We pitched our tents on a steep cliff
overlooking the crater lake—or pond, as it might more
ELEPHANT HUNTING 265
properly be called. It was bordered with sedge, and through
the water-lilies on its surface we saw the reflection of the |
new moon after nightfall. Here and there thick forest came
down to the brink, and through this, on opposite sides
of the pond, deeply worn elephant paths, evidently travelled
for ages, wound down to the water.
That evening we hunted for bushbuck, but saw none.
While sitting on a hillock at dusk, watching for game, a
rhino trotted up to inspect us, with ears cocked forward.
and tail erect. A rhino always has something comic about
it, like a pig, formidable though it at times is. This one
carried a poor horn, and therefore we were pleased when at
last it trotted off without obliging us to shoot it. We saw
new kinds of whydah birds, one with a yellow breast, one
with white in its tail; at this altitude the cocks were still
in full plumage, although it was just past the middle of
September; whereas at Naivasha they had begun to lose
their long tail feathers nearly two months previously.
On returning to camp we received a note from Cuning-
hame saying that Heller had been taken seriously sick, and
Tarlton had to go to them. This left Kermit and me to
take our two days’ hunt together.
One day we got nothing. We saw game on the open
downs, but it was too wary, and though we got within twenty-
five yards of eland in thick cover, we could only make out
a cow, and she took fright and ran without our ever getting
a glimpse of the bull that was with her. Late in the after-
noon we saw an elephant a mile and a half away, crossing
a corner of the open downs. We followed its trail until
the light grew too dim for shooting, but never overtook it,
although at the last we could hear it ahead of us breaking
266 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
the branches; and we made our way back to camp through
the darkness.
The other day made amends. It was Kermit’s turn to
shoot an elephant, and mine to shoot a rhinoceros; and each
of us was to act as the backing gun for the other. In the
forenoon, we saw a bull rhino with a good horn walking
over the open downs. A convenient hill enabled us to cut
him off without difficulty, and from its summit we killed
him at the base, fifty or sixty yards off. His front horn
was nearly twenty-nine inches long; but though he was
an old bull, his total length, from tip of nose to tip of tail,
was only twelve feet, and he was, I should guess, not more
than two-thirds the bulk of the big bull I killed in the Sotik.
We rested for an hour or two at noon, under the shade
of a very old tree with glossy leaves, and orchids growing
on its gnarled, hoary limbs, while the unsaddled horses
grazed, and the gun-bearers slept near by, the cool moun-
tain air, although this was mid-day under the equator,
making them prefer the sunlight to the shade. When we
moved on it was through a sea of bush ten or fifteen feet
high, dotted here and there with trees; and riddled in every
direction by the trails of elephant, rhinoceros, and buffalo.
Each of these animals frequents certain kinds of country to
which the other two rarely or never penetrate; but here they
all three found ground to their liking. Except along their
winding trails, which were tunnels where the jungle was
tall, it would have been practically impossible to traverse
the thick and matted cover in which they had made their
abode.
We could not tell what moment we might find our-
selves face to face with some big beast at such close quar-
Mr. Roosevelt’s and Kermit’s camp near which they got the rhino and elephant
From a photograph by Kermit Roosevelt
- ELEPHANT HUNTING 267
ters as to msure a charge, and we moved in cautious silence,
our rifles in our hands. Rhinoceros were especially plenti-
ful, and we continually came across not only their tracks,
but the dusty wallows in which they rolled, and where
they came to deposit their dung. The fresh sign of elephant,
however, distracted our attention from the lesser game,
and we followed the big footprints eagerly, now losing the
trail, now finding it again. At last near a clump of big trees
we caught sight of three huge, dark bodies ahead of us.
The wind was right, and we stole toward them, Kermit
leading, and I immediately behind. Through the tangled
branches their shapes loomed in vague outline; but we
saw that one had a pair of long tusks, and our gun-bearers
unanimously pronounced it a big bull, with good ivory.
A few more steps gave Kermit a chance at its head, at about
sixty yards, and with a bullet from his .405 Winchester he
floored the mighty beast. It rose, and we both fired in
unison, bringing it down again; but as we came up it
struggled to get on its feet, roaring savagely, and once more
we both fired together. This finished it. We were dis-
appointed at finding that it was not a bull; ju it was a
large cow, with tusks over five feet long—a°very unusual~
length for a cow—one weighing twenty-five, and the other
twenty-two pounds)
Our experience’ had convinced us that both the Win-
chester .405, and the Springfield .300 would do good work
with elephants; although I kept to my belief that, for such
very heavy game, my Holland .500-.450 was an even better
weapon.
ax far from where this elephant fell Tarlton had, the
ear before, witnessed an interesting incident. He was
how
o>
268 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
watching a small herd of elephants, cows and calves, which
were in the open, when he saw them begin to grow uneasy.
Then, with a shrill trumpet, a cow approached a bush, out
of which bounded a big lion. Instantly all the cows charged
him, and he fled as fast as his legs would carry him for the
forest, two hundred yards distant. He just managed to
reach the cover in safety; and then the infuriated cows, in
their anger at his escape, demolished the forest for several
rods in every direction.
x
i A ED a
oe ee ee
ew
CHAPTER XI
THE GUASO NYERO; A RIVER OF THE EQUATORIAL
DESERT
WueEn I reached Neri, after coming down from killing
my first elephant on Kenia, I was kept waiting two or
three days before I could gather enough Kikuyu porters.
As I could not speak a word of their language I got a couple
of young Scotch settlers, very good fellows, to take charge
of the safari out to where I intended to hunt. There was a
party of the King’s African Rifles camped at Neri; the
powerful-looking enlisted men were from the south, chiefly
from one of the northernmost tribes of Zulu blood, and
their two officers were of the best Kipling-soldier type.
Then there was another safari, that of Messrs. Kearton
and Clark who were taking some really extraordinary
photographs of birds and game. Finally, Governor and
Mrs. Jackson arrived from a trip they had been making
round Kenia; and I was much pleased to be able to tell
the Governor, who had helped me in every way, about my
bull elephant, and to discuss with him some of the birds we
had seen and the mammals we had trapped. A great
ingowa, a war-dance of the natives, was held in his honor,
and the sight was, as always, one of interest and of a certain
fascination. There was an Indian trader at Neri from
whom we had obtained donkeys to carry to our elephant
camp “posho,” or food for the porters. He announced
269
270 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
that they were all in readiness in a letter to Cuninghame,
which was meant to be entirely respectful, but which
sounded odd, as it was couched in characteristic Baboo
English. The opening lines ran: ‘‘Dear K-ham, the
donkeys are altogether deadly.”’
At last fifty Kikuyus assembled—they are not able to
carry the loads of regular Swahili porters—and I started
that moment, though it was too late in the afternoon to
travel more than three or four miles. The Kikuyus were
real savages, naked save for a dingy blanket, usually carried
round the neck. ‘They formed a picturesque safari; but it
was difficult to make the grasshopper-like creatures take
even as much thought for the future as the ordinary happy-
go-lucky porters take. At night if it rained they cow-
ered under the bushes in drenched and shivering discom-
fort; and yet they had to be driven to make bough shelters
for themselves. Once these shelters were up, and a little
fire kindled at the entrance of each, the moping, spiritless
wretches would speedily become transformed into beings
who had lost all remembrance of ever having been wet or
cold. After their posho had been distributed and eaten
they would sit, huddled and cheerful, in their shelters, and
sing steadily for a couple of hours. Their songs were
much wilder than those of the regular porters, and were
often warlike. Occasionally, some ‘‘shanty man,” as he
would be called on shipboard, improvised or repeated a
kind of story in short sentences or strophes; but the main
feature of each song was the endless repetition of some re-
frain, musically chanted in chorus by the whole party.
This repetition of a short sentence or refrain is a charac-
teristic of many kinds of savage music; I have seen the
THE GUASO NYERO 271
Pawnees grow almost maddened by their triumph song, or
victory song, which consisted of nothing whatever but the
fierce, barking, wolf-like repetition of the words, “‘In the
morning the wolves feasted.”
Our first afternoon’s march was uneventful; but I was
amused at one of our porters and the “‘safari” ants. These
safari ants are so called by the natives because they go on
foraging expeditions in immense numbers. The big-
headed warriors are able to inflict a really painful bite.
In open spaces, as where crossing a path, the column makes
a little sunken way through which it streams uninterruptedly.
Whenever we came to such a safari ant column, in its
sunken way, crossing our path, the porter in question laid
two twigs on the ground as a peace-offering to the ants.
He said that they were on safari, just as we were, and that
it was wise to propitiate them.
That evening we camped in a glade in the forest. At
nightfall dozens of the big black-and-white hornbill, croak-
ing harshly, flew overhead, their bills giving them a cu-
riously top-heavy look. ‘They roosted in the trees near by.
Next day we came out on the plains, where there was no
cultivation, and instead of the straggling thatch and wattle,
unfenced villages of the soil-tilling Kikuyus, we found our-
selves again among the purely pastoral Masai, whose tem-
porary villages are arranged in a ring or oval, the cattle
being each night herded in the middle, and the mud-daubed,
cow-dung-plastered houses so placed that their backs form
a nearly continuous circular wall, the spaces between being
choked with thorn-bushes. I killed a steinbuck, missed a
tommy, and at three hundred yards hit a Jackson’s harte-
beest too far back, and failed in an effort to ride it down.
272 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
The day after we were out on plains untenanted by hu-
man beings, and early in the afternoon struck water by
which to pitch our tents. There was not much game, and
it was shy; but I thought that I could kill enough to keep
the camp in meat so I sent back the two Scotchmen and
their Kikuyus, after having them build a thorn boma, or
fence, round the camp. One of the reasons why the Masai
had driven their herds and flocks off this plain was be-
cause a couple of lions had turned man-eaters, and had
killed a number of men and women. We saw no sign of
lions, and believed they had followed the Masai; but there
was no use in taking needless chances.
The camp was beside a cold, rapid stream, one of the
head-waters of the Guaso Nyero. It was heavily fringed
with thorn timber. To the east the crags and snow-
fields of Kenia rose from the slow swell of the mountain’s
base. It should have been the dry season, but there were
continual heavy rains, which often turned into torrential
downpours. In the overcast mornings as I rode away from
camp, it was as cool as if I were riding through the fall
weather at home; at noon, if the sun came out, straight
overhead, the heat was blazing; and we generally returned
to camp at nightfall, drenched with the cold rain. The
first heavy storm, the evening we pitched camp, much ex-
cited all my followers. Ali came rushing into the tent to
tell me that there was “‘a big snake up high.” This cer-
tainly seemed worth investigating, and I followed him out-
side where everybody was looking at the “snake,” which
proved to be a huge, funnel-shaped, whirling cloud, career-
ing across the darkened sky. It was a kind of waterspout
or cyclone; fortunately it passed to one side of camp.
From a photograph by Theodore Roosevelt
toma vo.
J ura, Canufrol
rR,
te beat y
a
vies
THE GUASO NYERO 273
The first day I hunted I shot only a steinbuck for the
table. The country alternated between bare plains and
great stretches of sparse, stunted thorns. We saw zebra,
and two or three bands of oryx; big, handsome antelope
strongly built and boldly colored, with long, black, rapier-
like horns. ‘They were very wary, much more so than the
zebra with which they associated, and we could not get
anywhere near them.
Next day I hunted along the edges of a big swamp.
We saw waterbuck, but were unable to get within shot.
However, near the farther end of the swamp, in an open
swale, we found four eland feeding. The eland is the king
of antelope; and not only did I desire meat for camp, but
I wished the head of a good bull as a trophy for myself,
the eland I had hitherto shot being for the National Mu-
seum. ‘The little band included a big bull, a small bull,
and two cows; ata distance the big bull looked slaty blue.
The great, sleek, handsome creatures were feeding in the
long grass just like cattle, switching their long tails at the
flies. The country looked like a park, with clumps of
thorn-trees scattered over the grassy sward. Carefully I
crept on all-fours from tree clump to tree clump, trying
always to move when the elands’ heads were down grazing.
At last I was within three hundred yards, when one of
the cows caught a glimpse of me and alarmed the others.
They were startled, but puzzled, and after trotting a few
rods turned to stare at the half-seen object of their alarm.
Rising to my knee I shot the big bull in the throat as with
head erect he gazed in my direction. Off he went with a
rush, the others bounding and leaping as they accom-
panied him, and we followed on the blood spoor. Bakhari
274 -AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
and Gouvimali trotted fast on the trail, and in order to be
fresh for the shot I mounted Tranquillity. Suddenly out
bounced the wounded bull from some bushes close by,
and the horse nearly had a fit; I could hardly get off in time
to empty my magazine at long range—fortunately with
effect. It was a magnificent bull of the variety called
Patterson’s eland, with a fine head. Few prize oxen would
be as heavy, and in spite of its great size, its finely moulded
limbs and beautiful coat gave it a thoroughly game look.
Oryx were now what I especially wished, and we devoted
all of the following day to their pursuit. We saw three bands,
two of them accompanying herds of zebra, after the man-
ner of kongoni. Both species were found indifferently on
the bare, short-grass flats and among the thin, stunted
thorn-trees which covered much of the plains. After a
careful stalk, the latter part on all-fours, I got to within
about three hundred yards of a mixed herd, and put a
bullet into one oryx as it faced me, and hit another as it
ran. The first, from its position, I thought I would surely
kill if I hit it at all, and both of the wounded beasts were
well behind the herd when it halted a mile away on the other
side of the plain. But as we approached they all went off
together, and I can only hope the two I hit recovered; at
any rate, after we had followed them for miles, the tough
beasts were still running as strongly as ever.
All the morning I manceuvred and tramped hard, in
vain. At noon, I tried a stalk on a little band of six, who
were standing still, idly switching their tails, out in a big
flat. They saw me, and at four hundred yards I missed the
shot. By this time I felt rather desperate, and decided for
once to abandon legitimate proceedings and act on the
a
gd
{arasooy asopoay 7 &q ydvasojoyd vp moag Nanasooy asopoay 7 &q ydvasojoyg v mosy
MOO x10 UY [nq xAso uy
‘
.
Sen ota oe
\\
THE GUASO NYERO 275
Ciceronian theory, that he who throws the javelin all day
must hit the mark some time. Accordingly I emptied the
magazines of both my rifles at the oryx, as they ran across
my front, and broke the neck of a fine cow, at four hundred
and fifty yards. Six or seven hundred yards off the sur-
vivors stopped, and the biggest bull, evidently much put
out, uttered loud bawling grunts and drove the others
round with his horns. Meanwhile I was admiring the
handsome dun gray coat of my prize, its long tail and long,
sharp, slender horns, and the bold black and white mark-
ings on its face. Hardly had we skinned the carcass before
the vultures lit on it; with them were two marabou storks,
one of which I shot with a hard bullet from the Springfield.
The oryx, like the roan and sable, and in striking con-
trast to the eland, is a bold and hard fighter, and when
cornered will charge a man or endeavor to stab a lion. If
wounded it must be approached with a certain amount of
caution. The eland, on the other hand, in spite of its
huge size, is singularly mild and inoffensive, an old bull
being as inferior to an oryx in the will and power to fight
as it is in speed and endurance. “Antelope,” as I have
said, is a very loose term, meaning simply any hollow-horned
ruminant that isn’t an ox, a sheep, or a goat. The eland is
one of the group of tragelaphs, which are as different from
the true antelopes, such as the gazelles, as they are from the
oxen. One of its kinsfolk is the handsome little bushbuck,
about as big as a white-tail deer; a buck of which Kermit
had killed two specimens. The bushbuck is a wicked
fighter, no other buck of its size being as dangerous; which
makes the helplessness and timidity of its huge relative all
the more striking.
276 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
I had kept four Kikuyu with me to accompany me on
my hunts and carry in the skins and meat. They were with
me on this occasion; and it was amusing to see how my
four regular attendants, Bakhari and Gouvimali the gun-
bearers, Simba the sais, and Kiboko the skinner, looked
down on their wild and totally uncivilized brethren. They
would not associate with the “shenzis,” as they called
them; that is, savages or bush people. But the “‘shenzis”
always amused and interested me; and this was especially
true on the afternoon in question. Soon after we had
started campwards with the skin and meat of the oryx,
we encountered a succession of thunder-storms. The rain
came down in a deluge, so that the water stood ankle deep
on the flats, the lightning flashed continuously on every
side, and the terrific peals of thunder made one continuous
roll. At first it maddened my horse; but the uninter-
rupted blaze and roar, just because uninterrupted, ended by
making him feel that there was nothing to be done, and he
plodded stolidly forward through the driving storm. My
regular attendants accepted it with an entire philosophy,
which was finally copied by the Kikuyus, who at first felt
frightened. One of them had an old umbrella which he
shared with a crony. He himself was carrying the marabou
stork; his crony had long strips of raw oryx meat wound
in a swollen girdle about his waist; neither had a stitch
on save the blankets which were wrapped round their
throats; and they clasped each other in a tight embrace as
they walked along under the battered old umbrella. |
In this desolate and lonely land the majesty of the
storms impressed on the beholder a sense of awe and
solemn exaltation. ‘Tossing their crests, and riven by
THE GUASO NYERO 277
lightning, they gathered in their wrath from every quarter
of the heavens, and darkness was before and under them;
then, in the lull of a moment, they might break apart,
while the sun turned the rain to silver and the rainbows
were set in the sky; but always they gathered again, men-
acing and mighty,—for the promise of the bow was never
kept, and ever the clouds returned after the rain. Once
as I rode facing Kenia the clouds tore asunder, to right and
left, and the mountain towered between, while across its
base was flung a radiant arch. But almost at once the
many-colored glory was dimmed; for in splendor and
terror the storm strode in front, and shrouded all things
from sight in thunder-shattered sheets of rain.
These days alone in the wilderness went by very pleas-
antly, and, as it was for not too long, I thoroughly enjoyed
being entirely by myself, so far as white men were con-
cerned. By this time I had become really attached to my
native followers, who looked after my interest and comfort
in every way; and in return I kept them supplied with
plenty of food, saw that they were well clothed, and forced
them to gather enough firewood to keep their tents dry and
warm at night—for cold, rainy weather is always hard upon
them.
Ali, my faithful head tent boy, and Shemlani his as-
sistant—poor Bill the Kikuyu had left because of an in-
tricate row with his fellows—were both, as they proudly
informed me, Arabs. On the East African coast the so-
called Arabs almost all have native blood in them and
speak Swahili; the curious, newly created language of the
descendants of the natives whom the Arabs originally en-
slaved, and who themselves may have in their veins a little
278 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
Arab blood; in fact, the dividing line between Swahili
and Arab becomes impracticable for an outsider to draw
where, as is generally the case, it is patent that the blood of
both races is mixed to a degree at which it is only possible
to guess. Ali spoke some English; and he and Shem-
lani were devoted and efficient servitors. Bakhari the gun-
bearer was a Swahili, quite fearless with dangerous game,
rather sullen, and unmoved by any emotion that I could
ever discover. He spoke a little English, but it could not be
called idiomatic. One day we saw two ostriches, a cock
and a hen, with their chicks, and Bakhari with some ex-
citement said, “Look, sah! ostrich! bull, cow, and pups!”
The other gun-bearer, Gouvimali, in some ways an even
better hunter, and always good-tempered, knew but one
English phrase; regularly every afternoon or evening, after
cleaning the rifle he had carried, he would say, as he left
the tent, his face wreathed in smiles, ‘‘G-o-o-d-e-bye!”
Gouvimali was a Wakamba, as were Simba and my other
sais, M’nyassa, who had taken the place of Hamisi (Hamisi
had broken down in health, his legs, as he assured me,
becoming “‘very sick”’). The cook, Roberti, was a mission
boy, a Christian; we had several Christians with the safari,
one being a headman, and all did excellently. I mention
this because one so often hears it said that mission boys turn
out worthless. Most of our men were heathens; and of
course many, both of the Christians and the Moham-
medans, were rather thinly veneered with the religions they
respectively professed.
When in the morning we started on our hunt my gun-
bearers and sais, and the skinners, if any were along,
walked silently behind me, on the lookout for game. Re-
THE GUASO NYERO 279
turning, they were apt to get in front, to pilot me back to
camp. If, as at this time was generally the case, we re-
turned with our heads bent to the rushing rain, they trudged
sturdily ahead in dripping silence. If the weather was clear
the spirits of the stalwart fellows were sure to rise until they
found some expression, ‘The Wakamba might break into
song; or they might all talk together in Swahili, recounting
the adventures of the day, and chaffing one another with
uproarious laughter about any small misadventure; a
difference of opinion as to the direction of camp being
always a subject, first for earnest discussion, and then for
much mirth at the expense of whomever the event proved
mistaken.
My two horses, when I did not use them, grazed con-
tentedly throughout the day near the little thorn boma
which surrounded our tents; and at nightfall the friendly
things came within it of their own accord to be given their
feed of corn and be put in their own tent. When the sun
was hot they were tormented by biting flies; but their work
was easy, and they were well treated and throve. In the
daytime vultures, kites, and white-necked ravens came
round camp, and after nightfall jackals wailed and hyenas
uttered their weird cries as they prowled outside the thorn
walls. Twice, at midnight, we heard the ominous sighing
or moaning of a hungry lion, and I looked to my rifle, which
always stood, loaded, at the head of my bed. But on
neither occasion did he come near us. Every night a fire
was kept burning in the entrance to the boma, and the
three askaris watched in turn, with instructions to call me
if there was any need.
I easily kept the camp in meat, as I had guessed that
280 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
I could do. My men feasted on oryx and eland, while I re-
served the tongues and tenderloins for myself. Each day
I hunted for eight or ten hours, something of interest always
happening. I would not shoot at the gazelles; and the
game I did want was so shy that almost all my shots were
at long range, and consequently a number of them did not
hit. However, I came on my best oryx in rather thick bush,
and killed it at a hundred and twenty-five yards, as it
turned with a kind of sneeze of alarm or curiosity, and
stood broadside to me, the sun glinting on its handsome
coat and polished black horns. One of my Kikuyu followers
packed the skin entire to camp. I had more trouble with
another oryx, wounding it one evening at three hundred
and fifty yards, and next morning following the trail and
after much hard work and a couple of misses killing it with
a shot at three hundred yards. On September 2, I found
two newly born oryx calves. The color of the oryx made
them less visible than hartebeest when a long way off on
the dry plains. I noticed that whenever we saw them
mixed in a herd with zebra, it was the zebra that first struck
our eyes. But in bright sunlight, in bush, I also noticed
that the zebra themselves were hard to see.
One afternoon, while skirting the edge of a marsh
teeming with waders and water-fowl, I came across four
stately Kavirondo cranes, specimens of which bird the
naturalists had been particularly anxious to secure. They
were not very shy for cranes, but they would not keep still,
and I missed a shot with the Springfield as they walked
along about a hundred and fifty yards ahead of me. How-
ever, they were unwise enough to circle round me when
they rose, still keeping the same distance, and all the time
iarasooy asopoay J <q ydvasojoyg v wosy jarasooy asopoay J, Kg ydvasojoyg v moay
o1aANV OSeN) OY} UO suTed ynuU-AIOAT OIDANT OSBNE) OUT,
THE GUASO NYERO 281
uttering their musical call, while their great wings flapped
in measured beats. Wing shooting with the rifle, even
at such large birds of such slow and regular flight, is never
easy, and they were rather far off; but with the last car-
tridge in my magazine—the fifth—I brought one whirl-
ing down through the air, the bullet having pierced his
body. It was a most beautiful bird, black, white, and
chestnut, with an erect golden crest, and long, lanceolate
gray feathers on the throat and breast.
There were waterbuck and impalla in this swamp.
I tried to get a bull of the former but failed. Several times
I was within fifty yards of doe impalla and cow water-
buck, with their young, and watched them as they fed and
rested, quite unconscious of my presence. Twice I saw stein-
buck, on catching sight of me, lie down, hoping to escape
observation. The red coat of the steinbuck is rather con-
spicuous, much more so than the coat of the duiker; yet it
often tries to hide from possible foes.
Late in the afternoon of September 3, Cuninghame and
Heller, with the main safari, joined me, and I greeted
them joyfully; while my men were equally pleased to see
their fellows, each shaking hands with his especial friends.
Next morning we started toward Meru, heading north-east,
toward the foot-hills of Kenia. The vegetation changed
its character as we rose. By the stream where we had
camped grew the great thorn-trees with yellow-green trunks
which we had become accustomed to associate with the
presence of herds of game. Out on the dry flats were
other thorns, weazened little trees, or mere scrawny bushes,
with swellings like bulbs on the branches and twigs, and
the long thorns far more conspicuous than the scanty foli-
282 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
age; though what there was of this foliage, now brilliant
green, was exquisite in hue and form, the sprays of delicate
little leaves being as fine as the daintiest lace. On_ the
foot-hills all these thorn-trees vanished. We did not go as
high as the forest belt proper (here narrow, while above
it the bamboos covered the mountain side), but tongues of
juniper forest stretched down along the valleys which we
crossed, and there were large patches of coarse deer fern,
while among many unknown flowers we saw blue lupins,
ox-eye daisies, and clover. ‘That night we camped so high
that it was really cold, and we welcomed the roaring fires
of juniper logs.
We rose at sunrise. It was a glorious morning, clear
and cool, and as we sat at breakfast, the table spread in
the open on the dew-drenched grass, we saw in the south-
east the peak of Kenia, and through the high, transparent
air the snow-fields seemed so close as almost to dazzle our
eyes. To the north and west we looked far out over the
wide, rolling plains to a wilderness of mountain ranges,
barren and jagged. All that day and the next we journeyed
eastward, almost on the equator. At noon the overhead
sun burned with torrid heat; but with the twilight—short
compared to the long northern twilights, but not nearly as
short as tropical twilights are often depicted—came the cold,
and each night the frost was heavy. The country was un-
tenanted by man. In the afternoon of the third day we
began to go downhill, and hour by hour the flora changed.
At last we came to a broad belt of woodland, where the
strange trees of many kinds grew tall and thick. Among
them were camphor-trees, and trees with gouty branch
tips, bearing leaves like those of the black walnut, and
THE GUASO NYERO 283
panicles of lilac flowers, changing into brown seed vessels;
and other trees, with clusters of purple flowers, and the
seeds or nuts enclosed in hard pods or seed vessels like
huge sausages.
On the other side of the forest we came suddenly out
on the cultivated fields of the Wa-Meru, who, like the
Kikuyu, till the soil; and among them, farther down, was
Meru boma, its neat, picturesque buildings beautifully
placed among green groves and irrigated fields, and looking
out from its cool elevation over the hot valleys beneath.
It is one of the prettiest spots in East Africa. We were more
than hospitably received by the Commissioner, Mr. Horne,
who had been a cow-puncher in Wyoming for seven years
—so that naturally we had much in common. He had built
the station himself, and had tamed the wild tribes around
by mingled firmness and good treatment; and he was a
mighty hunter, and helped us in every way.
Here we met Kermit and Tarlton, and heard all about
their hunt. They had been away from us for three weeks
and a half, along the Guaso Nyero, and had enjoyed first-
rate luck. Kermit had been particularly interested in a
caravan they had met, consisting of wild spear-bearing
Borani, people like Somalis, who were bringing down scores
of camels and hundreds of small horses to sell at Nairobi.
They had come from the north, near the outlying Abyssin-
ian lands, and the caravan was commanded by an Arab of
stately and courteous manners. Such an extensive cara-
van journey was rare in the old days before English rule;
but one of the results of the “‘Pax Europaica,’”’ wherever
it obtains in German, French, or English Africa, is a great
increase of intercourse, commercial and social, among the
284 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
different tribes, even where widely separated. This cara-
van had been followed by lions; and a day or two after-
ward Kermit and Tarlton ran into what were probably
these very lions. There were eleven of them: a male witha
heavy mane, three lionesses, and seven cubs, some of them
about half grown. As Kermit and Tarlton galloped after
them, the lion took the lead, the cubs coming in the middle,
while the three lionesses loped along in the rear, guarding
their young. The lion cared little for his wives and off-
spring, and gradually drew ahead of them, while the two
horsemen, riding at full speed, made a wide détour round
the others in order to reach him; so that at last they got
between him and the ten lionesses and cubs, the big lion
coming first, the horsemen next, and then the lesser lions,
all headed the same way. As the horsehooves thundered
closer the lion turned to bay. Kermit—whose horse had
once fallen with him in the chase—and Tarlton leaped
off their horses, and Kermit hit the lion with his first shot,
and, as it started to charge, mortally wounded it with a
second bullet. It turned and tried to reach cover, and
Tarlton stopped it with a third shot; for there was no time
to lose, as they wished to tackle the other lions. After a
sharp gallop they rounded up the lionesses and cubs.
Kermit killed one large cub, which they mistook for a
lioness; wounded a lioness which for the time being es-
caped; killed another with a single bullet from his 30-40
Winchester—for the others he used his .405 Winchester—
and hit the third as she crouched facing him at two hundred
yards. She at once came in at full speed, making a most
determined charge. Kermit and Tarlton were standing
near their horses. The lioness came on with great bounds
THE GUASO NYERO 285
so that Kermit missed her twice, but broke her shoulder
high up when she was but thirty yards off. She fell on
her head and, on rising, galloped, not at the men, but at
the horses, who, curiously enough, paid no heed to her.
Tarlton stopped her with a bullet in the nick of time, just
before she reached them, and with another bullet Kermit
killed her. Two days later they came on the remaining
cubs and the wounded lioness, and Kermit killed the
latter; but they let the cubs go, feeling it unsportsman-
like to kill them—a feeling which I am by no means cer-
tain I share, for lions are scourges not only to both wild
and tame animals, but to man himself.
Kermit also rode down and killed two cheetahs and a
serval, and got a bad tumble while chasing a jackal, his
horse turning a complete somersault through a thorny bush.
This made seven cheetahs that he had killed, a record un-
equalled for any other East African trip of the same length;
and the finding and galloping down of these cheetahs—going
at breakneck speed over any and every HR OF dosti
and then shooting them either from foot or horseback—
made one of the noteworthy features of our trip. One
of these two cheetahs had just killed a steinbuck. The
serval was with its mate, and Kermit watched them for
some time through his glasses before following them. There
was one curious feature of their conduct. One of them
was playing about, now near the other, now leaving it;
and near by was a bustard, which it several times pretended
to stalk, crawling toward it a few yards, and then standing
up and walking away. The bustard paid no heed to it;
and, more singular still, two white-necked ravens lit close
to it, within a few yards on either side; the serval sitting
286 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
erect between them, seemingly quite unconcerned for a
couple of minutes, and then strolling off without making
any effort to molest them. I can give no explanation of
the incident; it illustrates afresh the need of ample and
well-recorded observations by trustworthy field naturalists,
who shall go into the wilderness before the big game, the
big birds, and the beasts of prey vanish. Those pages of
the book of nature which are best worth reading can best
be read far from the dwellings of civilized man; and for
their full interpretation we need the services, not of one
man, but of many men, who in addition to the gift of ac-
curate observation shall if possible possess the power fully,
accurately, and with vividness to write about what they
have observed.
Kermit shot many other animals, among them three
fine oryx, one of which he rode down on horseback, ma-
neeuvring so that at last it galloped fairly closely across his
front, whereupon he leaped off his horse for the shot; an
ardwolf (a miniature hyena with very weak teeth) which
bolted from its hole at his approach; gerenuk, small ante-
lope with necks relatively as long as giraffes’, which are
exceedingly shy and difficult to obtain; and the Grevy’s
zebra, as big as a small horse. Most of his hunting was
done alone, either on foot or on horseback; on a long run
or all-day tramp no other member of our outfit, black or
white, could quite keep up with him. He and Tarlton
found where a leopard had killed and partly eaten a nearly
full-grown individual of this big zebra. He also shot a
twelve-foot crocodile. The ugly, formidable brute had
in its belly sticks, stones, the claws of a cheetah, the hoofs
of an impalla, and the big bones of an eland, together with
f
THE GUASO NYERO 287
the shell plates of one of the large river-turtles; evidently
it took toll indifferently from among its fellow-denizens of
the river, and from among the creatures that came to drink,
whether beasts of pasture or the flesh eaters that preyed
upon them.
He also shot three buffalo bulls, Tarlton helping him to
finish them off, for they are tough animals, tenacious of
life and among the most dangerous of African game. One
turned to charge, but was disabled by the bullets of both
of them before he could come on. Tarlton, whose experi-
ence in the hunting field against dangerous game had been
large, always maintained that, although lion hunting was
the most dangerous sport, because a hunted lion was far
more apt to charge than any other animal, yet when a
buffalo bull did charge he was more dangerous than a lion,
because harder to kill or turn. Where zebra and other
game are abundant, as on the Athi Plains, lion do not med-
dle with such formidable quarry as buffalo; on Heatley’s
farm lions sometimes made their lairs in the same papyrus
swamp with the buffalo, but hardly ever molested them.
In many places, however, the lion preys largely, and in some
places chiefly, on the buffalo. The hunters of wide ex-
perience with whom I conversed, men like Tarlton, Cun-
inghame, and Horne, were a unit in stating that where a
single lion killed a buffalo they had always found that the
buffalo was a cow or immature bull, and that whenever
they had found a full-grown bull thus killed, several lions
had been engaged in the job. Horne had once found the
carcass of a big bull which had been killed and eaten by
lions, and near by lay a dead lioness with a great rip in her
side, made by the buffalo’s horn in the fight in which he
288 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
succumbed. Even a buffalo cow, if fairly pitted against a
single lion, would probably stand an even chance; but of
course the fight never is fair, the lion’s aim being to take
his prey unawares and get a death grip at the outset; and
then, unless his hold is broken, he cannot be seriously
injured.
Twenty years ago the African buffalo were smitten
with one of those overwhelming disasters which are ever
~ occurring and recurring in the animal world. Africa is not
only the land, beyond all others, subject to odious and ter-
rible insect plagues of every conceivable kind, but is also
peculiarly liable to cattle murrains. About the year 1889, or
shortly before, a virulent form of rinderpest startedamong
the domestic cattle and wild buffalo almost at the northern
border of the buffalo’s range, and within the next few
years worked gradually southward to beyond the Zambesi.
It wrought dreadful havoc among the cattle, and in conse-
quence decimated by starvation many of the cattle-owning
tribes; it killed many of the large bovine antelopes, and it
wellnigh exterminated the buffalo. In many places the
buffalo herds were absolutely wiped out, the species being
utterly destroyed throughout great tracts of territory, no-
tably in East Africa; in other places the few survivors
did not represent the hundredth part of those that had
died. For years the East African buffalo ceased to exist
as a beast of the chase. But all the time it was slowly
regaining the lost ground, and during the last decade its
increase has been rapid. Unlike the slow-breeding ele-
phant and rhinoceros, buffalo multiply apace, like domes-
tic cattle, and in many places the herds have now become
too numerous. Their rapid recovery from a calamity so
THE GUASO NYERO 289
terrific is interesting and instructive.* Doubtless for many
years after man, in recognizably human form, appeared on
this planet, he played but a small part in the destruction
of big animals, compared to plague, to insect pests and
microbes, to drought, flood, earth upheaval, and change of
temperature. But during the geological moment covering
the few thousand years of recorded history man has been
not merely the chief, but practically the sole factor in the
extermination of big mammals and birds.
At and near Meru boma we spent a fortnight hunting
elephant and rhinoceros, as described in the preceding
chapter. While camped by the boma white-necked vultu-
rine ravens and black and white crows came familiarly
around the tents. A young eland bull, quite as tame as a
domestic cow, was picketed, now here, now there, about us.
Horne was breaking it to drive in a cart. |
During our stay another District Commissioner, Mr.
Piggott, came over on a short visit; it was he who the pre-
ceding year, while at Neri, had been obliged to undertake
the crusade against the rhinos, because, quite unprovoked,
they had killed various natives. He told us that at the
same time a man-eating leopard made its appearance, and° >
killed seven children. It did not attack at night, but in the
daytime, its victims being the little boys who were watching
the flocks of goats; sometimes it took a boy and sometimes
a goat. Two old men killed it with spears on the occasion
of its taking the last victim. It was a big male, very old,
much emaciated, and the teeth worn to stumps. Horne
told us that a month or two before our arrival at Meru a
* On our trip along the Guaso Nyero we heard that there had been a fresh out-
break of rinderpest among the buffalo; I hope it will not prove such a hideous
disaster,
na
290 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
leopard had begun a career of woman-killing. It killed
one woman by a bite in the throat, and ate the body. It
sprang on and badly wounded another, but was driven off
in time to save her life. ‘This was probably the leopard
Heller trapped and shot, in the very locality where it had
committed its ravages; it was an old male, but very thin,
with worn teeth. In these cases the reason for the beast’s
action was plain: in each instance a big, savage male
had found his powers failing, and had been driven to prey
on the females and young of the most helpless of animals,
man. But another attack, of which Piggott told us, was
apparently due to the queer individual freakishness always
- to be taken into account in dealing with wild beasts. A
Masai chief, with two or three followers, was sitting eating
under a bush, when, absolutely without warning, a leopard
sprang on him, clawed him on the head and hand, without
biting him, and as instantly disappeared. Piggott attended
to the wounded man.
In riding in the neighborhood, through the tall dry
grass, which would often rattle in the wind, I was amused
to find that if I suddenly heard the sound I was apt to stand
alertly on guard, quite unconsciously and _ instinctively,
because it suggested the presence of a rattlesnake. During
the years I lived on a ranch in the West I was always hear-
ing and killing rattlesnakes, and although I knew well that
no African snake carries a rattle, my subconscious senses
always threw me to attention if there was a sound resembling
that made by a rattler. Tarlton, by the way, told me an
interesting anecdote of a white-tailed mongoose and a
snake. The mongoose was an inmate of the house where
he dwelt with his brother and was quite tame. One day
THE GUASO NYERO 291
they brought in a rather small puff adder, less than two feet
long, put it on the floor, and showed it to the mongo
Instantly the latter sprang toward the snake ae
its body and tail on end, and halted five feet away, while ’
the snake lay in curves like the thong of a whip, its head
turned toward the mongoose. Both were motionless for a
moment. ‘Then suddenly the mongoose seemed to lose all
its excitement; its hair smoothed down; and it trotted qui-
etly up to the snake, seized it by the middle of the back—
it always devoured its food with savage voracity—and set-
tled comfortably down to its meal. Like lightning the
snake’s head whipped round. It drove its fangs deep into
the snout or lip of the mongoose, hung on for a moment,
and then repeated the blow. The mongoose paid not the
least attention, but went on munching the snake’s body,
severed its backbone at once, and then ate it all up, head,
fangs, poison, and everything; and it never showed a sign
of having received any damage in the encounter. I had
always understood that the mongoose owed its safety to its
agility in avoiding the snake’s stroke, and I can offer no
explanation of this particular incident.
There were eland on the high downs not far from Meru,
apparently as much at home in the wet, cold climate as on
the hot plains. Their favorite gait is the trot. An elephant
moves at a walk or rather rack; a giraffe has a very pecul-
iar leisurely looking gallop, both hind legs coming forward
nearly at the same time, outside the forelegs; rhino and
buffalo trot and run. Eland when alarmed bound with as-
tonishing agility for such large beasts—a trait not shown by
other large antelope, like oryx—and then gallop for a short
distance; but the big bulls speedily begin to trot, and the
oF
ta
’ as
(ef,
FA
, ‘2
wi
292 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
cows and younger bulls gradually also drop back into the trot.
In fact, their gaits are in essence those of the wapiti, which
also prefer the trot, although wapiti never make the bounds
that eland do at the start. The moose, however, is more
essentially a trotter than either eland or wapiti; a very old
and heavy moose never, when at speed, goes at any other
gait than a trot, except that under the pressure of great and
sudden danger it may perhaps make a few bounds.*
While at Meru boma I received a cable, forwarded by
native runners, telling me of Peary’s wonderful feat in
reaching the North Pole. Of course we were all over-
joyed, and in particular we Americans could not but feel
a special pride in the fact that it was a fellow-countryman
who had performed the great and noteworthy achievement.
A little more than a year had passed since I said good-by
to Peary as he started on his Arctic quest; after leaving
New York in the Roosevelt, he had put into Oyster Bay
to see us, and we had gone aboard the Roosevelt, had ex-
amined with keen interest how she was fitted for the boreal
seas and the boreal winter, and had then waved farewell
to the tall, gaunt explorer, as he stood looking toward us
over the side of the stout little ship.
On September 21, Kermit and Tarlton started south-
west, toward Lake Hannington, and Cuninghame and I
* A perfectly trustworthy Maine hunter informed me that in the spring he had
once seen in the snow where a bear had sprung at two big moose, and they had
bounded for several rods before settling into the tremendous trot which is their
normal gait when startled. I have myself seen signs that showed where a young
moose had galloped for some rods under similar circumstances; and I have seen big
moose calves, or half-grown moose, in captivity gallop a few yards in play, although
oe ate the normal, and under ordinary circumstances the only, gait of the moose
+ When I reached Neri I received from Peary the following cable:
“Your farewell was a royal mascot. The Pole is ours.—PEARY.”
THE GUASO NYERO 293
north toward the Guaso Nyero. Heller was under the
weather, and we left him to spend a few days at Meru
boma, and then to take in the elephant skins and other
museum specimens to Nairobi.
As Cuninghame and I were to be nearly four weeks in
a country with no food supplies, we took a small donkey
safari to carry the extra food for our porters—for in these
remote places the difficulty of taking in many hundred
pounds of salt, as well as skin tents, and the difficulty
of bringing out the skeletons and skins of the big animals
collected, make such an expedition as ours, undertaken
for scientific purposes, far more cumbersome and unwieldy
than a mere hunting trip, or even than a voyage of explo-
ration, and trebles the labor.
A long day’s march brought us down to the hot country.
That evening we pitched our tents by a rapid brook, bor-
dered by palms, whose long, stiff fronds rustled ceaselessly
in the wind. Monkeys swung in the tree tops. On the
march I shot a Kavirondo crane on the wing with the little
Springfield, almost exactly repeating my experience with
the other crane which I had shot three weeks before, ex-
cept that on this occasion I brought down the bird with
my third bullet, and then wasted the last two cartridges in
the magazine at his companions. At dusk the donkeys
were driven to a fire within the camp, and they stood pa-
tiently round it in a circle throughout the night, safe from
lions and hyenas.
Next day’s march brought us to another small tributary |
of the Guaso Nyero, a little stream twisting rapidly through
the plain, between sheer banks. Here and there it was
edged with palms and beds of bulrushes. We pitched the
294 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
tents close to half a dozen flat-topped thorn-trees. We
spent several days at this camp. Many kites came around |
the tents, but neither vultures nor ravens. The country
was a vast plain bounded on almost every hand by chains
of far-off mountains. In the south-west, just beyond the
equator, the snows of Kenia lifted toward the sky. To the
north the barren ranges were grim with the grimness of the
desert. ‘The flats were covered with pale, bleached grass
which waved all day long in the wind; for though there
were sometimes calms, or changes in the wind, on most of
the days we were out it never ceased blowing from some
point in the south. In places the parched soil was crumbling
and rotten; in other places it was thickly strewn with vol-
canic stones; there were but few tracts over which a horse
could gallop at speed, although neither the rocks nor the
rotten soil seemed to hamper the movements of the game.
Here and there were treeless stretches. Elsewhere there
were occasional palms; and trees thirty or forty feet high,
seemingly cactus or aloes, which looked even more like
candelabra than the euphorbia which is thus named; and
a scattered growth of thorn-trees and bushes. ‘The thorn-
trees were of many kinds. One bore only a few leathery
leaves, the place of foliage being taken by the mass of poi-
sonous-looking, fleshy spines which, together with the
ends of the branches, were bright green. The camel-thorn
was completely armed with little, sharply hooked thorns
which tore whatever they touched, whether flesh or clothes.
Then there were the mimosas, with long, straight thorn
spikes; they are so plentiful in certain places along the
Guaso Nyero that almost all the lions have festering sores
in their paws because of the spikes that have broken off in
THE GUASO NYERO 295
them. In these thorn-trees the weaver birds had built
multitudes of their straw nests, each with its bottle-shaped
mouth toward the north, away from the direction of the
prevailing wind.
Each morning we were up at dawn, and saw the heavens
redden and the sun flame over the rim of the world. All
day long we rode and walked across the endless flats, save |
that at noon, when the sky was like molten brass, we might
rest under the thin half shade of some thorn-tree. As the
shadows lengthened and the harsh, pitiless glare softened,
we might turn campward; or we might hunt until the sun
went down, and the mountains in the far-off west, and the
sky above them, grew faint and dim with the hues of fairy-
land. Then we would ride back through the soft, warm
beauty of the tropic night, the stars blazing overhead and
the silver moonlight flooding the reaches of dry grass; it
was so bright that our shadows were almost as black and
clear-cut as in the day. On reaching camp I would take
a cup of tea with crackers or gingersnaps, and after a hot
bath and a shave I was always eager for dinner.
Scattered over these flats were herds of zebra, oryx, and
gazelle. The gazelle, the most plentiful and much the
tamest of the game, were the northern form of the Grant’s
gazelle, with straighter horns which represented the oppo-
site extreme when compared with the horns of the Roberts’
type which we got on the Sotik. They seemed to me some-
what less in size than the big gazelle of the Kapiti Plains.
One of the bucks I shot, an adult of average size (I was
not able to weigh my biggest one), weighed one hundred and
fifteen pounds; a very big true Grant’s buck which I shot
on the Kapiti Plains weighed one hundred and seventy-one
296 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
pounds; doubtless there is complete intergradation, but
the Guaso Nyero form seemed slimmer and lighter, and
in some respects seemed to tend toward the Somaliland
gazelles. I marked no difference in the habits, except that
these northern gazelle switched their tails more jerkily,
more like tommies, than was customary with the true
Grant’s gazelles. But the difference may have been in
my observation. At any rate, the gazelles in this neighbor-
hood, like those elsewhere, went in small parties, or herds
of thirty or forty individuals, on the open plains or where
there were a few scattered bushes, and behaved like those
in the Sotik or on the Athi Plains. A near kinsman of
the gazelle, the gerenuk, a curious creature with a very
long neck, which the Swahilis call “little giraffe,’ was
scattered singly or in small parties through the brush, and
was as wild and wary as the common gazelle was tame.
It seemed to prefer browsing, while the common gazelle
grazes.
The handsome oryx, with their long horns carried by
both sexes, and their coloring of black, white, and dun
gray, came next to the gazelle in point of numbers. They
were generally found in herds of from half a dozen to fifty
individuals, often mixed with zebra herds. There were also
solitary bulls, probably turned out of the herds by more
vigorous rivals, and often one of these would be found with
a herd of zebras, more merciful to it than its own kinsfolk.
All this game of the plains is highly gregarious in habit,
and the species associate freely with one another. The
oryx cows were now generally accompanied by very young
calves, for, unlike what we found to be the case with the
hartebeest on the Athi, the oryx on the Guaso Nyero seem
py te
THE GUASO NYERO 297
to have a definite calving time—September.* I shot only
bulls (there was no meat, either for the porters or ourselves,
except what I got with the rifle), and they were so wary that
almost all those I killed were shot at ranges between three
hundred and five hundred yards; and at such ranges I
need hardly say that I did a good deal of missing. One
wounded bull which, the ground being favorable, I gal-
loped down, turned to bay and threatened to charge the
horse. We weighed one bull; it tipped the scales at four
hundred pounds. The lion kills we found in this neighbor-
hood were all oryx and zebra; and evidently the attack was
made in such fashion that the oryx had no more chance to
fight than the zebra.
The zebra were of both species, the smaller or Burchell’s,
and the Grevy’s, which the porters called kangani. Each
animal went in herds by itself, and almost as frequently
we found them in mixed herds containing both species.
But they never interbreed, and associate merely as each
does with the oryx. The kangani is a fine beast, much
bigger than its kinsman; it is as large as a polo pony. It is
less noisy than the common zebra, the “bonte quagga” of
the Boers, and its cry is totally different. Its gaits are a
free, slashing trot and gallop. When it stands facing one
the huge fringed ears make it instantly recognizable. The
stripes are much narrower and more numerous than those
on the small zebra, and in consequence cease to be dis-
tinguishable at a shorter distance; the animal then looks
* Of course this represents only one man’s experience. I wish there were many
such observations. On the Athi in May I found new-born wildebeest and harte-
beest calves, and others several months old. In June in the Sotik I saw new-born
eland calves, and topi calves several months old. In September on the Guaso Nyero
all the oryx calves were new-born. The zebra foals were also very young.
298 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
gray, like a wild ass. When the two zebras are together
the coloring of the smaller kind is more conspicuous. In
scanning a herd with the glasses we often failed to make
out the species until we could catch the broad black and
white stripes on the rump of the common “‘bonte quagga.”
There were many young foals with the kangani; I hap-
pened not to see any with the Burchell’s. I found the kan-
gani even more wary and more difficult to shoot than the
oryx. The first one I killed was shot at a range of four
hundred yards; the next I wounded at that distance, and
had to ride it down, at the cost of a hard gallop over very
bad country and getting torn by the “wait a bit” thorns.
There were a number of rhinos on the plains, dull of
wit and senses, as usual. Three times we saw cows with
calves trotting at their heels. Once, while my men were
skinning an oryx, I spied a rhino less than half a mile off.
Mounting my horse I cantered down, and examined it
within a hundred yards. It was an old bull with worn
horns, and never saw me. On another occasion, while we
were skinning a big zebra, there were three rhinoceros, all
in different places, in sight at the same time.
There were also ostriches. I saw a party of cocks, with
wings spread and necks curved backward, strutting and
dancing. Their mincing, springy run is far faster than,
when the bird is near by, it seems. The neck is held back
in running, and when at speed the stride is twenty-one feet.
No game is more wary or more difficult to approach. I
killed both a cock and a hen—which I found the naturalists
valued even more than a cock. We got them by stumbling
on the nest, which contained eleven huge eggs, and was
merely a bare spot in the sand, surrounded by grass two feet
THE GUASO NYERO 299
high; the bird lay crouched, with the neck flat on the ground.
When we accidentally came across the nest the cock was on
it, and I failed to get him as he ran. The next day we
returned, and dismounted before we reached the near
neighborhood of the nest. Then I advanced, cautiously,
my rifle at the ready. It seemed impossible that so huge a
bird could lie hidden in such scanty cover, but not a sign
did we see until, when we were sixty yards off, the hen,
which this time was on the nest, rose, and I killed her
at sixty yards. Even this did not make the cock desert the
nest; and on a subsequent day I returned, and after missing
him badly, I killed him at eighty-five yards; and glad I
was to see the huge black-and-white bird tumble in the
dust. He weighed two hundred and sixty-three pounds
and was in fine plumage. The hen weighed two hundred
and forty pounds. Her stomach and gizzard, in addition
to small, white quartz pebbles, contained a mass of vege-
table substance; the bright-green leaves and twig tips of a
shrub, a kind of rush with jointed stem and tuberous root,
bean pods from different kinds of thorn-trees, and the
leaves and especially the seed vessels of a bush, the seed
vessels being enclosed in cases or pods so thorny that they
pinched our fingers, and made us wonder at the bird’s
palate. Cock and hen brood the eggs alternately. We found
the heart and liver of the ostrich excellent eating; the eggs
were very good also. As the cock died it uttered a kind
of loud, long-drawn grunting boom that was almost a roar.
Its beautiful white wing plumes were almost unworn.
A full-grown wild ostrich is too wary to fall into the clutches
of a lion or leopard, save by accident, and it will master
any of the lesser carnivora; but the chicks are preyed
300 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
on by jackals and wild cats, and of course by the larger
beasts of prey also; and the eggs are eagerly sought by
furred and feathered foes alike. Seemingly trustworthy
settlers have assured me that vultures break the tough
shells with stones. The cock and hen will try to draw their
more formidable foes away from the nest or the chicks by
lingering so near as to lure them into pursuit; and anything
up to the size of a hyena they will attack and drive away,
or even kill. The terrific downward stroke of an ostrich’s
leg is as dangerous as the kick of a horse; the thump will
break a rib or backbone of any ordinary animal, and in
addition to the force of the blow itself the big nails may
make a ghastly rip. Both cock and hen lead about the
young brood and care for it. The two ostriches I shot
were swarming with active parasitic flies, a little like those
that were on the lions I shot in the Sotik. Later the por-
ters brought us in several ostrich chicks. They also brought
two genet kittens, which I tried to raise, but failed. They
were much like ordinary kittens, with larger ears, sharper
noses, and longer tails, and loved to perch on my shoulder
or sit on my lap while I stroked them. They made dear
little pets, and I was very sorry when they died.
On the day that I shot the cock ostrich I also shot a
giraffe. The country in which we were hunting marks
the southern limit of the “reticulated” giraffe, a form or
species entirely distinct from the giraffe we had already
obtained in the country south of Kenia. The southern
giraffe is blotched with dark on a light ground, whereas
this northern or north-eastern form is of a uniform dark
color on the back and sides, with a net-work or reticulation
of white lines placed in a large pattern on this dark back-
The old bull Athi giraffe
From a photograph by Edmund Heller
The reticulated giraffe
From a photograph by Theodore Roosevelt
— oy
THE GUASO NYERO 301
ground. The naturalists were very anxious to obtain a
specimen of this form from its southern limit of distribu-
tion, to see if there was any intergradation with the south-
ern form, of which we had already shot specimens near its
northern, or at least north-eastern, limit. The distinction
proved sharp.
On the day in question we breakfasted at six in the
morning, and were off immediately afterward; and we did
not eat anything again until supper at quarter to ten in the
evening. In a hot climate a hunter does not need lunch;
and though in a cold climate a simple lunch is permissible,
anything like an elaborate or luxurious lunch is utterly
out of place if the man is more than a parlor or drawing-
room sportsman. We saw no sign of giraffe until late in the
afternoon. Hour after hour we plodded across the plain,
now walking, now riding, in the burning heat. The withered
grass was as dry as a bone, for the country had been many
months without rain; yet the oryx, zebra, and gazelle evi-
dently throve on the harsh pasturage. There were innu-
merable game trails leading hither and thither, and, after
the fashion of game trails, usually fading out after a few
hundred yards. But there were certain trails which did
not fade out. These were the ones which led to water.
One such we followed. It led across stretches of grassland,
through thin bush, thorny and almost leafless, over tracts of
rotten soil, cracked and crumbling, and over other tracts
where the unshod horses picked their way gingerly among
the masses of sharp-edged volcanic stones. Other trails
joined in, and it grew more deeply marked. At last it led
to a bend in a little river, where flat shelves of limestone
bordered a kind of pool in the current where there were
302 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
beds of green rushes and a fringe of trees and thorn thickets.
This was evidently a favorite drinking-place. Many trails
converged toward it, and for a long distance round the
ground was worn completely bare by the hoofs of the count-
less herds of thirsty game that had travelled thither from
time immemorial. Sleek, handsome, long-horned oryx, with
switching tails, were loitering in the vicinity, and at the
water hole itself we surprised a band of gazelles not fifty
yards off; they fled panic-struck in every direction. Men
and horses drank their fill; and we returned to the sunny
plains and the endless reaches of withered, rustling grass.
At last, an hour or two before sunset, when the heat had
begun a little to abate, we spied half a dozen giraffes scattered
a mile and a half ahead of us, feeding on the tops of the
few widely separated thorn-trees. Cuninghame and I
started toward them on foot, but they saw us when we
were a mile away, and after gazing a short while, turned
and went off at their usual rocking-horse canter, twisting
and screwing their tails. We mounted and rode after
them. I was on my zebra-shaped brown horse, which was
hardy and with a fair turn of speed, and which by this time
I had trained to be a good hunting horse. On the right
were two giraffe which eventually turned out to be a big
cow followed by a nearly full-grown young one; but Cun-
inghame, scanning them through his glasses, and misled by
the dark coloration, pronounced them a bull and cow;
and after the big one I went. By good luck we were on
one of the rare pieces of the country which was fitted for
galloping. I rode at an angle to the giraffe’s line of flight,
thus gaining considerably; and when it finally turned and
went straight away I followed it at a fast run, and before it
THE GUASO NYERO 303
was fully awake to the danger I was but a hundred yards
behind. We were now getting into bad country, and jump-
ing off I opened fire and crippled the great beast. Mount-
ing, I overtook it again in a quarter of a mile and killed it.
In half an hour the skinners and porters came up—one
of the troubles of hunting as a naturalist is that it necessi-
tates the presence of a long tail of men to take off and carry
in the big skins, in order that they may ultimately appear
in museums. In an hour and a half the giraffe’s skin, with
the head and the leg bones, was slung on two poles; eight
porters bore it, while the others took for their own use all
the meat they could carry. They were in high good-humor,
for an abundant supply of fresh meat always means a sea-
son of rejoicing, and they started campwards singing loudly
under their heavy burdens. While the giraffe was being
skinned we had seen a rhinoceros feeding near our line of
march campwards, and had watched it until the light grew
dim. By the time the skin was ready night had fallen, and
we started under the brilliant moon. It lit up the entire
landscape; but moonlight is not sunlight, and there was the
chance of our stumbling on the rhino unawares, and of its
charging; so I rode at the head of the column with full-
jacketed bullets in my rifle. However, we never saw the
rhino, nor had we any other adventure; and the ride
through the moonlight, which softened all the harshness, and
gave a touch of magic and mystery, to the landscape, was
so pleasant that I was sorry when we caught the gleam of
the camp-fires.
Next day we sent our porters to bring in the rest of the
giraffe meat and the ostrich eggs. The giraffe’s heart was
good eating. There were many ticks on the giraffe, as on
304 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
all the game hereabouts, and they annoyed us a little also,
although very far from being the plague they were on the
Athi Plain. Among the flies which at times tormented the
horses and hung around the game, were big gadflies with
long wings folded longitudinally down the back, not in the
ordinary fly fashion; they were akin to the tsetse flies, one
species of which is fatal to domestic animals, and another,
the sleeping-sickness fly, to man himself. They produce
death by means of the fatal microbes introduced into the
blood by their bite; whereas another African fly, the seroot,
found more to the north, in the Nile countries, is a scourge
to man and beast merely because of its vicious bite, and
where it swarms may drive the tribes that own herds entirely
out of certain districts.
One afternoon, while leading my horse because the
ground was a litter of sharp-edged stones, I came out on a
plain which was crawling with zebra. In every direction
there were herds of scores or of hundreds. They were all
of the common or small kind, except three individuals of
the big kangani, and were tame, letting me walk by within
easy shot. Other game was mixed in with them. Soon,
walking over a little ridge of rocks, we saw a rhino sixty
yards off. To walk forward would give it our wind; I did
not wish to kill it; and I was beginning to feel about rhino
the way Alice did in Looking Glass country, when the ele-
phants “‘did bother so.” Having spied us the beast at once
cocked its ears and tail, and assumed its usual absurd re-
semblance to a huge and exceedingly alert and interested
pig. But with a rhino tragedy sometimes treads on the
heels of comedy, and I watched it sharply, my rifle cocked,
while I had all the men shout in unison to scare it away.
THE GUASO NYERO ~ 305
The noise puzzled it much; with tail erect and head tossing
and twisting, it made little rushes hither and thither, but
finally drew off. Next day, in shifting camp, Cuninghame
and I were twice obliged to dismount and keep guard over
the safari while it marched by within a hundred yards of a
highly puzzled rhino, which trotted to and fro in the bush,
evidently uncertain whether or not to let its bewilderment
turn into indignation.
The camp to which we thus shifted was on the banks
of the Guaso Nyero, on the edge of an open glade in a shady
grove of giant mimosas. It was a beautiful camp, and in
the soft tropic nights I sat outside my tent and watched
the. full moon rising through and above the tree tops.
There was absolutely no dew at night, by the way. The
Guaso Nyero runs across and along the equator, through
a desert country, eastward into the dismal Lorian swamp,
where it disappears, save in very wet seasons, when it
continues to the Tana. At our camp it was a broad, rapid,
muddy stream infested with crocodiles. Along its banks
grew groves of ivory-nut palms, their fronds fan-shaped,
their tall trunks forked twenty or thirty feet from the ground,
each stem again forking—something like the antlers of a
black-tail buck. In the frond of a small palm of this kind
we found a pale-colored, very long-tailed tree mouse, in its
nest, which was a ball of chopped straw. Spurfowl and
francolin abounded, their grating cries being heard every-
where; I shot a few as well as one or two sandgrouse;
and with the rifle I knocked off the heads of two guinea
fowls. The last feat sounds better in the narration than
it was in the performance; for I wasted nearly a beltful of
cartridges in achieving it, as the guineas were shy and ran
306 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
rapidly through the tall grass. I also expended a large
number of cartridges before securing a couple of gerenuk;
the queer, long-legged, long-necked antelope were wary,
and as soon as they caught a glimpse of me off they would
go at a stealthy trot or canter through the bushes, with
neck outstretched. ‘They had a curious habit of rising on
their hind legs to browse among the bushes; I do not re- ©
member seeing any other antelope act in this manner. There
were waterbuck along the river banks, and I shot a couple
of good bulls; they belonged to the southern and eastern
species, which has a light-colored ring around the rump;
whereas the western form, which I saw at Naivasha, has the
whole rump light-colored. ‘They like the neighborhood of
lakes and rivers. I have seen parties of them resting in
the open plains during the day, under trees which yielded
little more shade than telegraph poles. The handsome,
shaggy-coated waterbuck has not the high withers which
mark the oryx, wildebeest, and hartebeest, and he carries
his head and neck more like a stag or a wapiti bull.
One day we went back from the river after giraffe.
It must have been a year since any rain had fallen. The
surface of the baked soil was bare and cracked, the sparse
tussocks of grass were brittle straw, and the trees and
bushes were leafless; but instead of leaves they almost all
carried thorns, the worst being those of the wait-a-bit, which
tore our clothes, hands, and faces. We found the giraffe
three or four miles away from the river, in an absolutely
waterless region, densely covered with these leafless wait-a-
bit thorn-bushes. Hanging among the bare bushes, by the
way, we roused two or three of the queer, diurnal, golden-
winged, slate-colored bats; they flew freely in the glare of
a
THE GUASO NYERO 307
the sunlight, minding it as little as they did the furnace-
like heat. We found the really dense wait-a-bit thorn .
thickets quite impenetrable, whereas the giraffe moved
through them with utter unconcern. But the giraffe’s in-
difference to thorns is commonplace compared to its in-
difference to water. These particular giraffe were not
drinking either at the river or at the one or two streams
which were running into it; and in certain places giraffe
will subsist for months without drinking at all. How the
waste and evaporation of moisture from their huge bodies
is supplied is one of the riddles of biology.
We could not get a bull giraffe, and it was only a bull
that I wanted. I was much interested, however, in coming
up to a cow asleep. She stood with her neck drooping
slightly forward, occasionally stamping or twitching an
ear, like a horse when asleep standing. I saw her legs first,
through the bushes, and finally walked directly up to her in
the open, until I stood facing her at thirty yards. When
she at last suddenly saw me, she came nearer to the execu-
tion of a gambol than any other giraffe I have ever seen.
Another day we went after buffalo. We left camp be-
fore sunrise, riding along parallel to the river to find the
spoor of a herd which had drunk and was returning to
the haunts, away from the river, in which they here habit-
ually spent the day. Two or three hours passed before we
found what we sought; and we at once began to follow
the trail. It was in open thorn-bush, and the animals were
evidently feeding. Before we had followed the spoor half
an hour we ran across a rhinoceros. As the spoor led above
wind, and as we did not wish to leave it for fear of losing it,
Cuninghame stayed where he was, and I moved round to
308 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
within fifty yards of the rhino, and, with my rifle ready,
began shouting, trying to keep the just mean as regards
noise, so as to scare him, and yet not yell so loudly as to
reach the buffalo if they happened to be near by. At last
I succeeded, and he trotted sullenly off, tacking and veer-
ing, and not going far. On we went, and in another half-
hour came on our quarry. I was the first to catch a glimpse
of the line of bulky black forms, picked out with white where
the sun glinted on the horn bosses. It was ten o’clock, a
hot, windless morning on the equator, with the sun shin-
ing from a cloudless sky; yet these buffalo were feeding in
the open, miles from water or dense cover. They were
greedily cropping the few tufts of coarse herbage that grew
among the sparse thorn-bushes, which here were not more
than two feet high. In many places buffalo are purely
nocturnal feeders, and do not come into the hot, bare plains
in the scorching glare of daylight; and our experience with
this herd illustrates afresh the need of caution in generaliz-
ing about the habits of game.
We crept toward them on all-fours, having left the por-
ters hidden from sight. At last we were within rather long
range—a buffalo’s eyesight is good, and cannot be trifled
with as if he were a rhino or elephant—and cautiously
scrutinized the herd through our glasses. “There were only
cows and perhaps one or two young bulls with horns no
bigger than those of cows. I would have liked another good
bull’s head for myself; but I also wished another cow for
the museum. Before I could shoot, however, a loud yelling
was heard from among the porters in our rear; and away
went the buffalo. Full of wrath, we walked back to in-
quire. We found that one porter had lost his knife, and
THE GUASO NYERO 309
had started back to look for it, accompanied by two of his
fellows, which was absolutely against orders. They had
come across a rhino, probably the one I had frightened
from our path, and had endeavored to avoid him; but he
had charged them, whereupon they scattered. He over-
took one and tossed him, goring him in the thigh; where-
upon they came back, the two unwounded ones supporting
the other, and all howling like lost souls. I had some crystals
of permanganate, an antiseptic, and some cotton in my
saddle pocket; Cuninghame tore some of the lining out of
his sleeve for a bandage; and we fixed the man up and left
him with one companion, while we sent another in to camp
to fetch out a dozen men with a ground-sheet and some
poles, to make a litter in which the wounded man could be
carried. While we were engaged in this field surgery
another rhino was in sight half a mile off.
Then on we went on the trail of the herd. It led straight
across the open, under the blazing sun; and the heat was
now terrific. At last, almost exactly at noon, Cuninghame,
who was leading, stopped short. He had seen the buffalo,
which had halted, made a half-bend backward on their
tracks, and stood for their noonday rest among some scat-
tered, stunted thorn-trees, leafless and yielding practically
no shade whatever. A cautious stalk brought me to within
a hundred and fifty yards. I merely wounded the one I
first shot at, but killed another as the herd started to run.
Leaving the skinners to take care of the dead animal, a fine
cow, Cuninghame and I started after the herd, to see if
the wounded one had fallen out. After a mile the trail led
into some scant cover. Here the first thing we did was to
run into another rhinoceros. It was about seventy yards
310 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
away, behind a thorn-tree, and began to move jerkily and
abruptly to and fro, gazing toward us. “Oh, you malev-
olent old idiot!” I muttered, facing it with rifle cocked;
then, as it did not charge, I added to Cuninghame, ‘‘ Well,
I guess it will let us by, all right.” And let us by it did.
We were anxious not to shoot it, both because in a country
with no settlers a rhino rarely does harm, and I object to
anything like needless butchery, and furthermore because
we desired to avoid alarming the buffalo. Half a mile far-
ther on we came on the latter, apparently past their fright.
We looked them carefully over with our glasses; the wounded
one was evidently not much hurt, and therefore I did not
wish to kill her, for I did not need another cow; and there
was no adult bull. So we did not molest them; and after
a while they got our wind and went off at a lumbering gal-
lop. Returning to the dead cow, we found the skin ready
and marched back to camp, reaching it just as the moon
rose, at seven; we had been away thirteen hours, with
nothing to eat and only the tepid water in our canteens to
drink.
We were in the country of the Samburu, and several of
their old men and warriors visited us at this camp. They
are cattle-owning nomads like the Masai; but in addition
to cattle, sheep, and goats they own herds of camels, which
they milk but do not use as beasts of burden. In features
they are more like Somalis than negroes.
Near this camp was the remains of the boma or home
camp of Arthur Neuman, once the most famous elephant
hunter between the Tana and Lake Rudolf. Neuman,
whose native name was Nyama Yango, was a strange
moody man who died by his own hand. He was a mighty
THE GUASO NYERO 311
hunter, of bold and adventure-loving temper. With whites
he was unsocial, living in this far-off region exactly like a
native, and all alone among the natives; living in some
respects too much like a native. But, from the native stand-
point, and without making any effort to turn the natives
into anything except what they were, he did them good,
and left a deep impression on their minds. They talked to
us often about him, in many different places; they would
not believe that he was dead; and when assured it was
so they showed real grief. At Meru boma, when we saw
the Meru tribesmen dance, one of the songs they sung was:
““Since Nyama Yango came, our sheep graze untouched
by the Samburu,” and, rather curiously, the Samburu sing
a similar song reciting how he saved them from the fear
of having their herds raided by the nomads farther north.
After leaving this camp we journeyed up the Guaso
Nyero for several days. The current was rapid and muddy,
and there were beds of reeds and of the tall, graceful papy-
rus. The country round about was a mass of stony, broken
hills, and the river wound down among these, occasionally
cutting its way through. deep gorges, and its course being
continually broken by rapids. Whenever on our hunts we
had to cross it, we shouted and splashed and even fired
shots, to scare the crocodiles. I shot one on a sandbar in
the river. The man the rhino had wounded was carried
along on a litter with the safari.
Sometimes I left camp with my sais and gun-bearer
before dawn, starting in the light of the waning moon, and
riding four or five hours before halting to wait for the safari;
on the way I had usually shot something for the table—a
waterbuck, impalla, or gazelle. On other occasions Cun-
312 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
inghame and I would spend the day hunting in the waterless
country back of the river, where the heat at mid-day was
terrific. We might not reach camp until after nightfall,
Once as we came to it in the dark it seemed as if ghostly
arms stretched above it; for on this evening the tents had
been pitched under trees up which huge rubber vines had
climbed, and their massive dead-white trunks and branches
glimmered pale and ghostly in the darkness.
Twice my gun-bearers tried to show me a cheetah; but
my eyes were too slow to catch the animal before it bounded
off in safety among the bushes. Another time after an ex-
cellent bit of tracking, the gun-bearers brought me up to a
buffalo bull, standing for his noonday rest in the leafless
thorns a mile from the river. I thought I held the heavy
Holland straight for his shoulder, but I must have fired
high; for though he fell to the shot he recovered at once.
We followed the blood spoor for an hour, the last part of
the time when the trail wandered among and through the
heavy thickets under the trees on the river banks; here I
walked beside the tracker with my rifle at full cock, for we
could not tell what instant we might be charged. But his
trail finally crossed the river, and as he was going stronger
and stronger we had to abandon the chase. In the water-
less country, away from the river, we found little except
herds of zebra, of both kinds, occasional oryx and eland, and
a few giraffe. A stallion of the big kangani zebra which I
shot stood fourteen hands high at the withers and weighed
about eight hundred and thirty pounds,* according to the
* The aggregate of the weights of the different pieces was 778 pounds; the loss of
blood and the drying of the pieces of flesh in the intense heat of the sun we thought
certainly accounted for 50 pounds more. The stallion was not fat. At any rate
it weighed between 800 and 850 pounds. Its testicles, though fully developed, had
THE GUASO NYERO 313
Seton beam. I shot another kangani just at nightfall, a
mile or so from camp, as it drank in a wild, tree-clad gorge
of the river. I was alone, strolling quietly through the
dusk, along the margin of the high banks by the stream,
and saw a mixed herd of zebras coming down to a well-
worn drinking-place, evidently much used by game, on the
opposite side of the river. They were alert and nervous,
evidently on the lookout for both lions and crocodiles. I
singled out the largest, the leader of the troop, and shot it
across the stream; I have rarely taken a shot among more
picturesque surroundings.
At our final camp on the river, before leaving it on our
week’s steady trek southward to Neri, we found a spot
in which game abounded. It was about ten miles back
from the river, a stretch of plain sparsely covered with
thorn-trees, broken by koppies, and bounded by chains of
low, jagged mountains, with an occasional bold, isolated
peak. The crags and cliff walls were fantastically carved and
channelled by the weathering of ages in that dry climate.
It was a harsh, unlovely spot in the glare of the hot day-
light; but at sunset it was very lovely, with a wild and
stern beauty.
Here the game abounded, and was not wary. Before
starting out on our week’s steady marching I wished to
give the safari a good feed; and one day I shot them five
zebra and an oryx bull, together with a couple of gazelle
for ourselves and our immediate attendants—enough of
the game being hallalled to provide for the Mohammedans
in the safari. I also shot an old bull giraffe of the northern
not come down out of the belly skin; one of those shot by Kermit showed the same
peculiarity; Cuninghame says it is a common occurrence with this species. More-
over the stallions did not have their canine teeth developed.
314 | AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
form, after an uneventful stalk which culminated in a shot
with the Winchester at a hundred and seventy yards. In
most places this particular stretch of country was not
suitable for galloping, the ground being rotten, filled with
holes, and covered with tall, coarse grass. One evening
we saw two lions half a mile away; I tried to ride them,
but my horse fell twice in the first hundred and fifty yards
and I could not even keep them in sight. Another day
we got a glimpse of two lions, quarter of a mile off, glid-
ing away among the thorns. ‘They went straight to the
river and swam across it. More surprising was the fact
that a monkey, which lost its head when we surprised it in
a tree by the river, actually sprang plump into the stream,
and swam, easily and strongly, across it.
One day we had a most interesting experience with a
cow giraffe. We saw her a long way off and stalked to
within a couple of hundred yards before we could make out
her sex. She was standing under some thorn-trees, occa-
sionally shifting her position for a few yards, and then
again standing motionless with her head thrust in among
the branches. She was indulging in a series of noon naps.
At last, when she stood and went to sleep again, I walked
up to her, Cuninghame and our two gun-bearers, Bakhari
and Kongoni, following a hundred yards behind. When
I was within forty yards, in plain sight, away from cover,
she opened her eyes and looked drowsily at me; but I stood
motionless and she dozed off again. This time I walked up
to within ten feet of her.’ Nearer I did not care to venture,
as giraffe strike and kick very hard with their hooves,
and, moreover, occasionally strike with the head, the blow
seemingly not being delivered with the knobby, skin-
THE GUASO NYERO 315
covered horns, but with the front teeth of the lower
jaw. She waked, looked at me, and then, rearing slightly,
struck at me with her left foreleg, the blow falling short. I
laughed and leaped back, and the other men ran up shout-
ing. But the giraffe would not run away. She stood within
twenty feet of us, looking at us peevishly, and occasionally
pouting her lips at us, as if she were making a face. We
kept close to the tree, so as to dodge round it, under the
branches, if she came at us; for we would have been most
reluctant to shoot her. I threw a stick at her, hitting her
in the side, but she paid no attention; and when Bakhari
came behind her with a stick she turned sharply on him
and he made a prompt retreat. We were laughing and
talking all the time. Then we pelted her with sticks
and clods of earth, and, after having thus stood within
twenty feet of us for three or four minutes, she cantered
slowly off for fifty yards, and then walked away with lei-
surely unconcern. She was apparently in the best of health
and in perfect condition. She did not get our wind; but
her utter indifference to the close presence of four men is
inexplicable.*
On each of the two days we hunted this little district we
left camp at sunrise, and did not return until eight or nine
in the evening, fairly well tired, and not a little torn by the
thorns into which we blundered during the final two hours’
walk in the darkness. It was hot, and we neither had nor
wished for food, and the tepid water in the canteens lasted
* After writing the above account I read it over to Mr. Cuninghame so as to be sure
that it was accurate in all its details. All the game was tame in this locality, even
the giraffe, but no other giraffe allowed us to get within two hundred yards, and
most of them ran long before that distance was reached, even when we were stalking
carefully.
316 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
us through. The day I shot the giraffe the porters carrying
the skin fell behind, and never got in until next morning.
Coming back in the late twilight a party of the big zebra,
their forms shadowy and dim, trotted up to us, evidently
attracted by the horses, and accompanied us for some
rods; and a hedgehog, directly in our path, kept bleating
loudly, like an antelope kid.
The day we spent in taking care of the giraffe skin we,
of course, made no hunt. However, in the afternoon |
sauntered upstream a couple of miles to look for croco-
diles. I saw none, but I was much interested in some
zebra and waterbuck. The zebra were on the opposite
side of the river, standing among some thorns, and at three,
mid-afternoon, they came down to drink; up to this time
I had generally found zebra drinking in the evening or at
night. Then I saw some waterbuck, also on the opposite
bank, working their way toward the river, and seeing a
well-marked drinking-place ahead I hastened toward it,
and sat down in the middle of the broad game trail leading
down to the water on my side. I sat perfectly still, and
my clothes were just the color of the ground, and the water-
buck never noticed me, though I was in plain view when
they drank, just opposite me, and only about fifty yards
off. There were four cows and a bull. It was four o’clock
in the afternoon. The cows came first, one by one, and
were very alert and suspicious. Each continually stopped
and stood motionless, or looked in every direction, and gave
little false starts of alarm. When they reached the green
grass by the water’s edge each cropped a few mouthfuls,
between times nervously raising its head and looking in
every direction, nostrils and ears twitching. ‘They were
Black-and-
white crow,
n-uus Scapt-
latus
Rusty rock-
rat
Sparrow lark <a a7 3 A 2 SABES fe EEA ee ees Sand-rat
Ant wheatear
(ant-eating
chat)
African
hedgehog
** Mole-rat
THE GUASO NYERO 317
not looking for crocddiles, but for land foes, lions or leop-
ards. Each in turn drank, skipping up to the top of the
bank after a few mouthfuls, and then returning to the water.
The bull followed with rather less caution, and before he
had finished drinking the cows scurried hurriedly back to
~ the thorn-trees and the open country. We had plenty of
meat in camp, and I had completed my series of this species
of waterbuck for the museum; and I was glad there was
no need to molest them.
The porters were enjoying the rest and the abundance
of meat. They were lying about camp or were scattered
up and down stream fishing. When, walking back, I
came to the outskirts of camp, I was attracted by the buzzing
and twanging of the harp; there was the harper and two
friends, all three singing to his accompaniment. I called
“Yambo” (greeting), and they grinned and stood up,
shouting ““Yambo” in return. In camp a dozen men were
still at work at the giraffe skin, and they were all singing
loudly, under the lead of my gun-bearer, Gouvimali, who
always acted as shanty man, or improvisatore, on such
occasions.
For a week we now trekked steadily south across the
equator, heel and toe marching, to Neri. Our first day’s
journey took us to a gorge riven in the dry mountain. Half-
way up it, in a side pocket, was a deep pool, at the foot of
a sloping sheet of rock, down which a broad, shallow dent
showed where the torrents swept during the rains. In the
trees around the pool black drongo shrikes called in bell-
like tones, and pied hornbills flirted their long tails as they
bleated and croaked. The water was foul; but in a dry
country one grows gratefully to accept as water anything
318 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
that is wet. Klipspringers and baboons were in the sheer
hills around; and among the rocks were hyraxes (looking
like our Rocky Mountain conies or Little Chief hares),
queer diurnal rats, and bright blue-green lizards with or-
ange heads. Rhinos drank at this pool; we frequently saw
them on our journey, but always managed to avoid wound-
ing their susceptibilities, and so escaped an encounter.
Each day we endeavored to camp a couple of hours before
sundown so as to give the men plenty of chance to get fire-
wood, pitch the tents, and put everything in order. Some-
times we would make an early start; in which case we
would breakfast in the open, while in the east the crescent
of the dying moon hung over the glow that heralded the
sunrise.
As we reached the high, rolling downs the weather grew
cooler, and many flowers appeared; those of the aloes were
bright red, standing on high stalks above the clump of
fleshy, spined leaves, which were handsomely mottled, like
a snake’s back. As I rode at the head of the safari I usually,
in the course of the day, shot a buck of some kind for the
table. I had not time to stalk, but simply took the shots
as they came, generally at long range. One day I shot
an eland, an old blue bull. We needed the skin for the
museum, and as there was water near by we camped where
we were; I had already shot a waterbuck that morning,
and this and the eland together gave the entire safari a feast
of meat.
On another occasion an eland herd afforded me fun, al-
though no profit. I was mounted on Brownie, the zebra-
shaped pony. Brownie would still occasionally run off
when I dismounted to shoot (a habit that had cost me an
THE GUASO NYERO 319
eland bull); but he loved to gallop after game. We came
on a herd of eland in an open plain; they were directly
in our path. We were in the country where the ordinary
or Livingstone’s eland grades into the Patterson’s; and I
knew that the naturalists wished an additional bull’s head
for the museum. So I galloped toward the herd; and for
the next fifteen or twenty minutes I felt as if I had renewed
my youth and was in the cow camps of the West, a quarter
of a century ago. Eland are no faster than range cattle.
Twice I rounded up the herd—just as once in the Yellow-
stone Park I rounded up a herd of wapiti for John Bur-
roughs to look at—and three times I cut out of the herd a
big animal, which, however, in each case, proved to be a
cow. There were no big bulls, only cows and young stock;
but I enjoyed the gallop.
From Neri we marched through mist and rain across
the cold Aberdare table-lands, and in the forenoon of
October 20 we saw from the top of the second Aberdare
escarpment the blue waters of beautiful Lake Naivasha.
On the next day we reached Nairobi.
CHAPTER XII
TO THE UASIN GISHU
At Nairobi Kermit joined me, having enjoyed a nota-
bly successful hunt during the month since we had parted,
killing both Neuman’s hartebeest and koodoo. ‘The great
koodoo, with its spiral horns and striped coat, is the stateli-
est and handsomest antelope in the world. It is a shy
creature, fond of bush and of rocky hills, and is hard to get.
After leaving me at Meru Kermit and Tarlton had
travelled hard to Rumeruti. They had intended to go
to Lake Hannington, but finding that this was in the
reserve they went three days toward the north-west, stop-
ping a score of miles east of Barengo. The country, which
showed many traces of volcanic action, was rough, rocky,
and dry; the hunting was exhausting, and Kermit was
out from morning to night. Tarlton had been very sick
on the Guaso Nyero, and although he was better he was
in no shape to accompany Kermit, who therefore hunted
only with his gun boys, taking them out alternately so as
to spare them as much as possible. It took three days’
steady work before he got his first koodoo. On the third
day he hunted fruitlessly all the morning, came back to
camp, picked up a fresh gun-bearer, Juma Yohari, and
started out again. At four in the afternoon he came to
the brink of a great hollow a mile across, perhaps an ex-
tinct crater, and looking from the rimrock, spied a koodoo
320
TO THE UASIN GISHU 321
bull in the bottom. The steep sides of the hollow were
covered with a tangled growth of thorn scrub and cactus,
traversed by rhinoceros paths. The bottom was more
open, strewn with bushy mounds or hillocks, and on one of
these stood a noble koodoo bull. He stood with his mas-
sive spiral horns thrown back, and they shifted slowly as
he turned his head from side to side. Kermit stole down
one of the rhino paths, save for which the scrub would
have been practically impenetrable; it was alive with
rhinos; Kermit heard several, and Juma who followed
some distance behind saw three. ‘The stalk took time;
and the sun was on the horizon and the light fading when,
at over two hundred yards, Kermit took his shot. The
first bullet missed, but as for a moment the bull paused
and wheeled Kermit fired again and the second bullet went
home. The wounded beast ran, Kermit, with Juma, hard
on the trail; and he overtook and killed it just as darkness
fell. Then back to camp they stumbled and plunged
through the darkness, Kermit tearing the sole completely
off one shoe. They reached camp at ten and Juma, who
had only been working half the day, took out some por-
ters to the dead bull, which they skinned, and then slept
by until morning. Later, on his birthday, he killed a
cow, which completed the group; the two koodoo cost
him ten days’ steady labor. The koodoo were always found
on steep, rocky hills; their stomachs contained only grass,
for both beasts when shot were grazing (I do not know
whether or not they also browse). The midday hours,
when the heat was most intense, they usually spent resting;
but once Kermit came on two which were drinking in a
stream exactly at noon.
322 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
From the koodoo camp the two hunters went to Lake
Hannington, a lovely lake, with the mountains rising sheer
from three of its sides. The water was saline, abounding
with crocodiles and hippos; and there were myriads of fla-
mingoes. They were to be seen swimming by thousands
on the lake, and wading and standing in the shallows; and
when they rose they looked like an enormous pink cloud; it
was a glorious sight. They were tame; and Kermit had no
difficulty in killing the specimens needed for the Museum.
Here Kermit also killed an impalla ram which had met with
an extraordinary misadventure. It had been fighting with
another ram, which had stabbed it in the chest with one horn.
The violent strain and shock, as the two vigorous beasts
bounded together, broke off the horn, leaving the broken
part, ten inches long, imbedded in the other buck’s chest;
about three inches of the point being fixed firmly in the
body of the buck, while the rest stuck out like a picket pin.
Yet the buck seemed well and strong.
Two days after leaving Lake Hannington they camped
near the ostrich-farm of Mr. London, an American from
Baltimore. He had been waging war on the lions and
leopards, because they attacked his ostriches. He had
killed at least a score of each, some with the rifle, some
with poison or steel traps. The day following their arrival
London went out hunting with Kermit and Tarlton. They
saw nothing until evening, when Kermit’s gun-bearer,
Kassitura, spied a leopard coming from the carcass of a
zebra which London had shot to use as bait for his traps.
The leopard saw them a long way off and ran; Kermit
ran after it and wounded it badly, twice; then Tarlton got
a shot and hit it; and then London came across the
Juma Yohari with the impalla killed by Kermit Roosevelt at Lake Hannington
The broken horn of another ram imbedded in the buck’s neck
From a photograph by Kermit Roosevelt
TO THE UASIN GISHU 323
dying beast at close quarters and killed it just as it was
gathering itself to spring at him.
Thence they went to Nakuru, where Kermit killed two
Neuman’s hartebeest. They were scarce and wild, and
Kermit obtained his two animals by long shots after fol-
lowing them for hours; following them until, as he ex-
pressed it, they got used to him, became a little less quick
to leave, and gave him his chance.
While on this trip Kermit passed his twentieth birth-
day. While still nineteen he had killed all the kinds of
African dangerous game—lion, leopard, elephant, buffalo,
and rhino.
Heller also rejoined us, entirely recovered. He had
visited Mearns and Loring at their camp high up on Mount
Kenia, where they had made a thoroughly biological sur-
vey of the mountain. He had gone to the line of perpetual
snow, where the rock peak rises abruptly from the swelling
downs, and had camped near a little glacial lake whose waters
froze every night. The zones of plant and animal life were
well marked; but there are some curious differences between
the zones on these equatorial African snow mountains and
those on similar mountains in the northern hemisphere,
especially America. In the high mountains of North Amer-
ica the mammals are apt to be, at least in part, of totally
different kinds from those found in the adjacent warm
or hot plains, because they represent a fauna which was
once spread over the land, but which has retreated north-
ward, leaving faunal islands on the summits of the taller
mountains. In this part of Africa, however, there has been
no faunal retreat of this type, no survivals on the peaks of
an ancient fauna which in the plains and valleys has been
324 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
replaced by another fauna; here the mammals of the high
mountains and table-lands are merely modified forms of
the mammals of the adjacent lowlands, which have grad-
ually crept up the slopes, changing in the process. High
on Mount Kenia, for instance, are hyraxes, living among
the snow fields, much bigger than their brethren of the
forests and rocky hills below; and light-colored mole rats,
also much bigger than those of the lower country. More-
over, the lack of seasonal change is probably accountable
for differences in the way that the tree zones are delimited.
The mountain conifers of America are huge trees on the
middle slopes, but higher up gradually dwindle into a thick,
low scrub, composed of sprawling, dwarfed individuals of the
same species. On Mount Kenia the tree zone ceases much
more abruptly and with much less individual change
among the different kinds of trees. Above this zone are the
wet, cold downs and moors, with a very peculiar vegeta-
tion, plants which we know only as small flowering things
having become trees. The giant groundsell, for instance,
reaches a height of twenty feet, with very thick trunk and
limbs which, though hollow, make good firewood; and this
is only one example of the kind.
At Nairobi we learned, as usual, of incident after inci-
dent, which had happened among our friends and ac-
quaintances, of exactly the type which would occur were
it possible in North America or Europe suddenly to mix
among existing conditions the men and animals that died
out some hundreds of thousands of years ago. In a previ-
ous chapter I mentioned on one occasion meeting at dinner
three men, all of whom had been mauled by lions; one be-
ing our host, Mr. F. A. Ward, who had served as a captain
TO THE UASIN GISHU 325
in the South African War, and was now one of the heads
of the Boma Trading Company. Among our fellow guests
at this dinner was Captain Douglas Pennant of the British
Army. When we went north to Kenia he went south to
the Sotik. There he made a fine bag of lions; but having
wounded a leopard and followed it into cover it suddenly
sprang on him, apparently from a tree. His life was saved
by his Somali gun-bearer who blew out the leopard’s brains
as it bore him to the ground, so that it had time to make
only one bite; but this bite just missed crushing in the skull,
broke the jaw, tore off one ear, and caused ghastly wreck.
He spent some weeks in the hospital at Nairobi, and then
went for further treatment to England; his place in the
hospital being taken by another man who had been injured
by a leopard.
There had been quite a plague of wild beasts in Nairobi
itself. One family had been waked at midnight by a
leopard springing on the roof of the house and thence to an
adjacent shed; it finally spent a couple of hours on the
veranda. A lion had repeatedly wandered at night through
the outlying (the residential) portion of the town. Dr.
Milne, the head of the Government Medical Department,
had nearly run into it on his bicycle, and, as a measure of
precaution, guests going out to dinner usually carried
spears or rifles. One night I dined with the Provincial
Commissioner, Mr. Hobley, and the next with the town
clerk, Captain Sanderson. In each case the hostess, the
host, and the house were all delightful, and the evening
just like a very pleasant evening spent anywhere in civiliza-
tion; the houses were only half a mile apart; and yet on the
toad between them a fortnight previously a lady on a
326 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
bicycle, wheeling down to a rehearsal of ‘Trial by Jury,”
had been run into and upset by a herd of frightened zebras.
One of my friends, Captain Smith, Director of Surveys
in the Protectorate, had figured in another zebra incident
to which only Mark Twain could do justice. Captain Smith
lived on the outskirts of the town, and was much annoyed
by the zebras tearing through his ground and trampling
down his vegetables and flowers. So one night, by his
direction, his Masai servant sallied out and speared a
zebra which was tangled in a wire fence. But the magis-
trate, a rigid upholder of the letter of the law, fined the
Masai for killing game without a license! (A touch quite
worthy of comparison with Mark Twain’s account of
how, when he called for assistance while drowning, he was
arrested for disturbing the peace.) Captain Smith de-
cided that next time there should be no taint of illegality
about his behavior, so he got ropes ready, and when the
zebras returned he and his attendants again chased them
toward the wire fences, and tied up one which got caught
therein; and then with much difficulty he led it down
town, put it in the pound, and notified Captain Sanderson,
the town clerk, what he had done. This proceeding was en-
tirely regular; and so was all that followed. For seven
days the zebra was kept in the pound, while the authorities
solemnly advertised for a highly improbable owner; then
it was sold at auction, being brought to the sale, bucking,
rolling, and fighting, securely held by ropes in the hands
of various stalwart natives, and disposed of to the only
bidder for five rupees. The Court records are complete.
The District Court criminal register, under date of Feb-
ruary I, 1909, contains the entry of the prosecution by
TO THE UASIN GISHU 327
the Crown through “Mutwa Wa. Najaka A.N.” of the
Masai for “killing zebra without a license (under section
4/35 Game Regulations of 15th April, 1906,” and of the
infliction of a fine of twenty rupees. The sequel appears
in the Nairobi Municipality Pound Book under date of
August 6, 1909. In the column headed “Description of
Animal” is the entry “1 zebra’; under the heading ‘ By
whom impounded” is the entry “Major Smith, R.E.”;
under the heading “Remarks” is the entry “Sold by Pub-
lic Auctioneers Raphael & Coy on 24/8/09.”
We had with us several recent books on East African
big game; Chapman’s “On Safari,” dealing alike with
the hunting and the natural history of big game; Powell
Cotton’s accounts of his noteworthy experiences both in
hunting and in bold exploration; Stigand’s capital studies
of the spoor and habits of big game (it is to be regretted
that he was too modest to narrate some of his own really
extraordinary adventures in the chase of dangerous beasts);
and Buxton’s account of his two African trips. Edward
North Buxton’s books ought to be in the hands of every
hunter everywhere, and especially of every young hunter,
because they teach just the right way in which to look
at the sport. With Buxton big-game hunting is not a busi-
ness but a pastime, not allowed to become a mania or in
any way to interfere with the serious occupations of life,
whether public or private; and yet as he has carried it on
it is much more than a mere pastime, it is a craft, a pur-
suit of value in exercising and developing hardihood of
body and the virile courage and resolution which necessarily
lie at the base of every strong and manly character. He
has not a touch of the game butcher in him; nor has he a
328 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
touch of that craving for ease and luxury the indulgence in
which turns any sport into a sham and a laughing-stock.
Big-game hunting, pursued as he has pursued it, stands
at the opposite pole from those so-called sports carried on
primarily either as money-making exhibitions, or, what is
quite as bad—though the two evils are usually found in
different social strata—in a spirit of such luxurious self-
indulgence as to render them at best harmless extravagances,
and at worst forces which positively tend to the weakening
of moral and physical fibre.
On October 26, Tarlton, Kermit, Heller, and I started
from the railroad station of Londiani, for the Uasin Gishu
plateau and the ’Nzoi River, which flows not far from the
foot of Mount Elgon. This stretch of country has appar-
ently received its fauna from the shores of Lake Victoria
Nyanza, and contains several kinds of antelope, and a
race or variety of giraffe, the five-horned, which are not
found to the eastward, in the region where we had already
hunted.
On the 27th we were marching hard, and I had no
chance to hunt; I would have liked to take a hunt, because
it was my birthday. The year before I had celebrated my
fiftieth birthday by riding my jumping horse, Roswell, over
all the jumps in Rock Creek Park, at Washington. Ros-
well is a safe and good jumper, and a very easy horse to sit
at a jump; he took me, without hesitation or error, over
everything, from the water jump to the stone wall, the rails,
and the bank, including a brush hurdle just over five feet
and a half high.
For the first four days our route led among rolling
hills and along valleys and ravines, the country being so
Se
TO THE UASIN GISHU 329
high that the nights were actually cold, although we crossed
and recrossed the equator. The landscape in its general
effect called to mind southern Oregon and northern Cali-
fornia rather than any tropical country. Some of the hills
were bald, others wooded to the top; there were wet
meadows, and hill-sides covered with tussocks of rank, thick-
growing grass, alternating with stretches of forest; and the
chief trees of the forest were stately cedars, yews, and tall
laurel-leaved olives. All this was, at least in superficial
aspect, northern enough; but now and then we came to
patches of the thoroughly tropical bamboo, which in East
Africa, however, one soon grows to associate with cold,
rainy weather, for it only grows at high altitudes. In this
country, high, cold, rainy, there were several kinds of buck,
but none in any numbers. ‘The most interesting were the
roan antelope, which went in herds. Their trails led every-
where, across the high, rolling hill pastures of coarse grass,
and through the tangled tree groves and the still, lifeless
bamboo jungle. They were found in herds and lived in the
open, feeding on the bare hill-sides and in the wet valleys
at all hours; but they took cover freely, and when the
merciless gales blew they sought shelter in woodland and
jungle. Usually they grazed, but once I saw one browsing.
Both on our way in and on our way back, through this hill
country, we shot several roan, for, though their horns are
poor, they form a distinct sub-species, peculiar to the re-
gion. The roan is a big antelope, nearly as tall, although
by no means as bulky, as an eland, with curved scimitar-
like horns, huge ears, and face markings as sharply defined
as those of an oryx. It is found here and there, in isolated
localities, throughout Africa south of the Sahara, and is of
330 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
bold, fierce temper. One of those which Kermit shot was
only crippled by the first bullet, and charged the gun- .
bearers, squealing savagely, in addition to using its horns;
an angry roan, like a sable, is said sometimes to bite with
its teeth. Kermit also killed a ratel or honey badger, in a
bamboo thicket; an interesting beast; its back snow white
and the rest of its body jet black.
As on the Aberdares and the slopes of Kenia, the nights
among these mountains were cold; sometimes so cold that
I was glad to wear a mackinaw, a lumberman’s jacket, which
had been given me by Jack Greenway, and which I cer-
tainly never expected to wear in Africa.
The porters always minded cold, especially if there was
rain, and I was glad to get them to the Uasin Gishu, where
the nights were merely cool enough to make one appre-
ciate blankets, while the days were never oppressively hot.
Although the Swahilis have furnished the model for all
East African safari work, and supply the lingua franca for
the country, they no longer compose the bulk of the por-
ters. Of our porters at this time about two-fifths were
stalwart M’nuwezi from German East Africa, two-fifths
were Wakamba, and the remainder Swahilis with half a
dozen Kavirondos and Kikuyus. The M’nuwezi are the
strongest of all, and make excellent porters. They will often
be as much as two or three years away from their homes; for
safari work is very attractive to the best type of natives, as
they live much better than if travelling on their own account,
and as it offers almost the only way in which they can earn
money. The most severe punishment that can be inflicted
on a gun-bearer, tent boy, sais, or porter is to dismiss him
on such terms as to make it impossible for him again to be
TO THE UASIN GISHU 331
employed on a safari. In camp the men of each tribe group
themselves together in parties, each man sharing any un-
wonted delicacy with his cronies.
Very rarely did we have to take such long marches as to
exhaust our strapping burden-bearers; usually they came
into camp in high good humor, singing and blowing ante-
lope horns; and in the evening, after the posho had been
distributed, cooked, and eaten, the different groups would
gather each around its camp fire, and the men would chant
in unison while the flutes wailed and the buzzing harps
twanged. Of course individuals were all the time meeting
with accidents or falling sick, especially when they had the
chance to gorge themselves on game that we had killed;
and then Cuninghame or Tarlton—than whom two stancher
and pleasanter friends, keener hunters, or better safari
managers are not to be found in all Africa—would have
to add the functions of a doctor to an already multifarious
round of duties. Some of the men had to be watched lest
they should malinger; others were always complaining of
trifles; others never complained at all. Gosho, our excel-
lent headman, came in the last category. On this Uasin
Gishu trip we noticed him limping one evening; and in-
quiry developed the fact that the previous night, while in
his tent, he had been bitten by a small poisonous snake.
The leg was much swollen, and looked angry and inflamed;
but Gosho never so much as mentioned the incident until
we questioned him, and in a few days was as well as ever.
Heller’s chief feeling, by the way, when informed what had
happened, was one of indignation because the offending
snake, after paying the death penalty, had been thrown
away instead of being given to him as a specimen.
332 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
The roans were calving in early November; whereas,
when we went thirty miles on, at an elevation a thousand
feet less, we at first saw no very young fawns accompany-
ing the hartebeests, and no very young foals with the
zebras. ‘These hartebeests, which are named after their
discoverer, Governor Jackson, are totally different from the
hartebeests of the Athi and the Sotik countries, and are
larger and finer in every way. One bull I shot weighed,
in pieces, four hundred and seventy pounds. No allowance
was made for the spilt blood, and inasmuch as he had
been hallalled, I think his live weight would have been
nearly four hundred and ninety pounds. He was a big,
full-grown bull, but not of extraordinary size; later I killed
much bigger ones, unusually fine specimens, which must have
weighed well over five hundred pounds. The horns, which
are sometimes two feet long, are set on great bony pedicels,
so that the face seems long and homely even for a harte-
beest. The first two or three of these hartebeests which I
killed were shot at long range, for, like all game, they are
sometimes exceedingly wary; but we soon found that
normally they were as tame as they were plentiful. We
frequently saw them close by the herds of the Boer settlers.
They were the common game of the plains. At times of
course they were difficult to approach; but again and again,
usually when we were riding, we came upon not only in-
dividuals but herds, down wind and in plain view, which
permitted us to approach to within a hundred yards before
they definitely took flight. Their motions look ungainly
until they get into their full speed stride. They utter no
sound save the usual hartebeest sneeze.
There were bohor reedbuck also, pretty creatures, about
Si es st er
TO THE UASIN GISHU 333
the size of a white-tail deer, which lay close in the reed beds,
or in hollows among the tall grass, and usually offered rather
difficult running shots or very long standing shots. Still
prettier were the little oribi. These are grass antelopes,
frequenting much the same places as the duiker and stein-
buck and not much larger. Where the grass was long they
would lie close, with neck flat along the ground, and dart
off when nearly stepped on, with a pig-like rush like that
of a reedbuck or duiker in similar thick cover. But where
the grass was short, and especially where it was burned,
they did not trust to lying down and hiding; on the con-
trary, in such places they were conspicuous little creatures,
and trusted to their speed and alert vigilance for their
safety. ‘They run very fast, with great bounds, and when
they stand—usually at a hundred and fifty or two hundred
yards—they face the hunter, the forward-thrown ears be-
ing the most noticeable thing about them. We found that
each oribi bagged cost us an unpleasantly large number of
cartridges.
One day we found where a large party of hyenas had
established their day lairs in the wet seclusion of some reed
beds. We beat through these reedbeds, and, in the words
once used by an old plains friend in describing the be-
havior of a family of black bears under similar circum-
stances, the hyenas “came bilin’ out.” As they bolted
Kermit shot one and I another; his bit savagely at a stick
with which one of the gun-bearers poked it. It is difficult
at first glance to tell the sex of a hyena, and our followers
stoutly upheld the wide-spread African belief that they are
bi-sexual, being male or female as they choose. A wounded
or trapped hyena will of course bite if seized, but shows
334 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
no sign of the ferocious courage which marks the leopard
under such circumstances; for the hyena is as cowardly
as it is savage, although its size and the tremendous power
of its jaws ought to make it as formidable as the fierce
spotted cat.
The day after this incident we came on a herd of giraffe.
It was Kermit’s turn for a giraffe; and just as the herd got
under way he wounded the big bull. Away went the tall
creatures, their tails twisting and curling, as they can-
tered along over the rough veldt and among the thorn-
bushes, at that gait of theirs which looks so leisurely and
which yet enables them to cover so much ground. After
them we tore, Kermit and Tarlton in the lead; and a fine
chase we had. It was not until we had gone two or three
miles that the bull lagged behind the herd. I was riding
the tranquil sorrel, not a speedy horse; and by this time my
weight was telling on him. Kermit and his horse had
already turned a somersault, having gone into an ant-bear
hole, which the tall grass concealed; but they were up and
off in an instant. All of Tranquillity’s enthusiasm had
vanished, and only by constant thumping with heels and
gun butt could I keep him at a slow hand gallop, and in
sight of the leaders. We came to a slight rise, where the —
rank grass grew high and thick; and Tranquillity put both
his forelegs into an ant-bear hole, and with obvious relief
rolled gently over on his side. It was not really a tumble;
he hailed the ant-bear burrow as offering a way out of a
chase in which he had grown to take less than no interest.
Besides, he really was winded, and when we got up | could
barely get him into a canter; and I saw no more of the run.
Meanwhile Kermit and Tarlton raced alongside the wounded
TO THE UASIN GISHU 335
bull, one on each flank, and started him toward camp,
which was about five miles from where the hunt began.
Two or three times he came to a standstill, and turned first
toward one and then toward the other of his pursuers,
almost as if he meditated a charge; but they shouted at
him and he resumed his flight.. They brought him within
three hundred yards of camp, and then Kermit leaped off
and finished him.
This bull was a fine specimen, colored almost exactly
like the giraffes of the Athi and Sotik, but with much more
horn development. I doubt whether this five-horned kind
is more than a local race. The bulls have been described
as very dark; but the one thus shot, a big and old master
bull, was unusually light, and in the herd there were individ-
uals of every shade, much the darkest being a rather small
cow. Indeed, in none of the varieties of giraffe did we find
that the old bulls were markedly darker than the others;
many of them were dark, but some of the biggest were light-
colored, and the darkest individuals in a herd were often
cows. Giraffes, by the way, do sometimes lie down to
sleep, but not often.*
In order that Heller might take care of the giraffe skin
we had to spend a couple of days where we were then
camped. The tents were pitched near a spring of good
water, beside a slight valley in which there were marshy
* This is just one of the points as to which no one observer should dogmatize or
try to lay down general laws with no exceptions. Moreover, the personal equation
of even the most honest observer must always be taken into account in considering
not merely matters like this, but even such things as measurements. For example,
Neuman, in his “‘Elephant Hunting,” gives measurements of the height of both
elephants and Grevy’s zebra; our measurements made the elephants taller, and the
big zebras less tall, than he found them. Measurements of the lengths of lions,
made by different observers, are for this reason rarely of much value for purposes
of comparison.
336 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
spots and reedbeds. The country was rolling, and covered
with fine grass, unfortunately so tall as to afford secure
cover for lions. There were stretches bare of trees, and
other stretches with a sparse, scattered growth of low
thorns or of the big, glossy-leaved bush which I have spoken
of as the African jessamine because of the singularly sweet
and jessamine-like fragrance of its flowers. Most of these
bushes were in full bloom, as they had been six months
before on the Athi and three months before near Kenia;
some bore berries, of which it is said that the wild elephant
herds are fond.
It is hard to lay down general rules as to the blossoming
times of plants or breeding times of animals in equatorial
Africa. Before we left the Uasin Gishu table-land some
of the hartebeest cows appeared with new-born calves.
Some of the acacias had put forth their small, globular,
yellow blossoms, just as the acacias on the Athi plains were
doing in the previous May. The blue lupins were flower-
ing, for it is a cool, pleasant country.
Our camp here was attractive, and Kermit and I took
advantage of our leisure to fill out the series of specimens
of the big hartebeest and the oribi which Heller needed
for the National Museum. The flesh of the oribis was re-
served for our own table; that of the kongonis—which had
been duly hallalled by the Moslems among our gun-bearers
—was turned over to what might be called the officers’
mess of the safari proper, the headmen, cooks, tent boys,
gun-bearers, and saises; while of course the skinners and
porters who happened to be out with us when any animal
was slain got their share of the meat. We also killed two
more hyenas; one, a dog, weighed one hundred and twenty
TO THE UASIN GISHU 337
pounds, being smaller than those Heller had trapped while
skinning the first bull elephant I shot in the Kenia forest.
Good Ali, my tent boy, kept bowls of the sweet-scented
jessamine on our dining-table; now that there were four
of us together again we used the dining-tent, which I had
discarded on the Guaso Nyero trip. Bakhari had been
rather worn down by the work on the Guaso Nyero, and in
his place I had taken Kongoni, a Wakamba with filed
teeth, like my second gun-bearer, Gouvimali, but a
Moslem—although his Moslemism did not go very deep.
Kongoni was the best gun-bearer I had yet had, very willing,
and excellent both at seeing and tracking game. Kermit’s
two gun-bearers were Juma Yohari, a coal-black Swahili
Moslem, and Kassitura, a Christian negro from Uganda.
Both of them were as eager to do everything for Kermit
as mine were to render me any service great or small; and
in addition they were capital men for their special work.
Juma was always smiling and happy, and was a high
favorite among his fellows; at lunch, when we had any, if
I gave my own followers some of the chocolate, or whatever
else it was that I had put in my saddle pocket, I always
noticed that they called up Yohari to share it. He it was
who would receive the colored cards from my companions’
tobacco pouches, or from the packages of chocolate, and
after puzzling over them until he could himself identify
the brilliantly colored ladies, gentlemen, little girls, and
wild beasts, would volubly explain them to the others.
Kassitura, quite as efficient and hard-working, was a huge,
solemn black man, as faithful and uncomplaining a soul as
I ever met. Kermit had picked him out from among the
porters to carry his camera, and had then promoted him
338 AFRICAN GAME. TRAILS
to be gun-bearer. In his place he had taken as camera
bearer an equally powerful porter, a heathen ’Mnuwazi
named Mali. His tent boy had gone crooked; and one
evening some months later after a long and trying march he
found Mali, whose performance of his new duties he had
been closely watching, the only man up; and Mali, always
willing, turned in of his own accord to help get Kermit’s
tent in shape; so Kermit suddenly told him he would pro-
mote him to be tent boy. At first Mali did not quite under-
stand; then he pondered a moment or two, and suddenly
leaped into the air exclaiming in Swahili, “Now I am a big
man.” And he faithfully strove to justify his promotion.
In similar fashion Kermit picked out on the Nairobi race-
track a Kikuyu sais named Magi, and brought him out
with us. Magi turned out the best sais in the safari; and
besides doing his own duty so well he was always exceed-
ingly interested in everything that concerned his own
Bwana, Kermit, or me—from the proper arrangement of
our sunpads to the success of our shooting.
From the giraffe camp we went two days’ journey to
the ’Nzoi River. Until this Uasin Gishu trip we had been
on waters which either vanished in the desert or else flowed
into the Indian Ocean. Now we had crossed the divide,
and were on the Nile side of the watershed. The ‘Nzoi, a
rapid muddy river, passing south of Mount Elgon, empties
into the Victoria Nyanza. Our route to its bank led across
a rolling country, covered by a dense growth of tall grass,
and in most places by open thorn scrub, while here and
there, in the shallow valleys or depressions, were swamps.
There were lions, and at night we heard them; but in such
long grass it was wellnigh hopeless to look for them. Evi-
TO THE UASIN GISHU 339
dently troops of elephants occasionally visited these plains,
for the tops of the little thorn-trees were torn off and browsed
down by the mighty brutes. How they can tear off and
swallow such prickly dainties as these thorn branches,
armored with needle-pointed spikes, is a mystery. Tarlton
told me that he had seen an elephant, while feeding greedily
on the young top of a thorn-tree, prick its trunk until it
uttered a little scream or whine of pain; and it then in a
fit of pettishness revenged itself by wrecking the thorn-tree.
Game abounded on the plains. We saw a couple of
herds of giraffes. The hartebeests were the most plenti-
ful and the least shy; time after time a small herd loitered
until we were within a hundred yards before cantering
away. Once or twice we saw topi among them; and often
there were mixed herds of zebras and hartebeests. Oribi
were common, and sometimes uttered a peculiar squealing
whistle when they first saw us. The reedbuck also whistled,
but their whistle was entirely distinct. It was astonishing
how close the reedbuck lay. Again and again we put
them up within a few feet of us from patches of reeds or
hollows in the long grass. A much more singular habit is
the way in which they share these retreats with dangerous
wild beasts; a trait common also to the cover-loving bush-
buck. From one of the patches of reeds in which Kermit
and I shot two hyenas a reedbuck doe immediately after-
ward took flight. She had been reposing peacefully during
the day within fifty yards of several hyenas! Tarlton had
more than once found both reedbuck and bushbuck in com-
paratively small patches of cover which also held lions.
It is, by the way, a little difficult to know what names
to use in distinguishing between the sexes of African game.
340 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
The trouble is one which obtains in all new countries, where
the settlers have to name new beasts; and is, of course,
primarily due to the fact that the terms already found in
the language originally applied only to domestic animals
and to European beasts of the chase. Africanders, whether
Dutch or English, speak of all antelope, of either sex, as
“buck.” Then they call the males and females of the larger
kinds bulls and cows, just as Americans do when they speak
of moose, wapiti, and caribou; and the males and females
of the smaller kinds they usually speak of as rams and ewes.
While on safari to the *Nzoi I was even more interested
in honey birds which led us to honey than I was in the
game. Before starting for Africa John Burroughs had es-
pecially charged me to look personally into this extraor-
dinary habit of the honey bird; a habit so extraordinary
that he was inclined to disbelieve the reality of its ex-
istence. But it unquestionably does exist. Every experi-
enced hunter and every native who lives in the wilderness
has again and again been an eyewitness of it. Kermit,
in addition to his experience in the Sotik, had been
led by a honey bird to honey in a rock, near Lake Han-
nington. Once while I was tracking game a honey bird
made his appearance, chattering loudly and flying beside
us; I let two of the porters follow it, and it led them to
honey. On the morning of the day we reached the ’Nzoi,
a honey bird appeared beside the safari, behaving in the
same manner. Some of the men begged to be allowed to
follow it; while they were talking to me the honey bird
flew to a big tree fifty yards off, and called loudly as it
flitted to and fro in the branches; and sure enough there
was honey in the tree. I let some of the men stay to get the
TO THE UASIN GISHU 341
honey; but they found little except comb filled with grubs.
Some of this was put aside for the bird, which ate the grubs.
The natives believe that misfortune will follow any failure
on their part to leave the honey bird its share of the booty.
They also insist that sometimes the honey bird will lead a
man to a serpent or wild beast; and sure enough Dr.
Mearns was once thus led up toa rhinoceros. While camped
on the ’Nzoi the honey birds were almost a nuisance; they
were very common, and were continually accompanying
us as we hunted, flying from tree to tree, and never ceasing
their harsh chatter. Several times we followed birds, which
in each case led us to bee trees, and then perched quietly
by until the gun-bearers and porters (Gouvimali shone
on such occasions) got out the honey—which we found
excellent eating by the way.
Our camp here was in a beautiful country, and game,
for the most part Uganda kob and singsing waterbuck, often
fed in sight of the tents. The kob is a small short-haired
waterbuck, with slightly different horns. It is a chunky
antelope, with a golden-red coat; I weighed one old buck
which I shot and it tipped the beam at two hundred and
twenty pounds; Kermit killed a bigger one, weighing two
hundred and forty pounds, but its horns were poorer. In
their habits the kob somewhat resemble impalla, the does
being found in bands of twenty or thirty with a single
master buck; and they sometimes make great impalla-like
bounds. They fed, at all hours of the day, in the flats near
the river, and along the edges of the swamps, and were
not very wary. They never tried to hide, and were always
easily seen; in utter contrast to the close-lying, skulking,
_ bohor reedbuck, which lay like a rabbit in the long grass
342 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
or reeds. The kob, on the contrary, were always anxious
themselves to see round about, and, like waterbuck and
hartebeest, frequently used the ant-heaps as lookout sta-
tions. It was a pretty sight to see a herd of the bright red
creatures clustered on a big ant-hill, all the necks out-
stretched, and all the ears thrown forward. The females
are hornless. By the middle of November we noticed an
occasional new-born calf.
The handsome, shaggy-coated, singsing waterbuck had
much the same habits as the kob. Like the kob they fed
at all hours of the day; but they were more wary and more
apt to be found in country where there were a good many
bushes or small trees. Waterbuck and kob sometimes asso-
ciated together.
The best singsing bull I got I owed to Tarlton’s good
eyesight and skill in tracking and stalking. The herd of
which he was master bull were shy, and took the alarm
just as we first saw them. ‘Tarlton followed their trail for a
couple of miles, and then stalked them to an inch, by the
dextrous use of a couple of bushes and an ant-hill; the
ant-hill being reached after a two hundred yards’ crawl,
first on all-fours and then flat on the ground, which re-
sulted in my getting a good off-hand shot at a hundred and
eighty yards. At this time, about the middle of November,
some of the cows had new-born calves. One day I shot a
hartebeest bull, with horns twenty-four inches long, as it
stood on the top of an ant-heap. On going up to it we
noticed something behind a little bush, sixty yards off. _
We were puzzled what it could be, but finally made out a
waterbuck cow; and a minute or two later away she bounded
to safety, followed by a wee calf. The porters much ap-
ee a
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yaaasooy “1p Aq JOYS SursSurs pue uojysey,
TO THE UASIN GISHU 343
preciated the flesh of the waterbuck. We did not. It is the
poorest eating of African antelope—and among the big
antelope only the eland is good as a steady diet.
One day we drove a big swamp, putting a hundred por-
ters across it in line, while Kermit and I walked a little
ahead of them along the edges, he on one side and I on the
other. I shot a couple of bushbuck, a ewe and a young
ram; and after the drive was over he shot a female leopard
as she stood on the side of an ant-hill.
There were a number of both reedbuck and bushbuck
in the swamp. The reedbuck were all ewes, which we did
not want. There were one or two big bushbuck rams, but
they broke back through the beaters; and so did two
bushbuck ewes and one reedbuck ewe, one of the bushbuck
ewes actually knocking down a beater. They usually
either cleared out while the beaters were still half a mile
distant, or else waited until they were almost trodden on.
The bushbuck rams were very dark colored; the hornless
ewes, and the young, were a brilliant red, the belly, the
under side and edges of the conspicuous fluffy tail, and a
few dim spots on the cheeks and flanks, being white. Al-
though these buck frequent thick cover, forest, or swamp,
and trust for their safety to hiding, and to eluding observa-
tion by their stealthy, skulking ways, their coloration has not
the smallest protective value, being on the contrary very
conspicuous in both sexes, but especially in the females and
young, who most need protection. Bushbuck utter a loud
bark. The hooves of those we shot were very long, as is
often the case with water-loving, marsh-frequenting species.
There is a curious collar-like space around the neck on
which there is no hair. Although if anything smaller than
344 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
our white-tail deer, the bushbuck is a vicious and redoubt-
able fighter, and will charge a man without hesitation.
The last day we were at the ’Nzoi the porters petitioned
for one ample meal of meat; and we shot a dozen buck
for them—kongoni, kob, and singsing. One of the latter,
a very fine bull, fairly charged Kermit and his gun-bearer
when they got within a few yards of it, as it lay wounded.
This bull grunted loudly as he charged; the grunt of an
oryx under similar circumstances is almost a growl. On
this day both Kermit and I were led to bee trees by honey
birds and took some of the honey for lunch. Kermit stayed
after his boys had left the tree, so as to see exactly what
the honey bird did. The boys had smoked out the bees,
and when they left the tree was still smoking. Throughout
the process the honey bird had stayed quietly in a neigh-
boring tree, occasionally uttering a single bubbling cluck.
As soon as the boys left, it flew straight for the smoking
bee tree, uttering a long trill, utterly different from the
chattering noise made while trying to attract the attention
of the men and lead them to the tree; and not only did it
eat the grubs, but it also ate the bees that were stupefied
by the smoke.
Next day we moved camp to the edge of a swamp about
five miles from the river. Near the tents was one of the
trees which, not knowing its real name, we called “sausage
tree”; the seeds or fruits are encased in a kind of hard gourd,
the size of a giant sausage, which swings loosely at the end
of a long tendril. The swamp was half or three-quarters
of a mile across, with one or two ponds in the middle, from
which we shot ducks. Francolins—delicious eating, as the
ducks were also—uttered their grating calls near by; while
ee, oe
TO THE UASIN GISHU 345
oribi and hartebeest were usually to be seen from the tents.
The hartebeest, by the way, in its three forms, is much the
commonest game animal of East Africa.
A few miles beyond this swamp we suddenly came on a
small herd of elephants in the open. There were eight
cows and two calves, and they were moving slowly, feeding
on the thorny tops of the scattered mimosas, and of other
bushes which were thornless. The eyesight of elephants is
very bad; I doubt whether they see more clearly than a
rather near-sighted man; and we walked up to within
seventy yards of these, slight though the cover was, so that
Kermit could try to photograph them. We did not need to
kill another cow for the National Museum, and so after we
had looked at the huge, interesting creatures as long as we
wished, we croaked and whistled, and they moved off with
leisurely indifference. There is always a fascination about
watching elephants; they are such giants, they are so intel-
ligent—much more so than any other game, except perhaps
the lion, whose intelligence has a very sinister bent—and
they look so odd with their great ears flapping and their
trunks lifting and curling. Elephants are rarely absolutely
still for any length of time; now and then they flap an ear,
or their bodies sway slightly, while at intervals they utter
curious internal rumblings, or trumpet gently. These were
feeding on saplings of the mimosas and other trees, ap-
parently caring nothing for the thorns of the former; they
would tear off branches, big or little, or snap a trunk short
off if the whim seized them. They swallowed the leaves and
twigs of these trees; but I have known them merely chew
and spit out the stems of certain bushes.
After leaving the elephants we were on our way back to
346 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
camp when we saw a white man in the trail ahead; and on
coming nearer whom should it prove to be but Carl Akeley,
who was out on a trip for the American Museum of Natural
History in New York. We went with him to his camp,
where we found Mrs. Akeley, Clark, who was assisting him,
and Messrs. McCutcheon and Stevenson who were along
on a hunting trip. ‘They were old friends and I was very
glad to see them. McCutcheon, the cartoonist, had been
at a farewell lunch given me by Robert Collier just before I
left New York, and at the lunch we had been talking much
of George Ade, and the first question I put to him was
“Where is George Ade?” for if one unexpectedly meets an
American cartoonist on a hunting trip in mid-Africa there
seems no reason why one should not also see his crony,
an American playwright. A year previously Mr. and Mrs.
Akeley had lunched with me at the White House, and we
had talked over our proposed African trips. Akeley, an old
African wanderer, was going out with the especial purpose
of getting a group of elephants for the American Museum,
and was anxious that I should shoot one or two of them
for him. I had told him that I certainly would if it were
a possibility; and on learning that we had just seen a herd
of cows he felt—as I did—that the chance had come for me to
fulfil my promise. So we decided that he should camp with
us that night, and that next morning we would start with
a light outfit to see whether we could not overtake the herd.
An amusing incident occurred that evening. After dark
some of the porters went through the reeds to get water from
the pond in the middle of the swamp. I was sitting in my
tent when a loud yelling and screaming rose from the swamp,
and in rushed Kongoni to say that one of the men, while
TO THE UASIN GISHU 347
drawing water, had been seized by a lion. Snatching up
a rifle I was off at a run for the swamp, calling for lanterns;
Kermit and Tarlton joined me, the lanterns were brought,
and we reached the meadow of short marsh grass which
surrounded the high reeds in the middle. No sooner were
we on this meadow than there were loud snortings in the
darkness ahead of us, and then the sound of a heavy ani-
mal galloping across our front. It now developed that
there was no lion in the case at all, but that the porters had
been chased by a hippo. I should not have supposed that
a hippo would live in such a small, isolated swamp; but
there he was on the meadow in front of me, invisible, but
snorting, and galloping to and fro. Evidently he was much
interested in the lights, and we thought he might charge
us; but he did not, retreating slowly as we advanced, until
he plunged into the little pond. Hippos are sometimes
dangerous at night, and so we waded through the swamp
until we came to the pool at which the porters filled their
buckets, and stood guard over them until they were through;
while the hippo, unseen in the darkness, came closer to us,
snorting and plunging—possibly from wrath and _ inso-
lence, but more probably from mere curiosity.
Next morning Akeley, Tarlton, Kermit, and I started
on our elephant hunt. We were travelling light. I took
nothing but my bedding, wash kit, spare socks, and slippers,
all in a roll of waterproof canvas. We went to where we
had seen the herd and then took up the trail, Kongoni and
two or three other gun-bearers walking ahead as trackers.
They did their work well. The elephants had not been in
the least alarmed. Where they had walked in single file
it was easy to follow their trail; but the trackers had hard
348 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
work puzzling it out where the animals had scattered out
and loitered along feeding. ‘The trail led up and down
hills and through open thorn scrub, and it crossed and
recrossed the wooded watercourses in the bottoms of the
valleys. At last, after going some ten miles we came on
sign where the elephants had fed that morning, and four
or five miles further on we overtook them. ‘That we did
not scare them into flight was due to Tarlton. The trail
went nearly across wind; the trackers were leading us
swiftly along it, when suddenly Tarlton heard a low trumpet
ahead and to the right hand. We at once doubled back,
left the horses, and advanced toward where the noise in-
dicated that the herd was standing.
In a couple of minutes we sighted them. It was just
noon. There were six cows, and two well-grown calves—
these last being quite big enough to shift for themselves or
to be awkward antagonists for any man of whom they
could get hold. ‘They stood in a clump, each occasionally
shifting its position or lazily flapping an ear; and now and
then one would break off a branch with its trunk, tuck it
into its mouth, and withdraw it stripped of its leaves. The
wind blew fair, we were careful to make no noise, and with
ordinary caution we had nothing to fear from their eyesight.
The ground was neither forest nor bare plain; it was cov-
ered with long grass and a scattered open growth of small
scantily leaved trees, chiefly mimosas, but including some
trees covered with gorgeous orange-red flowers. After
careful scrutiny we advanced behind an ant-hill to within
sixty yards, and I stepped forward for the shot.
Akeley wished two cows and a calf. Of the two best
cows one had rather thick, worn tusks; those of the other
a
TO THE UASIN GISHU 349
were smaller, but better shaped. The latter stood half
facing me, and I put the bullet from the right barrel of the
Holland through her lungs, and fired the left barrel for the
heart of the other. Tarlton, and then Akeley and Kermit,
followed suit. At once the herd started diagonally past us,
but half halted and faced toward us when only twenty-five
yards distant, an unwounded cow beginning to advance
with her great ears cocked at right angles to her head; and
Tarlton called ‘Look out; they are coming for us.” At
such a distance a charge from half a dozen elephant is a
serious thing; I put a bullet into the forehead of the ad-
vancing cow, causing her to lurch heavily forward to her
knees; and then we all fired. The heavy rifles were too
much even for such big beasts, and round they spun and
rushed off. As they turned I dropped the second cow I had
wounded with a shot in the brain, and the cow that had start-
ed to charge also fell, though it needed two or three more
shots to keep it down as it struggled to rise. The cow at
which I had first fired kept on with the rest of the herd,
but fell dead before going a hundred yards. After we had
turned the herd Kermit with his Winchester killed a bull
calf, necessary to complete the museum group; we had
been unable to kill it before because we were too busy
stopping the charge of the cows. I was sorry to have to
shoot the third cow, but with elephant starting to charge
at twenty-five yards the risk is too great, and the need of
instant action too imperative, to allow of any hesitation.
We pitched camp a hundred yards from the elephants,
and Akeley, working like a demon, and assisted by Tarlton,
had the skins off the two biggest cows and the calf by the
time night fell; I walked out and shot an oribi for supper.
350 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
Soon after dark the hyenas began to gather at the carcasses
and to quarrel among themselves as they gorged. ‘Toward
morning a lion came near and uttered a kind of booming,
long-drawn moan, an ominous and menacing sound. The
hyenas answered with an extraordinary chorus of yelling,
howling, laughing, and chuckling, as weird a volume of
noise as any to which I ever listened. At dawn we stole
down to the carcasses in the faint hope of a shot at the lion.
However, he was not there; but as we came toward one
carcass a hyena raised its head seemingly from beside the
elephant’s belly, and I brained it with the little Spring-
field. On walking up it appeared that I need not have
shot at all. The hyena, which was swollen with elephant
meat, had gotten inside the huge body, and had then bit-
ten a hole through the abdominal wall of tough muscle and
thrust his head through. The wedge-shaped head had
slipped through the hole all right, but the muscle had then
contracted, and the hyena was fairly caught, with its body
inside the elephant’s belly, and its head thrust out through
the hole. We took several photos of the beast in its queer
trap.
After breakfast we rode back to our camp by the swamp.
Akeley and Clark were working hard at the elephant skins;
but Mrs. Akeley, Stevenson, and McCutcheon took lunch
with us at our camp. They had been having a very success-
ful hunt; Mrs. Akeley had to her credit a fine maned lion
and a bull elephant with enormous tusks. ‘This was the
first safari we had met while we were out in the field; though
in Nairobi, and once or twice at outlying bomas, we had
met men about to start on, or returning from, expeditions;
and as we marched into Meru we encountered the safari of
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TO THE UASIN GISHU 351
an old friend, William Lord Smith—‘ Tiger” Smith—who,
with Messrs. Brooks and Allen, were on a trip which was
partly a hunting trip and partly a scientific trip undertaken
on behalf of the Cambridge Museum.
From the ’Nzoi we made a couple days’ march to Lake
Sergoi, which we had passed on our way out; a reed-fringed
pond, surrounded by rocky hills which marked about the
limit to which the Boer and English settlers who were tak-
ing up the country had spread. All along our route we en-
countered herds of game; sometimes the herd would be of
only one species; at other times we would come across a
great mixed herd, the red hartebeest always predominating;
while among them might be zebras, showing silvery white
or dark gray in the distance, topis with beautifully colored
coats, and even waterbuck. We shot what hartebeests,
topis, and oribis were needed for food. All over the uplands
we came on the remains of a race of which even the memory
has long since vanished. These remains consist of large,
nearly circular walls of stones, which are sometimes roughly
squared. A few of these circular enclosures contain more
than one chamber. Many of them, at least, are not cattle
kraals, being too small, and built round hollows; the walls
are so low that by themselves they could not serve for
shelter or defence, and must probably have been used as sup-
ports for roofs of timber or skins. They were certainly built
by people who were in some respects more advanced than
the savage tribes who now dwell in the land; but the grass
grows thick on the earth mounds into which the ancient
stone walls are slowly crumbling, and not a trace of the
builders remains. Barbarians they doubtless were; but they
have been engulfed in the black oblivion of a lower barbar-
352 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
ism, and not the smallest tradition lingers to tell of their
craft or their cruelty, their industry or prowess, or to give
us the least hint as to the race from which they sprang.
We had with us an ox wagon, with the regulation span
of sixteen oxen, the driver being a young Colonial English-
man from South Africa—for the Dutch and English Afri-
canders are the best ox-wagon drivers in the world. On
the way back to Sergoi he lost his oxen, which were proba-
bly run off by some savages from the mountains; so at
Sergoi we had to hire another ox wagon, the South African
who drove it being a Dutchman named Botha. Sergoi
was as yet the limit of settlement; but it was evident that
the whole Uasin Gishu country would soon be occupied.
Already many Boers from South Africa, and a number of
English Africanders, had come in; and no better pioneers
exist to-day than these South Africans, both Dutch and
English. Both are so good that I earnestly hope they
will become indissolubly welded into one people; and the
Dutch Boer has the supreme merit of preferring the country
to the town and of bringing his wife and children—plenty
of children—with him to settle on the land. The home-
maker is the only type of settler of permanent value; and
the cool, healthy, fertile Uasin Gishu region is an ideal
land for the right kind of pioneer home-maker, whether he
hopes to make his living by raising stock or by growing
crops.
At Sergoi Lake there is a store kept by Mr. Kirke, a
South African of Scotch blood. With a kind courtesy which
I cannot too highly appreciate he, with the equally cordial
help of another settler, Mr. Skally—also a South African,
but of Irish birth—and of the District Commissioner, Mr.
TO THE UASIN GISHU 353
Corbett, had arranged for a party of Nandi warriors to come
over and show me how they hunted the lion. Two Dutch
farmers, Boers, from the neighborhood, had also come;
they were Messrs. Mouton and Jordaan, fine fellows both,
the former having served with De Wet during the war.
Mr. and Mrs. Corbett—who were hospitality itself—had
also come to see the sport; and so had Captain Chapman,
an English army officer who was taking a rest after several
years’ service in Northern Nigeria.
The Nandi are a warlike pastoral tribe, close kin to
the Masai in blood and tongue, in weapons and in manner
of life. They have long been accustomed to kill with the
spear lions which become man-eaters or which molest their
cattle overmuch; and the peace which British rule has im-
posed upon them—a peace so welcome to the weaker, so
irksome to the predatory, tribes—has left lion killing one
of the few pursuits in which glory can be won by a young
warrior. When it was told them that if they wished they
could come to hunt lions at Sergoi eight hundred warriors
volunteered, and much heartburning was caused in choos-
ing the sixty or seventy who were allowed the privilege.
They stipulated, however, that they should not be used
merely as beaters, but should kill the lion themselves, and
refused to come unless with this understanding.
The day before we reached Sergoi they had gone out,
and had killed a lion and lioness; the beasts were put up
from a small covert and despatched with the heavy throw-
ing spears on the instant, before they offered, or indeed
had the chance to offer, any resistance. The day after our
arrival there was mist and cold rain, and we found no
lions. Next day, November 2oth, we were successful.
354 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
We started immediately after breakfast. Kirke, Skally,
Mouton, Jordaan, Mr. and Mrs. Corbett, Captain Chap-
man, and our party, were on horseback; of course we car-
ried our rifles, but our duty was merely to round up the
lion and hold him, if he went off so far in advance that even
the Nandi runners could not overtake him. We intended
to beat the country toward some shallow, swampy valleys
twelve miles distant.
In an hour we overtook the Nandi warriors, who were
advancing across the rolling, grassy plains in a long line,
with intervals of six or eight yards between the men. They
were splendid savages, stark naked, lithe as panthers, the
muscles rippling under their smooth dark skins; all their
lives they had lived on nothing but animal food, milk,
blood, and flesh, and they were fit for any fatigue or danger.
Their faces were proud, cruel, fearless; as they ran they
moved with long springy strides. Their head-dresses were
fantastic; they carried ox-hide shields painted with strange
devices; and each bore in his right hand the formidable
war spear, used both for stabbing and for throwing at close
quarters. The narrow spear heads of soft iron were bur-
nished till they shone like silver; they were four feet long,
and the point and edges were razor sharp. The wooden
haft appeared for but a few inches; the long butt was also
of iron, ending in a spike, so that the spear looked almost
solid metal. Yet each sinewy warrior carried his heavy
weapon as if it were a toy, twirling it till it glinted in the sun
rays. Herds of game, red hartebeests and striped zebra and
wild swine, fled right and left before the advance of the line.
It was noon before we reached a wide, shallow valley,
with beds of rushes here and there in the middle, and on
TO THE UASIN GISHU 355
either side high grass and dwarfed and scattered thorn-
trees. Down this we beat for a couple of miles. Then,
suddenly, a maned lion rose a quarter of a mile ahead of the
line and galloped off through the high grass to the right;
and all of us on horseback tore after him.
He was a magnificent beast, with a black and tawny
mane; in his prime, teeth and claws perfect, with mighty
thews, and savage heart. He was lying near a hartebeest
on which he had been feasting; his life had been one un-
broken career of rapine and violence; and now the maned
master of the wilderness, the terror that stalked by night,
the grim lord of slaughter, was to meet his doom at the
hands of the only foes who dared molest him.
It was a mile before we brought him to bay. Then
the Dutch farmer, Mouton, who had not even a rifle, but
who rode foremost, was almost on him; he halted and
turned under a low thorn-tree, and we galloped past him to
the opposite side, to hold him until the spearmen could
come. It was a sore temptation to shoot him; but of course
we could not break faith with our Nandi friends. We
were only some sixty yards from him, and we watched him
with our rifles ready, lest he should charge either us, or
the first two or three spearmen, before their companions
arrived.
One by one the spearmen came up, at a run, and grad-
ually began to form a ring round him. Each, when he came
near enough, crouched behind his shield, his spear in his
right hand, his fierce, eager face peering over the shield
rim. As man followed man, the lion rose to his feet. His
mane bristled, his tail lashed, he held his head low, the upper
lip now drooping over the jaws, now drawn up so as to
356 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
show the gleam of the long fangs. He faced first one way
and then another, and never ceased to utter his murderous
grunting roars. It was a wild sight; the ring of spearmen,
intent, silent, bent on blood, and in the centre the great
man-killing beast, his thunderous wrath growing ever
more dangerous.
At last the tense ring was complete, and the spearmen
rose and closed in. The lion looked quickly from side
to side, saw where the line was thinnest, and charged at
his topmost speed. The crowded moment began. With
shields held steady, and quivering spears poised, the men
in front braced themselves for the rush and the shock; and
from either hand the warriors sprang forward to take their
foe in flank. Bounding ahead of his fellows, the leader
reached throwing distance; the long spear flickered and
plunged; as the lion felt the wound he half turned, and
then flung himself on the man in front. The warrior threw
his spear; it drove deep into the life, for entering at one
shoulder it came out of the opposite flank, near the thigh, a
yard of steel through the great body. Rearing, the lion
struck the man, bearing down the shield, his back arched;
and for a moment he slaked his fury with fang and talon.
But on the instant I saw another spear driven clear through
his body from side to side; and as the lion turned again
the bright spear blades darting toward him were flashes
of white flame. The end had come. He seized another
man, who stabbed him and wrenched loose. As he fell he
gripped a spear head in his jaws with such tremendous
force that he bent it double. Then the warriors were
round and over him, stabbing and shouting, wild with
furious exultation.
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356 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
show the gleam of the long fangs. ath. faced first one way _ 4
and then another, and never ceased to utter his murderous
grunting roars. It was a wild sight; the ring of spearmen,
intent, silent, bent on blood, and in the centre the great
man-killing beast, his thunderous wrath growing ever
more dangerous. |
At last the tense ring was complete, and the spearmen _
rose and closed in. The lion looked quickly from side
to side, saw where the line was thinnest, and charged at
his topmost speed. The crowded moment began. With
shields held steady, and quivering spears poised, the men
in front braced themselves for the rush and the shock; and
from either hand the warriors sprang forward to take their __
foe in flank. Bounding ahead of his fellows, the leader
reached throwing distance; the long spear flickered and
plunged; as the lion felt the wound he half turned, and
then flung himself on the man in front. The warrior threw
his spear; it drove deep into the life, for entering at one
shoulder it came out of the opposite flank, near the thigh, a
yard of steel through the great body. Rearing, the lion
struck the man, bearing down the shield, his back arched;
and for a moment he slaked his fury with fang and talon.
But on the instant-I saw another spear driven clear through
his body from side to side; and as the lion turned again
the bright spear blades darting toward him were flashes
of white flame. The end had come. He seized another
man, who stabbed him and wrenched loose. As he fell he
gripped a spear head in his jaws with such tremendous
force that he bent it double. Then the warriors were
round and over him, stabbing and shouting, wild with
furious exultation.
TO THE UASIN GISHU 357
From the moment when he charged until his death I
doubt whether ten seconds had elapsed, perhaps less; but
what a ten seconds! The first half dozen spears had done
the work. Three of the spear blades had gone clear through
the body, the points projecting several inches; and these,
and one or two others, including the one he had seized in
his jaws, had been twisted out of shape in the terrible death
struggle.
We at once attended to the two wounded men. Treat-
ing their wounds with antiseptic was painful, and so,
while the operation was in progress, I told them, through
Kirke, that I would give each a heifer. A Nandi prizes
his cattle rather more than his wives; and each sufferer
smiled broadly at the news, and forgot all about the pain of
his wounds.
Then the warriors, raising their shields above their
heads, and chanting the deep-toned victory song, marched
with a slow, dancing step around the dead body of the lion;
and this savage dance of triumph ended a scene of as fierce
interest and excitement as I ever hope to see.
The Nandi marched back by themselves, carrying the
two wounded men on their shields. We rode to camp by
a roundabout way, on the chance that we might see another
lion. The afternoon waned and we cast long shadows
before us as we rode across the vast lonely plain. The
game stared at us as we passed; a cold wind blew in our
faces, and the tall grass waved ceaselessly; the sun set be-
hind a sullen cloud bank; and then, just at nightfall, the
tents glimmered white through the dusk.
Tarlton’s partner, Newland—also an Australian, and
as fine a fellow as Tarlton himself—once had a rather
358 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
eerie adventure with a man-eating lion. He was camped
near Kilimakiu, and after nightfall the alarm was raised
that a lion was near by. He came out of his tent, more
wood was thrown on the fire, and he heard footsteps re-
treating, but could not make out whether they were those
of a lion ora hyena. Going back to his tent he lay down on
his bed with his face turned toward the tent wall. Just as
he was falling to sleep the canvas was pushed almost into
his face by the head of some creature outside; immediately
afterward he heard the sound of a heavy animal galloping,
and then the scream of one of his porters whom the lion
had seized and was dragging off into the darkness. Rush-
ing out with his rifle he fired toward the sounds, shooting
high; the lion let go his hold and made off, and the man
ultimately recovered.
It has been said that lions are monogamous and that
they mate for life. If this were so they would almost
always be found in pairs, a lion and a lioness. They are
sometimes so found; but it is much more common to come
across a lioness and her cubs, an old lion with several lion-
esses and their young (for they are often polygamous),
a single lion or lioness, or a couple of lions or lionesses, or
a small troop, either all lions or all lionesses, or of mixed
sexes. These facts are not compatible with the romantic
theory in question.
We tried to get the Nandi to stay with us for a few days
and beat for lions; but this they refused to do, unless they
were also to kill them; and I did not care to assist as a
mere spectator at any more lion hunts, no matter how ex-
citing—though to do so once was well worth while. So we
moved on by ourselves, camping in likely places. In the
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TO THE UASIN GISHU 359
swamps, living among the reeds, were big handsome cuck-
oos, which ate mice. Our first camp was by a stream
bordered by trees like clove-trees; at evening multitudes
of yellow-billed pigeons flew up its course. ‘They were
feeding on olives, and were good for the table; and so were
the yellow-billed mallards, which were found in the occa-
sional pools. Everything we shot at this time went into
the pot—except a hyena. The stomachs of the reedbuck
and oribi contained nothing but grass; but the stomachs
of the duikers were filled with berries from a plant which
looked like the deadly nightshade. On the burned ground,
by the way, the oribi, which were very plentiful, behaved
precisely like tommies, except that they did not go in as
large troops; they made no effort to hide as they do in
thick grass; and as duikers, steinbucks, and reedbucks
always do. We saw, but could not get a shot at, one topi
with a white or blazed face, like a South African blesbok.
_ While beating one swamp a lion appeared for an instant
at its edge, a hundred and fifty yards off. I got a snap shot,
and ought to have hit him, but didn’t. We tried our best
to get him out of the swamp, finally burning all of it that
was not too wet; but we never saw him again.
We recrossed the high hill country, through mists and
driving rains, and were back at Londiani on the last day
of November. Here, with genuine regret, we said good-
bye to our safari; for we were about to leave East Africa,
and could only take a few of our personal attendants with
us into Uganda and the Nile Valley. I was really sorry to
see the last of the big, strong, good-natured porters. They
had been with us over seven months, and had always be-
haved well—though this, of course, was mainly owing to
360 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
Cuninghame’s and Tarlton’s management. We had not
lost a single man by death. One had been tossed by a
rhino, one clawed by a leopard, and several had been sent
to hospital for dysentery, small-pox, or fever; but none had
died. While on the Guaso Nyero trip we had run into a
narrow belt of the dreaded tsetse fly, whose bite is fatal to
domestic animals. Five of our horses were bitten, and
four of them died, two not until we were on the Uasin Gishu;
the fifth, my zebra-shaped brown, although very sick, ulti-
mately recovered, to the astonishment of the experts. Only
three of our horses lasted in such shape that we could ride
them in to Londiani; one of them being Tranquillity, and
another Kermit’s white pony, Huan Daw, who was always
dancing and curvetting, and whom in consequence the
saises had christened “merodadi,” the dandy.
The first ten days of December I spent at Njoro, on the
edge of the Mau escarpment, with Lord Delamere. Itisa
beautiful farming country; and Lord Delamere is a practi-
cal and successful farmer, and the most useful settler, from
the stand-point of the all-round interests of the country,
in British East Africa. Incidentally, the home ranch was
most attractive—especially the library, the room containing
Lady Delamere’s books. Delamere had been himself a
noted big-game hunter, his bag including fifty-two lions;
but instead of continuing to be a mere sportsman, he turned
his attention to stock-raising and wheat-growing, and be-
came a leader in the work of taming the wilderness, of
conquering for civilization the world’s waste spaces. No
career can be better worth following.
During his hunting years Delamere had met with many
strange adventures. One of the lions he shot mauled him,
. ee a”
pS Nie oe aia
ee Te ee a ae
The lion as it fell
From a photograph by Edmund Heller
As he fell he gripped a spear head in his jaws with such tremendous force that
he bent it double
From a photograph by Kermit Roosevelt
TO THE UASIN GISHU 361
breaking his leg, and also mauling his two Somali gun-
bearers. The lion then crawled off into some bushes fifty
yards away, and camp was pitched where the wounded
men were lying. Soon after nightfall the hyenas assembled
in numbers-and attacked, killed, and ate the mortally
wounded lion, the noise made by the combatants being
ear-rending. On another occasion he had heard a leopard
attack some baboons in the rocks, a tremendous row fol-
lowing as the big dog baboons hastened to the assistance
of the one who had been seized and drove off the leopard.
That evening a leopard, evidently the same one, very thin
and hungry, came into camp and was shot; it was fright-
fully bitten, the injuries being such as only baboons in-
flict, and would unquestionably have died of its wounds.
The leopard wherever possible takes his kill up a tree,
showing extraordinary strength in the performance of this
feat. It is undoubtedly due to fear of interference from
hyenas. The ’Ndorobo said that no single hyena would
meddle with a leopard, but that three or four would with-
out hesitation rob it of its prey. Some years before this
time, while hunting north of Kenia Lord Delamere had
met a Dr. Kolb, who was killed by a rhino immediately
afterward. Dr. Kolb was fond of rhinoceros liver, and
killed scores of the animals for food; but finally a cow,
with a half-grown calf, which he had wounded charged him
and thrust her horn right through the middle of his body.
We spent several days vainly hunting bongo in the
dense mountain forests, with half a dozen ’Ndorobo. These
were true ’Ndorobo, who never cultivate the ground, living
in the deep forests on wild honey and game. It has been
said that they hunt but little, and only elephant and rhino;
362 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
but this is not correct as regards the "Ndorobo in question.
They were all clad in short cloaks of the skin of the tree
hyrax; hyrax, monkey, bongo, and forest hog, the only game
of the dense, cool, wet forest, were all habitually killed by
them. They also occasionally killed rhino and buffalo, find-
ing the former, because it must occasionally be attacked in
the open, the more dangerous of the two; twice Delamere
had come across small communities of ’Ndorobo literally
starving because the strong man, the chief hunter, the
breadwinner, had been killed by a rhino which he had
attacked. The headman of those with us, who was named
Mel-el-lek, had himself been fearfully injured by a wounded
buffalo; and the father of another one who was with us
had been killed by baboons which had rallied to the aid of
one which he was trying to kill with his knobkerry. Usually
they did not venture to meddle with the lions which they
found on the edge of the forest, or with the leopards which
occasionally dwelt in the deep woods; but once Melellek
killed a leopard with a poisoned arrow from a tree, and
once a whole party of them attacked and killed with their
poisoned arrows a lion which had slain a cow buffalo near
the forest. On another occasion a lion in its turn killed
two of their hunters. In fact they were living just as
palzolithic man lived in Europe, ages ago.
Their arms were bows and arrows, the arrows being
carried in skin quivers, and the bows, which were strung
with zebra gut, being swathed in strips of hide. When rest-
ing they often stood on one leg, like storks. Their eyesight
was marvellous, and they were extremely skilful alike in
tracking and in seeing game. They threaded their way
through the forest noiselessly and at speed, and were ex-
i
TO THE UASIN GISHU 363
traordinary climbers. They were continually climbing
trees to get at the hyrax, and once when a big black and
white Colobus monkey which I had shot lodged in the top of
a giant cedar one of them ascended and brought it down
with matter-of-course indifference. He cut down a sap-
ling, twenty-five feet long, with the stub of a stout branch
left on as a hook, and for a rope used a section of vine which
he broke and twisted into flexibility. Then, festooned with
all his belongings, he made the ascent. There was a tall
olive, sixty or eighty feet high, close to the cedar, and up
this he went. From its topmost branches, where only a
monkey or a ’Ndorobo could have felt at home, he reached
his sapling over to the lowest limb of the giant cedar, and
hooked it on; and then crawled across on this dizzy bridge.
Up he went, got the monkey, recrossed the bridge, and
climbed down again, quite unconcerned.
The big black and white monkeys ate nothing but
leaves, and usually trusted for safety to ascending into
the very tops of the tallest cedars. Occasionally they would
come in a flying leap down to the ground, or to a neigh-
boring tree; when on the ground they merely dashed
toward another tree, being less agile than the ordinary
monkeys, whether in the tree tops or on solid earth. They
are strikingly handsome and conspicuous creatures. ‘Their
bold coloration has been spoken of as “protective”; but it
is protective only to town-bred eyes. A non-expert finds
any object, of no matter what color, difficult to make out
when hidden among the branches at the top of a tall tree;
but the black and white coloration of this monkey has not
the slightest protective value of any kind. On the con-
trary, it is calculated at once to attract the eye. The
364 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
*Ndorobo were a unit in saying that these monkeys were
much more easy to see than their less brightly colored
kinsfolk who dwell in the same forests; and this was my
own experience.
When camped in these high forests the woods after
nightfall were vocal with the croaking and wailing of the
tree hyraxes. They are squat, woolly, funny things, and to
my great amusement I found that most of the settlers
called them “ Teddy bears.” They are purely arboreal
and nocturnal creatures, living in hollows high up in the
big trees, by preference in the cedars. At night they are
very noisy, the call consisting of an opening series of ba-
trachian-like croaks, followed by a succession of quavering
wails—eerie sounds enough, as they come out of the black
stillness of the midnight. They are preyed on now and
then by big owls and by leopards, and the white-tailed
mongoose is their especial foe, following them everywhere
among the tree tops. This mongoose is both terrestrial and
arboreal in habits, and is hated by the ’Ndorobo because it
robs their honey buckets.
The bongo and the giant hog were the big game of these
deep forests, where a tangle of undergrowth filled the spaces
between the trunks of the cedar, the olive, and the yew or
yellow-wood, while where the bamboos grew they usually
choked out all other plants. Delamere had killed several
giant hogs with his half-breed hounds; but on this occasion
the hounds would not follow them. On three days we
came across bongo; once a solitary bull, on both the other
occasions herds. We never saw them, although we heard
the solitary bull crash off through the bamboos; for they
are very wary and elusive, being incessantly followed by the
Sailinye, the Dorobo, who was with Kermit Roosevelt when he shot the bongo,
holding up the bongo head
From a photograph by Kermit Roosevelt
TO THE UASIN GISHU 365
*"Ndorobo. They are as large as native bullocks, with hand-
somely striped skins, and both sexes carry horns. On each
of the three days we followed them all day long, and it
was interesting to trace so much as we could of their habits.
Their trails are deeply beaten, and converge toward the
watercourses, which run between the steep, forest-clad
spurs of the mountains. They do not graze, but browse,
cropping the leaves, flowers, and twigs of various shrubs,
and eating thistles; they are said to eat bark, but this our
*Ndorobo denied. ‘They are also said to be nocturnal, feed-
ing at night, and lying up in the daytime; but this was
certainly not the case with those we came across. Both of
the herds, which we followed patiently and cautiously for
hours without alarming them, were feeding as they moved
slowly along. One herd lay down for a few hours at noon;
_ the other kept feeding until mid-afternoon, when we alarmed
it; and the animals then went straight up the mountain
over the rimrock. It was cold rainy weather, and the dark
of the moon, which may perhaps have had something to
do with the bongo being on the move and feeding during
the day; but the ’Ndorobo said that they never fed at night
—I of course know nothing about this personally. Leop-
ards catch the young bongo and giant hog, but dare not
meddle with those that are full-grown. ‘The forest which
they frequent is so dense, so well-nigh impenetrable, that
half the time no man can follow their trails save by bend-
ing and crawling, and cannot make out an object twenty
yards ahead. It is extraordinary to see the places through
which the bongo pass, and which are their chosen haunts.
While Lord Delamere and I were hunting in vain Kermit
was more fortunate. He was the guest of Barclay Cole,
366 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
Delamere’s brother-in-law. They took eight porters and
went into the forest accompanied by four ’Ndorobo. They
marched straight up to the bamboo and yellow-wood for-
est near the top of the Mau escarpment. They spent five
days hunting. The procedure was simply to find the trail
of a herd, to follow it through the tangled woods as rapidly
and noiselessly as possible until it was overtaken, and then
to try to get a shot at the first patch of reddish hide of
which they got a glimpse—for they never saw more than
such a patch, and then only for a moment. The first
day Kermit, firing at such a patch, knocked over the ani-
mal; but it rose and the tracks were so confused that even
the keen eyes of the wild men could not pick out the right
one. Next day they again got into a herd; this time Ker-
mit was the first to see the game—all that was visible
being a patch of reddish, the size of a man’s two hands,
with a white stripe across it. Firing he killed the animal;
but it proved to be only half grown. Even the ’Ndorobo
now thought it useless to follow the herd; but Kermit
took one of them and started in pursuit. After a couple
of hours’ trailing the herd was again overtaken, and again
Kermit got a glimpse of the animals. He hit two; and
selecting the trail with most blood they followed it for three
or four miles, until Kermit overtook and finished off the
wounded bongo, a fine cow.
Kermit always found them lying up during the middle
of the day and feeding in the morning and afternoon; other-
wise his observations of their habits coincided with mine.
The next ten days Kermit spent in a trip to the coast,
near Mombasa, for sable—the most beautiful antelope next
to the koodoo. The cows and bulls are red, the very old
TO THE UASIN GISHU 367
bulls (of the typical form) jet black, all with white bellies;
like the roan, both sexes carry scimitar-shaped horns, but
longer than the roans. He was alone with his two gun-
bearers, and some Swahili porters; he acted as headman
himself. They marched from Mombasa, being ferried
across the harbor of Kilindini in a dhow, and then going
some fifteen miles south. Next day they marched about ten
miles to a Nyika village, where they arrived just in the mid-
dle of a funeral dance which was being held in honor of a
chief’s son who had died. Kermit was much amused to find
that this death dance had more life and go to it than any
dance he had yet seen, and the music—the dirge music— had
such swing and vivacity that it almost reminded him of a
comic opera. The dancers wore tied round their legs queer
little wickerwork baskets, with beans inside, which rattled in
the rhythm of their dancing. Camp was pitched under a
huge baobab-tree, in sight of the Indian Ocean; but in the
middle of the night the ants swarmed in and drove every-
body out; and next day, while Kermit was hunting, camp
was shifted on about an hour’s march to a little grove of
trees by a brook. It was a well-watered country, very hilly,
with palm-bordered streams in each valley. These wild
palms bore ivory nuts, the fruit tasting something like an
apple. Each village had a grove of cocoanut palms, and
Kermit found the cool cocoanut milk delicious after the
return from a long day’s hunting.
Each morning he was off before daylight, and rarely
returned until after nightfall; and tired though he was he
enjoyed to the full the walks campward in the bright moon-
light among the palm groves beside the rushing streams,
while the cicadas cried like katydids at home. The grass
368 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
was long. The weather was very hot, and almost every
day there were drenching thunder-storms, and the dews
were exceedingly heavy, so that Kermit was wet almost all
the time, although he kept in first-rate health. There were
not many sable and they were shy. About nine or ten
o’clock they would stop feeding, and leave their pasture
grounds of long grass, taking refuge in some grove of trees
and thick bushes, not coming out again until nearly five
o'clock.
On the second day’s hunting Juma spied a little band
of sable just entering a grove. A long and careful stalk
brought the hunters to the grove, but after reaching it they
at first saw nothing of the game. Then Kermit caught a
glimpse of a head, fired, and brought down the beast in
its tracks. It proved to be a bull, just changing from the
red to the black coat; the horns were fair—in this northern
form they never reach the length of those borne by the
sable bulls of South Africa. He also killed a cow, not fully
grown. He therefore still needed a full-grown cow, which
he obtained three days later; this animal when wounded
was very savage, and tried to charge.
We now went to Nairobi, where Cuninghame, Tarlton,
and the three naturalists were already preparing for the
Uganda trip and shipping the stuff hitherto collected.
Working like beavers we got everything ready—including
additions to the Pigskin Library, which included, among
others, Cervantes, Goethe’s “Faust,” Moliére, Pascal,
Montaigne, St. Simon, Darwin’s “Voyage of the Beagle,”
and Huxley’s ‘‘ Essays” —and on December 18th started for
Lake Victoria Nyanza.
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CHAPTER XIill
UGANDA, AND THE GREAT NYANZA LAKES
WHEN we left Nairobi it was with real regret that we
said good-by to the many friends who had been so kind
to us; Officials, private citizens, almost every one we had
met—including Sir Percy Girouard, the new governor. At
Kijabe the men and women from the American Mission—
and the children too—were down at the station to wish us
good luck; and at Nakuru the settlers from the neighbor-
hood gathered on the platform to give us a farewell cheer,
The following morning we reached Kisumu on Lake
Victoria Nyanza. It is in the Kavirondo country, where
the natives, both men and women, as a rule go absolutely
naked, although they are peaceable and industrious. In
the native market they had brought in baskets, iron spade
heads, and food, to sell to the native and Indian traders who
had their booths round about; the meat market, under the
trees, was especially interesting.
At noon we embarked in a smart little steamer, to cross
the lake. Twenty-four hours later we landed at Entebbe, the
seat of the English Governor of Uganda. Throughout our
passage the wind hardly ruffled the smooth surface of the
lake. As we steamed away from the eastern shore the
mountains behind us and on our right hand rose harsh and
barren, yet with a kind of forbidding beauty. Dark clouds
hung over the land we had left, and a rainbow stretched
369
370 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
across their front. At nightfall, as the red sunset faded, the
lonely waters of the vast inland sea stretched, ocean-like,
west and south into a shoreless gloom. ‘Then the darkness
deepened, the tropic stars blazed overhead, and the light
of the half moon drowned in silver the embers of the sunset.
Next morning we steamed along and across the equator;
the last time we were to cross it, for thenceforth our course
lay northward. We passed by many islands, green with
meadow and forest, beautiful in the bright sunshine, but
empty with the emptiness of death. A decade previously
these islands were thronged with tribes of fisher folk; their
villages studded the shores, and their long canoes, planks
held together with fibre, furrowed the surface of the lake.
Then, from out of the depths of the Congo forest came
the dreadful scourge of the sleeping sickness, and smote
the doomed peoples who dwelt beside the Victorian Nile,
and on the coasts of the Nyanza Lakes and in the lands
between. Its agent was a biting fly, brother to the tsetse
whose bite is fatal to domestic animals. This fly dwells
in forests, beside lakes and rivers; and wherever it dwells
after the sleeping sickness came it was found that man
could not live. In this country, between, and along the
shores of, the great lakes, two hundred thousand people
died in slow torment, before the hard-taxed wisdom and
skill of medical science and governmental administration —
could work any betterment whatever in the situation. Men
still die by thousands, and the disease is slowly spreading
into fresh districts. But it has proved possible to keep it
within limits in the regions already affected; yet only by
absolutely abandoning certain districts, and by clearing
all the forest and brush in tracts which serve as barriers to
UGANDA, AND THE NYANZA LAKES | 371
the fly, and which permit passage through the infected
belts. On the western shores of Victoria Nyanza, and in
the islands adjacent thereto, the ravages of the pestilence
were such, the mortality it caused was so appalling, that
the Government was finally forced to deport all the sur-
vivors inland, to forbid all residence beside or fishing in
the lake, and with this end in view to destroy the villages
and the fishing fleets of the people. The teeming lake
fish were formerly a main source of food supply to all who
dwelt near by; but this has now been cut off, and the
myriads of fish are left to themselves, to the hosts of water
birds, and to the monstrous man-eating crocodiles of the
lake, on whose blood the fly also feeds, and whence it is
supposed by some that it draws the germs so deadly to
human kind.
When we landed there was nothing in the hot, laughing,
tropical beauty of the land to suggest the grisly horror
that brooded so near. In green luxuriance the earth lay
under a cloudless sky, yielding her increase to the sun’s
burning caresses, and men and women were living their
lives and doing their work well and gallantly.
At Entebbe we stayed with the acting-Governor, Mr.
Boyle, at Kampalla with the District Commissioner, Mr.
Knowles; both of them veteran administrators, and the latter
also a mighty hunter; and both of them showed us every
courtesy, and treated us with all possible kindness. En-
tebbe is a pretty little town of English residents, chiefly of-
ficials; with well-kept roads, a golf course, tennis courts,
and an attractive club house. The whole place is bowered
in flowers, on tree, bush, and vine, of every hue—masses
of lilac, purple, yellow, blue, and fiery crimson. Kampalla
372 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
is the native town, where the little King of Uganda, a boy,
lives, and his chiefs of state, and where the native council
meets; and it is the head-quarters of the missions, both
Church of England and Roman Catholic.
Kampalla is an interesting place; and so is all Uganda.
The first explorers who penetrated thither, half a century
ago, found in this heathen state, of almost pure negroes, a
veritable semi-civilization, or advanced barbarism, compa-
rable to that of the little Arab-negro or Berber-negro sul-
tanates strung along the southern edge of the Sahara, and
contrasting sharply with the weltering savagery which
surrounded it, and which stretched away without a break
for many hundreds of miles in every direction. The peo-
ple were industrious tillers of the soil, who owned sheep,
goats, and some cattle; they wore decent clothing, and
hence were styled “‘womanish” by the savages of the Upper
Nile region, who prided themselves on the nakedness of
their men as a proof of manliness; they were unusually
intelligent and ceremoniously courteous; and, most singu-
lar of all, although the monarch was a cruel despot, of the
usual African (whether Mohammedan or heathen) type,
there were certain excellent governmental customs, of bind-
ing observance, which in the aggregate might almost be
called an unwritten constitution. Alone among the natives
of tropical Africa the people of Uganda have proved very
accessible to Christian teaching, so that the creed of Chris-
tianity is now dominant among them. For their good for-
tune, England has established a protectorate over them.
Most wisely the English Government officials, and as a rule
the missionaries, have bent their energies to developing
them along their own lines, in government, dress, and ways
ateaad ee a eee ee ee
UGANDA, AND THE NYANZA LAKES 373
of life; constantly striving to better them and bring them
forward, but not twisting them aside from their natural
line of development, nor wrenching them loose from what
was good in their past, by attempting the impossible task
of turning an entire native population into black English-
men at one stroke.
The problem set to the governing caste in Uganda is
totally different from that which offers itself in British
East Africa. The highlands of East Africa form a white
man’s country, and the prime need is to build up a large,
healthy population of true white settlers, white home-
makers, who shall take the land as an inheritance for their
children’s children. Uganda can never be this kind of
white man’s country; and although planters and mer-
chants of the right type can undoubtedly do well there—to
the advantage of the country as well as of themselves—it
must remain essentially a black man’s country, and the
chief task of the officials of the intrusive and masterful
race must be to bring forward the natives, to train them,
and above all to help them train themselves, so that they
may advance in industry, in learning, in morality, in ca-
pacity for self-government—for it is idle to talk of “‘ giving”
a people self-government; the gift of the forms, when the
inward spirit is lacking, is mere folly; all that can be done
is patiently to help a people acquire the necessary qualities,
—social, moral, intellectual, industrial, and lastly political
—and meanwhile to exercise for their benefit, with justice,
sympathy, and firmness, the governing ability which as yet
they themselves lack. The widely spread rule of a strong
European race in lands like Africa gives, as one incident
thereof, the chance for nascent cultures, nascent semi-
374 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
civilizations, to develop without fear of being overwhelmed
in the surrounding gulfs of savagery; and this aside from
the direct stimulus to development conferred by the con-
sciously and unconsciously exercised influence of the white
man, wherein there is much of evil, but much more of ulti-
mate good. In any region of wide-spread savagery, the
chances for the growth of each self-produced civilization are
necessarily small, because each little centre of effort toward
this end is always exposed to destruction from the neighbor-
ing masses of pure savagery; and therefore progress is often
immensely accelerated by outside invasion and control. In
Africa the control and guidance is needed as much in the
things of the spirit as in the things of the body. Those who
complain of or rail at missionary work in Africa, and who
confine themselves to pointing out the undoubtedly too nu-
merous errors of the missionaries and shortcomings of
their flocks, would do well to consider that even if the
light which has been let in is but feeble and gray it has at
least dispelled a worse than Stygian darkness. As soon as
native African religions—practically none of which have
hitherto evolved any substantial ethical basis—develop be-
yond the most primitive stage they tend, notably in middle
and western Africa, to grow into malign creeds of unspeak-
able cruelty and immorality, with a bestial and revolting
ritual and ceremonial. Even a poorly taught and imper-
fectly understood Christianity, with its underlying founda-
tion of justice and mercy, represents an immeasurable
advance on such a creed.
Where, as in Uganda, the people are intelligent and
the missionaries unite disinterestedness and zeal with com-
mon sense, the result is astounding. The majority of
ee ne ee a
UGANDA, AND THE NYANZA LAKES — 375
the people of Uganda are now Christian, Protestant or
Catholic; and many thousands among them are sincerely
Christian and show their Christianity in practical fashion
by putting conduct above ceremonial and dogma. Most
fortunately, Protestant and Catholic seem now to be grow-
ing to work in charity together, and to show rivalry only in
healthy effort against the common foe; there is certainly
enough evil in the world to offer a target at which all good
men can direct their shafts, without expending them on
one another.
We visited the Church of England Mission, where we
were received by Bishop Tucker, and the two Catholic
Missions, where we were received by Bishops Hanlon and
Streicher; we went through the churches and saw the
schools with the pupils actually at work. In all the missions
we were received with American and British flags and
listened to the children singing the Star-spangled Banner.
The Church of England Mission has been at work for a
quarter of a century; what has been accomplished by Bishop
Tucker and those associated with him makes one of the
most interesting chapters in all recent missionary history.
I saw the high-school, where the sons of the chiefs are
being trained in large numbers for their future duties, and
I was especially struck by the admirable Medical Mission,
and by the handsome Cathedral, built by the native Chris-
tians themselves without outside assistance in either money
or labor. At dinner at Mr. Knowles’, Bishop Tucker gave
us exceedingly interesting details of his past experiences
in Uganda, and of the progress of the missionary work.
He had been much amused by an American missionary
who had urged him to visit America, saying that he would
376 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
“find the latch-string outside the door”; to an American
who knows the country districts well the expression seems
so natural that I had never even realized that it was an
Americanism.
At Bishop Hanlon’s Mission, where I lunched with the
bishop, there was a friend, Mother Paul, an American;
before I left America I had promised that I would surely see
her, and look into the work which she, and the sisters associ-
ated with her, were doing. It was delightful seeing her; she
not merely spoke my language but my neighborhood dia-
lect. She informed me that she had just received a mes-
sage of good will for me in a letter from two of “the finest”
—of course I felt at home when in mid-Africa, under the
equator, I received in such fashion a message from two
of the men who had served under me in the New York
police.* She had been teaching her pupils to sing some
lines of the “Star-spangled Banner,” in English, in my
especial honor; and of course had been obliged, in writ-
ing it out, to use spelling far more purely phonetic than I
had ever dreamed of using. The first lines ran as fol-
lows: (Some of our word sounds have no equivalent in
Uganda.)
“OQ se ka nyu si baidi mo_ nseli laiti
(O say can you see by the morn’s} early light)
Wati so pulauli wi eli aditwayi laiti silasi giremi”
(What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming.)
* For the benefit of those who do not live in the neighborhood of New York I
may explain that all good, or typical, New Yorkers invariably speak of their police
force as “‘the finest”; and if any one desires to know what a ‘‘good”’ or ‘‘typical”
New Yorker is, I shall add, on the authority of either Brander Matthews or the
late H. C. Bunner—I forget which—that when he isn’t a Southerner or of Irish
or German descent he is usually a man born out West of New England parentage.
UGANDA, AND THE NYANZA LAKES _ 377
After having taught the children the first verse in this
manner Mother Paul said that she stopped to avoid brain
fever.
In addition to scholastic exercises Mother Paul and her
associates were training their school children in all kinds
of industrial work, taking especial pains to develop those
industries that were natural to them and wouid be of use
when they returned to their own homes. Both at Bishop
Hanlon’s mission, and at Bishop Streicher’s, the Mission
of the White Fathers—originally a French organization,
which has established churches and schools in almost all
parts of Africa—the fathers were teaching the native men
to cultivate coffee, and various fruits and vegetables.
I called on the little king, who is being well trained
by his English tutor—few tutors perform more exacting
or responsible duties—and whose comfortable house was
furnished in English fashion. I met his native advisers,
shrewd, powerful-looking men; and went into the Council
Chamber, where I was greeted by the council, substantial
looking men, well dressed in the native fashion, and rep-
resenting all the districts of the kingdom. When we
visited the king it was after dark, and we were received by
smart looking black soldiers in ordinary khaki uniform,
while accompanying them were other attendants dressed
in the old-time native fashion; men with flaming torches,
and others with the big Uganda drums which they beat to
an accompaniment of wild cries. ‘These drums are char-
acteristic of Uganda; each chief has one, and beats upon
it his own peculiar tattoo. The king, and all other people
of consequence, white, Indian, or native, went round in
rickshaws, one man pulling in the shafts and three others
378 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
pushing behind. The rickshaw men ran well, and sang
all the time, the man in the shafts serving as shanty-man,
while the three behind repeated in chorus every second
or two a kind of clanging note; and this went on without
a break, hour after hour. The natives looked well and
were dressed well; the men in long flowing garments of
white, the women usually in brown cloth made in the old
native style out of the bark of the bark cloth tree. The
clothes of the chiefs were tastefully ornamented. All the
people, gentle and simple, were very polite and ceremonious
both to one another and to strangers. Now and then we
met parties of Sikh soldiers, tall, bearded, fine-looking men
with turbans; and there were Indian and Swahili and
even Arab and Persian traders.
The houses had mud walls and thatched roofs. The
gardens were surrounded by braided cane fences. In the
gardens and along the streets were many trees; among them
bark cloth trees, from which the bark is stripped every
year for cloth; great incense trees, the sweet scented gum
oozing through wounds in the bark; and date palms, in the
fronds of which hung the nests of the golden weaver birds,
now breeding. White cow herons, tamer than barn-yard
fowls, accompanied the cattle, perching on their backs,
or walking beside them. Beautiful kavirondo cranes came
familiarly round the houses. It was all strange and at-
tractive. Birds sang everywhere. The air was heavy
with the fragrance of flowers of many colors; the whole
place was a riot of lush growing plants. Every day there
were terrific thunder-storms. At Kampalla three men
had been killed by lightning within six weeks; a year or two
before our host, Knowles, had been struck by lightning
UGANDA, AND THE NYANZA LAKES 379
and knocked senseless, a huge zigzag mark being left across
his body, and the links of his gold watch chain being fused;
it was many months before he completely recovered.
Knowles arranged a situtunga hunt for us. The situ-
tunga is closely related to the bushbuck but is bigger, with
very long hoofs, and shaggy hair like a waterbuck. It is
exclusively a beast of the marshes, making its home in the
thick reedbeds, where the water is deep; and it is exceed-
ingly shy, so that very few white men have shot, or even
seen, it. Its long hoofs enable it to go over the most treach-
erous ground, and it swims well; in many of its haunts, in
the thick papyrus, the water is waist deep on a man.
Through the papyrus, and the reeds and marsh grass, it
makes well-beaten paths. Where it is in any danger of
molestation it is never seen abroad in the daytime, ven-
turing from the safe cover of the high reeds only at night;
but fifty miles inland, in the marsh grass on the edge of a
big papyrus swamp, Kermit caught a glimpse of half a
dozen feeding in the open, knee-deep in water, long after
sunrise. On the hunt in question a patch of marsh was
driven by a hundred natives, while the guns were strung
along the likely passes which led to another patch of marsh.
A fine situtunga buck came to Kermit’s post, and he killed
it as it bolted away. It had stolen up so quietly through
the long marsh grass that he only saw it when it was di-
rectly on him. Its stomach contained not grass, but the
leaves and twig tips of a shrub which grows in and along-
side of the marshes.
The day after this hunt our safari started on its march
north-westward to Lake Albert Nyanza. We had taken
with us from East Africa our gun-bearers, tent boys, and
380 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
the men whom the naturalists had trained as skinners. The
porters were men of Uganda; the askaris were from the
constabulary, and widely different races were represented
among them, but all had been drilled into soldierly uniform-
ity. The porters were well-clad, well-behaved, fine-looking
men, and did their work better than the “shenzis,”’ the wild
Meru of Kikiu tribesmen, whom we had occasionally em-
ployed in East Africa; but they were not the equals of
the regular East African porters. I think this was largely
because of their inferior food, for they ate chiefly yams
and plantains; in other words inferior sweet potatoes and
bananas. ‘They were quite as fond of singing as the East
African porters, and in addition were cheered on the march
by drum and fife; several men had fifes, and one carried
nothing but one of the big Uganda drums, which he usually
bore at the head of the safari, marching in company with
the flag-bearer. Every hour or two the men would halt,
often beside one of the queer little wicker-work booths in
which native hucksters disposed of their wares by the road-
side.
Along the road we often met wayfarers; once or twice
bullock carts; more often men carrying rolls of hides or
long bales of cotton on their heads; or a set of Bahima
herdsmen, with clear-cut features, guarding their herds of
huge-horned Angola cattle.
All greeted us most courteously, frequently crouching
or kneeling, as is their.custom when they salute a superior; —
and we were scrupulous to acknowledge their salutes, and
to return their greetings in the native fashion, with words
of courtesy and long drawn e-h-h-s and a-a-h-s. Along the
line of march the chiefs had made preparations to receive
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The situtunga shot by Kermit Roosevelt at Kampalla
From a photograph by Edmund Heller
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UGANDA, AND THE NYANZA LAKES | 381
us. Each afternoon, as we came to the spot where we were
to camp for the night, we found a cleared space strewed
with straw and surrounded by a plaited reed fence. Within
this space cane houses, with thatched roofs of coarse grass,
had been erected, some for our stores, one for a kitchen,
one, which was always decked with flowers, as a rest-house
for ourselves; the later with open sides, the roof upheld by
cane pillars, so that it was cool and comfortable, and afforded
a welcome shelter, either from the burning sun if the
weather was clear, or from the pelting, driving tropical
storms if there was rain. The moon was almost full
when we left Kampalla, and night after night it lent a half
unearthly beauty to the tropical landscape.
Sometimes in the evenings the mosquitoes bothered us;
more often they did not; but in any event we slept well
under our nettings. Usually at each camp we found either
the head chief of the district, or a sub-chief, with presents;
eggs, chickens, sheep, once or twice a bullock, always pine-
apples and bananas. The chief was always well dressed
in flowing robes, and usually welcomed us with dignity
and courtesy (sometimes, however, permitting the courtesy
to assume the form of servility); and we would have him
in to tea, where he was sure to enjoy the bread and jam.
Sometimes he came in a rickshaw, sometimes in a kind of
wickerwork palanquin, sometimes on foot. When we left
his territory we made him a return gift.
We avoided all old camping grounds, because of the
spirillum tick. This dangerous fever tick is one of the
insect scourges of Uganda, for its bite brings on a virulent
spirillum fever which lasts intermittently for months,
and may be accompanied by partial paralysis. It is com-
382 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
mon on old camping grounds, and in native villages. The
malarial mosquitoes also abound in places; and repeated
attacks of malaria pave the way for black water fever,
which is often fatal.
The first day’s march from Kampalla led us through
shambas, the fields of sweet potatoes and plantations of
bananas being separated by hedges or by cane fences. Then
for two or three days we passed over low hills and through
swampy valleys, the whole landscape covered by a sea of
elephant grass, the close-growing, coarse blades more than
twice the height of a man on horseback. Here and there
it was dotted with groves of strange trees; in these groves
monkeys of various kinds—some black, some red-tailed,
some auburn—chattered as they raced away among the
branches; there were brilliant rollers and bee-eaters; little
green and yellow parrots, and gray parrots with red tails;
and many colored butterflies. Once or twice we saw the
handsome, fierce, short-tailed eagle, the bateleur eagle,
and scared one from a reedbuck fawn it had killed. Among
the common birds there were black drongos, and musical
bush shrikes; small black magpies with brown tails; white-
headed kites and slate-colored sparrow-hawks; palm swifts,
big hornbills; blue and mottled kingfishers, which never
went near the water, and had their upper mandibles red
and their under ones black; barbets, with swollen, saw-
toothed bills, their plumage iridescent purple above and red
below; bulbuls, also dark purple above and red below, which
whistled and bubbled incessantly as they hopped among the
thick bushes, behaving much like our own yellow-breasted
chats; and a multitude of other birds, beautiful or fantastic.
There were striped squirrels too, reminding us of the big
UGANDA, AND THE NYANZA LAKES — 383
Rocky Mountain chipmunk or Say’s chipmunk, but with
smaller ears and a longer tail.
Christmas day we passed on the march. There is not
much use in trying to celebrate Christmas unless there are
small folks to hang up their stockings on Christmas Eve,
to rush gleefully in at dawn next morning to open the
stockings, and after breakfast to wait in hopping expec-
tancy until their elders throw open the doors of the room
in which the big presents are arranged, those for each child
on a separate table.
Forty miles from the coast the elephant grass began to
disappear. The hills became somewhat higher, there were
thorn-trees, and stately royal palms of great height, their
stems swollen and bulging at the top, near the fronds.
Parasitic ferns, with leaves as large as cabbage leaves, grew
on the branches of the acacias. One kind of tree sent
down from its branches to the ground roots which grew
into thick trunks. There were wide, shallow marshes, and
although the grass was tall it was no longer above a man’s
head. Kermit and I usually got two or three hours’ hunting
each day. We killed singsing waterbuck, bushbuck, and
bohor reedbuck. The reedbuck differed slightly from
those of East Africa; in places they were plentiful, and
they were not wary. We also killed several hartebeests;
a variety of the Jackson’s hartebeest, being more highly
colored, with black markings. I killed a very handsome
harnessed bushbuck ram. It was rather bigger than a good-
sized white-tail buck, its brilliant red coat beautifully marked
with rows of white spots, its twisted black horns sharp
and polished. It seemed to stand about half way between
the dark-colored bushbuck rams of East and South Africa
384 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
and the beautifully marked harnessed antelope rams of
the west coast forests. ‘The ewes and young rams showed
the harness markings even more plainly; and, as with
all bushbuck, were of small size compared to the old rams.
These bushbuck were found in tall grass, where the ground
was wet, instead of in the thick bush where their East
African kinsfolk spend the daytime.
At the bushbuck camp we met a number of porters
returning from the Congo, where they had been with an
elephant poacher named Busherri—at least that was as
near the name as we could make out. He had gone into
the Congo to get ivory, by shooting and trading; but the
wild forest people had attacked him, and had killed him
and seven of his followers, and the others were straggling
homeward. In Kampalla we had met an elephant hunter
named Quin who had recently lost his right arm in an
encounter with a wounded tusker. Near one camp the
head chief pointed out two places, now overgrown with
jungle, where little villages had stood less than a year be-
fore. In each case elephants had taken to feeding at night
in the shambas, and had steadily grown bolder and bolder
until the natives, their crops ruined by the depredations
and their lives in danger, had abandoned the struggle, and
shifted to some new place in the wilderness.
_ We were soon to meet elephant ourselves. The morn-
ing of the 28th was rainy; we struck camp rather late,
and the march was long, so that it was mid-afternoon when
Kermit and I reached our new camping place. Soon
afterward word was brought us that some elephants were
near by; we were told that the beasts were in the habit of
devastating the shambas, and were bold and truculent, hav-
——~-
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UGANDA, AND THE NYANZA LAKES _ 385
ing killed a man who had tried to interfere with them.
Kermit and I at once started after them, just as the last of
the safari came in, accompanied by Cuninghame, who
could not go with us as he was recovering from a bout of
fever.
In half an hour we came on fresh sign, and began to
work cautiously along it. Our guide, a wild-looking savage
with a blunt spear, went first, followed by my gun-bearer,
Kongoni, who is excellent on spoor; then I came, followed
by Kermit, and by the other gun-bearers. The country was
covered with tall grass, and studded with numerous patches
of jungle and small forest. In a few minutes we heard
the elephants, four or five of them, feeding in thick jungle
where the vines that hung in tangled masses from the trees
and that draped the bushes made dark caves of greenery.
It was difficult to find any space clear enough to see thirty
yards ahead. Fortunately there was no wind whatever. We
picked out the spoor of a big bull and for an hour and a half
we followed it, Kongoni usually in the lead. Two or three
times, as we threaded our way among the bushes, as noise-
lessly as possible, we caught glimpses of gray, shadowy bulks,
but only for a second at a time, and never with sufficient dis-
tinctness to shoot. The elephants were feeding, tearing
down the branches of a rather large-leafed tree with bark
like that of a scrub oak and big pods containing beans;
evidently these beans were a favorite food. They fed in
circles and zigzags, but toward camp, until they were not
much more than half a mile from it, and the noise made by
the porters in talking and gathering wood was plainly
audible; but the elephants paid no heed to it, being evi-
dently too much accustomed to the natives to have much
386 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
fear of man. We continually heard them breaking branches,
and making rumbling or squeaking sounds. They then
fed slowly along in the opposite direction, and got into
rather more open country; and we followed faster in the
big footprints of the bull we had selected. Suddenly in an
open glade Kongoni crouched and beckoned to me, and
through a bush I caught the loom of the tusker. But at
that instant he either heard us, saw us, or caught a whiff
of our wind, and without a moment’s hesitation he him-
self assumed the offensive. With his huge ears cocked at
right angles to his head, and his trunk hanging down, he
charged full tilt at us, coming steadily, silently, and at a
great pace, his feet swishing through the long grass; and a
formidable monster he looked. At forty yards I fired the
right barrel of the Holland into his head, and though I
missed the brain the shock dazed him and brought him to
an instant halt. Immediately Kermit put a bullet from
the Winchester into his head; as he wheeled I gave him
the second barrel between the neck and shoulder, through
his ear; and Kermit gave him three more shots before he
slewed round and disappeared. There were not many
minutes of daylight left, and we followed hard on his trail,
Kongoni leading. At first there was only an occasional
gout of dark blood; but soon we found splashes of red
froth from the lungs; then we came to where he had fallen,
and then we heard him crashing among the branches in
thick jungle to the right. In we went after him, through
the gathering gloom, Kongoni leading and I close behind,
with the rifle ready for instant action; for though his
strength was evidently fast failing, he was also evidently
in a savage temper, anxious to wreak his vengeance before
- why
UGANDA, AND THE NYANZA LAKES — 387
he died. On we went, following the bloody trail through
dim, cavernous windings in the dark, vine-covered jungle;
we heard him smash the branches but a few yards ahead,
and fall and rise; and stealing forward Kermit and I
slipped up to within a dozen feet of him as he stood on
the other side of some small twisted trees, hung with a mat
of creepers. I put a bullet into his heart, Kermit fired;
each of us fired again on the instant; the mighty bull threw
up his trunk, crashed over backward, and lay dead on his
side among the bushes. A fine sight he was, a sight to glad-
den any hunter’s heart, as he lay in the twilight, a giant in
death.
At once we trotted back to camp, reaching it as dark-
ness fell; and next morning all of us came out to the carcass.
He was full grown, and was ten feet nine inches high.
The tusks were rather short, but thick, and weighed a
hundred and ten pounds the pair. Out of the trunk we
made excellent soup.
Several times while following the trail of this big bull
we could tell he was close by the strong elephant smell.
Most game animals have a peculiar scent, often strong
enough for the species to be readily recognizable before
it is seen, if in forest or jungle. On the open plains, of
course, one rarely gets close enough to an animal to smell
it before seeing it; but I once smelled a herd of hartebeest,
when the wind was blowing strongly from them, although
they were out of sight over a gentle rise. Waterbuck have
a very strong smell. Buffalo smell very much like do-
mestic cattle, but old bulls are rank. More than once,
in forest, my nostrils have warned me before my eyes that
I was getting near the quarry whose spoor I was on.
388 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
After leaving the elephant camp we journeyed through
country for the most part covered with an open forest
growth. ‘The trees were chiefly acacias. Among them
were interspersed huge candelabra euphorbias, all in
bloom, and now and then one of the brilliant red flowering
trees, which never seem to carry many leaves at the same
time with their gaudy blossoms. At one place for miles
the open forest was composed of the pod-bearing, thick-
leafed trees on which we had found the elephants feeding;
their bark and manner of growth gave them somewhat
the look of jack-oaks; where they made up the forest,
growing well apart from one another, it reminded us of the
cross-timbers of Texas and Oklahoma. The grass was
everywhere three or four feet high; here and there were
patches of the cane-like elephant grass, fifteen feet high.
It was pleasant to stride along the road in the early
mornings, followed by the safari, and we saw many a glo-
rious sunrise. But as noon approached it grew very hot,
under the glare of the brazen equatorial sun, and we were
always glad when we approached our new camp, with its
grass-strewn ground, its wickerwork fence, and cool, open
rest house. The local sub-chief and his elders were usually
drawn up to receive me at the gate, bowing, clapping their
hands, and uttering their long-drawn e-h-h-s; and often
banana saplings or branches would be stuck in the ground
to form avenues of approach, and the fence and rest-house
might be decorated with flowers of many kinds. Some-
times we were met with music, on instruments of one
string, of three strings, of ten strings—rudimentary fiddles
and harps; and there.-was a much more complicated in-
strument, big and cumbrous, made of bars of wood placed
ee ee ow rae
ae Ree ee a) eee a
UGANDA, AND THE NYANZA LAKES — 389
on two banana stems, the bars being struck with a hammer,
as if they were keys; its tones were deep and good. Along
the road we did not see habitations or people; but con-
tinually there led away from it, twisting through the tall
grass and the bush jungles, native paths, the earth beaten
brown and hard by countless bare feet; and these, cross-
ing and recrossing in a network, led to plantation after
plantation of bananas and sweet potatoes, and clusters of
thatched huts.
In the afternoon, as the sun began to get well beyond
the meridian, we usually sallied forth to hunt, under the
guidance of some native who had come in to tell us where
he had seen game that morning. The jungle was so thick
in places and the grass was everywhere so long, that with-
out such guidance there was little successful hunting to be
done in only two or three hours. We might come back
with a buck, or with two or three guinea-fowl, or with
nothing.
There were a good many poisonous snakes; I killed a
big puff-adder with thirteen eggs inside it; and we also
killed a squat, short-tailed viper, beautifully mottled, not
eighteen inches long, but with a wide, flat head and a girth
of body out of all proportion to its length; and another
very poisonous and vicious snake, apparently of colubrine
type, long and slender. ‘The birds were an unceasing
pleasure. White wagtails and yellow wagtails walked
familiarly about us within a few feet, wherever we halted
and when we were in camp. Long-tailed, crested colys,
with all four of their red toes pointed forward, clung to the
sides of the big fruits at which they picked. White-headed
swallows caught flies and gnats by our heads. There were
390 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
large plantain-eaters; and birds like small jays with yel-
low wattles round the eyes. ‘There were boat-tailed birds,
in color iridescent green and purple, which looked like our
grakles, but were kin to the bulbuls; and another bird,
related to the shrikes, with bristly feathers on the rump,
which was colored like a red-winged blackbird, black with
red shoulders. Vultures were not plentiful, but the yellow-
billed kites, true camp scavengers, were common and tame,
screaming as they circled overhead, and catching bits of
meat which were thrown in the air for them. The shrews
and mice which the naturalists trapped around each camp-
ing place were kin to the species we had already obtained
in East Africa, but in most cases there was a fairly well-
marked difference; the jerbilles for instance had shorter
tails, more like ordinary rats. Frogs with queer voices
abounded in the marshes. Among the ants was one ar-
boreal kind which made huge nests, shaped like beehives
or rather like big gray bells, in the trees. Near the lake,
by the way, there were Goliath beetles, as large as small
rats.
Ten days from Kampalla we crossed the little Kafu
River, the black, smooth current twisting quickly along
between beds of plumed papyrus. Beyond it we entered
the native kingdom of Unyoro. It is part of the British pro-
tectorate of Uganda, but is separate from the native king-
dom of Uganda, though its people in ethnic type and social
development seem much the same. We halted for a day
at Hoima, a spread-out little native town, pleasantly situ-
ated among hills, and surrounded by plantations of cot-
ton, plaintains, yams, millet, and beans. It is the capital
of Unyoro, where the king lives, as well as three or four
doe Sree
te oe
See ee eee -" ~
Se ae ae Ns Pe ae Ne ne es One en ee ee
UGANDA, AND THE NYANZA LAKES © 391
English officials, and Episcopalian and Roman Catholic
missionaries. The king, accompanied by his prime min-
ister and by the English commissioner, called on me, and
I gave him five o’clock tea; he is a Christian, as are most
of his chiefs and headmen, and they are sending their
children to the mission schools.
A heron, about the size of our night heron but with a
longer neck, and with a curiously crow-like voice, strolled
about among the native houses at Hoima; and the kites
almost brushed us with their wings as they swooped down
for morsels of food. The cheerful, confiding little wagtails
crossed the threshold of the rest-house in which we sat.
Black and white crows and vultures came around camp;
and handsome, dark hawks, with white on their wings
and tails, and with long, conspicuous crests, perched up-
right on the trees. There were many kinds of doves; one
pretty little fellow was but six inches long. At night the
jackals wailed with shrill woe among the gardens.
From Hoima we entered a country covered with the
tall, rank elephant grass. It was traversed by papyrus-
bordered streams, and broken by patches of forest. The
date-palms grew tall, and among the trees were some with
orange-red flowers like trumpet flowers, growing in grape-
shaped clusters; and both the flowers and the seed-pods
into which they turned stood straight up in rows above the
leafy tops of the trees that bore them.
The first evening, as we sat in the cool, open cane
rest-house, word was brought us that an elephant was close
at hand. We found him after ten minutes’ walk; a young
bull, with very small tusks, not worth shooting. For three-
quarters of an hour we watched him, strolling about and
392 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
feeding, just on the edge of a wall of high elephant grass.
Although we were in plain sight, ninety yards off, and
sometimes moved about, he never saw us; for an elephant’s
eyes are very bad. He was feeding on some thick, luscious
grass, in the usual leisurely elephant fashion, plucking a
big tuft, waving it nonchalantly about in his trunk, and
finally tucking it into his mouth; pausing to rub his side
against a tree, or to sway to and fro as he stood; and con-
tinually waving his tail and half cocking his ears.
At noon on January 5th, 1910, we reached Butiaba, a
sandspit and marsh on the shores of Lake Albert Nyanza.
We had marched about one hundred and sixty miles from
Lake Victoria. We camped on the sandy beach by the
edge of the beautiful lake, looking across its waters to the
mountains that walled in the opposite shore. At mid-day
the whole landscape trembled in the white, glaring heat;
as the afternoon waned a wind blew off the lake, and the
west kindled in ruddy splendor as the sun went down.
At Butiaba we took boats to go down the Nile to the
Lado country. The head of the water transportation ser-
vice in Uganda, Captain Hutchinson, R.N.R., met us,
having most kindly decided to take charge of our flotilla
himself. Captain Hutchinson was a mighty hunter, and
had met with one most extraordinary experience while
elephant hunting; in Uganda the number of hunters who
have been killed or injured by elephants and buffaloes is
large. He wounded a big bull in the head, and followed
it for three days. The wound was serious and on the
fourth day he overtook the elephant. It charged as soon
as it saw him. He hit it twice in the head with his .450
double-barrel as it came on, but neither stopped nor turned
Ne Se pe ga ea Le ee eames
UGANDA, AND THE NYANZA LAKES — 393
it; his second rifle, a double 8 bore, failed to act; and the
elephant seized him in its trunk. It brandished him to and
fro in the air several times, and then planting him on the
ground knelt and stabbed at him with its tusks. Grasping
one of its forelegs he pulled himself between them in
time to avoid the blow; and as it rose he managed to seize
a hind leg and clung to it. But the tusker reached round
and plucked him off with its trunk, and once more bran-
dished him high in the air, swinging him violently about.
He fainted from pain and dizziness. When he came to
he was lying on the ground; one of his attendants had
stabbed the elephant with a spear, whereupon the animal
had dropped the white man, vainly tried to catch its new
assailant, and had then gone off for some three miles and
died. Hutchinson was frightfully bruised and strained,
and it was six months before he recovered.
CHAPTER XIV
THE GREAT RHINOCEROS OF THE LADO
“THE region of which I speak is a dreary region in
Libya, by the borders of the river Zaire. And there is no
quiet there nor silence. The waters of the river have a
saffron hue, and for many miles on either side of the river’s
oozy bed is a pale desert of gigantic water-lilies . . . and
I stood in the morass among the tall lilies and the lilies
sighed one unto the other in the solemnity of their desola-
tion. And all at once the moon arose through the thin
ghastly mist, and was crimson in color. . . . And the man
looked out upon the dreary river Zaire, and upon the
yellow ghastly waters, and upon the pale legions of the
water-lilies. . . . Then I went down into the recess of
the morass, and waded afar in among the wilderness of
the lilies, and called unto the hippopotami which dwelt
among the fens in the recesses of the morass.” I was read-
ing Poe, on the banks of the Upper Nile; and surely his
“fable” does deserve to rank with the ‘tales in the volumes
of the Magi—in the ironbound, melancholy volumes of
the Magi.”
We had come down through the second of the great
Nyanza lakes. As we sailed northward, its waters stretched
behind us beyond the ken of vision, to where they were
fed by streams from the Mountains of the Moon. On our
left hand rose the frowning ranges on the other side of which
394
eis
ti
Rs aha PRs mpage ms
i a
THE RHINOCEROS OF THE LADO — 395
the Congo forest lies like a shroud over the land. On our
right we passed the mouth of the Victorian Nile, alive with
monstrous crocodiles, and its banks barren of human life be-
cause of the swarms of the fly whose bite brings the torment
which ends in death. As night fell we entered the White
Nile, and steamed and drifted down the mighty stream.
Its current swirled in long curves between endless ranks of
plumed papyrus. White and blue and red, the floating
water-lilies covered the lagoons and the still inlets among
the reeds; and here and there the lotus lifted its leaves
and flowers stiffly above the surface. The brilliant tropic
stars made lanes of light on the lapping water as we ran on
through the night. The river horses roared from the reed-
beds, and snorted and plunged beside the boat, and croco-
diles slipped sullenly into the river as we glided by. Tow-
ard morning a mist arose and through it the crescent of
the dying moon shone red and lurid. Then the sun flamed
aloft and soon the African landscape, vast, lonely, mysteri-
ous, stretched on every side in a shimmering glare of heat
and light; and ahead of us the great, strange river went
twisting away into the distance.
At midnight we had stopped at the station of Koba,
where we were warmly received by the district commis-
sioner, and where we met half a dozen of the professional
elephant hunters, who for the most part make their money,
at hazard of their lives, by poaching ivory in the Congo.
They are a hard-bit set, these elephant poachers; there
are few careers more adventurous, or fraught with more
peril, or which make heavier demands upon the daring, the
endurance, and the physical hardihood of those who fol-
low them. Elephant hunters face death at every turn,
396 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
from fever, from the assaults of warlike native tribes, from
their conflicts with their giant quarry; and the unending
strain on their health and strength is tremendous.
At noon the following day we stopped at the deserted
station of Wadelai, still in British territory. There have
been outposts of white mastery on the Upper Nile for many
years, but some of them are now abandoned, for as yet
there has been no successful attempt at such develop-
ment of the region as would alone mean permanency of
occupation. The natives whom we saw offered a sharp
contrast to those of Uganda; we were again back among
wild savages. Near the landing at Wadelai was a group of
thatched huts surrounded by a fence; there were small
fields of mealies and beans, cultivated by the women,
and a few cattle and goats; while big wickerwork fish-
traps showed that the river also offered a means of liveli-
hood. Both men and women were practically naked;
some of the women entirely so except for a few beads.
Here we were joined by an elephant hunter, Quentin Gro-
gan, who was to show us the haunts of the great square.
mouthed rhinoceros, the so-called white rhinoceros, of the
Lado, the only kind of African heavy game which we
had not yet obtained. We were allowed to hunt in the
Lado, owing to the considerate courtesy of the Belgian
Government, for which I was sincerely grateful.
After leaving Wadelai we again went downstream. The
river flowed through immense beds of papyrus. Beyond
these on either side were rolling plains gradually rising
in the distance into hills or low mountains. The plains
were covered with high grass, dry and withered; and the
smoke here and there showed that the natives, according
a ae ng OR <t
Aa
LN RE 5 Sn
= Glin HGR GEIR egret Py
THE RHINOCEROS OF THE LADO _ 397
to their custom, were now burning it. There was no forest;
but scattered over the plains were trees, generally thorns,
but other kinds also, among them palms and euphorbias.
The following morning, forty-eight hours after leaving
Butiaba, on Lake Albert Nyanza, we disembarked from
the little flotilla which had carried us—a crazy little steam
launch, two sail-boats, and two big row-boats. We made
our camp close to the river’s edge, on the Lado side, in a
thin grove of scattered thorn-trees. The grass grew rank
and tall all about us. Our tents were pitched, and the grass
huts of the porters built, on a kind of promontory, the main
stream running past one side, while on the other was a
bay. The nights were hot, and the days burning; the
mosquitoes came with darkness, sometimes necessitating
our putting on head nets and gloves in the evenings, and
they would have made sleep impossible if we had not had
mosquito biers. Nevertheless it was a very pleasant camp,
and we thoroughly enjoyed it. It was a wild, lonely coun-
try, and we saw no human beings except an occasional
party of naked savages armed with bows and poisoned
arrows. Game was plentiful, and a hunter always enjoys a
permanent camp in a good game country; for while the
expedition is marching, his movements must largely be
regulated by those of the safari, whereas at a permanent
camp he is foot-loose.
There was an abundance of animal life, big and little,
about our camp. In the reeds, and among the water-
lilies of the bay, there were crocodiles, monitor lizards six
feet long, and many water birds—herons, flocks of beauti-
ful white egrets, clamorous spur-winged plover, sacred
ibis, noisy purple ibis, saddle-billed storks, and lily trotters
398 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
which ran lightly over the lily pads. There were cormo-
rants and snake birds. Fish eagles screamed as they circled
around; very handsome birds, the head, neck, tail, breast,
and forepart of the back white, the rest of the plumage black
and rich chestnut. ‘There was a queer little eagle owl with
inflamed red eyelids. The black and red bulbuls sang noisily.
There were many kingfishers, some no larger than chippy
sparrows, and many of them brilliantly colored; some had,
and others had not, the regular kingfisher voice; and while
some dwelt by the river bank and caught fish, others did not
come near the water and lived on insects. There were par-
adise flycatchers with long, wavy white tails; and olive-green
pigeons with yellow bellies. Red-headed, red-tailed lizards
ran swiftly up and down the trees. The most extraordinary
birds were the nightjars; the cocks carried in each wing one
very long, waving plume, the pliable quill being twice the
length of the bird’s body and tail, and bare except for a patch
of dark feather webbing at the end. The two big, dark
plume tips were very conspicuous, trailing behind the bird
as it flew, and so riveting the observer’s attention as to make
the bird itself almost escape notice. When seen flying, the
first impression conveyed was of two large, dark moths or
butterflies fluttering rapidly through the air; it was with a
positive effort of the eye that I fixed the actual bird. The
big slate and yellow bats were more interesting still. There
were several kinds of bats at this camp; a small dark kind
that appeared only when night had fallen and flew very near
the ground all night long, and a somewhat larger one, lighter
beneath, which appeared late in the evening and flew higher
in the air. Both of these had the ordinary bat habits of
continuous, swallow-like flight. But the habits of the
Crocodile
Shot by |
Theodore |
Roosevelt |
at rhino
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rhino
camp.
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a ie
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oS LL
Nightjar,
with long
plumes in
wings.
Baker's
Roan
antelope,
Gondokoro,
THE RHINOCEROS OF THE LADO _ 399
slate and yellow bats were utterly different. They were
very abundant, hanging in the thinly leaved acacias around
the tents, and, as everywhere else, were crepuscular, indeed
to a large extent actually diurnal, in habit. They saw
well and flew well by daylight, passing the time hanging
from twigs. They became active before sunset. In catching
insects they behaved not like swallows but like flycatchers.
Except that they perched upside down so to speak, that is,
that they hung from the twigs instead of sitting on them,
their conduct was precisely that of a phcebe bird or a wood
peewee. Each bat hung from its twig until it espied a
passing insect, when it swooped down upon it, and after
a short flight returned with its booty to the same perch
or went on to a new one close by; and it kept twitching
its long ears as it hung head downward devouring its prey.
There were no native villages in our immediate neigh-
borhood, and the game was not shy. There were many
buck: waterbuck, kob, hartebeest, bushbuck, reedbuck,
oribi, and duiker. Every day or two Kermit or I would
shoot a buck for the camp. We generally went out together
with our gun-bearers, Kermit striding along in front, with
short trousers and leggings, his knees bare. Sometimes only
one of us would go out. The kob and waterbuck were
usually found in bands, and were perhaps the commonest
of all. The buck seemed to have no settled time for feed-
ing. Two oribi which I shot were feeding right in the open,
just at noon, utterly indifferent to the heat. There were
hippo both in the bay and in the river. All night long
we could hear them splashing, snorting, and grunting;
they were very noisy, sometimes uttering a strange, long-
drawn bellow, a little like the exhaust of a giant steam-
400 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
pipe, once or twice whinnying or neighing; but usually
making a succession of grunts, or bubbling squeals through
the nostrils. The long grass was traversed in all directions
by elephant trails, and there was much fresh sign of the
huge beasts—their dung, and the wrecked trees on which
they had been feeding; and there was sign of buffalo also.
In middle Africa, thanks to wise legislation, and to the
very limited size of the areas open to true settlement, there
has been no such reckless, wholesale slaughter of big game
as that which has brought the once wonderful big game
fauna of South Africa to the verge of extinction. In certain
small areas of middle Africa, of course, it has gone; but
as a whole it has not much diminished, some species have
actually increased, and none is in danger of immediate
extinction, unless it be the white rhinoceros. During the
last decade, for instance, the buffalo have been recovering
their lost ground throughout the Lado, Uganda, and British
East Africa, having multiplied many times over. During
the same period, in the same region, the elephant have
not greatly diminished in aggregate numbers, although the
number of bulls carrying big ivory has been very much
reduced; indeed the reproductive capacity of the herds
has probably been very little impaired, the energies of the
hunters having been almost exclusively directed to the
killing of the bulls with tusks weighing over thirty pounds
apiece; and the really big tuskers, which are most eagerly
sought after, are almost always past their prime, and no
longer associate with the herd.
But this does not apply to the great beast which was
the object of our coming to the Lado, the square-mouthed
or, as it is sometimes miscalled, the white, rhinoceros.
The “white” rhino
Drawn by Philip R. Goodwin jrom photographs and from descriplions furnished by Mr. Roosevelt
me APRICAN GAME TRAILS
oo. Seer of owice whinnying or neighing; but usually
mang * secession of grunts, or bubbling squeals through —
sewer. The long grass was traversed in all directions — :
»» Sephent erails, and there was much fresh sign of the f
bege beasts—their dung, and the wrecked trees on which
“vey had been feeding; and there was sign of buffalo also. —
is middle Africa, thanks to wise legislation, and to the i
very limited size of the areas open to true settlement, there
nas been no such reckless, wholesale slaughter of big game —
as that which has brought the once wonderful big game
fauna of South Africa to the verge of extinction. In certain
small areas of middle Africa, of course, it has gone; but
as a whole it has not much diminished, some species have
actually increased, and none is in danger of immediate
extinction, unless it be the white rhinoceros. During the
last decade, for instance, the buffalo have been recovering
their lost ground throughout the Lado, Uganda, and British
East Africa, having multiplied many times over. During
the same period, in the same region, the elephant have
not greatly diminished in aggregate numbers, although the
number of bulls carrying big ivory has been very much
reduced; indeed the reproductive capacity of the herds
has probably been very little impaired, the energies of the 4
hunters having been almost exclusively directed to the
killing of the bulls with tusks weighing over thirty pounds
apiece; and the really big tuskers, which are most eagerly —
sought after, are almost always past their prime, and no
longer associate with the herd. —
But this does not apply to the great beast which’ was
the object of our coming to the Lado, the square-mouthed
or, as it is sometisgaes«smisealied, the white, rhinoceros.
Hoosr00H AM ed hodlzawewet amorigeaesh anor} bao wlnrgotodg wor} atwsbooD A gH ed scorer
+
‘>
2% ASS ee Se nd) ves &
THE RHINOCEROS OF THE LADO 401
Africa is a huge continent, and many species of the big
mammals inhabiting it are spread over a vast surface; and
some of them offer strange problems for inquiry in the
discontinuity of their distribution. The most extraordi-
nary instance of this discontinuity is that offered by the
distribution of the square-mouthed rhinoceros. It is almost
as-if our bison had never been known within historic times
except in Texas and Ecuador. This great rhinoceros was
formerly plentiful in South Africa south of the Zambesi,
where it has been completely exterminated except for a
score or so of individuals on a game reserve. North of the
Zambesi it was and is utterly unknown, save that during
the last ten years it has been found to exist in several local-
ities on the left bank of the Upper Nile, close to the river,
and covering a north and south extension of about two hun-
dred miles. Even in this narrow ribbon of territory the
square-mouthed rhinoceros is found only in certain locali-
ties, and although there has not hitherto been much slaugh-
ter of the mighty beast, it would certainly be well if all
killing of it were prohibited until careful inquiry has been
made as to its numbers and exact distribution. It is a curi-
ous animal, on the average distinctly larger than, and utterly
different from, the ordinary African rhinoceros. The spinal
processes of the dorsal vertebre are so developed as to make
a very prominent hump over the withers, while forward of
this is a still higher and more prominent fleshy hump on the
neck. The huge, misshapen head differs in all respects as
widely from the head of the common or so-called black rhi-
noceros as the head of a moose differs from that of a wapiti.
The morning after making camp we started on a rhi-
noceros hunt. At this time in this neighborhood, the rhi-
402 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
noceros seemed to spend the heat of the day in sleep, and
to feed in the morning and evening, and perhaps through-
out the night; and to drink in the evening and morning,
usually at some bay or inlet of the river. In the morning
they walked away from the water for an hour or two, until
they came to a place which suited them for the day’s sleep.
Unlike the ordinary rhinoceros, the square-mouthed rhi-
noceros feeds exclusively on grass. Its dung is very differ-
ent; we only occasionally saw it deposited in heaps, ac-
cording to the custom of its more common cousin. The
big, sluggish beast seems fond of nosing the ant-hills of red
earth, both with its horn and with its square muzzle; it
may be that it licks them for some saline substance. It
is apparently of less solitary nature than the prehensile-
lipped rhino, frequently going in parties of four or five
or half a dozen individuals.
We did not get an early start. Hour after hour we
plodded on, under the burning sun, through the tall, tangled
grass, which was often higher than our heads. Continu-
ally we crossed the trails of elephant and more rarely of
rhinoceros, but the hard, sunbaked earth and stiff, tinder-
dry long grass made it a matter of extreme difficulty to tell
if a trail was fresh, or to follow it. Finally, Kermit and
his gun-bearer, Kassitura, discovered some unquestionably
fresh footprints which those of us who were in front had
passed over. Immediately we took the trail, Kongoni and
Kassitura acting as trackers, while Kermit and I followed
at their heels. Once or twice the two trackers were puz-
zled, but they were never entirely at fault; and after half
an hour Kassitura suddenly pointed toward a thorn-tree
about sixty yards off. Mounting a low ant-hill I saw
FOE DEN SAT na sepa ark aaa ae ee ie Se ee i a a a
a _— i= a rT ov a ee ©, — “ ll “ _ _
THE RHINOCEROS OF THE LADO —§ 403
rather dimly through the long grass a big gray bulk, near
the foot of the tree; it was a rhinoceros lying asleep on its
side, looking like an enormous pig. It heard something
and raised itself on its forelegs, in a sitting posture, the
big ears thrown forward. I fired for the chest, and the
heavy Holland bullet knocked it clean off its feet. Squeal-
ing loudly it rose again, but it was clearly done for, and
it never got ten yards from where it had been lying.
At the shot four other rhino rose. One bolted to the
right, two others ran to the left. Firing through the grass
Kermit wounded a bull and followed it for a long distance,
but could not overtake it; ten days later,* however, he
found the carcass, and saved the skull and horns. Mean-
while I killed a calf, which was needed for the museum;
the rhino I had already shot was a full-grown cow, doubtless
the calf’s mother. As the rhino rose I was struck by their
likeness to the picture of the white rhino in Cornwallis
Harris’s folio of the big game of South Africa seventy years
ago. They were totally different in look from the com-
mon rhino, seeming to stand higher and to be shorter in
proportion to their height, while the hump and the huge,
ungainly, square-mouthed head added to the dissimilar-
ity. [The common rhino is in color a very dark slate gray;
these were a rather lighter slate gray; but this was proba-
bly a mere individual peculiarity, for the best observers
say that they are of the same hue. The muzzle is broad
and square, and the upper lip without a vestige of the
curved, prehensile development which makes the upper lip
of a common rhino look like the hook of a turtle’s beak.
* Kermit on this occasion was using the double-barrelled rifle which had been
most kindly lent him for the trip by Mr. John Jay White, of New York.
404 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
The stomachs contained nothing but grass; it is a grazing,
not a browsing animal.
There were some white egrets—not, as is usually the
case with both rhinos and elephants, the cow heron, but the
slender, black-legged, yellow-toed egret—on the rhinos,
and the bodies and heads of both the cow and calf looked
as though they had been splashed with streaks of white-
wash. One of the egrets returned after the shooting and
perched on the dead body of the calf.
The heat was intense, and our gun-bearers at once
began skinning the animals, lest they should spoil; and
that afternoon Cuninghame and Heller came out from
camp with tents, food, and water, and Heller cared for
the skins on the spot, taking thirty-six hours for the job.
The second night he was visited by a party of lions, which
were after the rhinoceros meat and came within fifteen
feet of the tents.
On the same night that Heller was visited by the lions
we had to fight fire in the main camp. At noon we noticed
two fires come toward us, and could soon hear their roar-
ing. The tall, thick grass was like tinder; and if we let the
fires reach camp we were certain to lose everything we had.
So Loring, Mearns, Kermit, and I, who were in camp, got
out the porters and cut a lane around our tents and goods;
and then started a back fire, section after section, from the
other side of this lane. We kept every one ready, with
branches and wet gunny-sacks, and lit each section in turn,
so that we could readily beat out the flames at any point
where they threatened. The air was still, and soon after
nightfall our back fire had burnt fifty or a hundred yards
away from camp, and the danger was practically over.
FE ITE LL TE La ILE SED el TRE a OAR
Us a ations Pie SSS SSeS
THE RHINOCEROS OF THE LADO —§ 405
Shortly afterward one of the fires against which we were
guarding came over a low hill-crest into view, beyond the
line of our back fire. It was a fine sight to see the long line
of leaping, wavering flames advance toward one another.
An hour or two passed before they met, half a mile from
camp. Wherever they came together there would be a
moment’s spurt of roaring, crackling fire, and then it would
vanish, leaving at that point a blank in the circle of flame.
Gradually the blanks in the lines extended, until the fire
thus burnt itself out, and darkness succeeded the bright
red glare.
The fires continued to burn in our neighborhood for a
couple of days. Finally one evening the great beds of
papyrus across the bay caught fire. After nightfall it was
splendid to see the line of flames, leaping fifty feet into the
air as they worked across the serried masses of tall papy-
rus. When they came toward the water they kindled the
surface of the bay into a ruddy glare, while above them the
crimson smoke clouds drifted slowly to leeward. ‘The fire
did not die out until toward morning; and then, behind it,
we heard the grand booming chorus of a party of lions.
They were full fed, and roaring as they went to their day
beds; each would utter a succession of roars which grew
louder and louder until they fairly thundered, and then
died gradually away, until they ended in a succession of
sighs and grunts.
As the fires burned to and fro across the country birds of
many kinds came to the edge of the flames to pick up the
insects which were driven out. There were marabou
storks, kites, hawks, ground hornbills, and flocks of beau-
tiful egrets and cow herons, which stalked sedately through
406 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
the grass, and now and then turned a small tree nearly
white by all perching in it. The little bank swallows came
in myriads; exactly the same, by the way, as our familiar
home friends, for the bank swallow is the most widely
distributed of all birds. The most conspicuous attend-
ants of the fires, however, were the bee-eaters, the largest
and handsomest we had yet seen, their plumage every
shade of blended red and rose, varied with brilliant blue
and green. ‘The fires seemed to bother the bigger animals
hardly at all. The game did not shift their haunts, or do
more than move in quite leisurely fashion out of the line of
advance of the flames. I saw two oribi which had found a
patch of short grass that split the fire, feeding thereon,
entirely undisturbed, although the flames were crackling
by some fifty yards on each side of them. Even the mice
and shrews did not suffer much, probably because they
went into holes. Shrews, by the way, were very plentiful,
and Loring trapped four kinds, two of them new. It was
always a surprise to me to find these tiny shrews swarming
in Equatorial Africa just as they swarm in Arctic America.
In a little patch of country not far from this camp there
were a few sleeping-sickness fly, and one or two of us were
bitten, but, seemingly, the fly were not infected, although
at this very time eight men were dying of sleeping sickness
at Wadelai where we had stopped. There were also some
ordinary tsetse fly, which caused us uneasiness about our
mule. We had brought four little mules through Uganda,
riding them occasionally on safari; and had taken one
across into the Lado, while the other three, with the bulk
of the porters, marched on the opposite bank of the Nile
from Koba, and were to join us at Nimule.
“il
hel Dns
io =
a
Sint
se i. —
a SNS
ES th PR Tl
ButsoyT uapiy “¢ <q ydoasojoyd v mos
aaye snikded ayy,
THE RHINOCEROS OF THE LADO — 407
It was Kermit’s turn for the next rhino; and by good
luck it was a bull, giving us a complete group of bull, cow,
and calf for the National Museum. We got it as we had
gotten our first two. Marching through likely country—
burnt, this time—we came across the tracks of three rhino,
two big and one small, and followed them through the
black ashes. It was an intricate and difficult piece of
tracking, for the trail wound hither and thither and was
criss-crossed by others; but Kongoni and Kassitura grad-
ually untangled the maze, found where the beasts had
drunk at a small pool that morning, and then led us to
where they were lying asleep under some thorn-trees. It
was about eleven o’clock. As the bull rose Kermit gave
him a fatal shot with his beloved Winchester. He gal-
loped full speed toward us, not charging, but in a mad
panic of terror and bewilderment; and with a bullet from
the Holland I brought him down in his tracks only a few
yards away. The cow went off at a gallop. The calf,
a big creature, half grown, hung about for some time, and
came up quite close, but was finally frightened away by
shouting and hand-clapping. Some cow herons were
round these rhino; and the head and body of the bull
looked as if it had been splashed with whitewash.
It was an old bull, with a short, stubby, worn-down
horn. It was probably no heavier than a big ordinary
rhino bull such as we had shot on the Sotik, and its horns
were no larger, and the front and rear ones were of the
same proportions relatively to each other. But the mis-
shapen head was much larger, and the height seemed
greater because of the curious hump. This fleshy hump
is not over the high dorsal vertebre, but just forward of
408 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
them, on the neck itself, and has no connection with the
spinal column. The square-mouthed rhinoceros of South
Africa is always described as being very much bigger than
the common prehensile-lipped African rhinoceros, and as
carrying much longer horns. But the square-mouthed
rhinos we saw and killed in the Lado did not differ from
the common kind in size and horn development as much
as we had been led to expect; although on an average they
were undoubtedly larger, and with bigger horns, yet there
was in both respects overlapping, the bigger prehensile-
lipped rhinos equalling or surpassing the smaller individuals
of the other kind. The huge, square-muzzled head, and
the hump, gave the Lado rhino an utterly different look,
however, and its habits are also in some important respects
different. Our gun-bearers were all East Africans, who had
never before been in the Lado. They had been very scep-
tical when told that the rhinos were different from those they
knew, remarking that ‘‘all rhinos were the same”; and the
first sight of the spoor merely confirmed them in their be-
lief; but they at once recognized the dung as being dif-
ferent; and when the first animal was down they examined
it eagerly and proclaimed it as a rhinoceros with a hump,
like their own native cattle, and with the mouth of a hip-
popotamus.
On the way to camp, after the death of this bull rhino, _
I shot a waterbuck bull with finer horns than any I| had yet
obtained. Herds of waterbuck and of kob stared tamely
at me as I walked along; whereas a little party of harte-
beest were wild and shy. On other occasions | have
seen this conduct exactly reversed, the hartebeest being ~
tame, and the waterbuck and kob shy. Heller, as usual,
THE RHINOCEROS OF THE LADO 409
came out and camped by this rhino, to handle the skin and
skeleton. In the middle of the night a leopard got caught
in one of his small steel traps, which he had set out with a
light drag. The beast made a terrific row and went off
with the trap and drag. It was only caught by one toe;
a hyena similarly caught would have wrenched itself
loose; but the leopard, though a far braver and more dan-
gerous beast, has less fortitude under pain than a hyena.
Heller tracked it up in the morning, and shot it as, ham-
pered by the trap and drag, it charged the porters.
On the ashes of the fresh burn the footprints of the
game showed almost as distinctly as on snow. One morn-
ing we saw where a herd of elephant, cows and calves,
had come down the night before to drink at a big bay of
the Nile, three or four miles north of: our camp. Numerous
hippo tracks showed that during the darkness these beasts
wandered freely a mile or two inland. They often wan-
dered back of our camp at night. Always beside these night
trails we found withered remnants of water cabbage and
other aquatic plants which they had carried inland with
them; I suppose accidentally on their backs. On several
occasions where we could only make out scrapes on the
ground the hippo trails puzzled us, being so far inland that
we thought they might be those of rhinos; until we would
come on some patch of ashes or of soft soil where we could
trace the four toe marks. The rhino has but three toes, the
one in the middle being very big; it belongs, with the
tapir and horse, to the group of ungulates which tends to
develop one digit of each foot at the expense of all the
_ others; a group which in a long-past geological age was the
predominant ungulate group of the world. The hippo,
410 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
on the contrary, belongs with such cloven-hoofed creatures
as the cow and pig, in the group of ungulates which has
developed equally two main digits in each foot; a group
much more numerously represented than the other in the
world of to-day.
As the hippos grew familiar with the camp they became
bolder and more venturesome after nightfall. They grunted
and brayed to one another throughout the night, splashed
and wallowed among the reeds, and came close to the tents
during their dry-land rambles in the darkness. One night,
in addition to the hippo chorus, we heard the roaring of
lions and the trumpeting of elephants. We were indeed
in the heart of the African wilderness.
Early in the morning after this concert we started for
a day’s rhino hunt, Heller and Cuninghame having just
finished the preparation, and transport to camp, of the
skin of Kermit’s bull. Loring, who had not hitherto seen
either elephant or rhino alive, went with us; and by good
luck he saw both.
A couple of miles from camp we were crossing a wide,
flat, swampy valley in which the coarse grass grew as tall
as our heads. Here and there were kob, which leaped up
on the ant-hills to get a clear view of us. Suddenly our
attention was attracted by the movements of a big flock
of cow herons in front of us, and then watching sharply we
caught a glimpse of some elephants, about four hundred
yards off. We now climbed an ant-hill ourselves, and in-
spected the elephants, to see if among them were any big-
tusked bulls. There were no bulls, however; the little herd
consisted of five cows and four calves, which were march-
ing across a patch of burnt ground ahead of us, accom-
THE RHINOCEROS OF THE LADO 411
panied by about fifty white cow herons. We stood where
we were until they had passed; we did not wish to get too
close, lest they might charge us and force us to shoot in
self-defence. They walked in unhurried confidence, and
yet were watchful, continually cocking their ears and rais-
ing and curling their trunks. One dropped behind and
looked fixedly in our direction, probably having heard us
talking; then with head aloft and tail stiffly erect it has-
tened after the others, presenting an absurd likeness to a
baboon. The four calves played friskily about, especially
a very comical little pink fellow which accompanied the
leading cow. Meanwhile a few of the white herons rode on
their backs, but most of the flock stalked sedately along-
side through the burnt grass, catching the grasshoppers
which were disturbed by the great feet. When, however,
the herd reached the tall grass all the herons flew up and
perched on the backs and heads of their friends; even
the pink calf carried one. Half a mile inside the edge of
the tall grass the elephants stopped for the day beside a
clump of bushes; and there they stood, the white birds
clustered on their dark bodies. At the time we could dis-
tinctly hear the Doctor’s shot-gun, as he collected birds
near camp; the reports did not disturb the elephants, and
when we walked on we left them standing unconcernedly
in the grass.
A couple of hours later, as we followed an elephant
path, we came to where it was crossed by the spoor of two
rhino. Our gun-bearers took up the trail, over the burnt
ground, while Kermit and I followed immediately behind
them. The trail wound about, and was not always easy
to disentangle, but after a mile or two we saw the beasts.
412 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
They were standing among bushes and patches of rank,
unburned grass; it was just ten o’clock, and they were
evidently preparing to lie down for the day. As they stood
they kept twitching their big ears; both rhino and ele-
phant are perpetually annoyed, as are most game, by biting
flies, large and small. We got up very close, Kermit with
his camera and I with the heavy rifle. Too little is known
of these northern square-mouthed rhino for us to be sure
that they are not lingering slowly toward extinction; and,
lest this should be the case, we were not willing to kill any
merely for trophies; while, on the other hand, we deemed it
really important to get good groups for the National Mu-
seum in Washington and the American Museum in New
York, and a head for the National Collection of Heads and
Horns which was started by Mr. Hornaday, the director of
the Bronx Zoological Park. Moreover Kermit and Loring
desired to get some photos of the animals while they were
alive.
Things did not go well this time, however. The rhinos
saw us before either Kermit or Loring could get a good
picture. As they wheeled I fired hastily into the chest of
one, but not quite in the middle, and away they dashed—
for they do not seem as truculent as the common rhino.
We followed them. After an hour the trails separated;
Cuninghame went on one, but failed to overtake the ani-
mal, and we did not see him until we reached camp late
that afternoon.
Meanwhile our own gun-bearers followed the bloody
spoor of the rhino I had hit, Kermit and I close behind,
and Loring with us. The rhino had gone straight off at a
gallop, and the trail offered little difficulty, so we walked
BLISS IES RG
“3 io. ee oa ice Neale al bo 2S .
THE RHINOCEROS OF THE LADO —§ 413
fast. A couple of hours passed. The sun was now high
and the heat intense as we walked over the burned ground.
The scattered trees bore such scanty foliage as to cast
hardly any shade. The rhino galloped strongly and with-
out faltering; but there was a good deal of blood on the
trail. At last, after we had gone seven or eight miles,
Kiboko the skinner, who was acting as my gun-bearer,
pointed toward a small thorn-tree; and beside it I saw the
rhino standing with drooping head. It had been fatally
hit, and if undisturbed would probably never have moved
from where it was standing; and we finished it off forth-
with. It was a cow, and before dying it ran round and
round in a circle, in the manner of the common rhino.
Loring stayed to superintend the skinning and bringing
in of the head and feet, and slabs of hide. Meanwhile
Kermit and I, with our gun-bearers, went off with a “‘shen-
zi,” a wild native who had just come in with the news
that he knew where another rhino was lying, a few miles
away. While bound thither we passed numbers of oribi,
and went close to a herd of waterbuck which stared at us
with stupid tameness; a single hartebeest was with them.
When we reached the spot there was the rhino, sure enough,
under a little tree, sleeping on his belly, his legs doubled
up, and his head flat on the ground. Unfortunately the
grass was long, so that it was almost impossible to photo-
graph him. However, Kermit tried to get his picture from
an ant-hill fifty yards distant, and then, Kermit with his
camera and I with my rifle, we walked up to within about
twenty yards. At this point we halted, and on the instant
the rhino jumped to his feet with surprising agility and
trotted a few yards out from under the tree. It was a huge
414 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
bull, with a fair horn; much the biggest bull we had yet
seen; and with head up and action high, the sun glinting
on his slate hide and bringing out his enormous bulk, he
was indeed a fine sight. I waited a moment for Kermit
to snap him. Unfortunately the waving grass spoiled the
picture. Then I fired right and left into his body, behind
the shoulders, and down he went. In color he seemed
of exactly the same shade as the common rhino, but he
was taller and heavier, being six feet high. He carried a
stout horn, a little over two feet long; the girth at the base
was very great.
Leaving the gun-bearers (with all our water) to skin the
mighty beast, Kermit and I started for camp; and as we
were rather late Kermit struck out at a great pace in front,
while I followed on the little ambling mule. On our way
in we passed the elephants, still standing where we had
left them in the morning, with the white cow herons flying
and walking around and over them. Heller and Cun-
inghame at once went out to camp by the skin and take
care of it, and to bring back the skeleton. We had been
out about eleven hours without food; we were very dirty
from the ashes on the burnt ground; we had triumphed;
and we were thoroughly happy as we took our baths and
ate our hearty dinner.
It was amusing to look at our three naturalists and
compare them with the conventional pictures of men of
science and learning—especially men of science and learn-
ing in the wilderness—drawn by the novelists a century
ago. Nowadays the field naturalist—who is usually at all
points superior to the mere closet naturalist—follows a pro-
fession as full of hazard and interest as that of the explorer
i EG ee en ee 2 tite Narn Lag iy
We walked up to within about twenty yards
From a photograph, copyright, by Kermit Roosevelt
i
tay
at
THE RHINOCEROS OF THE LADO $415
or of the big-game hunter in the remote wilderness. He
penetrates to all the out-of-the-way nooks and corners of
the earth; he is schooled to the performance of very hard
work, to the endurance of fatigue and hardship, to en-
countering all kinds of risks, and to grappling with every
conceivable emergency. In consequence he is exceedingly
competent, resourceful, and self-reliant, and the man of all
others to trust in a tight place.
Around this camp there were no ravens or crows; but
multitudes of kites, almost as tame as sparrows, circled
among the tents, uttering their wailing cries, and lit on the
little trees near by or waddled about on the ground near
the cook fires. Numerous vultures, many marabou storks,
and a single fish eagle, came to the carcasses set for them
outside the camp by Loring; and he took pictures of them.
The handsome fish eagle looked altogether out of place
among the foul carrion-feeding throng; on the ground the
vultures made way for him respectfully enough, but they
resented his presence, and now and then two or three
would unite to mob him while on the wing.
We wished for another cow rhino, so as to have a bull
and a cow both for the National Museum at Washington,
and for the American Museum in New York; and Kermit
was to shoot this. Accordingly he and I started off early
one morning with Grogan—a man of about twenty-five,
a good hunter and a capital fellow, with whom by this
time we were great friends. It was much like our other
hunts. We tramped through high grass across a big,
swampy plain or broad valley between low rises of ground,
until, on the opposite side, we struck a by-this-time familiar
landmark, two tall royal palms, the only ones for some
416 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
miles around. Here we turned into a broad elephant and
rhinoceros path, worn deep and smooth by the genera-
tions of huge feet that had tramped it; for it led from the
dry inland to a favorite drinking place on the Nile. Along
this we walked until Kassitura made out the trail of two
rhino crossing it at right angles. They were evidently
feeding and seeking a noonday resting place; in this coun-
try the square-mouthed rhinoceros live on the grassy flats,
sparsely covered with small thorn-trees, and only go into
the high reeds on their way to drink. With Kassitura and
Kongoni in the lead we followed the fresh trail for a mile
or so, until we saw our quarry. The stupid beasts had
smelt us, but were trotting to and fro in a state of inde-
cision and excitement, tails twisting and ears cocked,
uncertain what to do. At first we thought they were a bull
and a small cow; but they proved to be a big cow with
good horns, and a calf which was nearly full grown. The
wind and sun were both exactly wrong, so Kermit could
not take any photos; and accordingly he shot the cow
behind the shoulder. Away both animals went, Kermit
tearing along behind, while Grogan and I followed. After
a sharp run of a mile and a half Kermit overtook them,
and brought down the cow. The younger one then trotted
threateningly toward him. He let it get within ten yards,
trying to scare it; as it kept coming on, and could of course
easily kill him, he then fired into its face, to one side, so as
to avoid inflicting a serious injury, and, turning, off it went
at a gallop. When I came up the cow had raised itself on
its forelegs, and he was taking its picture. It had been
wallowing, and its whole body was covered with dry caked
mud. It was exactly the color of the common rhino, but
THE RHINOCEROS OF THE LADO $417
a little larger than any cow of the latter that we had killed.
We at once sent for Heller—who had been working without
intermission since we struck the Lado, and liked it—and
waited by the body until he appeared, in mid-afternoon.
Here in the Lado we were in a wild, uninhabited coun-
try, and for meat we depended entirely on our rifles; nor
was there any difficulty in obtaining all we needed. We
only shot for meat, or for museum specimens—all the
museum specimens being used for food too—and as the
naturalists were as busy as they well could be, we found
that, except when we were after rhinoceros, it was not
necessary to hunt for more than half a day or thereabouts.
On one of these hunts, on which he shot a couple of buck,
Kermit also killed a monitor lizard, and a crocodile ten
feet long; it was a female, and contained fifty-two eggs,
which, when scrambled, we ate and found good.
The morning after Kermit killed his cow rhino he and
Grogan went off for the day to see if they could not get
some live rhino photos. Cuninghame started to join Heller
at the temporary camp which we had made beside the
dead rhino, in order to help him with the skin and skeletons.
Mearns and Loring were busy with birds, small beasts,
and photographs. So, as we were out of fresh meat, I
walked away from camp to get some, followed by my gun-
bearers, the little mule with its well-meaning and utterly
ignorant shenzi sais, and a dozen porters.
We first went along the river brink to look for croco-
diles. In most places the bank was high and steep. Wher-
ever it was broken there was a drinking place, with lead-
ing down to it trails deeply rutted in the soil by the herds of
giant game that had travelled them for untold years. At
418 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
this point the Nile was miles wide, and was divided into
curving channels which here and there spread into lake-
like expanses of still water. Along the edges of the river
and between the winding channels and lagoons grew vast
water-fields of papyrus, their sheets and bands of dark
green breaking the burnished silver of the sunlit waters.
Beyond the further bank rose steep, sharply peaked hills.
The tricolored fish eagles, striking to the eye because of
their snow-white heads and breasts, screamed continually,
a wild eerie sound. Cormorants and snake birds were
perched on trees overhanging the water, and flew away, or
plunged like stones into the stream, as I approached; her-
ons of many kinds rose from the marshy edges of the bays
and inlets; wattled and spur-winged plovers circled over-
head; and I saw a party of hippopotami in a shallow on
the other side of the nearest channel, their lazy bulks raised
above water as they basked asleep in the sun. The semi-
diurnal slate-and-yellow bats flitted from one scantily leaved
tree to another, as I disturbed them. At the foot of a steep
bluff, several yards from the water, a crocodile lay. I
broke its neck with a soft-nosed bullet from the little Spring-
field; for the plated skin of a crocodile offers. no resistance
to a modern rifle. We dragged the ugly man-eater up the
bank, and sent one of the porters back to camp to bring out
enough men to carry the brute in bodily. It was a female,
containing thirty eggs. We did not find any crocodile’s
nest; but near camp, in digging a hole for the disposal of
refuse, we came on a clutch of a dozen eggs of the monitor
lizard. They were in sandy loam, two feet and a half be-
neath the surface, without the vestige of a burrow leading
to them. When exposed to the sun, unlike the crocodile’s
wg oda’
be a ke ee
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THE RHINOCEROS OF THE LADO $419
eggs, they soon burst. Evidently the young are hatched
in the cool earth and dig their way out.
We continued our walk and soon came on some kob.
At two hundred yards I got a fine buck, though he went a
quarter of a mile. Then, at a hundred and fifty yards, I
dropped a straw-colored Nile hartebeest. Sending in the
kob and hartebeest used up all our porters but two, and I
mounted the little mule and turned toward camp, having
been out three hours. Soon Gouvimali pointed out a big
bustard, marching away through the grass a hundred yards
off. I dismounted, shot him through the base of the neck,
and remounted. Then Kongoni pointed out, some distance
ahead, a bushbuck ram, of the harnessed kind found in
this part of the Nile Valley. Hastily dismounting, and
stealing rapidly from ant-heap to ant-heap, until I was not
much over a hundred yards from him, I gave him a fatal
shot; but the bullet was placed a little too far back, and he
could still go a considerable distance. So far I had been
shooting well; now, pride had a fall. Immediately after
the shot a difficulty arose in the rear between. the mule and
the shenzi sais; they parted company, and the mule joined
the shooting party in front, at a gallop. The bushbuck,
which had halted with its head down, started off and I
trotted after it, while the mule pursued an uncertain course
between us; and I don’t know which it annoyed most. I
emptied my magazine twice, and partly a third time, be-
fore I finally killed the buck and scared the mule so that it
started for camp. The bushbuck in this part of the Nile
Valley did not live in dense forest, like those of East Africa,
but among the scattered bushes and acacias. Those that
I shot in the Lado had in their stomachs leaves, twig tips,
420 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
and pods; one that Kermit shot, a fine buck, had been
eating grass also. On the Uasin Gishu, in addition to
leaves and a little grass, they had been feeding on the wild
olives.
Our porters were not as a rule by any means the equals
of those we had in East Africa, and we had some trouble
because, as we did not know their names and faces, those
who wished to shirk would go off in the bushes while their
more willing comrades would be told off for the needed
work. So Cuninghame determined to make each readily
identifiable; and one day I found him sitting, in Rhada-
manthus mood, at his table before his tent, while all the
porters filed by, each in turn being decorated with a tag,
conspicuously numbered, which was hung round his neck
—the tags, by the way, being Smithsonian label cards,
contributed by Dr. Mearns.
At last Kermit succeeded in getting some good white
rhino pictures. He was out with his gun-bearers and Gro-
gan. They had hunted steadily for nearly two days with-
out seeing a rhino; then Kermit made out a big cow with
a calf lying under a large tree, on a bare plain of short grass.
Accompanied by Grogan, and by a gun-bearer carrying
his rifle, while he himself carried his ‘“‘naturalist’s graph-
lex” camera, he got up to within fifty or sixty yards of the
dull-witted beasts, and spent an hour cautiously manceu-
vring and taking photos. He got several photos of the
cow and calf lying under the tree. Then something, proba-
bly the click of the camera, rendered them uneasy and they
stood up. Soon the calf lay down again, while the cow
continued standing on the other side of the tree, her head
held down, the muzzle almost touching the ground, ac-
The cow and calf square-nosed rhino under the tree after being disturbed
by the click of the camera
From a photograph, copyright, by Kermit Roosevelt
THE RHINOCEROS OF THE LADO $421
cording to the custom of this species. After taking one or
two more pictures Kermit edged in, so as to get better
ones. Gradually the cow grew alarmed. She raised her
head, as these animals always do when interested or ex-
cited, twisted her tail into a tight knot, and walked out from
under the tree, followed by the calf; she and the calf stood
stern to stern for a few seconds, and Kermit took another
photo. By this time the cow had become both puzzled
and irritated. Even with her dim eyes she could make
out the men and the camera, and once or twice she threat-
ened a charge, but thought better of it. Then she began
to move off; but suddenly wheeled and charged, this time
bent on mischief. She came on at a slashing trot, grad-
ually increasing her pace, the huge, square lips shaking
from side to side. Hoping that she would turn Kermit
shouted loudly and waited before firing until she was only
ten yards off. Then, with the Winchester, he put a bullet
in between her neck and shoulder, a mortal wound. She
halted and half wheeled, and Grogan gave her right and
left, Kermit putting in a couple of additional bullets as she
. went off. A couple of hundred yards away she fell, rose
again, staggered, fell again, and died. The calf, which was
old enough to shift for itself, refused to leave the body,
although Kermit and Grogan pelted it with sticks and
clods.. Finally a shot through the flesh of the buttocks
sent it off in frantic haste. Kermit had only killed the
cow because it was absolutely necessary in order to avoid
an accident, and he was sorry for the necessity; but I was
not, for it was a very fine specimen, with the front horn
thirty-one inches long; being longer than any other we
had gotten. The second horn was compressed laterally,
422 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
exactly as with many black rhinos (although it is some-
times stated that this does not occur in the case of the
white rhino). We preserved the head-skin and skull for
the National Museum.
The flesh of this rhino, especially the hump, proved
excellent. It is a singular thing that scientific writers seem
almost to have overlooked, and never lay any stress upon,
the existence of this neck hump. It is on the neck, forward
of the long dorsal vertebra, and is very conspicuous in
the living animal; and I am inclined to think that some
inches of the exceptional height measurements attributed
to South African white rhinos may be due to measuring
to the top of this hump. I am also puzzled by what seems
to be the great inferiority'in horn development of these
square-mouthed rhinos of the Lado to the square-mouthed
or white rhinos of South Africa (and, by the way, I may
mention that on the whole these Lado rhinos certainly
looked lighter colored, when we came across them stand-
ing in the open, than did their prehensile-lipped East Afri-
can brethren). We saw between thirty and forty square-
mouthed rhinos in the Lado, and Kermit’s cow had much
the longest horn of any of them; and while they averaged
much better horns than the black rhinos we had seen in East
Africa, between one and two hundred in number, there
were any number of exceptions on both sides. ‘There are
recorded measurements of white rhino horns from South
Africa double as long as our longest from the Lado. Now
this is, scientifically, a fact of some importance, but it is of
no consequence whatever when compared with the question
as to what, if any, the difference is between the average
horns; and this last fact is very difficult to ascertain, largely
6S RES RLS IDOLE ALI GN ARATE
The calf which was old enough to shift for itself refused to leave the body
From a photograph, copyright, by Kermit Roosevelt
ai th
When alarmed they failed to make out where the danger lay
From a photograph, copyright, by Kermit Roosevelt
THE RHINOCEROS OF THE LADO —§ 423
because of the foolish obsession for “‘record” heads which
seems to completely absorb so many hunters who write.
What we need at the moment is more information about
the average South African heads. There are to be found
among most kinds of horn-bearing animals individuals with
horns of wholly exceptional size, just as among all nations
there are individuals of wholly exceptional height. But a
comparison of these wholly exceptional horns, although it
has a certain value, is, scientifically, much like a comparison
of the giants of different nations. A good head is of course
better than a poor one; and a special effort to secure an
exceptional head is sportsmanlike and proper. But to let
the desire for “record” heads, to the exclusion of all else,
become a craze, is absurd. The making of such a collec-
tion is in itself not only proper but meritorious; all I object
to is the loss of all sense of proportion in connection there-
with. It is just as with philately, or heraldry, or collecting
the signatures of famous men. The study of stamps, or of
coats of arms, or the collecting of autographs, is an entirely
legitimate amusement, and may be more than a mere
amusement; it is only when the student or collector allows
himself utterly to misestimate the importance of his pur-
suit that it becomes ridiculous.
Cuninghame, Grogan, Heller, Kermit, and I now
went off on a week’s safari inland, travelling as light as
possible. The first day’s march brought us to the kraal of
a local chief named Sururu. There were a few banana
trees, and patches of scrawny cultivation, round the little
cluster of huts, ringed with a thorn fence, through which
led a low door; and the natives owned goats and chickens.
Sururu himself wore a white sheet of cotton as a toga, and
424 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
he owned a red fez and a pair of baggy blue breeches,
which last he generally carried over his shoulder. His
people were very scantily clad indeed, and a few of them,
both men and women, wore absolutely nothing except a
string of blue beads around the waist or neck. Their
ears had not been pierced and stretched like so many
East African savages, but their lower lips were pierced
for wooden ornaments and quills. They brought us eggs
and chickens, which we paid for with American cloth; this
cloth, and some umbrellas, constituting our stock of trade
goods, or gift goods, for the Nile.
The following day Sururu himself led us to our next
camp, only a couple of hours away. It was a dry country
of harsh grass, everywhere covered by a sparse growth of
euphorbias and stunted thorns, which were never in suffi-
cient numbers to make a forest, each little, wellnigh leaf-
less tree, standing a dozen rods or so distant from its nearest
fellow. Most of the grass had been burnt, and fires were
still raging. Our camp was by a beautiful pond, covered
with white and lilac water-lilies. We pitched our two
tents on a bluff, under some large acacias that cast real
shade. It was between two and three degrees north of the
equator. The moon, the hot January moon of the mid-
tropics, was at the full, and the nights were very lovely;
the little sheet of water glimmered in the moon rays, and
round about the dry landscape shone with a strange, spec-
tral light.
Near the pond, just before camping, I shot a couple of
young waterbuck bulls for food, and while we were pitching
the tents a small herd of elephants—cows, young bulls,
and calves, seemingly disturbed by a grass fire which was
ae ae
SE PES Tr eee hae errs
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THE RHINOCEROS OF THE LADO —§ 425
burning a little way off, came up within four hundred yards
of us. At first we mistook one large cow for a bull, and
running quickly from bush to bush, diagonally to its course,
I got within sixty yards, and watched it pass at a quick
shuffling walk, lifting and curling its trunk. ‘The blindness
of both elephant and rhino has never been sufficiently em-
phasized in books. Near camp was the bloody, broken
skeleton of a young wart-hog boar, killed by a lion the pre-
vious night. There were a number of lions in the neigh-
borhood, and they roared at intervals all night long. Next
morning, after Grogan and I had started from camp, when
the sun had been up an hour, we heard one roar loudly less
than a mile away. Running toward the place we tried to
find the lion; but near by a small river ran through beds
of reeds, and the fires had left many patches of tall, yellow,
half-burned grass, so that it had ample cover, and our search
was fruitless.
Near the pond were green parrots and brilliant wood
hoopoos, rollers, and sunbirds; and buck of the ordinary
kinds drank at it. A duiker which I shot for the table had
been feeding on grass tips and on the stems and leaves of a
small, low-growing plant.
After giving up the quest for the lion Grogan and I,
with our gun-bearers, spent the day walking over the
great dry flats of burnt grass land and sparse, withered
forest. The heat grew intense as the sun rose higher and
higher. Hour after hour we plodded on across vast level
stretches, or up or down inclines so slight as hardly to be
noticeable. The black dust of the burn rose in puffs be-
neath our feet; and now and then we saw dust devils,
violent little whirlwinds, which darted right and left, rais-
426 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
ing to a height of many feet gray funnels of ashes and
withered leaves. In places the coarse grass had half re-
sisted the flames, and rose above our heads. Here and
there bleached skulls of elephant and rhino, long dead,
showed white against the charred surface of the soil. Every-
where, crossing and recrossing one another, were game
trails, some slightly marked, others broad and hard, and
beaten deep into the soil by the feet of the giant creatures
that had trodden them for ages. The elephants had been
the chief road makers; but the rhinoceros had travelled
their trails, and also buffalo and buck.
There were elephant about, but only cows and calves,
and an occasional bull with very small tusks. Of rhinoceros,
all square-mouthed, we saw nine, none carrying horns which
made them worth shooting. The first one I saw was in
long grass. My attention was attracted by a row of white
objects moving at some speed through the top of the grass.
It took a second look before I made out that they were
cow herons perched on the back of a rhino. This proved
to be a bull, which joined a cow and a calf. None had
decent horns, and we plodded on. Soon we came to the
trail of two others, and after a couple of miles’ tracking
Kongoni pointed to two gray bulks lying down under a tree.
I walked cautiously to within thirty yards. They heard
something, and up rose the two pig-like blinking creatures,
who gradually became aware of my presence, and re-
treated a few steps at a time, dull curiosity continually over-
coming an uneasiness which never grew into fear. Toss-
ing their stumpy-horned heads, and twisting their tails
into tight knots, they ambled briskly from side to side,
and were ten minutes in getting to a distance of a hundred
ISOS SE eS
THE RHINOCEROS OF THE LADO $427
yards. Then our shenzi guide mentioned that there were
other rhinos close by, and we walked off to inspect them.
In three hundred yards we came on them, a cow and a
well-grown calf. Sixty yards from them was an ant-hill
with little trees on it. From this we looked at them until
some sound or other must have made them uneasy, for up
they got. The young one seemed to have rather keener
suspicions, although no more sense, than its mother, and
after a while grew so restless that it persuaded the cow to go
off with it. But the still air gave no hint of our where-
abouts, and they walked straight toward us. I did not
wish to have to shoot one, and so when they were within
thirty yards we raised a shout and away they cantered,
heads tossing and tails twisting.
Three hours later we saw another cow and calf. By
this time it was half-past three in the afternoon, and the
two animals had risen from their noonday rest and were
grazing busily, the great clumsy heads sweeping the ground.
Watching them forty yards off it was some time before the
cow raised her head high enough for me to see that her
horns were not good. Then they became suspicious, and
the cow stood motionless for several minutes, her head
held low. We moved quietly back, and at last they either
dimly saw us, or heard us, and stood looking toward us,
their big ears cocked forward. At this moment we stumbled
on a rhino skull, bleached, but in such good preservation
that we knew Heller would like it; and we loaded it on the
porters that had followed us. All the time we were thus
engaged the two rhinos, only a hundred yards off, were
intently gazing in our direction, with foolish and bewildered
solemnity; and there we left them, survivors from a long
428 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
vanished world, standing alone in the parched desolation
of the wilderness.
On another day Kermit saw ten rhino, none with more
than ordinary horns. Five of them were in one party, and
were much agitated by the approach of the men; they ran
to and fro, their tails twisted into the usual pig-like curl,
and from sheer nervous stupidity bade fair at one time to
force the hunters to fire in self-defence. Finally, however,
they all ran off. In the case of a couple of others a curious
incident happened. When alarmed they failed to make
out where theedanger lay, and after running away a short
distance they returned to a bush near by to look about.
One remained standing, but the other deliberately sat
down upon its haunches like a dog, staring ahead, Ker-
mit meanwhile being busy with his camera. Two or three
times I saw rhino, when roused from sleep, thus sit up on
their haunches and look around before rising on all four
legs; but this was the only time that any of us saw a rhino
which was already standing assume such a position. No
other kind of heavy game has this habit; and indeed, so
far as I know, only one other hoofed animal, the white goat
of the northern Rocky Mountains. In the case of the
white goat, however, the attitude is far more often assumed,
and in more extreme form; it is one of the characteristic
traits of the queer goat-antelope, so many of whose ways
and looks are peculiar to itself alone.
From the lily pond camp we went back to our camp
outside Sururu’s village. ‘This was a very pleasant camp
because while there, although the heat was intense in the
daytime, the nights were cool and there were no mosquitoes.
During our stay in the Lado it was generally necessary
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THE RHINOCEROS OF THE LADO $429
to wear head nets and gloves in the evenings and to go to
bed at once after dinner, and then to lie under the mosquito
bar with practically nothing on through the long hot night,
sleeping or contentedly listening to the humming of the
baffled myriads outside the net. At the Sururu camp, how-
ever, we could sit at a table in front of the tents, after sup-
per—or dinner, whichever one chose to call it—and read by
lamplight, in the still, cool, pleasant air; or walk up and
down the hard, smooth elephant path which led by the tents,
looking at the large red moon just risen, as it hung low
over the horizon, or later, when, white and clear, it rode
high in the heavens and flooded the land with its radiance.
There was a swamp close by, and we went through this
the first afternoon in search of buffalo. We found plenty of
sign; but the close-growing reeds were ten feet high, and
even along the winding buffalo trails by which alone they
could be penetrated it was impossible to see a dozen paces
_ ahead. Inside the reeds it was nearly impossible to get to
the buffalo, or at least to be sure to kill only a bull, which
was all I wanted; and at this time when the moon was just
past the full, these particular buffalo only came out into
the open to feed at night, or very early in the morning and
late in the evening. But Sururu said that there were other
buffalo which lived away from the reeds, among the thorn-
trees on the grassy flats and low hills; and he volunteered
to bring me information about them on the morrow. Sure
enough, shortly before eleven next morning, he turned
up with the news that he had found a solitary bull only
about five miles away. Grogan and I at once started back
with him, accompanied by our gun-bearers. The country
was just such as that in which we had hitherto found our
430 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
rhinos; and there was fresh sign of rhino as well as buffalo.
The thorny, scantily leaved trees were perhaps a little
closer together than in most places, and there were a good
many half-burned patches of tall grass. We passed a
couple of ponds which must have been permanent, as water-
lilies were growing in them; at one a buffalo had been
drinking. It was half-past twelve when we reached the’
place where Sururu had seen the bull. We then advanced
with the utmost caution as the wind was shifty, and although
the cover was thin, it yet rendered it difficult to see a hun-
dred yards in advance. At last we made out the bull, on
his feet and feeding, although it was high noon. He was
stern toward us, and while we were stealing toward him a
puff of wind gave him our scent. At once he whipped
around, gazed at us for a moment with outstretched head,
and galloped off. I could not get a shot through the bushes,
and after him we ran, Kongoni leading, with me at his heels.
It was hot work running, for at this time the thermometer
registered 102° in the shade. Fortunately the bull had
little fear of man, and being curious, and rather trucu-
lent, he halted two or three times to look round. Finally,
after we had run a mile and a half, he halted once too often,
and I got a shot at him at eighty yards. The heavy bullet
went home; I fired twice again as rapidly as possible,
and the bull never moved from where he had stood. He
was an old bull, as big as an East African buffalo bull;
but his worn horns were smaller and rather different.
This had rendered Kongoni uncertain whether he might
not be a cow; and when we came up to the body he ex-
claimed with delight that it was a “duck”—Kongoni’s
invariable method of pronouncing “buck,” the term he
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THE RHINOCEROS OF THE LADO $431
used to describe anything male, from a lion or an elephant
to a bustard or a crocodile; ‘‘cow”’ being his expression for
the female of these and all other creatures. As Gouvimali
came running up to shake hands, his face wreathed in
smiles, he exclaimed ‘‘G-o-o-d-e morning”; a phrase which
he had picked up under the impression that it was a species
of congratulation.
As always when I have killed buffalo I was struck by
the massive bulk of the great bull as he lay in death, and
by the evident and tremendous muscular power of his big-
boned frame. He looked what he was, a formidable beast.
Thirty porters had to be sent out to bring to camp the
head, hide, and meat. We found, by the way, that his
meat made excellent soup, his kidneys a good stew, while
his tongue was delicious.
Next morning Kermit and I with the bulk of the safari
walked back to our main camp, on the Nile, leaving Cun-
inghame and Heller where they were for a day, to take
care of the buffalo skin. Each of us struck off across the
country by himself, with. his gun-bearers. After walking
five or six miles I saw a big rhino three-quarters of a mile
off. At this point the country was flat, the acacias very
thinly scattered, and the grass completely burnt off, the
green young blades sprouting; and there was no difficulty
in making out, at the distance we did, the vast gray bulk of
the rhino as it stood inertly under a tree. Drawing nearer
we saw that it had a good horn, although not as good as
Kermit’s best; and approaching quietly to within forty
yards I shot the beast.
At the main camp we found that Mearns had made
a fine collection of birds in our absence; while Loring
432 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
had taken a variety of excellent photos, of marabou, vul-
tures, and kites feeding, and, above all, of a monitor lizard
plundering the nest of a crocodile. The monitors were
quite plentiful near camp. They are amphibious, carniv-
orous lizards of large size; they frequent the banks of the
river, running well on the land, and sometimes even climb-
ing trees, but taking to the water when alarmed. They
feed on mice and rats, other lizards, eggs, and fish; the
stomachs of those we caught generally contained fish, for
they are expert swimmers. One morning Loring sur-
prised a monitor which had just uncovered some crocodile
eggs on a small sandy beach. The eggs, about thirty in
number, were buried in rather shallow fashion, so that the
monitor readily uncovered them. ‘The monitor had one
of the eggs transversely in its mouth, and, head erect, was
marching off with it. As soon as it saw Loring it dropped
the egg and scuttled into the reeds; in a few minutes it
returned, took another egg, and walked off into the bushes,
where it broke the shell, swallowed the yolk, and at once
returned to the nest for another egg. Loring took me out
to see the feat repeated, replenishing the rifled nest with
eggs taken from a crocodile the Doctor had shot; and I
was delighted to watch, from our hiding place, the big lizard
as he cautiously approached, seized an egg, and then re-
tired to cover with his booty. Kermit came on a monitor
plundering a crocodile’s nest at the top of a steep bank,
while, funnily enough, a large crocodile lay asleep at the
foot of the bank only a few yards distant. As soon as it
saw Kermit the monitor dropped the egg it was carrying,
ran up a slanting tree which overhung the river, and
dropped into the water like a snake bird.
The monitor lizard robbing a crocodile’s nest
From photographs by J. Alden Loring
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THE RHINOCEROS OF THE LADO 433
There was always something interesting to do or to
see at this camp. One afternoon I spent in the boat. The
papyrus along the channel rose like a forest, thirty feet high,
the close-growing stems knit together by vines. As we
drifted down, the green wall’ was continually broken by
openings, through which side streams from the great river
rushed, swirling and winding, down narrow lanes and
under low archways, into the dim mysterious heart of
the vast reedbeds, where dwelt bird and reptile and water
beast. In a shallow bay we came on two hippo cows with
their calves, and a dozen crocodiles. I shot one of the
latter—as I always do, when I get a chance—and it turned
over and over, lashing with its tail as it sank. A half-grown
hippo came up close by the boat and leaped nearly clear of
the water; and in another place I saw a mother hippo
swimming, with the young one resting half on its back.
Another day Kermit came on some black and white
Colobus monkeys. Those we had shot east of the Rift
Valley had long mantles, and more white than black in
their coloring; west of the Rift Valley they had less white
and less of the very long hair; and here on the Nile the
change had gone still further in the same direction. On the
west coast this kind of monkey is said to be entirely black.
But we were not prepared for the complete change in hab-
its. In East Africa the Colobus monkeys kept to the dense
cool mountain forests, dwelt in the tops of the big trees, and
rarely descended to the ground. Here, on the Nile, they
lived in exactly such country as that affected by the smaller
greenish-yellow monkeys, which we found along the Guaso
Nyero for instance; country into which the East African
Colobus never by any chance wandered. Moreover, instead
434 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
of living in the tall timber, and never going on the ground
except for a few yards, as in East Africa, here on the Nile
they sought to escape danger by flight over the ground, in
the scrub. Kermit found some in a grove of fairly big
acacias, but they instantly dropped to the earth and gal-
loped off among the dry, scattered bushes and small thorn-
trees. Kermit also shot a twelve-foot crocodile in which
he found the remains of a big heron.
ne morning we saw from camp a herd of elephants in
; a piece of unburned swamp. It was a mile and a half
away in a straight line, although we had to walk three
miles to get there. ‘There were between forty and fifty
of them, a few big cows with calves, the rest half-grown
and three-quarters-grown animals. Over a hundred white
herons accompanied them. From an ant-hill to leeward
we watched them standing by a mud hole in the swamp;
evidently they now and then got a whiff from our camp,
for they were continually lifting and curling their trunks.
To see if by any chance there was a bull among them we
moved them out of the swamp by shouting; the wind
blew hard and as they moved they evidently smelled the
camp strongly, for all their trunks went into the air; and
off they went at a rapid pace, half of the herons riding on
them, while the others hovered over and alongside, like a
white cloud. Two days later the same herd again made
its appearance.
Spur-winged plover were nesting near camp, and evi-
dently distrusted the carrion feeders, for they attacked and
drove off every kite or vulture that crossed what they consid-
ered the prohibited zone. They also harassed the marabous,
but with more circumspection; for the big storks were short-
ea
Sey See Sal EF
a ee er
THE RHINOCEROS OF THE LADO —§ 435
tempered, and rather daunted the spurwings by the way
they opened their enormous beaks at them. The fish eagles
fed exclusively on fish, as far as we could tell, and there were
piles of fish bones and heads under their favorite perches.
Once I saw one plunge into the water, but it failed to
catch anything. Another time, suddenly, and seemingly
in mere mischief, one attacked a purple heron which was
standing on a mud bank. The eagle swooped down froma
tree and knocked over the heron; and when the astonished
heron struggled to its feet and attempted to fly off, the eagle
made another swoop and this time knocked it into the water.
The heron then edged into the papyrus, and the eagle paid
it no further attention.
In this camp we had to watch the white ants, which strove
to devour everything. ‘They are nocturnal, and work in
the daytime only under the tunnels of earth which they
build over the surface of the box, or whatever else it is,
that they are devouring; they eat out everything, leaving
this outside shell of earth. We also saw a long column of
the dreaded driver ants. These are carnivorous; I have seen
both red and black species; they kill every living thing in
their path, and I have known them at night drive all the
men in a camp out into the jungle to fight the mosquitoes
unprotected until daylight. On another occasion, where a
steamboat was moored close to a bank, an ant column
entered the boat after nightfall, and kept complete posses-
sion of it for forty-eight hours. Fires, and boiling water,
offer the only effectual means of resistance. The bees are
at times as formidable; when their nests are disturbed they
will attack every one in sight, driving all the crew of a boat
overboard or scattering a safari, and not infrequently kill-
436 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
ing men and beasts of burden that are unable to reach
some place of safety.
The last afternoon, when the flotilla had called to take
us farther on our journey, we shot about a dozen buck, to -
give the porters and sailors a feast, which they had amply
earned. All the meat did not get into camp until after
dark—one of the sailors, unfortunately, falling out of a
tree and breaking his neck on the way in—and it was
picturesque to see the rows of big antelope—hartebeest,
kob, waterbuck—stretched in front of the flaring fires,
and the dark faces of the waiting negroes, each deputed by
some particular group of gun-bearers, porters, or sailors
to bring back its share.
Next morning we embarked, and steamed and drifted
down the Nile; ourselves, our men, our belongings, and
the spoils of the chase all huddled together under the torrid
sun. ‘Two or three times we grounded on sand bars; but
no damage was done, and in twenty-six hours we reached
Nimule. We were no longer in healthy East Africa. Ker-
mit and I had been in robust health throughout the time
we were in Uganda and the Lado; but all the other white
men of the party had suffered more or less from dysentery,
fever, and sun prostration while in the Lado; some of the
gun-bearers had been down with fever, one of them dying
while we were in Uganda; and four of the porters who had
marched from Koba to Nimule had died of dysentery—
they were burying one when we arrived.
\ At Nimule we were as usual greeted with hospitable
heartiness by the English officials, as well as by two or
three elephant hunters. One of the latter, three days be-
fore, had been charged by an unwounded bull elephant.
SERIA DS pia te epi eure =. SoD ax
bv Sia crn
THE RHINOCEROS OF THE LADO $437
He fired both barrels into it as it came on, but it charged
home, knocked him down, killed his gun-bearer, and made
its escape into the forest. In the forlorn little graveyard
at the station were the graves of two white men who had
been killed by elephants. One of them, named Stoney,
had been caught by a wounded bull, which stamped the
life out of him and then literally dismembered him, tearing
his arms from his body. In the African wilderness, when a
man dies, his companion usually brings in something to
show that he is dead, or some remnant of whatever it is
that has destroyed him; the sailors whose companion was
killed by falling out of the tree near our Lado camp, for
instance, brought in the dead branch which had broken
under his weight; and Stoney’s gun-bearer marched back
to Nimule carrying an arm of his dead master, and depos-
ited his grewsome burden in the office of the district
commissioner.
ee nel
CHAPTER XV
DOWN THE NILE; THE GIANT ELAND
WE spent two or three days in Nimule, getting every-
thing ready for the march north to Gondokoro.
By this time Kermit and I had grown really attached
to our personal followers, whose devotion to us, and whose
zeal for our success and welfare and comfort, had many
times been made rather touchingly manifest; even their
shortcomings were merely those of big, naughty children,
and though they occasionally needed discipline, this was
rare, whereas the amusement they gave us was unending.
When we reached Nimule we were greeted with enthu-
siasm by Magi, Kermit’s Kikuyu sais, who had been in
charge of the mules which we did not take into the Lado.
Magi was now acting as sais for me as well as for Kermit;
and he came to Kermit to discuss the new dual relation-
ship. ‘‘Now I am the sais of the Bwana Makuba, as
well as of you, the Bwana Merodadi” (the Dandy Master,
as for some inscrutable reason all the men now called Ker-
mit); “well, then, you’ll both have to take care of me,”
concluded the rusé Magi.
Whenever we reached one of these little stations where
there was an Indian trading store, we would see that those
of our followers who had been specially devoted to us—and
this always included all our immediate attendants—had a
chance to obtain the few little comforts and luxuries, tea,
438
he a ae Tite ee
DOWN THE NILE; THE GIANT ELAND 439
sugar, or tobacco, for instance, which meant so much to
them. Usually Kermit would take them to the store him-
self, for they were less wily than the Indian trader, and,
moreover, in the excitement of shopping occasionally pur-
chased something for which they really had no use. Ker-
mit would march his tail of followers into the store, give
them time to look around, and then make the first purchase
for the man who had least coming to him; this to avoid
heartburnings, as the man was invariably too much in-
terested in what he had received to scrutinize closely what
the others were getting. The purchase might be an article
of clothing or a knife, but usually took the form of tobacco,
sugar, and tea; in tobacco the man was offered his choice
between quality and quantity, that is, either a moderate
quantity of good cigarettes or a large amount of trade
tobacco. Funny little Juma Yohari, for instance, one of
Kermit’s gun-bearers, usually went in for quality, whereas
his colleague Kassitura preferred quantity. Juma was a
Zanzibari, a wiry merry little grig of a man, loyal, hard-
working, fearless; Kassitura a huge Basoga negro, of guile-
less honesty and good faith, incapable of neglecting his
duty. Juma was rather the wit of the gun-bearers’ mess,
and Kassitura the musician, having a little native harp
on which for hours at a time he would strum queer little
melancholy tunes, to which he hummed an accompani-
ment in undertone.
All the natives we met, and the men in our employ,
were fond of singing, sometimes simply improvised chants,
sometimes sentences of three or four words repeated over
and over again. The Uganda porters who were with us
after we left Kampalla did not sing nearly as freely as
440 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
our East African safari, although they depended much
on the man who beat the drum, at the head of the march-
ing column. The East African porters did every kind of
work to an accompaniment of chanting. When for in-
stance, after camp was pitched, a detail of men was sent
out for wood—the “‘wood safari’’—the men as they came
back to camp with their loads never did anything so com-
monplace as each merely to deposit his burden at the proper
spot. ‘The first comers waited in the middle of the camp
until all had assembled, and then marched in order to where
the fire was to be made, all singing vigorously and stepping
in time together. The leader, or shanty man, would call
out “Kooni” (wood); and all the others would hum in
unison ‘‘Kooni telli” (plenty of wood). ‘‘Kooni,” again
came the shout of the shanty man; and the answer would be
“Kooni.” “ Kooni,” from the shanty man; and this time
all the rest would simply utter a long-drawn “ Hum-m-m.”’
“Kooni,” again; and the answer would be “ Kooni telli,”’
with strong emphasis on the “‘telli.” Then, if they saw
me, the shanty man might vary by shouting that the wood
was for the Bwana Makuba; and so it would continue until
the loads were thrown down.
Often a man would improvise a song regarding any
small incident which had just happened to him, or a thought
which had occurred to him. Drifting down the Nile to
Nimule Kermit and the three naturalists and sixty por-
ters were packed in sardine fashion on one of the sail-
boats. At nightfall one of the sailors, the helmsman, a
Swahili from Mombasa, began to plan how he would write
a letter to his people in Mombasa and give it to another
sailor, a friend of his, who intended shortly to return thither.
SER SRI T SESS 5
eae
=
Soe Sp See ee
DOWN THE NILE; THE GIANT ELAND 441
He crooned to himself as he crouched by the tiller, steering
the boat, and gradually, as the moon shone on the swift,
quiet water of the river, his crooning turned into a regu-
lar song. His voice was beautiful, and there was a wild
meaningless refrain to each verse; the verses reciting how
he intended to write this letter to those whom he had not
seen for two years; how a friend would take it to them, so
that the letter would be in Mombasa; but he, the man who
wrote it, would for two years more be in the far-off wil-
derness.
On February 17th the long line of our laden safari left
Nimule on its ten days’ march to Gondokoro. We went
through a barren and thirsty land. Our first camp was
by a shallow, running river, with a shaded pool in which
we bathed. After that we never came on running water,
merely on dry watercourses with pools here and there,
some of the pools being crowded with fish. Tall half-
burnt grass, and scattered, well-nigh leafless thorn scrub
covered the monotonous landscape, although we could
generally find some fairly leafy tree near which to pitch
the tents. The heat was great; more than once the ther-
mometer at noon rose to 112° in the shade—not real shade,
however, but in a stifling tent, or beneath a tree the foliage
of which let through at least a third of the sun rays. The
fiery heat of the ground so burnt and crippled the feet of
the porters that we had to start each day’s march very
early.
At quarter of three in the morning the whistle blew;
we dressed and breakfasted while the tents were taken
down and the loads adjusted. Then off we strode, through
the hot starlit night, our backs to the Southern Cross
442 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
and our faces toward the Great Bear; for we were march-
ing northward and homeward. The drum throbbed and
muttered as we walked, on and on, along the dim trail.
At last the stars began to pale, the gray east changed to
opal and amber and amethyst, the red splendor of the
sunrise flooded the world, and to the heat of the night
succeeded the more merciless heat of the day. Higher and
higher rose the sun. The sweat streamed down our faces,
and the bodies of the black men glistened like oiled iron.
We might halt early in the forenoon, or we might have
to march until noon, according to the distance from water-
hole to waterhole.
Occasionally in the afternoons, and once when we
halted for a day to rest the porters, Kermit and I would
kill buck for the table—hartebeest, reedbuck, and oribi.
I also killed a big red ground monkey, with baboon-like
habits; we had first seen the species on the Uasin Gishu,
and had tried in vain to get it, for it was wary, never sought
safety in trees, and showed both speed and endurance in
running. Kermit killed a bull and a cow roan antelope.
These so-called horse antelope are fine beasts, light roan in
color, with high withers, rather short curved horns, huge
ears, and bold face markings. Usually we found them
shy, but occasionally very tame. They are the most trucu-
lent and dangerous of all antelope; this bull, when seem-
ingly on the point of death, rose like a flash when Kermit
approached and charged him full tilt; Kermit had to fire
from the hip, luckily breaking the animal’s neck.
On the same day Loring had an interesting experi-
ence with one of the small cormorants so common in this
region. Previously, while visiting the rapids of the Nile
it pee
ee 0 Oe ee
DOWN THE NILE; THE GIANT ELAND 443
below Nimule, I had been struck by the comparative
unwariness of these birds, one of them repeatedly landing
on a rock a few yards away from me, and thence slipping
unconcernedly into the swift water—and, by the way, it
was entirely at home in the boiling rapids. But the con-
duct of Loring’s bird was wholly exceptional. He was
taking a swim in a pool when the bird lit beside him. It
paid no more heed to the naked white man than it would
have paid to a hippo, and although it would not allow
itself to be actually touched, it merely moved a few feet out
of his way when he approached it. Moreover it seemed to
be on the lookout for enemies in the air, not in the water.
It was continually glancing upward, and when a big hawk
appeared, followed its movements with close attention.
It stayed in and about the pool for many minutes before
flying off. I suppose that certain eagles and hawks prey
on cormorants; but I should also be inclined to think that
crocodiles at least occasionally prey on them.
The very most attractive birds we met in middle Africa
and along the Nile were the brave, cheery little wagtails.
They wear trim black and white suits, when on the ground
they walk instead of hopping, they have a merry, pleasing
song, and they are as confiding and fearless as they are
pretty. The natives never molest them, for they figure to
advantage in the folklore of the various tribes. They came
round us at every halting place, entering the rest-houses in
Uganda and sometimes even our tents, coming up within
a few feet of us as we lay under trees, and boarding
our boats on the Nile; and they would stroll about camp
quite unconcernedly, in pairs, the male stopping every
now and then to sing. Except the whiskey jacks and
444 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
Hudsonian chickadees of the North Woods I never saw
such tame little birds.
At Gondokoro we met the boat which the Sirdar, Major
General Sir Reginald Wingate, had sent to take us down
the Nile to Khartoum; for he, and all the Soudan officials _
—including especially Colonel Asser, Colonel Owen, Slatin
Pasha, and Butler Bey—treated us with a courtesy for
which I cannot too strongly express my appreciation. In
the boat we were to have met an old friend and fellow
countryman, Leigh Hunt; to our great regret he could
not meet us, but he insisted on treating us as his guests,
and on our way down the Nile we felt as if we were on the
most comfortable kind of yachting trip; and everything
was done for us by Captain Middleton, the Scotch en-
gineer in charge.
Nor was our debt only to British officials and to Ameri-
can friends. At Gondokoro I was met by M. Ranquet, the
Belgian Commandant of the Lado district and, both he
and M. Massart, the Chef de Poste at Redjaf, were kind-
ness itself, and aided us in every way.
From Gondokoro Kermit and I crossed to Redjaf, for
an eight days’ trip after the largest and handsomest, and one
of the least known, of African antelopes, the giant eland.
We went alone, because all the other white men of the
party were down with dysentery or fever. We had with us
sixty Uganda porters and a dozen mules sent us by the
Sirdar, together with a couple of our little riding mules,
which we used now and then for a couple of hours on safari,
or in getting to the actual hunting ground. As always
when only one or two of us went, or when the safari was
short, we travelled light, with no dining-tent and nothing
es
<s, as
nS Oi RARER Ba SG Selo pees aaa
DOWN THE NILE; THE GIANT ELAND 445
unnecessary in the way of baggage; the only impedimenta
which we could not minimize were those connected with
the preservation of the skins of the big animals, which, of
course, were throughout our whole trip what necessitated
the use of the bulk of the porters and other means of
transportation employed.
From the neat little station of Redjaf, lying at the foot
of the bold pyramidal hill of the same name, we marched
two days west, stopping short of the river Koda, where
we knew the game drank. Now and then we came on
flower-bearing bushes, of marvellously sweet scent, like
gardenias. It was the height of the dry season; the coun-
try was covered with coarse grass and a scrub growth of
nearly leafless thorn-trees, usually growing rather wide
apart, occasionally close enough together to look almost
like a forest. There were a few palms, euphorbias, and
very rarely scattered clumps of withered bamboo, and also
bright green trees with rather thick leaves and bean pods,
on which we afterward found that the eland fed.
The streams we crossed were dry torrent beds, sandy
or rocky; in two or three of them were pools of stagnant
water, while better water. could be obtained by digging in
the sand alongside. A couple of hours after reaching each
camp everything was in order, and Ali had made a fire of
some slivers of wood and boiled our tea; and our two
meals, breakfast and dinner, were taken at a table in the
open, under a tree.
We had with us seven black soldiers of the Belgian
native troops, under a corporal; they came from every
quarter of the Congo, but several of them could speak
Swahili, the lingua franca of middle Africa, and so Kermit
446 ' AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
. could talk freely with them. These black soldiers be-
haved excellently, and the attitude, both toward them and
toward us, of the natives in the various villages we came
across was totally incompatible with any theory that these
natives had suffered from any maltreatment; they behaved
just like the natives in British territory. There had to be
the usual parleys with the chiefs of the villages to obtain
food for the soldiers (we carried the posho for our own
men), and ample payment was given for what was brought
in; and in the only two cases where the natives thought
themselves aggrieved by the soldiers, they at once brought
the matter before us. One soldier had taken a big gourd
of water when very thirsty; another, a knife from a man
who was misbehaving himself. On careful inquiry, and
delivering judgment in the spirit of Solomon, we decided
that both soldiers had been justified by the provocation
received; but as we were dealing with the misdeeds of
mere big children, we gave the gourd back to its owner
with a reprimand for having refused the water, and per-
mitted the owner of the knife, whose offence had been
more serious, to ransom his property by bringing in a
chicken to the soldier who had it.
The natives lived in the usual pointed beehive huts in
unfenced villages, with shambas lying about them; and
they kept goats, chickens, and a few cattle. Our perma-
nent camp was near such a village. It was interesting
to pass through it at sunrise or sunset, when starting on or
returning from a hunt. The hard, bare earth was swept
clean. The doors in the low mud walls of the huts were
but a couple of feet high and had to be entered on all-fours;
black pickaninnies scuttled into them in wild alarm as we
rs
— SS _—
SSE SITES
pO = yee
\i
nie
DOWN THE NILE; THE GIANT ELAND 447
passed. Skinny, haggard old men and women, almost
naked, sat by the fires smoking long pipes; the younger
men and women laughed and jested as they moved among
the houses. One day, in the course of a long and fruitless
hunt, we stopped to rest near such a village, at about two
in the afternoon, having been walking hard since dawn.
We—I and my gun-bearer, a black askari, a couple of
porters, and a native guide—sat down under a big tree a
hundred yards from the village. Soon the chief and several
of his people came out to see us. The chief proudly wore
a dirty jersey and pair of drawers; a follower carried his
spear and the little wooden stool of dignity on which he
sat. There were a couple of warriors with him, one a man
in a bark apron with an old breech-loading rifle, the other
a stark-naked savage—not a rag on him—with a bow and
arrows; a very powerfully built man with a ferocious and
sinister face. —Two women bore on their heads, as gifts for
us, one a large earthenware jar of water, the other a bas-
ket of groundnuts. They were tall and well-shaped. One
as her sole clothing wore a beaded cord around her
waist, and a breechclout consisting of half a dozen long,
thickly leaved, fresh sprays of a kind of vine; the other,
instead of this vine breechclout, had hanging from her
girdle in front a cluster of long-stemmed green leaves,
and behind a bundle of long strings, carried like a horse’s
tail.
The weather was very hot, and the country, far and
wide, was a waste of barren desolation. The flats of end-
less thorn scrub were broken by occasional low and rugged
hills, and in the empty watercourses the pools were many
miles apart. Yet there was a good deal of game. We saw
448 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
buffalo, giraffe, and elephant; and on our way back to
camp in the evenings we now and then killed a roan, harte-
beest, or oribi. But the game we sought was the giant
eland, and we never fired when there was the slightest
chance of disturbing our quarry. They usually went in
herds, but there were solitary bulls. We found that they
drank at some pool in the Koda before dawn and then
travelled many miles back into the parched interior, feed-
ing as they went; and, after lying up for some hours about
mid-day, again moved slowly off, feeding. They did not
graze, but fed on the green leaves, and the bean pods of the
tree of which I have already spoken and of another tree.
One of their marked habits—shared in some degree by
their forest cousin, the bongo—was breaking the higher
branches with their horns, to get at the leaves; they thus
broke branches two or three inches in diameter and seven
or eight feet from the ground, the crash of the branches
being a sound for which we continually listened as we
followed the tracks of a herd. They were far more wary
than roan, or hartebeest, or any of the other buck, and the
country was such that it was difficult to see more than a
couple of hundred yards ahead.
It took me three hard days’ work before I got my eland.
Each day I left camp before sunrise and on the first two I
came back after dark, while it always happened that at
noon we were on a trail and could not stop. We would
walk until we found tracks made that morning, and then
the gun-bearers and the native guide would slowly follow
them, hour after hour, under the burning sun. On the
first day we saw nothing; on the next we got a moment’s
glimpse of an eland, trotting at the usual slashing gait;
Xa
DOWN THE NILE; THE GIANT ELAND 449
I had no chance to fire. By mid-afternoon on each day it
was evident that further following of the trail we were on
was useless, and we plodded campward, tired and thirsty.
Gradually the merciless glare softened; then the sun sank
crimson behind a chain of fantastically carved mountains
in the distance; and the hues of the after-glow were
drowned in the silver light of the moon, which was near-
ing the full.
On the third day we found the spoor of a single bull by
eight o’clock. Hour after hour went by while the gun-
bearers, even more eager than weary, puzzled out the trail.
At half past twelve we knew we were close on the beast,
and immediately afterward caught a glimpse of it. Taking
advantage of every patch of cover I crawled toward it on
all-fours, my rifle too hot for me to touch the barrel, while
the blistering heat of the baked ground hurt my hands.
At a little over a hundred yards I knelt and aimed at the
noble beast; I could now plainly see his huge bulk and
great, massive horns, as he stood under a tree. The pointed
bullet from the little Springfield hit a trifle too far back
and up, but made such a rip that he never got ten yards
from where he was standing; and great was my pride as
I stood over him, and examined his horns, twisted almost
like a koodoo’s, and admired his size, his finely modelled
head and legs, and the beauty of his coat.
Meanwhile, Kermit had killed two eland, a cow on the
first day, and on the second a bull even better than, al-
though not quite so old as, mine. Kermit could see game,
and follow tracks, almost as well as his gun-bearers, and
in a long chase could outrun them. On each day he struck
the track of a herd of eland, and after a while left his gun-
450 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
bearers and porters, and ran along the trail accompanied
only by a native guide. The cow was killed at two hun-
dred yards with a shot from his Winchester. The bull
yielded more excitement. He was in a herd of about forty
which Kermit had followed for over five hours, toward
the last accompanied only by the wild native; at one point
the eland had come upon a small party of elephant, and
trotted off at right angles to their former course—Kermit
following them after he had satisfied himself that the
elephants were cows and half-grown animals. When he
finally overtook the eland, during the torrid heat of the early
afternoon, they were all lying down, in a place where the
trees grew rather more thickly than usual.
Stalking as close as he dared he selected a big animal
which he hoped was a bull, and fired three shots into it;
however, it ran, and he then saw that it was a cow. As
the rest of the herd jumped up he saw the form of the
master bull looming above the others. They crossed his
front at a slashing trot, the cows clustered round the great
bull; but just as they came to a little opening, they opened
somewhat, giving him a clear shot. Down went the bull
on his head, rose, received another bullet, and came to a
stand-still. This was the last bullet from the magazine;
and now the mechanism of the rifle refused to work or to
throw the empty shell out of the chamber. The faithful
Winchester, which Kermit had used steadily for ten months,
on foot and on horseback, which had suffered every kind
of hard treatment and had killed every kind of game, with-
out once failing, had at last given way under the strain.
While Kermit was working desperately at the mechanism,
the bull, which was standing looking at him within fifty
Giant eland bull
From a photograph by Kermit Rooseveli
DOWN THE NILE; THE GIANT ELAND 451
yards, gradually recovered, moved off step by step, and
broke into a slow trot. After it went Kermit as hard as
he could go, still fussing with the rifle, which he finally
opened, and refilled with five cartridges. Kermit could
just about keep the eland in sight, running as hard as he
was able; after a mile or two it lay down, but rose as he
came near, and went off again, while he was so blown
that though, with four shots, he hit it twice he failed to kill
it. He now had but one bullet left, after which he knew
that the rifle would jam again; and it was accordingly
necessary to kill outright with the next shot. He was
just able to keep close to the bull for a half mile, then it
halted; and he killed it. Leaving the shenzi by the car-
cass, he went off to see about the wounded cow, but after
an hour was forced to give up the chase and return, so as
to be sure to save the bull’s skin. The gun-bearers, and
another shenzi had by this time reached the dead eland;
they had only Kermit’s canteen of water among them.
One of the shenzis was at once sent to camp to bring back
twenty porters, with rope, and plenty of water; and, with
parched mouths, Kermit and the gun-bearers began to
take off the thick hide of the dead bull. Four hours later
the porters appeared with the ropes and the water; the
thirsty men drank gallons; the porters were loaded with
the hide, head, and meat; and they marched back to camp
by moonlight.
It was no easy job, in that climate, to care for and save
the three big skins; but we did it. On the trip we had
taken, besides our gun-bearers and tent boys, Magi, the
sais, and two of our East African skinners, Kiboko and
Merefu; they formed in the safari a kind of chief-petty-
452 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
officer’s mess, so to speak. They were all.devoted to their
duties, and they worked equally hard whether hunting or
caring for the skins; the day Kermit killed his bull he and
the gun-bearers and skinners, with Magi as a volunteer,
worked until midnight at the hide. But they had any
amount of meat, and we shared our sugar and tea with
them. On the last evening there was nothing to do, and
they sat in the brilliant moonlight in front of their tents,
while Kassitura played his odd little harp. Kermit and I
strolled over to listen; and at once Kassitura began to
improvise a chant in my honor, reciting how the Bwana
Makuba had come, how he was far from his own country,
how he had just killed a giant eland, and so on and so on.
Meanwhile, over many little fires strips of meat were dry-
ing on scaffolds of bent branches, and askaris and por-
ters were gathered in groups, chatting and singing; while
the mighty tree near which our tents were pitched cast
a black shadow on the silver plain. Then the shenzis
who had helped us came to receive their reward, and their
hearts were gladdened with red cloth and salt, and for
those whose services had been greatest there were special
treasures in the shape of three green and white umbrellas.
It was a pleasant ending to a successful hunt.
On our return to Gondokoro we found Cuninghame
all right, although he had been obliged single-handed to
do the work of getting our porters safely started on their
return march to Kampalla, as well as getting all the skins
and skeletons properly packed for shipment. Heller had
also recovered, and had gone on a short trip during which
he trapped a leopard and a serval at the same carcass, the
leopard killing the serval. Dr. Mearns and Loring were
Mr. Roosevelt and Kermit Roosevelt with giant eland horns
\i
DOWN THE NILE; THE GIANT ELAND 453
both seriously sick; so was the district commissioner,
kind Mr. Haddon. One day a German missionary dined
with us; the next he was dead, of black water fever. An
English sportsman whom we had met at Nimule had been
brought in so sick that he was at death’s door; Dr.
Mearns took care of him, badly off though he himself was.
We had brought with us a case of champagne for just
such emergencies; this was the first time that we made use
of it.
On the last day of February we started down the Nile,
slipping easily along on the rapid current, which wound
and twisted through stretches of reeds and marsh grass
and papyrus. We halted at the attractive station of Lado
for a good-bye breakfast with our kind Belgian friends,
and that evening we dined at Mongalla with Colonel
Owen, the Chief of the southernmost section of the Soudan.
I was greatly interested in the Egyptian and Soudanese
soldiers, and their service medals. Many of these medals
showed that their owners had been in a dozen campaigns;
some of the native officers and men (and also the Reis
or native captain of our boat, by the way) had served
in the battles which broke forever the Mahdi’s cruel power;
two or three had been with Gordon. They were a fine-
looking set; and their obvious self-respect was a good thing
to see. That same afternoon I witnessed a native dance,
and was struck by the lack of men of middle age; in all
the tribes who were touched by the blight of the Mah-
dist tyranny, with its accompaniments of unspeakable
horror, suffered such slaughter of the then young men that
the loss has left its mark to this day. The English when
they destroyed Mahdism rendered a great service to hu-
454 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
manity; and their rule in the Soudan has been astound-
ingly successful and beneficial from every stand-point.*
We steamed onward down the Nile; sometimes tying
up to the bank at nightfall, sometimes steaming steadily
through the night. We reached the Sud, the vast papyrus
marsh once so formidable a barrier to all who would jour-
ney along the river; and sunrise and sunset were beautiful
over the endless, melancholy stretches of water reeds.
In the Sud the only tree seen was the water-loving am-
batch, light as cork. Occasionally we saw hippos and croc-
odiles and a few water birds; and now and then passed
native villages, the tall, lean men and women stark naked,
and their bodies daubed with mud, grease, and ashes to
keep off the mosquitoes.
On March 4th we were steaming slowly along the
reedy, water-soaked shores of Lake No, keeping a sharp
lookout for the white-eared kob and especially for the
handsome saddle-marked lechwe kob—which has been
cursed with the foolishly inappropriate name of “Mrs.
Gray’s waterbuck.”
Early in the morning we saw a herd of these saddle-
marked lechwe in the long marsh grass and pushed the
steamer’s nose as near to the shore as possible. Then
Cuninghame, keen-eyed Kongoni, and I started for what
proved to be a five hours’ tramp. The walking was hard;
sometimes we were on dry land, but more often in water
up to our ankles or knees, and occasionally floundering
* The despotism of Mahdist rule was so revolting, so vilely cruel and hideous, that
the worst despotism by men of European blood in recent times seems a model of
humanity by comparison; and yet there were nominal ‘‘anti-militarists” and self-
styled ‘‘apostles of peace’”’ who did their feeble best to prevent the destruction of
this infamy.
DOWN THE NILE; THE GIANT ELAND $455
and wallowing up to our hips through stretches of reeds,
water-lilies, green water, and foul black slime. Yet there
were ant-hills in the marsh. Once or twice we caught a
glimpse of the game in small patches of open ground cov-
ered with short grass; but almost always they kept to the
high grass and reeds. There were with the herd two very
old bucks, with a white saddle-shaped patch on the withers,
the white extending up the back of the neck to the head;
a mark of their being in full maturity, or past it, for on
some of the males, at least, this coloration only begins to
appear when they seem already to have attained their
growth of horn and body, their teeth showing them to be
five or six years old, while they are obviously in the prime
of vigor and breeding capacity. Unfortunately, in the
long grass it was impossible to single out these old bucks.
Marking as well as we could the general direction of the
herd we would steal toward it until we thought we were
in the neighborhood, and then cautiously climb an ant-
hill to look about. Nothing would be in sight. We would
scan the ground in every direction; still nothing. Sud-
denly a dozen heads would pop up, just above the grass,
two or three hundred yards off, and after a steady gaze
would disappear; and some minutes later would again
appear a quarter of a mile farther on. Usually they skulked
off at a trot or canter, necks stretched level with the back;
for they were great skulkers, and trusted chiefly to escap-
ing observation and stealing away from danger unper-
ceived. But occasionally they would break into a gallop,
making lofty bounds, clear above the tops of the grass;
and then they might go a long way before stopping. I
never saw them leap on the ant-hills to look about, as is
456 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
the custom of the common or Uganda kob. They were
rather noisy; we heard them grunting continually, both
when they were grazing and when they saw us.
At last, from an ant-hill, I saw dim outlines of two or
three animals moving past a little over a hundred yards
ahead. There was nothing to shoot at; but a moment
afterward I saw a pair of horns through the grass tops, in
such a position that it was evident the owner was looking
at me. I guessed that he had been moving in the direction
in which the others had gone, and I guessed at the position
of the shoulder, and fired. The horns disappeared. Then
I caught a glimpse, first of a doe, next of a buck, in full
flight, each occasionally appearing for an instant in a great
bound over the grass tops. I had no idea whether or not
I had hit my buck; so Cuninghame stayed on the ant-
heap to guide us, while Kongoni and I plunged into the
long grass, as high as our heads. Sure enough, there was -
the buck, a youngish one, about four years old; my bullet
had gone true. While we were looking at him we sud-
denly caught a momentary glimpse of two more of the
herd rushing off to our right, and we heard another grunt-
ing and sneaking away, invisible, thirty yards or so to our
left.
Half an hour afterward I shot another buck, at over
a hundred and fifty yards, after much the same kind of
experience. At this one I fired four times, hitting him with
three bullets; three of the shots were taken when I could
only see his horns and had to guess at the position of the
body. This was a very big buck, with horns over twenty-
nine inches long, but the saddle mark was yellow, with
many whitish hairs, showing that he was about to assume
DOWN THE NILE; THE GIANT ELAND 457
the white saddle of advanced maturity. His stomach was
full of the fine swamp grass.
These handsome antelopes come next to the situtunga
as lovers of water and dwellers in the marshes. They
are far more properly to be called “‘waterbuck” than are
the present proprietors of that name, which, like the ordi-
nary kob, though liking to be near streams, spend most of
their time on dry plains and hill-sides. This saddle-marked
antelope of the swamps has the hoofs very long and the
whole foot flexible and spreading, so as to help it in passing
over wet ground and soft mud; the pasterns behind are
largely bare of hair. It seems to be much like the lechwe, a
less handsome, but equally water-loving, antelope of south-
ern Africa, which is put in the same genus with the water-
buck and kob.
That afternoon Dr. Mearns killed with his Winchester
30-40, on the wing, one of the most interesting birds we
obtained on our whole trip, the whale-billed stork. It
was an old male and its gizzard was full of the remains of
small fish. The whalebill is a large wader, blackish-gray
in color, slightly crested, with big feet and a huge, swollen
bill; a queer-looking bird, with no near kinsfolk, and so
interesting that nothing would have persuaded me to try to
kill more than the four actually needed for the public
(not private) museum to which our collections were going.
It is of solitary habits and is found only in certain vast,
lonely marshes of tropical Africa, where it is conspicuous
by its extraordinary bill, dark coloration, and slug-
gishness of conduct, hunting sedately in the muddy shal-
lows, or standing motionless for hours, surrounded by reed-
beds or by long reaches of quaking and treacherous ooze.
458 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
Next morning while at breakfast on the breezy deck
we spied another herd of the saddle-marked lechwe, in
the marsh alongside; and Kermit landed and killed one,
after deep wading, up to his chin in some places, and much
hard work in the rank grass. This buck was interesting
when compared with the two I had shot. He was appar-
ently a little older than either, but not aged; on the con-
trary, in his prime, and fat. He had the white saddle-like
mark on the withers, and the white back of the neck, well
developed. Yet he was smaller than either of mine, and
the horns much smaller; indeed they were seven inches
shorter than my longest ones. It looks as if, in some ani-
mals at least, the full size of body and horns were reached
before the white saddle markings are acquired. The horns
of these saddle-mark lechwes are, relatively to the body,
far longer and finer than in other species of the genus; just
as is the case with the big East African gazelle when com-
pared with other gazelles.
That afternoon, near the mouth of the Rohr, which
runs into the Bahr el Ghazal, I landed and shot a good
buck, of the Vaughn’s kob; which is perhaps merely a
subspecies of the white-eared kob. It is a handsome ani-
mal, handsomer than its close kinsman, the common or
Uganda kob; although much less so than its associate, the
saddle-marked lechwe. Its hooves are like those of the or-
dinary kobs and waterbucks, not in the least like those
of the saddleback; so that, although the does are colored
alike, there is no chance of mistaking any lechwe doe for
any true kob doe. We found these kobs in much drier
ground than the saddlebacks, and therefore they were
easier to get at. The one I shot was an old ram, accom-
DOWN THE NILE; THE GIANT ELAND 459
panied by several ewes. We saw them from the boat, but
they ran. Cuninghame and I, with Kongoni and Gou-
vimali, hunted for them in vain for a couple of hours. Then
we met a savage, a very tall, lean Nuer. He was clad in
a fawn skin, and carried two spears, one with a bright,
sharp, broad-bladed head, the other narrow-headed with
villainous barbs. His hair, much longer than that of a
west coast negro, was tied back. As we came toward him
he stood on one leg, with the other foot resting against it,
and, raising his hand, with fingers extended, he motioned
to us with what in civilized regions would be regarded as a
gesture bidding us halt. But he meant it as a friendly
greeting, and solemnly shook hands with all four of us,
including the gun-bearers. By signs we made him under-
stand that we were after game; so was he; and he led
us to the little herd of kob. Kongoni, as usual, saw them
before any one else. From an ant-hill I could make out
the buck’s horns and his white ears, which he was con-
tinually flapping at the biting flies that worried him; when
he lowered his head I could see nothing. Finally, he looked
fixedly at us; he was a hundred and fifty yards off and I
had to shoot standing on the peak of the ant-heap, and
aim through the grass, guessing where his hidden body
might be; and I missed him. At the shot the does went off
to the left, but he ran to the right, once or twice leaping
high; and when he halted, at less than two hundred yards,
although I could still only see his horns, I knew where his
body was; and this time I killed him. We gave most of
the meat to the Nuer. He was an utterly wild savage, and
when Cuninghame suddenly lit a match he was so fright-
ened that it was all we could do to keep him from bolting.
460 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
Kermit went on to try for a doe, but had bad luck,
twice killing a spike buck by mistake, and did not get
back to the boat until long after dark.
The following day we were in the mouth of the Bahr
el Ghazal. It ran sluggishly through immense marshes,
which stretched back from the river for miles on either
hand, broken here and there by flats of slightly higher
land with thorn-trees. The whale-billed storks were fairly
common, and were very conspicuous as they stood on the
quaking surface of the marsh, supported by their long-
toed feet. After several fruitless stalks and much follow-
ing through the thick marsh grass, sometimes up to our
necks in water, I killed one with the Springfield at a dis-
tance of one hundred and thirty yards, and Kermit, after
missing one standing, cut it down as it rose with his Win-
chester 30-40. These whalebills had in their gizzards
not only small fish but quite a number of the green blades
of the marsh grass. The Arabs call them the ‘“ Father of
the Shoe,” and Europeans call them shoebills as well as
whalebills. The Bahr el Ghazal was alive with water-fowl,
saddle-bill storks, sacred and purple ibis, many kinds of
herons, cormorants, plover, and pretty tree ducks which
twittered instead of quacking. There were sweet-scented
lotus water-lilies in the ponds. A party of waterbuck cows
and calves let the steamer pass within fifty yards without
running.
We went back to Lake No, where we met another
steamer, with aboard it M. Solvé, a Belgian sportsman, a
very successful hunter, whom we had already met at Lado;
with him were his wife, his sister, and his brother-in-law,
both of the last being as ardent in the chase, especially of
Sa aA TT SO ig SE SS NLT TA
Se SANE eats Pea
yn pith
NY
DOWN THE NILE; THE GIANT ELAND 461
dangerous game, as he was. His party had killed two
whalebills, one for the British Museum and one for the
Congo Museum. They were a male and female who
were near their nest, which contained two downy young;
these were on M. Solvé’s boat, where we saw them. The
nest was right on the marsh water; the birds had bent the
long blades of marsh grass into an interlacing foundation,
and on this had piled grass which they had cut with their
beaks. These beaks can give a formidable bite, by the
way, as one of our sailors found to his cost when he rashly
tried to pick up a wounded bird.
I was anxious to get a ewe of the saddle-back lechwe
for the museum, and landed in the late afternoon, on see-
ing a herd. The swamp was so deep that it took an hour’s
very hard and fatiguing wading, forcing oursleves through
the rank grass up to our shoulders in water before we got
near them. ‘The herd numbered about forty individuals;
their broad trail showed where they had come through
the swamp, and even through a papyrus bed; but we found
them grazing on merely moist ground, where there were
ant-hills in the long grass. As I crept up they saw me
and greeted me with a chorus of croaking grunts; they
are a very noisy buck. I shot a ewe, and away rushed
the herd through the long grass, making a noise which
could have been heard nearly a mile off, and splashing and
bounding through the shallow lagoons; they halted, and
again began grunting; and then off they rushed once more.
The doe’s stomach was filled with tender marsh grass.
Meanwhile, Kermit killed, on drier ground, a youngish
male of the white-eared kob.
Next morning we were up at the Bahr el Zeraf. At ten
462 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
we sighted from the boat several herds of white-eared kob,
and Kermit and I went in different directions after them,
getting four. The old rams were very handsome animals
with coats of a deep rich brown that was almost black,
and sharply contrasted black and white markings on their
faces; but it was interesting to see that many of the younger
rams, not yet in the fully adult pelage, had horns as long
as those of their elders. The young rams and ewes were
a light reddish-yellow, being in color much like the ewes
of the saddle-back lechwe; and there was the usual dis-
proportion in size between the sexes. With each flock of
ewes and young rams there was ordinarily one old black
ram; and some of the old rams went by themselves. The
ground was so open that all my shots had to be taken at
long range. In habits they differed from the saddle-back
lechwes, for they were found on dry land, often where the
grass was quite short, and went freely among the thorn-
trees; they cared for the neighborhood of water merely as
ordinary waterbuck or kob care for it.
Here we met another boat, with aboard it Sir William
Garstin, one of the men who have made Egypt and the
Soudan what they are to-day, and who have thereby ren-
dered an incalculable service not only to England but to
civilization.
We had now finished our hunting, save that once or
twice we landed to shoot a buck or some birds for the
table. It was amusing to see how sharply the birds dis-
criminated between the birds of prey which they feared
and those which they regarded as harmless. We saw
a flock of guinea-fowl strolling unconcernedly about at
the foot of a tree in which a fish eagle was perched; and
DOWN THE NILE; THE GIANT ELAND 463
one evening Dr. Mearns saw some guinea-fowl go to roost
in a bush in which two kites had already settled them-
selves for the night, the kites and the guineas perching
amiably side by side.
We stopped at the mouth of the Sobat to visit the
American Mission, and were most warmly and hospitably
received by the missionaries, and were genuinely impressed
by the faithful work they are doing, under such great
difficulties and with such cheerfulness and courage. The
Medical Mission was especially interesting. It formed an
important part of the mission work; and not only were
the natives round about treated, but those from far away
also came in numbers. At the time of our visit there were
about thirty patients, taking courses of treatment, who
had come from distances varying from twenty-five miles
to a hundred and fifty.
We steamed steadily down the Nile. Where the great
river bent to the east we would sit in the shade on the for-
ward deck during the late afternoon and look down the
long glistening water-street in front of us, with its fringe
of reedbed and marshy grassland and papyrus swamp, and
the slightly higher dry land on which grew acacias and
scattered palms. Along the river banks and inland were
villages of Shilluks and other tribes, mostly cattle owners;
some showing slight traces of improvement, others utter
savages, tall, naked men, bearing bows and arrows.
Our Egyptian and Nubian crew recalled to my mind
the crew of the dahabiah on which as a boy I had gone
up the Egyptian Nile thirty-seven years before; especially
when some piece of work was being done by the crew as
they chanted in grunting chorus “Ya allah, ul allah.”
464 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
As we went down the Nile we kept seeing more and more
of the birds which I remembered, one species after another
appearing; familiar cow herons, crocodile plover, noisy
spur-wing plover, black and white kingfishers, hoopoos,
green bee-eaters, black and white chats, desert larks, and
trumpeter bullfinches.
At night we sat on deck and watched the stars and the
dark, lonely river. The swimming crocodiles and plung-
ing hippos made whirls and wakes of feeble light that
glimmered for a moment against the black water. The
unseen birds of the marsh and the night called to one an-
other in strange voices. Often there were grass fires,
burning, leaping lines of red, the lurid glare in the sky
above them making even more sombre the surrounding
gloom.
As we steamed northward down the long stretch of the
Nile which ends at Khartoum, the wind blew in our faces,
day after day, hard and steadily. Narrow reedbeds bor-
dered the shore; there were grass flats and groves of
acacias and palms, and farther down reaches of sandy
desert. The health of our companions who had been
suffering from fever and dysentery gradually improved;
but the case of champagne, which we had first opened at
Gondokoro, was of real service, for two members of the
party were at times so sick that their situation was critical.
We reached Khartoum on the afternoon of March 14th,
1910, and Kermit and I parted from our comrades of the
trip with real regret; during the year we spent together
there had not been a jar, and my respect and liking for
them had grown steadily. Moreover, it was a sad parting
from our faithful black followers, whom we knew we
A Sa eee Cor) I aE Ge Ae
eS et
Te ae Se a ee
DOWN THE NILE; THE GIANT ELAND 465
should never see again. It had been an interesting and a
happy year; though I was very glad to be once more with
those who were dear to me, and to turn my face toward my
own home and my own people.
Kermit’s and my health throughout the trip had been
excellent. He had been laid up for three days all told, and
I for five. Kermit’s three days were due, two to tick fever
on the Kapiti Plains, one probably to the sun. Mine were
all due to fever; but I think my fever had nothing to do
with Africa at all, and was simply a recurrence of the fever
I caught in the Santiago campaign, and which ever since
has come on at long and irregular intervals for a day or
two ata time. The couple of attacks I had in Africa were
very slight; by no means as severe as one I had while bear
hunting early one spring in the Rocky Mountains. One
of these attacks came on under rather funny circumstances.
It was at Lake Naivasha on the day I killed the hippo
which charged the boat. We were in the steam launch and
I began to feel badly, and knew I was in for a bout of
fever. Just then we spied the hippo and went after it
in the row-boat. I was anxious to hold back the attack
until I got the hippo, as when shaking with a chill it is of
course very difficult to take aim. I just succeeded, the
excitement keeping me steady; and as soon as the hippo
was dead I curled up in the boat and had my chill in peace
and comfort.
There are differences of opinion as to whether any
spiritous liquors should be drunk in the tropics. Per-
sonally I think that the less one has to do with them the
better. Not liking whiskey I took a bottle of brandy for
emergencies. Very early in the trip I decided that even
466 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
/ when feverish or exhausted by a hard day’s tramp, hot tea
' did me more good than brandy, and I handed the bottle
over to Cuninghame. At Khartoum he produced it and
asked what he should do with it, and I told him to put it in
the steamer’s stores; he did so, after finding out the amount
that had been drunk, and informed me that I had taken
just six ounces in eleven months. :
LIST OF GAME SHOT WITH THE RIFLE DURING THE TRIP
BY T. R. BY K. R.
LAO ks Ac ete poe eames 9 8
Leopard: oo. Byes 8) Se eee, Cee 3
Cheetah . — 7
Hyena 5 4
Elephant a gale 8 3
Square-mouthed rhinoceros 5 4
Hook-lipped rhinoceros 8 3
Hippopotamus . 7 I
Wart-hog 8 4
Common zebra 15 4
Big or Grévy’s zebra 5 5
_ Giraffe ; 7 2
Buffalo 6 4
Giant eland I .
Common eland 5 2
Bongo oe deh 1s Wit Ra Reid), jae 2
Kae ir aay ae ea De inc 2
SITEUNGA 36) i6) Aone es ets eae I
Bushbuck
East African 2 4
Uganda harnessed I 2
Nile harnessed 3 3
Sable . — 3
Roan . TaN ia at Ce Aten a 4 5
2: MM MLO Caer ee SEE ol 3
DOWN THE NILE; THE GIANT ELAND 467
BY T. R. BY K. R.
Wildebeest . a ee 5 2
Neumann’s hartebeest . . . . . ) — 3
Reyeeehartebeest . 2... . te 3
Big hartebeest
eae ONE ial MED 14 7
nS te I 3
Nilotic . as) Cr fae aly Ms 4
ee 7 4
Common waterbuc Grete \ERO Gd 5 3
Singsing waterbuck . 6 6
Rem OD kk, 10 6
Vaughn’s kob . I 2
White-eared kob . see ae ee 3 2
Saddle-backed lechwe (Mrs. Gray’s) 3 I
Bohor reedbuck ae ie She ta 10 4
Chanler’s buck 3 4
Impalla . 7 5
Big gazelle
Granti . 5 3
Robertsi 4 6
Notata : 8 I
Thomson’s gazelle . . . . . . oI 9
Gerenuk 3 2
Klipspringer I 3
Oribi . 18 8
Duiker 3 2
Steinbuck 4 2
Dikdik I I
Baboon uA, _ 3
Red ground monkey I _
Green monkey . Se I
Black and white monkey . 5 4
Serval . LOO nr eC I
RR ek I
NE Cee Se a I
SEES a ne ei I
2
Eg a
468 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS
BY T. R. BY K. R.
CPREC Re Te ae eee ee ae ti 2 —
Great bustard Lae bar 4 (1 on wing 3 i a
Leseet Dustane a aes es I I
KRavirondo crane... 005.06 Ua 2 (on wing) —
PAGING? 2 eee eso) ee wea — 4
Whale-headed stork . . . . . I I (on wing)
Marabou.) ose inane I I
Saddle-billed stork . . . . . 1 (on wing) —
Ibis stork: o.$. cites 2 (I on wing) —
Pelican) 30a, MS eye aie I —
Guinea-towl 9 a aia 5 5
Francoua a). bey. w ee teem I 2
Figh eagle: 5.065.461, Kee — I
Vulture: .> ean wa ree nee — 2
Crocodile: (40°)52nr 6! Wine eee I 3
Monitee: soa eee — I
Pith: <6 nes Sos OR ORG i be I
296 216
Grand Foal ois er eta ag eg
In addition we killed, with the Fox shot-gun, Egyptian
geese, yellow-billed mallards, francolins, spurfowl and sand
grouse for the pot, and certain other birds for specimens.
Kermit and I kept about a dozen trophies for ourselves;
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 achievement.
APPENDICES
fe See
gS
ene
- paca meen ea a
= A et <4 al te I ~_
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 undertaken
save for the generous assistance of Mr. Andrew Carnegie, Mr. Oscar
Straus, Mr. Leigh Hunt, and certain others, to all of whom lovers of nat-
ural history are therefore deeply indebted.
I owe more than I can express to the thoughtful and unwearied con-
sideration 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. Tarl-
ton, 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.
471
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
Procavia mackinderi .
Procavia brucei maculata.
Procavia (Dendrohyrax) eitont..
Procavia (Dendrohyrax) crawshayi
. .Alpine Hyrax
Athi Rock Hyrax
Kikuyu Tree Hyrax
Alpine Tree Hyrax /
GLIRES—RODENTS ah
Heliosciurus kenie
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 harwoodi .
Otomys irroratus orestes .
Otomys irroratus tropicalis .
Dendromus nigrifrons
Dendromus insignis . .
Dendromus whytei paliescens
Steatomys athi :
Lophuromys ansorget
Lophuromys aquilus .
Mus (Leggada) bellus
472
Kenia Forest Squirrel
Uganda Striped Squirrel
Jackson Forest Squirrel
Nairobi Forest Squirrel
Kenia Ground Squirrel
Kenia Dormouse
Pygmy Dormouse
Nandi Maned Rat
Mombasa Gerbille
Highland Gerbille
Uganda Gerbille
Sotik Gerbille
Nile Gerbille
Dusky Gerbille
Pygmy 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 Pygmy Mouse
.
4
;
a
%
i
i
a
aN
APPENDIX B 473
Mus (Leggada) gratus
Mus (Leggada) sorellus . ;
Mus (Leggada) triton murillus .
Mus (Leggada) triton naivashe
Epimys hindt . ... .
Epimys endorobe .
Epimys jacksoni .
Epimys peromyscus .
Epimys hildebranti
Epimys ugande
Epimys panya i
Epimys nieventris ule
Zelotomys hildegarde
Thamnomys surdaster polionops
Thamnomys loringt . .
Cnomys hypoxanthus bacchante
Dasymus helukus er
Acomys wilsoni
Arvicanthis abyssinicus nairoba
Arvicanthis abyssinicus rubescens .
Arvicanthis pulchellus massaicus
Arvicanthis barbarus albolineatus
Arvicanthis pumilio diminutus .
Arvicanthis dorsalis maculosus .
Pelomys roosevelti
Saccostomus umbriventer
Saccostomus mearnsi
Tachyoryctes annectens
Uganda Pygmy Mouse
Elgon Pygmy Mouse
Sooty Pygmy Mouse
Naivasha Pygmy 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
East African Spiny Mouse
Athi Grass Rat
Uganda Grass Rat
Spotted Grass Rat
Striped Grass Rat
Pygmy Grass Rat
Single Striped Grass Rat
Iridescent Creek Rat
Sotik Pouched Rat
Swahili Pouched Rat
Rift Valley Mole Rat
Tachyoryctes splendens ibeanus Nairobi Mole Rat
Tachyoryctes rex . F Alpine Mole Rat
Myoscalops kapiti Masai Blesmol
Pedetes surdaster . East African Springhaas
Hystrix galeata East African Porcupine
Lepus victoria East African Hare
FERA—CARNIVORES
Hyena striata schillingsi
Hyena crocuta germinans ‘
Proteles cristatus “+ agape
Genetta bettoni ‘
Crossarchus fasciatus 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
J
474
APPENDIX B
INSECTIVORA—INSECTIVORES
Nasilio brachyrhynchus delamerei ;
Elephantulus pulcher
Erinaceus albiventris
Crocidura flavescens myanse
Crocidura alchemille
Crocidura fumosa ee
Crocidura argentata fisherit .
Crocidura bicolor elgonius
Crocidura allex
Surdisorex nore .
Athi Lesser Elephant Shrew
East African Elephant Shrew
White-bellied Hedgehog
Giant Shrew
Alpine Shrew
Dusky Shrew
Veldt Shrew
Elgon Pygmy Shrew
Rift Valley Pygmy Shrew
Short-tailed Shrew
CHIROPTERA—BATS
Scotophilus nigrita colias
Pipistrellus kuhlii fuscatus .
Nyctinomus hindet
Lavia frons
Lavia frons affinis
Petalia thebaica
Rhinolophus hildebrandti eloqueus %
Hipposiderus caffer centralis
Kikuyu Green Bat
Naivasha Pygmy Bat
Free-tailed Bat
East African Great Eared Bat
Nile Great Eared Bat
Nile Wrinkle-nosed Bat
Elgon Horshoe Bat
Uganda Leaf-nosed Bat
PRIMATES—MONKEYS
Galago (Otolemur) lasiotis
Papio ibeanus
Cercocebus albigena johnstoni
Erythrocebus formosus
Cercopithecus ascanius schmidti
Cercopithecus pygerythrus johnstoni
Cercopithecus kolbi ‘
Cercopithecus kolbi hindei
Colobus abyssinicus caudatus
Colobus abyssinicus matschiet
Colobus palliatus cottoni
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
LIST OF LARGE MAMMALS
UNGULATA—HOOFED MAMMALS
Diceros simus cottoni .
Diceros bicornis
Equus burchelli grantt
Equus grevyt . .
Hippopotamus amphibius
Nile Square-nosed Rhinoceros
Black Rhinoceros
Northern Burchell Zebra
Grevy Zebra
Nile Hippopotamus
APPENDIX B 475
Potamocherus cheropotamus demonis .
Hylocherus meinerizhageni .
Phacocherus ethiopicus massaicus .
Bos caffer radcliffei
Bos equinoctialis .
Taurotragus oryx livingstonit
Taurotragus gigas
Boocercus isaact .
Strepsiceros strepsiceros . . .
Tragelaphus scriptus heywoodi .
Tragelaphus scriptus dama .
Tragelaphus scriptus bor.
Limnotragus spekit
Ozanna roosevelti .
Ozanna equinus langheldi
Ozanna equinus bakeri .
Oryx beisa annectens .
Gazella granti .
Gazella grant robertsi.
Gazella granti notata .
Gazella thomsoni .
Lithocranius walleri .
ZEpyceros melampus suara .
Redunca fulvorujula chanleri
Redunca redunca wardi .
Redunca redunca donaldsoni
Kobus kob thomast ,
Kobus vaughani .
Kobus leucotis .
Kobus defassa ugande
Kobus defassa harnieri
Kobus ellipsiprymnus
Kobus maria . .
Cephalophus abyssinicus ‘hindes
Cephalophus abyssinicus re
Cephalophus ignijer . :
Nototragus neumanni
Ourebia montana .
Ourebia cottoni . .
Rhynchotragus kirki hindei .
Oreotragus schillingst
Connochetes albojubatus .
Damaliscus corrigum eageny
Bubalis jacksoni .
Bubalis jacksoni insignis
Bubalis coket . aap
Bubalis neumanni . .
Bubalis lelwel niediecki .
Giraffa reticulata .
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
Nile Roan Antelope
East African Beisa
Grant Gazelle
Nyanza Grant Gazelle
Boran Grant Gazelle
Thomson Gazelle
Gerenuk Gazelle
Impalla
East African Rock Reedbuck
Highland Bohor Reedbuck
Uganda Bohor Reedbuck
Kavirondo Kob
Rufous White-eared Kob
White-eared Kob
Uganda Defassa Waterbuck
White Nile Defassa Waterbuck
East 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
476 APPENDIX B
Giraffa camelopardalis tippelskirchi. . . Masailand Giraffe
Giraffa camelopardalis rothschildi . . . Five-horned Giraffe
Elephas ajricanus peli. . ... . . British East African Elephant
FERAZ—CARNIVORES
Felis leo massaica 6. ww Ce SC SC SC») CE ast African Lion
Felis pardus suahelica . . . . . . East African Leopard
Felis capensis hindet . . .. « « East African Serval Cat
Cynelurus jubatus guiiatus. . . . . 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 Amer-
ican 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 compari-
son. 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 mammals, I should use them, rather than the American,
for purposes 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 ac-
tions like our gray 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 (Pygmy 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 placed 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 and habits bears much
resemblance to our totally different kangaroo rats.
APPENDIX B he: 477
Dipodillus harwoodi (Naivasha Pygmy 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 (Veldt Rat). Generally throughout B. E. A. but always
in moist places, never on dry plains. Abundant on top of Aberdares, and ten
thousand feet up on slopes of Kenia. Always in open grass. Make very defi-
nite 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 nigrojrons (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 apparently abandoned weaver-birds’ nests. If frightened, one would
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 pro-
tection.
Dendromys insignis. Although belonging to the genus of tree mice this large dend-
romys 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 (Pygmy 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. Noc-
~ turnal. 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 strik-
ingly 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
478 APPENDIX B
within the dense forest. Evidently very abundant in the forest, but not ventur-
ing 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.
Found in the runways of Otomys and Arvicanthis. Does not seem to be a
grass-feeding species, like Otomys; eats grain, beans, etc.
Epimys nieventris ulae (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 (Longtailed 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.
Thamnomys Loringt Heller (n. s.) (Masked Tree Rat). In the Rift Valley; common
around Naivasha. Has a black ring around each eye, the color spreading over
the nose like a mask. Arboreal and nocturnal. Much the habits of our neo-
toma, 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.
Oenomys hypoxanthus bacchante (Rusty-nosed Rat). Found in same country as
above, and with'similar habits, but somewhat less arboreal. A handsome species.
Dasymus helukus Heller (n. s.) (Swamp Rat). In appearance much like the Alex-
andrian 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 everywhere 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.
ee
APPENDIX B 479
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.
Saccostomus 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.
Tachyroyctes splendens ibeanus (Nairobi Mole Rat). A mole rat of B. E. A. with gen-
eral 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.
Myoscalops kapiti Heller (n. s.) (Kapiti Blesmole). On the Kapiti and Athi Plains
and in the Sotik. Smaller than German East African form and no white oc-
cipital spot. A cinnamon wash on its silvery fur. Burrows like our pocket go-
phers, 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.
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 victorie. 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
in a 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 arvi-
canthis.
Erinaceus 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 Pistia: (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.
480 APPENDIX B
Crocidura alchemille Heller (n.s.). Aberdare shrew; a diurnal form, occurring
above timber line on the Aberdare; perhaps identical with the foregoing.*
Crocidura allex. A pygmy 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; habit-
ually 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.
Scotophilus 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 kuhlit fuscatus. Common at Naivasha and Nairobi. Very closely kin
to our Myotis, or little brown bat, with same habits. Fly high in the air after
dusk, and are 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 day time hanging up behind
the loose bark of the big yellow-trunked acacias.
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 caverns which
contained water. Both sexes occurred together in company with a bat of another
genus—Rhinolophus. 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.
* Crocidura alchemille, new species (Heller). Type from the summit of the Aber-
dare 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, 1177.
Allied to fumosa of Mount Kenia, but coloration much darker, everywhere clove
brown, the underparts but slightly lighter in shade; feet somewhat lighter sepia brown
but much darker than in fumosa; hair at base slaty-black. Hair long 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 oily odor very similar to that of
a petrel. Skull somewhat smaller than fumosa with relatively smaller teeth.
Measurements: Head and body, go; 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 Alchemilia which clothe the al-
pine moorland of the Aberdare Range.
APPENDIX B 481
Cercopithecus kolbi. Found in company with the Colobus in heavy forest along
the Kikuyu escarpment. The subspecies 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 and acacia
pods in their stomachs. Live in troops of from ten to twenty individually.
Exceedingly active and agile. Often sit motionless on the very tops of the trees,
when they can not be seen from below. Run well on the ground.
Colobus caudaius (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, Paraxerus,
very different from the Kenia species. In Uganda there were fewer species of
small mammals than in East Africa, in spite of the abundance of vegetation and
water.
In the Lado we found rats, mice, and shrews abundant, but the num-
ber of species limited, and for the most part representing widespread
types. Some of the bats were different from any yet obtained; the same
may be true of the shrews. The small carnivores, and hyznas also, were
very scarce.
North of Nimule Kermit shot another Funiscturus, while it was climb-
ing 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 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 neighborhood of some wild dogs.
Once, on the Nile, while Loring and I were watching a monitor steal-
ing 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
482 APPENDIX B
was doing. It seemed unlikely that he could be feeding; and the cur-
rent 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
THE eee 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 protective
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 the 22d
of September 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
cat-like squalls that cannot be described in print, and we found them very noisy.
Whenever they saw any one approaching they always sounded some note of
alarm, and frequently continued to harangue the intruder until he had ap-
proached 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 runways, 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, I 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
frog-like 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 from the large forest trees. Often
the cries were directly over our heads and at a time when the porters were sing-
483
484 APPENDIX C
\
ing 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 was brought in.
Rock Hyrax (Procavia brucei maculata). ‘These animals inhabited the rocks and
cliffs on Ulukenia 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 atime. They
lived on the rocky hill-sides and were quite tame, allowing one to approach
within twenty-five yards before taking fright and dashing into the rocks, inva-
riably 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 neighborhood three years told me
that all the females of proper age had horns.
Pygmy 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 I 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.
Pygmy Mouse (Mus |[Leggada] gratus). Various forms of this tiny little mouse were
taken all along the route we travelled. They were caught in traps set at ran-
dom in the brushy thickets in the lowland, as well as in the open grassy spots
on the rocky hill-sides where they frequented the runways made by various
species of Mus. <A few were collected on Mount Kenia.
Athi Rock Mouse (Epimys nieventris ulae). ‘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 bamboo. At 10,000 feet several were caught in the bam-
boo, and at 10,700 feet a good series was collected on a well-thicketed and tim-
bered 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 and leaves were found. While setting
a a
sn ee ee
a ae
APPENDIX C 485
traps one afternoon I 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 I 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
i these two animals inhabited slightly different regions. In the brushy and
q grassy thickets bordering the lake spotted rats were abundant, but a few four-
i 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 Hall 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 (Thrynomys 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 vegetation had been burned were innumer-
able holes where some animal had dug about the base of grass tufts. Their
signs did not extend further 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-colored
mole rat took this animal’s place. Some fifteen miles west of Lake Naivasha
é mole rats became common, and on the sandy flats within five miles of the lake
ih they were so abundant that our horses broke into their runways nearly every
i step. Their underground tunnels and the mounds of earth that were thrown
6 out were similar to those made by the pocket gophers of western United
ag So aia
(a tm
aa
=.
—— _
fe 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
i 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
i intervened, they used their teeth until the obstruction was removed, and then
H with the nails of their front feet only, continued digging. As the hole deepened
it they threw the dirt out between their hind legs and with them still further be-
b yond. 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
s most active in the evening, at night, and in early morning. Several were found
IS dead near their holes, having evidently been killed by owls or small carnivorous
mammals.
Alpine Mole Rat (Tachyoryctes 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
486 APPENDIX C
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 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 fif-
teen 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, fre-
quently 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 I 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 ter-
mites and insects, leads me to believe that these two animals are more or less
congenial. Doctor 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. Two females taken from the same burrow showed great vari-
ation in size, one having a tail several inches longer and ears larger than the
other. Although I never discovered a burrow that was completely 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 Nai-
vasha and found it very common there. All of the seven specimens secured were
taken by “jacking” at night, although while travelling over the Uganda Railroad
we frequently saw them singly or in pairs in 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
APPENDIX C 487
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 dis-
tance of a native village where the occupants were singing, dancing, and play-
ing 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 an-
other 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 railroad 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.
Giant 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 lifted into the air by its tail, it would emit a loud shrill chirp-
ing note.
Short-Tailed 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 jrons). 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 first two 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
488 APPENDIX C
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. One 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 Sep-
tember to after the middle of October, 1909, in a biological survey of
ount 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. The mountain is supposed
to support 15 glaciers; those that Mearns and Loring examined resembled
vast snow banks father than clear ice-glaciers. The permanent snow line
begins at the edge of the glacial lakes at 15,000 feet; on October 18th 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
groundsells 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 6 to g 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 groundsells 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 the snow
489
490 APPENDIX D
line for a mile without seeing any traces of large animals, although leop- —
ards and smaller cats sometimes wander to this height. The grove-
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 col-
lected; 1,320 mammals and 771 reptiles and batrachians were collected,
but the species represented were much fewer. Mearns also made an ex-
cellent 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 he carried his camera; but the glare of
the snow gave him snow blindness.
7
re ee
-
—
—s-e
APPENDIX E
PROTECTIVE COLORATION
Mr. Ducmore has made a wonderful series of photographs of African
big game. Mr. Kearton has made a series of moving pictures of various
big animals which were taken alive by Buffalo Jones and his two cow-
boys, 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 rhi-
noceros, a giraffe, and other animals. I regard these feats of my three
fellow-countrymen as surpassing any feats which can possibly be per-
formed 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 “‘ Flashlight 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 it-
self, important though it is, comes entirely secondary to the text in any
book worthy of serious consideration either from the stand-point of science
or the stand-point of literature. Of course this does not mean any failure
to appreciate the absolute importance of photographs—of Mr. Dugmore’s
capital photographs, for instance; what I desire is merely that we keep
in mind, when books are treated seriously, the relative values of the pho-
tograph, 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
491
492 APPENDIX E
experience, of trained mind, of keen powers of observation, and, in addi-
tion, 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 bio-
logical 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 discoy-
ered notable proofs of glacial action in parts of Europe and North America,
then went slightly crazy on their favorite subject, and proceeded to find
proofs of glacial action over the entire world surface, including, for in-
stance, 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 parti-
cle 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.* 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 in-
vertebrates. The night hawk, certain partridges and grouse, and numer-
ous other birds which seek to escape observation by squatting motionless,
do unquestionably owe an immense amount to the way in which their
colors harmonize with the surrounding colors, thus enabling them to lie
undetected while they keep still, and probably even protecting them some-
what 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 es-
* In passing I wish to bear testimony to the admirable work done by various mem-
bers 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!
Was
APPENDIX E 493
cape observation, and its coloration and squatting attitude enabling it
thus to escape observation; as Mr. Beddard puts it in his book on “ Ani-
mal Coloration,” “absence of movement is absolutely essential for pro-
tectively colored animals, whether they make use of their 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, pro-
tective. 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 sur-
roundings (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 pro-
tectively colored animals owe their safety, not at all to being incon-
spicuously colored, that is, to being colored like their surroundings, but
to their counter-shading, to their being colored 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 whenever 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-colored 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 pro-
portion 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
494. APPENDIX E
whatever in saving them from their foes. The nearly uniform colored
mice and shrews are exactly as difficult to see as the others.
Again, take what Mr. Thayer says of hares and prong-bucks. Mr.
Thayer insists that the white tails and rumps of deer, antelope, 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 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 when 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 further back,
or ten steps further 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 prong-
buck 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 combi-
nation of circumstances which might not occur once in a million times,
the prongbuck happens to be helped by the obliterative quality of the
\\
APPENDIX E 495
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 at-
tention to it at least a thousand times. At night, in the darkness, as
any one 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 their sight at night, the white rump
must always under all circumstances be a source of danger to the prong-
buck, 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 conspicuous; 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. Any one acquainted 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; ex-
cepting 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 conspicu-
ous; 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
496 APPENDIX E
effect of the white rump is minimized, as is als« the effect of the “ counter-
shading”; for the light-colored 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 color surface which is
exposed to view. If the adult prongbucks really ever gained any bene-
fit by any “protective” quality in their coloration, they would certainly
act like the kids, and crouch motionless. In reality the adult prong-
buck never seeks to escape observation, never trusts in any way to the
concealing or protective power of any part of its coloration, and is not bene- _
fited 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 advertisment to all outside creatures of
the prongbuck’s existence. 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. Any one
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, un-
sustained 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 see 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 protective or ob-
literative 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
APPENDIX E 497
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 circum-
stances 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 brush, with its white
tail flaunted, and under such circumstances the white mark is extremely
conspicuous.
Indeed I feel that there is grave ground to question the general state-
ment of Mr. Thayer that “almost all mammals are equipped with a full
obliterative shading of surface colors; 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 further investigation.
Of course if it is obliterative, then its use is to conceal the mammals. Mr.
Thayer’s 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 observa-
tion, crouch on the ground, and in that posture the light belly escapes
observation, and the animal’s color pattern loses very much of, and some
times all of, the “full obliterative shading of surface colors” of which
Mr. Thayer speaks. Moreover, when crouched down in seeking to es-
cape 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-colored under parts are ob-
scured, 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 state-
ment as that quoted above from Mr. Thayer is as yet entirely unproved.
I have no doubt that in most cases animals whose colors 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
498 APPENDIX E
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 color 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 of mammals which are
colored 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 made
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 especial stress
upon as being “full obliterative shading (counter-shading) of surface
coloring.”
Certainly many of the markings of mammals, just as is the case with
birds, must be wholly independent of any benefit they give to their pos-
sessors in the way of concealment. Mr. Thayer’s pictures in some cases
portray such entirely exceptional situations or surroundings 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 colored males of these two birds are really protectively colored,
then the females are not, and vice versa; for the males and females in-
habit 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 colored at all;
whereas of course in reality, as every one 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, moun-
tain and prairie surroundings, any small mammal that remains motionless
is, unless very vividly colored, exceedingly apt to escape notice. I do
APPENDIX E 499
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 gray 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 protec-
tive 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-colored
pattern of coloration accompanied by complete obliterative shading,
and the whole point of his remarks is that the giraffe’s coloration “al-
Ways maintains its potency for obliteration.” Now of course this means
nothing unless Mr. Thayer intends by it to mean that the giraffe’s color-
ation 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
giraffe’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 color or scheme
of color which may not under some conceivable circumstances enable
the bearer to escape observation; but if such coloring, for once that it
enables the bearer to escape observation, exposes the bearer to observa-
tion a thousand times, it cannot be called protective. I do not think that
the giraffe’s coloration exposes it to observation on the part of its foes;
I think that it simply has no effect whatsoever. The 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 color pattern becomes
indistinct to the eye, and the animal appears of a nearly uniform tint,
so that any benefit given by the color 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
500 APPENDIX E
seem invisible to the untrained eyes of the average white hunter, and
any beast of any shape or any color 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-colored 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 colored rhinoceros and buffalo when stand-
ing 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 ex-
periences do occur with giraffes, but no more frequently than with ele-
phant, 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 color-
ation, 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 colora-
tion, and is rarely attacked by lions.
Elephants and rhinoceroses occasionally stand motionless, waiting
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 motionless looking at the hunter,
but 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, nearby, it never escapes their
eyes; its coloration is of not the slightest use to it from the stand-point 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 rhinoc-
APPENDIX E 501
eros 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
be unable to use cover, and then merely sat motionless on the grass or in
a game trail. My neutral-tinted clothes, gray or yellow brown, were
all of one color, 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 “‘concealment” or “protection” was due to resting motionless and
to wearing a neutral-tinted suit, although there was no counter-shading,
and although the color 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 observers; 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 argu-
ment frequently used by other disciples of the protective coloration theory
as applied to zebras. Mr. Thayer shows by ingenious pictures that a wild
ass is much less protectively colored 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
colored because it looks exactly like a wild ass! Of course each author
forgets that zebras and wild asses live under substantially the same con-
ditions, and that this mere fact totally upsets the theory that each is
beneficially affected by its protective coloration. The two animals can-
not both be protectively colored; they cannot each owe to its coloration
an advantage in escaping from its foes. It is absolutely impossible, if one
of them is so colored as to enable it to escape the observations of its foes,
that the other can be. As a matter of fact, neither is, and neither makes
any attempt to elude observation by its foes, but trusts entirely to vigilance
in discerning them and fleetness in escaping from them; although the
502 APPENDIX E
wild ass, unlike the zebra, really is so colored that because thereof it
may occasionally 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 con-
tinues: ‘‘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 warn-
ing. 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
foot-note 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
coloration at drinking-places, as a shield against foes, lacks even the slight-
est 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 (un-
like 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
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
APPENDIX E 503
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 neighborhood, 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 drink-
ing, 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 har-
monize 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 conspicuous 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 conspicu-
ous. 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 concealment
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 make different patterns of coloration more or less visible on different
504 APPENDIX E
occasions. There have 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 ga-
zelle and Thomson’s gazelle. Of all these animals, the wildebeest, be-
cause 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 ga-
zelles, partly from their small size and partly 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 harte-
beests and zebras, I have sometimes seen the hartebeests first and some-
times the zebras.*
The truth is that this plains game never seeks to escape observation
at all, and that the coloration patterns of the various animals are not
concealing and are of practically no use whatever in protecting the ani-
mals from their foes. The beasts above enumerated are colored in widely
different fashions. If any one of them was really obliteratively colored,
it would mean that some or all of the others were not so colored. But,
as a matter of fact, they are none of them instances of concealing colora-
tion; 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.”” The roan and oryx have nearly uniform colored coats
which often do harmonize with their surroundings; but their bold face
* Mr. Thayer tries to show that the cross stripes on the legs of zebras are of pro-
tective 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 stand-
point. 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
value.
APPENDIX E 505
markings are conspicuous.* None of these big or medium sized plains
animals, while healthy and unhurt, seeks to escape observation by hiding.
This is the direct reverse of what occurs with many bush antelopes.
Undoubtedly many of the latter do seek to escape observation. 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
colored—at any rate, if the coloration is protective for one it certainly
is not for the other. The bushbuck is a boldly colored beast, and I do
not believe for a moment that it ever owes its safety to protective colora-
tion. 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 coloration. 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 otherwise. When it lies down, its oblitera-
tive shading entirely disappears, 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 standing, 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
* A curious instance of the lengths to which some protective-coloration theorists go
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.
506 APPENDIX E
never any difficulty in seeing them; the difficulty is to prevent their see-
ing the hunter.
Mr. Thayer’s thesis is “that all patterns and colors 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 statement 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 complete fashion are colored 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 colored melanistic forms of these creatures seem
as well fed and successful as the others. Mono-colored 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 ob-
tain 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
Ce ee ee ee eo
APPENDIX E 507
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 adver-
tisement.
The big black and white Colobus monkey has been adduced as
an instance of the “‘concealing”’ quality of bold and conspicuous colora-
tion 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 stand-point; a soldier in a black frock
coat and top hat, with white duck trousers, might 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 uni-
form 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 colored 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 colored 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 protectively colored; 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 obser-
vations at first-hand. I have studied the facts as regards big game and
508 APPENDIX E
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 necessary in
striving to apply it extensively, while fanciful and impossible efforts to
apply it 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 colorations and color patterns seem to bring the
same results to the wearers. The bear and the skunk are both catch-
ers of small rodents, and when the color patterns of the back, nose,
and breast, for instance, are directly opposite in the two animals, there 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-colored
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 gray, 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 protective 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 wide-spread importance.
But they must be most carefully weighed, considered, and corrected
by capable scientific men before it is possible to say how far the theory
Is ae
APPENDIX E 509
applies and what limitations there are to it. At present all that is abso-
lutely 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. They cer-
tainly 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 introductory, Mr.
Thayer says of birds that the so-called “nuptial colors, etc., are con-
fined to situations where the same colors 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 colors “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 cir-
cumstances.” It is really difficult to argue about a statement so flatly
contradicted by ordinary experience. Taking at random two of the
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 colored in the most conspicuous manner to
attract attention, if they are not so colored 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 case 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 color or shape may, if motionless, 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 hundred, and
probably, after a little study, by the thousand. As regards many of these
510 APPENDIX E
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 colored
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 color-
ation. It may be that his theories really do not apply to a very large
number of animals which are colored white, or are pale in tint, beneath.
For instance, in the cases of creatures like those 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
different from anything concerned with protection or concealment.
There are other problems of coloration for which Mr. Thayer pro-
fesses 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 protecting itself by concealment, for
the cougar is one of the most elusive of creatures, one of the most difficult
to see, either by the hunter who follows 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 colored like a cougar,
and in Africa we found by actual experience that the very differently
colored leopard and lioness and cheetah and serval were, when in pre-
cisely similar localities, equally difficult to observe. It almost seems as
* 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.
APPENDIX E 511
if with many animals the matter of coloration is immaterial, so far as
concealment is concerned, compared with the ability of the animal to
profit by cover and 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 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 coloration of the other.
But perhaps the climax of Mr. Thayer’s theory is reached 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
understand how any man trained to proper scientific observation can
believe it to be so. The Indian, and the savage generally, have a mar-
vellous 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 toward elephants, and yet, thanks to their skill, less
apt to be observed than I was in dull-colored garments. 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 mak-
ing 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 same 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
512 APPENDIX E
- American Indians and other savages have no concealing or protective
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.
tie daw shen ow Lhe
biotin, cud 'peucleng,
Ate gf fave &
that acct lat a Sina
THipdort Neoscarttr A
APPENDIX -
purcenley é
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Tue original list of the “Pigskin Library” was as follows:
Bible.
Apocrypha.
Borrow Bible in Spain.
Zingali.
Lavengro.
Wild Wales.
The Romany Rye.
Shakespeare.
Spenser Faerie Queene.
Marlowe.
Mahan Sea Power.
Macaulay History.
Essays.
Poems.
Homer Tliad.
Odyssey.”
Chanson de Roland.
Nibelungenlied.
Carlyle Frederick the Great.
Shelley Poems.
Bacon Essays.
Lowell Literary Essays.
Biglow Papers.
Emerson. . Poems.
Longfellow.
Tennyson.
Poe Tales.
Poems.
Keats.
Milton Paradise Lost (Books I and II).
Dante Inferno (Carlyle’s translation).
Holmes Autocrat.
Over the Teacups.
Bret Harte Poems. :
Tales of the Argonauts.
Luck of Roaring Camp.
Browning Selections.
Crothers Gentle Reader.
513
Pardoner’s Wallet.
514 APPENDIX F
Mark Twata SOUS eo a Gel Sa 0 eer ana .
Tom Sawyer. |
Bunyan’s ‘‘Pilgrim’s Progress.”
Euripides (Murray’s translation) . . . Hippolytus. |
Bacche. .
The Federalist.
Gregoroviua 6.8 eu a
as i a ee PaO ASTIRVENDI Os urietme SUiaK ei
Guy Mannering.
Waverley.
Rob Roy.
Antiquary. .
Cooper ie ie a RAM TU a |
Two Admirals.
Froissart. )
Percy’s Reliques. |
Thackeray 660.) SAG |
Pendennis.
Dickens. 0 ee eee) eh er rr
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 Maga-
ue zine [see page 23]), and so many comments were made upon it, often |
*%& in connection with the list of books recently made public by ex-President |
ee of Harvard, that I may as well myself add a word on the subject.
In addition to the books originally belonging to the “library,” vari-
ous others were from time to time added; among them, “Alice in
Wonderland” and “Through the Looking-Glass,” Dumas’s “ 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 Khayyd4m,” 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 albatross should apply
to a dodo for an essay on flight), “Don Quixote,” Montaigne, Mo-
liére, Goethe’s “‘ Faust,” Green’s “Short History of the English People,”
Pascal, Voltaire’s “‘Siécle de Louis XIV,” the “Mémoires de M. Simon”
APPENDIX F 3 515
(to read on the way home), and “The Soul’s Inheritance,” 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 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
consequence the books were stained with blood, sweat, gun oil, dust,
and ashes; ordinary bindings either vanished or became loathsome,
whereas pigskin merely grew 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 good 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,”
ZEschylus, Sophocles, Aristotle, Joinville’s “History of St. Louis,’’ the
Odyssey (Palmer’s translation), volumes of Gibbon and Parkman, Louns-
bury’s Chaucer, Theocritus, Lea’s “History of the Inquisition,” Lord
Acton’s Essays, and Ridgeway’s “Prehistoric Greece.” Once I took
Ferrero’s “History of 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
behind; 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 translations from early Irish poetry; yet
*I am writing on the White Nile from memory; the titles I give may sometimes
be inaccurate, and I cannot, of course, begin to remember all the books I have at
different times taken out with me.
516 APPENDIX F
another time I took Morris’s translations of various Norse Sagas, includ-
ing the Heimskringla, and liked them so much that I then incautiously
took his translation of Beowulf, only to find that while it had undoubtedly
been translated out of Anglo-Saxon, it had not been translated into Eng-
lish, 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 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 au-
Pa thors, but (unless I had every confidence in the author) only if I had
already read the book. Among many, I remember offhand a few such
as “The Virginian,” “Lin McLean,” “Puck of Pook’s Hill,” “Uncle
Remus,” “Aaron of the Wild Woods,” “Letters of a Self-made Mer-
chant 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,”
“The Taskmasters,” Edith Wyatt’s “Every Man to His Humor,” 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 reached, 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 occasion-
ally one by some writer who was not great—like “The Semi-attached
Couple,” a charming little early-Victorian 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 con-
APPENDIX F 517
tinually 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;”
“Moby Dick,” because I had been rereading ““Omoo” and “Typee;”
Gogol’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’s
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 nov-
elist was decidedly the better historian. I took ““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 cer-
tainly 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 any one 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,” “Twa Corbies,” Michael Dray-
518 APPENDIX F
ton’s “Agincourt,” Scott’s “‘ Harlaw,” “‘Eve of St. John” and the Flod-
den 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,” “Enceladus,” “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 the
least with my admiration for “Ulysses,” “The Revenge,” “The Palace
of Art,” the little poems in ‘‘The Princess,”’ and in fact most of Tenny-
son. Nor does my liking for Tennyson prevent my caring greatly 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 feel 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 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. This is of no consequence so long as it is frankly con-
ceded 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 pretensions 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
APPENDIX F 519
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 Xeno-
phon 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 Aneid 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 stand-point.
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 favor “Vanity Fair,”
“Anna Karénina,” ‘“‘Les Misérables,” “‘The Scarlet Letter,” or hun-
dreds 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 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 widest
divergence of choice, according to the individuality of the man making
* 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 permitted to peek
through.
520 APPENDIX F
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.*
We are apt to speak of the judgment of “posterity”’ as final; but “ pos-
terity” is no single entity, and the “posterity” of one age has no neces-
sary sympathy with the judgments of the “posterity” that preceded it by a
few centuries. Montaigne, in a 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 not
long afterward 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 anything Ovid wrote. Dante offers an even more strik-
ing 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 understand such a choice, which omits the mighty
* 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 sub-
stantially the same language. I am entirely aware that if I made an anthology of poems,
I should include a great many American poems—like Whittier’s ‘‘ Snow-Bound,” “ Icha-
bod,” and ‘“‘Laus Deo”; like Lowell’s “Commemoration Ode” and “ Biglow Papers”
—which could not mean to an Englishman what they mean tome. 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 corresponding 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. .
APPENDIX F 521
Greek dramatists (with whom in the same canto Dante shows his ac-
quaintance), 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. ‘The ingenuity exercised in choosing the “Hundred Best
Books”’ is all right if accepted as a mere amusement, giving something
of the pleasure derived from a missing-word puzzle. 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 conditions of time and surroundings.
Kuartoum, March 15, 1910.
INDEX
Aberdare ranges, 231, 319.
Abutilon, a flowering shrub on which
elephant feed, 262.
Africa, British East, 1; English rule in,
103, 104; healthy climate of, 126; fut-
ure of, 145; spring in, 233; preserva-
tion of elephant in, 242; missionary
work in, 374, 375.
Africa, East, growth and development
of, 34, 35; natives of, 36, 37.
Africa, German East, 39.
Akeley, Carl, 58, 346, 347, 348, 349, 350.
Akeley, Mrs., 346, 350.
Ali, the tent boy, 277, 278, 337.
Allen, Mr., 351.
American flag, 17, 83, 375.
American Mission Stations, 102, 104;
Industrial, 146, 147, 369; Mission at
Sobat, visit to, 463.
Antelope, 47, 126, 275; roan antelope,
329, 339, 332) 442.
Ants, 367, 390; damage done by, 435;
driver ants, 435.
Arabs, 277, 278.
Ardwolf (a miniature hyena), 286.
Askaris, or native soldiers, 18, 85.
Asser, Colonel, 444.
Athi Plains, 42.
Attenborough, Messrs., 210.
‘Baboons, 218, 219.
Bahima herdsmen, 380, 38r.
Bahr el Ghazal, 460.
Bahr el Zeraf, 461.
Baker, Sir Samuel, 63.
Bakhari, a gun-bearer, 276; ostriches de-
scribed by, 278; 337.
Banana plantation, 261.
Bateleur eagle, the, 382.
Bats, 306, 398, 399.
Beetles, Goliath, 390.
Belgian Government, courtesy of, 396.
Belgian troops, soldiers of, 445, 446.
Birds, 32, 33; honey bird, 108, 196, 197;
extraordinary habit of, 340, 341, 344;
whydah finches, 132, 133, 144, 158;
“lily trotters,” 211; wealth of bird
life, 211, 216, 220, 221; water birds,
224, 225, 228, 289, 341, 382, 389, 399;
391, 397, 405, 406, 434, 435; wagtails,
443, 464, 468
Bishops in Africa. See Hanlon, Streicher,
Tucker.
Black water fever, 453.
Boar, 205.
Boers, the, 37, 38, 39, 40; identity of
interest between Britons and, 41, 114,
352, 353-
Bondoni, 37, 81.
Bongo, 364, 365, 366.
Borani caravan, a, 283.
Botha, Mr., 352.
Boyle, Mr., 371.
Brandy, moderate use of, 464, 465.
Brooks, Mr., 351.
Browne, Mr., District Commissioner,
234.
Buffalo, 58, 128, 133, 134, 135; et seq.,
244; bulls, 287; disease wiped out
herds of, 288, 289, 307, 308, 309, 429,
430; great muscular power of, 431.
Bulpett, Mr., 108.
Burroughs, John, 340.
Bushbuck, 230, 275, 339; 343, 383, 479,
420.
Bustard, 191, 285, 419; great bustard,
139, 195.
Butiaba, 392.
Butler Bey, 444.
Buxton, Edward North, 3; books on .
sport of, 327, 328.
“Bwana,” Swahili title of, 102, 438.
523
524
Cambridge Museum, 351.
Camp, pitching, 85; at Kilimakiu, 89;
fires in, 404.
Caravan, a, 283.
Carnegie, Andrew. Appendix A.
Champagne, case of, 453, 464.
Chapman, Abel, 64.
Chapman, Captain, 353, 354.
Cheetah, 77, 124, 285.
Christians, 278.
Christmas Day, march on, 383. j
Clark, 269, 346, 350. j
Cobra, 203, 196. {
Cole, Barclay, 365. \
Collier, Robert, 346.
Colobus monkey, 363, 433, 434.
Coloration of animals, effect of sunlight
on, 183, 184, 202, 280, 343, appendix E,
Congo, the, 384.
Corbett, Mr., District Commissioner,
353) 354-
Corbett, Mrs., 353, 354-
Cormorants, 442, 443.
Coryndon, Major R. T., 60.
Cow-catcher, ride on the, 13, 15.
Cow heron, 134, 378, 434.
Crewe, Lord. Appendix A.
Crocodile, 286, 311, 417, 418, 433, 434.
Cuckoos, mice eaten by, 359.
Cuninghame, R. J., 3, 130, 140, 150, 156,
178, 190, 219, 244, 246, 252, 256, 281,
331, 368, 385, 423, 452, 454, 466,
appendix A.
Dance, funeral, 367.
Dance, Kikuyu, 234.
Dancing-rings, 132, 133.
Delamere, Lord, 360, 361, 362, 364.
Dikdik, 43, 203.
Dogs, 126, 142.
Donors of double elephant rifle, list of,
22.
Donyo Sabuk, 109.
Dorobo, a, 246; elephant’s death causes
hysterics of, 253.
Drummond, 63.
Dugmore, A. R, Appendix E.
Duiker, 43, 232, 359, 425.
Dust devils, 425.
Dysentery, deaths from, 436, 444.
INDEX
Egrets, white, 404.
Egyptian geese, 225.
Eland, go, 91, 159, 160, 273; Patterson’s
eland, 274, 275, 289; gait of, 291,
292; fun with a herd of, 318, 3109,
343; giant eland, 444, 448, 449,
450.
Elephant, 58, 236, 237; et seq.,
wonderful climbing powers of, 249;
death of first, 252, 253, 262, 267; bad
sight of, 345, 347, 348, 384, 387, 400,
409, 411; large herd of, 434; men
killed by, 437.
Elukania, 49.
Entebbe, 369.
Equipment, 23.
Euphorbias, 32, 182, 388.
247;
Fires, 404, 405.
Fish eagles, 435.
Flamingoes, 322.
Flies, game annoyed by, 304; tsetse fly,
360, 406; sleeping-sickness fly, 406.
Flowers, 32, 232, 233, 336, 378.
Fox, African, 230.
Francolins, 344.
Freakishness of wild beasts, 290.
Game, reserve, 11; laws, 11; butchery of,
12; comparative danger in hunting
different kinds of, 58, 63, 64; stamp-
ing grounds of, 185; varying habits of,
198, 199, 200; et seg.,; books on East
African, 327; need of an adequate
term to distinguish the sexes of African,
339, 340; scent of, 387; in middle
Africa, preservation of, 400; shot dur-
ing trip, list of, 466, 467, 468.
Garstin, Sir William, 462.
Gazelles, 26; Grant’s gazelles, 26, 42,
51; northern form of, 295, 296; Rob-
erts’ gazelles, 175, 176; Thomson’s ga-
zelles, 26, 42, 52, 176.
Genet kittens, 300.
Gerenuk, 286, 296, 306.
Giraffe, interruption of telegraph service
by, 14, 44; characteristics of, 96, 98, ©
99, etc., 172, 173; peculiar gait of, 291;
“reticulated” form of, 300, 302, 303;
indifference to water of, 307; interest-
INDEX
ing experience with a, 314, 315, 334,
335; note on, 335.
Girouard, Sir Percy, 369.
Goanese, 8, 228.
Goldfinch, Mr., encounter with a lion, 66.
Gondokoro, 438; march to, 441, 452.
Gouvimali, the gun-bearer, 158, 276, 278,
317, 337) 431.
Government farm, 224.
Government House, 227.
Grey, Sir Edward. Appendix A.
Grogan, Quentin, 396, 415, 416, 420, 421,
423, 425, 420.
Guaso Nyero, 155, 157, 272, 305, 337-
Guerza, 148.
Guinea-fowls, 305.
Gun-bearers, 107, 108; rejoicings of the,
258, 259; amusing English of the, 278;
characteristics of the, 337, 338.
Haddon, Mr., District Commissioner,
453-
Hamburg, 3.
Hanlon, Bishop, 375, 377.
Hartebeest, 26; ‘‘Kongoni,” Swahili
name of, 43; Coke’s, 50, 130, 131, 160,
161; Neuman’s, 320; Jackson’s, 332,
336, 345, 383; Nile, 419.
Hay, John, 162.
Heat, 441, 442, 447, 448.
Heatley, Hugh H., 38, 126, 127, 128, 138,
144, 227.
Heller, Edmund A., 3, 77, 93, 101, 140,
156, 190, 217, 232, 260, 265, 281, 335,
404, 417, 423, 452.
Hill, Clifford, 20, 38, 68.
Hill, Harold, 20, 38, 68, 69, 77, 78, 79, 80.
Hinde, Major, 9.
Hinterland, 1.
Hippo, 122, 123, 212, 213, 214, etc., 219,
220, etc., 243, 244; porters chased by
a, 347, 399, 410.
Hobley, Mr., Provincial Commissioner,
325.
Hog, the giant, 364, 365.
Hoima, 390.
Honey bird, first sight of, 108; character-
istic experience with a, 196, 197; ex-
traordinary habit of, 340, 341,. 344.
Hornaday, W. T., 412.
525
Hornbills, 271.
Horne, Mr., 254, 255, 283, 287.
Horses, the, 279, 360.
Humphery, Mr., District Commissioner,
41, 66.
Hunt, Leigh, 444, appendix A.
Hurlburt, Mr., 146.
Hutchinson, Captain, R.N.R., 392, 393.
Hyena, 59, 60, 61, 62, 163, 164, 185;
difficulty in determining sex of, 333,
339, 337, 350, 361.
Hyraxes, 318, 364.
Ibis stork, 224.
Impalla, 43, 110, 111, 112, 113, 322.
Indian trader, letter from an, 270.
Ingowa, an, a war-dance of the natives,
269.
Ivory, 241, 242, 264; poachers of, 395,
396.
Jackal, 285.
Jackson, Lieutenant-Governor, 6, 63,
145, 269.
Jordaan, Mr., 353, 354.
Judd, H., 38, 109, 226.
Juja Farm, 102, 106, 124.
Juma Yohari, Kermit’s gun-bearer, 337,
368, 4309.
Jungle, the, 255, 256.
Jusserand, M., French ambassador, 162.
Kafu River, 390.
Kamiti Ranch, 126.
Kamiti River, 127, 128.
Kampalla, 371.
Kangani, 297.
Kapiti Plains, 17, 42.
Kassitura, Kermit’s gun-bearer, 337, 402,
439, 452.
Kavirondo crane, 132, 229, 280, 281,
293.
Kearton, Mr., 269.
Kenia, Mount, 235, 272; biological sur-
vey of, 323, 324; appendix D.
Khartoum, parting from comrades at,
464.
Kijabe, 146, 147, 148, 229, 369.
Kikuyu savages, 106, 107, 216, 229;
dance of, 234, 236, 254, 270, 276.
526 INDEX
Kilimakiu, 37, 88.
Kilimanjaro, 3o.
Kilindini, 367.
King’s African Rifles, the, encamped at
Neri, 269.
Kirke, Mr., 352, 354, 357:
Kisumu, 369.
Kitanga, hills of, 29, 30.
Klipspringers, 56, 186.
Klopper, Mr., 37, 39.
Knowles, Mr., District Commissioner,
371; struck by lightning, 379.
Kob, Uganda, 341, 342, 419, 458;
lechwe, 454, 455, 456, 458, 461;
Vaughn’s, 458; white-eared, 454, 461,
462.
Koba, 395.
Koda, the river, 445.
Kolb, Dr., 361.
Kongoni, a Wakamba gun-bearer, 337,
346, 385, 386, 402, 430, 431.
Koodoo, 320, 321.
Lado country, the, 392, 396, 417, 453.
Lake Albert Nyanza, 379, 392.
Lake Hannington, 292, 322.
Lake Ingouga, 264.
Lake Naivasha, 198, 210, 229.
Lake No, 454.
Lake Sergoi, 351, 352.
Lake Victoria Nyanza, 368.
Lantana brush, a favorite cover for
elephants, 260.
Leopard, 44, 45, 58, 114, 116, 217, 218;
man-eating, 289, 290; 343, 361; trap
carried off by a, 409, 452.
Lioness, 65, 79, 80, 166, 167, 187, 188,
190.
Lions, 58, 64, 65, 66, e¢ seg.; death of
first, 73, 75, 79, 163, 191-193, 226,
227; cow elephants charge, 268; party
of eleven, 283, 284, e¢ seq., 314, 3553
stabbed to death by spears, 356, 357;
supposed monogamy of, 358.
Lizards, blue-green, 318; monitor, 397,
417, 418; crocodile’s nest plundered
by, 432.
Loijs, Mr., 37) 39-
Londiani, 328, 359.
London, Mr., 322.
Loring, J. Alden, 3, 139, 140, 156, 206,
229, 404, 410, 413; variety of photos
taken by, 432, 442, 453, appendices,
ae 8
Machakos-boma, 21, 102.
Magi, a sais, 338, 438, 451, 452.
Mahdism, 453, 454.
Mali, Kermit’s tent boy, 338.
Mammals, large, list of, appendix B;
small, 34, 157, 206; list of, appendix B.
Man-eater, adventure with a, 10.
Marabou stork, 275, 435.
Masai, 35, 107, 160; kraal of the, 168,
169, 189; lions attack on, 206, 207;
guides, 208, 229; dance of the, 235;
villages of, 271.
Massart, M., 444.
Mau escarpment, 366.
McCutcheon, John T., the cartoonist,
346, 350.
McMillans, 42, 106, 226, 228.
Mearns, Surgeon-Lt. Col. Edgar A., 3,
139, 140, 156, 206, 207, 229, 341, 404,
432, 453, 457, appendix D.
Medlicott, 71, 74.
Meru Boma, 254, 260, 281, 283, 289.
Meru, wild hunters, 26r.
Mice, varieties of, 157, 217, 232; tree-
mouse, 305, 390, 406.
Middleton, Captain, 444.
Millais, John G., “‘A Breath from the
Veldt.” Appendix E.
Milne, Dr., 325.
Missions: American, 102, 104; French
Catholic, 146; American Industrial,
146; Kijabe, 229; Kampalla, head-
quarters of the, 372; Church of Eng-
land, 375; Catholic, 375; Medical,
375; Mission of the White Fathers,
377; Sobat, 463.
Mohammedanism, 14.
Mombasa, 2, 6.
Mombasa Club, dinner at, 7.
Mongalla, 453.
Mongoose, interesting anecdote of a,
290, 364.
Monkey, Colobus, 363, 433, 434.
Monkeys, 248; swim across a river, 314,
363, 382, 433, 442.
INDEX
Moose, anecdote of a, 292.
Mosquitoes, 381, 382, 397, 429.
Mother Paul, 376, 377.
Mouton, Mr., 353, 354, 355:
Mua Hills, 42.
Mules, 406, 444.
Music, instruments of, 388.
Nairobi, 61, 145, 146, 226; race week
at, 228; plague of wild beasts in, 325,
368; good-by to friends at, 369.
Nairobi Falls, 128.
Nairobi River, 106, 128.
Naivasha, Lake, see Lake.
Nakuru, 323, 369.
Nandi, the, 353, 354, 355; lion killed
by spears of, 356; rejoicings of, 357.
Naples, arrival at, 5. ,
Naturalists, work of the modern, 17;
pre-eminence of the, 190; need of am-
ple observation by trustworthy field,
286; troubles of hunting as a, 303;
difficult profession of, 415.
’Ndorobo, primitive lives of the, 207;
Masai ’Ndorobo, 245, 246, 247, 250;
accident to the, 253; characteristics of
the, 361, 362, 363, 364. 3
Neri, 231, 234, 269.
Neuman, Arthur, 310, 311.
Newland, Mr., 357, 358, Appendix A,
Nile, the, 436, 453, 454, 493, 464.
Nimule, 436, 438, 441.
Njoro, 360.
Nuer, a, 459.
Nyanza lakes, see Lake.
Nyika village, a, 367.
’Nzoi River, 328, 338.
Oribi, 333, 336, 339; 359; 399-
Oryx, 273, 274, 275, 280, 286, 296, 297.
Ostrich, 298, 299, 300.
Ostrich-farming, 131.
Otters, 214.
Owego Gazelle, 225.
Owen, Colonel, 444, 453.
Ox wagons, 149, 150, 352.
Pagans, 14.
Palms, 260; ivory-nut, 305.
Papyrus swamps, 127, 128, 210, 433.
527
Patterson, Colonel J. H., author of “The
Man-eaters of Tsavo,” 9.
“Pax Europaica,” results of the, 283.
Peary, news of finding of the Pole by,
292; cable from, 292.
Pease, Sir Alfred, 20, 21, 42, 62, 71, 73,
74, 105.
Pease, Miss, 71, 74.
Pelican, 225.
Pennant, Captain Douglas, 325.
Percival, 37, 68, 71.
Piggott, L. Mr., District Commissioner,
289.
Pigskin Library, 23, 162; additions to,
368; appendix F.
Pleistocene, 2.
Poe, quotation from, 394.
Police, New York, 376; note on, 376.
Porcupines, 218.
Porters, songs of the, 81, 440; character-
istics of, costumes of, 82, 83, 84, 86;
feasts of, 95, 436; white men chris-
tened by, 102, 143; game hallalled for,
191; short-sightedness of, 208, 210,
279; rhino tosses a, 309, 330, 331, 3373
good-by to the, 359; work of Uganda,
380; tags to designate, 420; faithfulness
of the, 438; presents for, 439, 44°, 452.
‘“‘Posho,” food for the porters, 269.
Potha, 76.
Prinsloo, Mr., 37, 42.
“‘Protective coloration,” 43, 44, 45, 46,
343, 363, appendix E.
Puff-adder, 188, 196, 291, 389.
Python, 113, 157.
Quin, 384.
Race week, 228.
“Railway Journey, Most Interesting, in
the World,” ro.
Ranquet, M., 444.
Ratel, or honey badger, 330.
Rats, different species of, 217, 232, 390.
Redjaf, 444, 445.
Reedbuck, mountain, 43, 56; Bohor, 332,
339 343, 359; 383-
Renkin, M. Appendix A.
Rewero Falls, 129.
Rewero River, 106, 128.
fe > wes)
528
Rhinoceros, 58, 91-93, etc., 117-120;
habits of different species of, 174, 177,
182; ‘‘Keitloa” type of horn of, 194,
comparison with elephant of, 238, 239,
243; finest specimen of, 260, 266; por-
ter tossed and gored by a, 309; the
square-mouthed or white, 400-403,
407; difference in size of, 408, 4009,
412-416; pictures of, 420, 421; horn
measurement of, 422, 423; unusual
position of, 428, 431.
Rifles, 22; donors of the elephant rifle,
22, 87; first trial of the Holland, 92;
work done by the different, 101; com-
parison of, 118, 120, 121, 159, 165, 167,
172, 178, 194, 195, 225, 258, 267, 450.
Rift Valley, 433.
Rohr, the, 458.
Roosevelt, Kermit, 3, 23, 100; red-letter
day of, 162, 175, 180, 193, 205, 228,
230; successful photos of wild elephant
taken by, 259, 283, 284; unequalled
record in killing cheetahs of, 285, 319,
320; twentieth birthday of, 323, 334,
340, 347, 365; hunt for sable of, 366,
367, et seg., 387, 402; good rhino pict-
ures taken by, 420; health of, 436,
465; devotion of followers to, 438;
in seeing and chasing game, skill of,
193, 449.
Roosevelt, Theodore, sails from New
York, 3; arrival at Mombasa of, 6;
starts on a hunt alone, 254; fifty-first
birthday of, 328; health throughout
trip of, 465, 466.
Rumeruti, 320.
Sable, the, 366, 367, 368.
“Safari,” 17, 82, 156; peace-offering to
the “‘safari ants,” 271; attraction for
natives of work of, 330, 331; good-by
to the, 359; conduct of the, 360;
“wood safari,” 440.
Sahara, 372.
Saises, or horse boys, 18, 277, 278.
Salt marsh, a, 202, 203.
Samburu, the, cattle-owning nomads,
310.
Sanderson, Captain, Town Clerk, 325.
Sandiford, Mr., 61.
INDEX
Scale for weighing game, 24, 313.
Schilling, Carl G., “Flashlight and
Rifle.” Appendix E.
Scientific expedition, difficulty of trans-
porting supplies on a, 293.
Scotch settlers, engaged to take charge of
the safari, 269.
Selous, Frederick Courteney, 3, 5, 42, 63,
182, 226.
Serval cat, 285, 452.
“‘Shambas,”’ 236.
“‘Shenzis,” wild natives, 262, 276, 380;
* gifts to the, 452.
Situtunga, 379.
Skally, Mr., 352, 354.
Skins, difficulty in preparing, 139, 145,
445.
Slatin Pasha, 444.
Slatter, Captain Arthur, 37, 38, 97,
08.
Sleeping sickness, ravages of, 39, 60, 370;
preventive of, 371; sleeping-sickness
fly, bite of, 406.
Smith hopelessly crippled by a lion, 156.
Smith, Captain, 326.
Smith, William Lord, 351.
Smithsonian, 3.
Snakes, 195, 196, 291; man bitten by a,
331, 389.
Soldiers, Sikh, 378; Egyptian and Sou-
danese, 453.
Solvé, M., 460, 461.
Somalis, 107, 229.
Songs, native: victory song, 76, 81, 216;
on death of elephant, 258, 259; Kikuyu
savages’ songs, 270, 357, 440.
Sotik, 146, 198.
Soudan, success of English rule in the,
454.
Southern Cross, 30.
Spearmen, Nandi, 356.
Spirillum tick, 38r.
Springhaas, 217, 225; ‘‘shining”’ spring-
haas by night, 229, 230.
“‘Star-spangled Banner, The,” 375,
376.
Stations, condition of railroad, 14.
Steinbuck, 43, 195, 273; conspicuous
coat of the, 281, 359.
INDEX
Stevenson, 346, 350.
Stigand, 63.
Stork, saddle-billed, or jabiru, 231.
Stork, the whale-billed, 457, 460.
Storms, majesty of the, 276, 277; thunder-
storms, 378.
Straus, Oscar. Appendix A.
Streicher, Bishop, 375.
Suavi River, 154.
Sud, the, 454.
Supplies, naturalists’, 17.
Sururu, kraal of Chief, 423, 424; camp
outside village of, 428, 429.
Swahili, the coast men, 18, 229, 330.
Swahili (a kind of African chinook), 262,
277.
Tana, 236.
Tarlton, Leslie, 3, 20, 156, 165, 166, 190,
192, 244, 257, 259, 283, 284, 287,
320, 331, 334, 339, 342, 347, ef seq.,
368. Appendix A.
“Teddy bears,” 364.
Tent boys, 277, 278, 337, 338.
Terriers, wart-hog killed by, 219.
Thayer, Gerald H., book on “Conceal-
ing Coloration.” Appendix E.
“Thirst, The,” 148, 150.
Throwing-sticks, 56.
Ticks, 29, 112.
Topi, 157, 161, 162, 176, 178.
Tranquillity, the horse, 20, 98, 99,
334-
‘Transport riding,” 149.
Trails, Africa a country of, 88, 89.
Traps, beasts caught in, 217, 218.
Trees, 233, 248; many kinds of strange,
282, 294; “‘sausage-tree,” 344; baobab-
tree, 367, 378, 388.
Tsetse fly, 360, 406.
Tucker, Bishop, 375, 376.
529
Uasin Gishu, 328, 329, 336.
Uganda, 59, 368; explorers of, people of,
372; government of, 373, 374, 3753
houses in, 378.
Uganda, King of, 372; visit to, 377.
Uganda Railway, 12.
Ulyate, 148, 149.
University of California, elephant skin
presented to, 258.
Unyoro, 390; King of, 391.
Vegetation, character of the, 281.
Wadelai, 396; natives of, 396.
Wakamba, 35, 36, 77, 89, 90; trained to
act as skinners, 94, 102, 229.
Wa-Meru, the, a wild martial tribe, 255,
261, 283.
Ward, Mr. F. A., 325.
Wart-hog, 87, 129, 166.
Waterbuck, 109, 110; singsing, 218, 230,
231, 306, 316, 341, 342, 344, 408, 424.
Waterspout, a, 272.
Whale-billed stork, the, 457, 460.
White, Mr. John Jay, 403.
White Nile, the, 395.
Whydah finches, 132, 133; new kinds of
whydah birds, 265.
Wildebeest, 26, 27, 28, 29, 43, 161; shy-
ness of, 175, 176, 180, 181.
Williams, 206, 226.
Wingate, Major-General Sir Reginald,
444.
Zebra, Burchell’s, 297, 304.
Zebra, Grévy’s, 286; called by the por-
ters ‘‘kangani,” 297; weight of a, 312.
Zebras, protection of, 13, 48-50, 130,
131; savagery of, 228, 316; put in the
pound at Nairobi, 326.
Zoological garden, 15.
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