UC-NRLF
SB 51 2 ID
O
THE LIBRARY
* OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
PRESENTED BY
PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND
MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID
THE STORY OF
AN OUTING
BY
A. BARTON HEPBURN
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
FROM PHOTOGRAPHS
HARPER y BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
MCMXIII
COPYRIGHT
PRINTED IN
M-N
because of its merits, but because of the subject
matter, I dedicate this diary to Irving Bacheller, old-time
friend, long-time chum, all-time good fellow, successful
author, jovial companion, good citizen. He ought to have
been a member of the party and told the story; then it
would be worth while.
A. BARTON HEPBURN
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. THE CALL OF THE WILD I
II. THE START 9
III. THE PANORAMA 15
IV. THE COUNTRY 24
V. INDUSTRIES AND NATIVES 30
VI. THE TREK 40
VII. A CHANGE OF BASE 49
VIII. ANOTHER CHANGE LIONS 61
IX. ANOTHER TREK HIPPO ANTS 70
X. REMINISCENCES TICKS BIRDS 75
XI. ROUNDING-UP 84
XII. EXPENSE 105
ILLUSTRATIONS
THE KING OF BEASTS Frontispiece
LOWER WATER-TANK AT ADEN Page n
ONE OF THE UPPER WATER-TANKS " n
HOTEL AT BOMBASA AND BAOBAB-TREE 13
RAILWAY STATION AND FRUIT-STAND 16
NATIVE SOLDIER, SHOWING BARE FEET, BLUE PUTTEES,
TRUNKS, SASH, SHIRT, AND FEZ 17
A SINGLE CONGONI " 18
THOMSON'S GAZELLE " 19
GRANT'S GAZELLE 19
AN IMPALA " 20
THE WILDEBEEST " 21
ZEBRA 22
TOTO (BABY RHINO) AND MAJOR KIRKWOOD .... " 22
SHOWING THE OPEN CHARACTER OF THE COUNTRY.
THESE Two PICTURES WERE TAKEN FROM THE SAME
POINT, LOOKING IN OPPOSITE DIRECTIONS, AND
COVERING A RANGE OF SEVEN OR EIGHT MILES . . 25
SHOWING THE OPEN CHARACTER OF WOODED HILLS . . 27
TYPICAL NEGRO HUTS MADE OF UPRIGHT STICKS
PLASTERED WITH MUD AND THATCHED WITH REEDS " 27
BUSH BUCK " 29
WATER BUCK " 29
FOUR OF THE "FOUR HUNDRED" " 31
MORE OF THE "FouR HUNDRED" " 33
MILLING INDUSTRY IN AFRICA " 35
MATERNITY " 35
CELEBRATING THE KILLING OF MY LION 37
LESSER KUDU " 37
ILLUSTRATIONS
TOPI page 41
ORYX " 41
WILDEBEEST SHOT AT Ju JA " 43
INTERIOR VIEW OF TENT " 47
TENTS SHOWING THE USUAL AFRICAN LAWN .... " 47
THE CROCK MEASURED SEVENTY -TWO INCHES IN
GIRTH BACK OF THE FORE-LEGS " 51
BUFFALO SKULLS " 53
CUNINGHAME IN MIDDAY COSTUME CARING FOR TROPHIES " 55
IMPALA SHOT BY PIRIE " 56
BUFFALO " 57
THE ELAND I SHOT " 59
ELAND, ONE YEAR OLD, IN CAPTIVITY " 59
ZEBRA " 62
WART HOG " 62
THE LION FELL AND NEVER MOVED " 65
NINE FEET Six AND NINE FEET NINE INCHES, RE-
SPECTIVELY " 67
READY FOR THE AFTERNOON QUEST " 73
TYPICAL INDIAN STORE AND DWELLING WHICH DOT
THE COUNTRY AND AFFORD THE NATIVES PLACES
TO TRADE AND BARTER " 82
OUR "SAFARI" CELEBRATING PIRIE'S FIRST BUFFALO . " 85
RAPID TRANSIT IN BRITISH EAST AFRICA " 86
INDIAN BAZAAR, NAIROBI " 87
STREET IN NAIROBI " 88
"DRESSED TO KILL" " 92
ONE NIGHT IN A "BoMA." H. LLOYD FOLSOM ... " 94
LYMAN N. HINE, IN THE GAME, WITH A GOOD PAIR TO
DRAW TO " 97
JOHN T. TERRY, JR., AND His FIRST LION " 97
"BOMA" AND ZEBRA-KILL, FROM WHICH EIGHT LIONS
WERE KILLED " 99
THE LODESTONE " 109
THE STORY OF AN OUTING
THE STORY OF
AN OUTING
T
THE CALL OF THE WILD
HE writer was born at Colton
enjoyed his youth ancKesfrty manhoody Colton is
situated in theToothills of th AdiiundacEsTon the banks
of the beautiful Raquette River, by far the largest in the
state save only the Hudson, and which carries to the
sea the waters of Tupper, Raquette, and Long lakes, and
outlets a large portion of the waters of the Adirondacks.
In this village in the short distance of a quarter-mile
the river falls ninety-two feet, in a succession of cascades
i
THE STORY OF AN OUTING
and roaring chutes, producing a scenic effect of wonder-
ful beauty, impressive power, and grandeur. The power
is now being converted into electricity and wired to dis-
tant points to carry the burdens and perform the labors of
many communities in the onrush of our intense civilization.
, Skating and swimming, boating and sledding, became
a second nature to me; fishing, rendered captivating
by the abundant supply in various lakes and streams;
shooting, inspired by the manifold bird life, aquatic and
land-lived, local and migratory, as well as mammals,
best represented by deer and occasional moose, and
carnivora, including the lynx, wolf, bear, and cougar,
naturally inclined every boy to become a disciple of
Izaak Walton and Daniel Boone. Masculine ambition
found expression in these channels, and prowess with rod
and gun was a generally coveted attainment.
At the age of seven I was the proud owner of a three-
and-one-half-pound muzzle-loading shot-gun, and chip-
munk and red squirrel filled the measure of my ambition.
However, I soon coveted bigger game black and gray
squirrel, grouse, and pigeon. Then it was my happy
fortune to possess a rifle, with its wider range and
greater effectiveness. The lowly chipmunk was re-
garded with scorn, and deer and dangerous animals
thenceforth furnished the imagery of my dreams, and
they alone could satisfy my "big-game" aspirations.
My big game was ever difficult, was just beyond the sky-
line, and changed in character, keeping step with growing
age, increasing strength, and more efficient firearms.
The same evolution characterizes life. "Man never
is, but ever to be blessed." The criterion of success, the
measure of our ambitions, changes with every advance-
2
THE CALL OF THE WILD
ment; each succeeding height scaled broadens the hori-
zon and brings within the range of vision greater possi-
bilities and the unattainable of yesterday becomes the
indispensable of to-morrow.
In 1872 I crossed the Great Plains, plains which
my school-boy geography characterized as^TThe Great
American Desert," but which has since grown into
important sovereign states, teeming with population
and industry. My crossing was not like the " '49-ers,"
beset with many hardships and exposed to danger from
hostile Indians, but whose motto, "Pike's Peak or bust,"
carried them safely through. I was made most comfort-
able in a Pullman car on the Union Pacific Railway. I
occupied a compartment adjoining one occupied by
George Francis Train. We saw from the train gray
wolf, deer, antelope, elk, and many herds of buffalo,
prairie-dogs, and jack-rabbits galore.
One thing that interested me greatly was a party of
New York sportsmen who were going on a buffalo hunt
with Colonel Cody as guide, known to the world now as
Buffalo Bill. They met Colonel Cody at Lone Tree
Station, left the train there and started upon their hunt,
the object of my keenest envy and admiration.
The time I spent in this far region and at that time /
almost untenanted range of mountain and plain brought
me a fair measure of success as a sportsman, and intensi-
fied my love for plain and mountain, forest and stream.
"I learned to 'know the world's white roof-tree/ and to-
'know the windy rift,
Where the baffling mountain eddies chop and change/
And to 'know the long day's patience, belly down, on
frozen drift,
While the head of heads is feeding out of range." 3
3
THE STORY OF AN OUTING
The rugged grandeur of the mountains inspired me
with reverential awe; their broad expanse and myriad
peaks, their valleys and their canons were a revelation.
I shall never forget an experience on the top of Pike's
Peak: surrounded by a brilliant sunlit atmosphere, I
saw below me a raging thunder-storm, with billowing,
seething masses of clouds which shut from view all the
world below; the play of lightning and the reveberating
thunder suggested Dante's "Inferno" and aroused a sense
that the dome of the mountain where I stood, an island
in this mass of warring elements, was about to be
engulfed and my day of reckoning was at hand. It was
strangely, weirdly beautiful, and gave me a dread realiza-
tion of the power of the elements and the impotence
of man.
In summer garb, the dark shades of the evergreen
forests, freshened and enlivened by the lighter shades
of deciduous trees and grasses, the rich and varying
color of the advancing season, with the orange of the
aspens and reds of the oaks and shrubs, ranging from
scarlet to magenta, all tempered and dignified by the
granite gray of boulder and cliff in all these moods the
mountains are impressively beautiful; but one never
gets the "spirit of the mountains" until they are seen
in winter garb, fast in the embrace of ice and snow, with
atmosphere crystal clear, with mantle of spotless white:
"Billows that never break,
Great waves that never roar,
Firm strands that never shake
Motionless sea and shore.
" Whitecaps of summer snow,
Hissing not in the breeze;
4
THE CALL OF THE WILD
Cloud ships that come and go,
Wraithlike, o'er silent seas.
" Ocean of crag and peak,
When ends thy mystery?
When shall thy breakers speak,
Startling eternity?"
Withjihe passing years the fascinating wild life which
West at that periodbegat a longing to
see the fauna of another great continent in a similar
state of nature.
The Red Gods had for years been calling me to a
" trusty, nimble tracker that I know" on the great
plateaus of Africa, where the herds of bovidae, cervidae,
and various carnivora are little disturbed by the native
negroes and the very few white men^who have made a
lodgment at comparatively few points of vantage.
No^other continent offers as great jtjiumber of game
animals, or such differentiation in species, or such
splendid individual specimens as Africa; the range in
mammals is from dik-dik to elephant; in carnivora, from
lion to jackal. Here_the panorama of wild life possesses
greatest variety and greatest fascination, and offers most
to the student of nature, as well as the sportsman.
Every sportsman must be a student of nature in a de-
gree in order to succeed, and when he is so in the higher,
better sense he possesses qualities of sterling manhood.
Every wholesome, well-equipped man possesses an innate
desire to match his strength against the forces of nature.
" Do you fear the force of the wind,
The slash of the rain?
Go face them and fight them,
Be savage again;
5
THE STORY OF AN OUTING
Go hungry and cold like the wolf,
Go wade like the crane,
The palms of your hands will thicken,
The skin of your forehead tan,
You'll be ragged and swarthy and weary,
But you'll walk like a man."
HAMLIN GARLAND.
or manly boy seeks sport seasoned with
, whether of wave or swirfirrg-rapkls,
towering mount or treacherous drift, terrific antler or
crushing fang the desire is irresistible to try one's
strength, or rather one's skill and power of endurance,
against the various defenses of dangerous animals,
oppose one's knowledge of their habits against their
cunning, practise the "long day's patience," long con-
tinued, until the supreme moment, when eye and gun
and game in straight alignment render possible the
transfer of spotted hide or antlered front to the walls of
your city home.
And the White Gods, too, are calling and opening
the eyes of mankind to the wonders and beauties of the
great open world. From pole to tropic, from equator to
pole, landscape, flora, and fauna are pinioned by the
lens and reproduced with absolute accuracy in all
respects save color, and we are on the verge of mastering
color. These pictures are spread upon the pages of
current publications or thrown upon screens for the
education and entertainment of all. The camera in-
vades the haunts of his royal highness, "the king of
beasts," the great "tuskers," and from mastodon to mar-
mot the doings of wild life are reproduced. Comfort-
ably seated in a theater in New York one may see the
6
THE CALL OF THE WILD
lassoing of a lion in Africa, the lassoing of lion or cou-
gar in the Rockies. You may also see the lassoing and
hoisting on board vessel of two polar bears and six
musk-oxen, within the arctic circle, at the inception of
their journey to the Bronx Zoo, where they now form
part of our zoological exhibit.
All hail photography in its wonderful service to man-
kind! Build shrines to the White Gods of the Lens and
the Brush, whose devotees are making us acquainted with
all parts of this little world of ours and its denizens, both
brute and human. They are also reaching out into
infinite space, and daily increasing our knowledge of the
universe, of which we form so small a part.
All hail every wholesome influence that lures from the
fetid artificiality of modern life to the pure air, the bright
sunshine, the detonating thunder, the storm with its
fury of swish and drift, to glorious contact with the
forces of nature, be they of gentler or sterner mood,
where we may recreate and exclaim with the greatest
of poets:
"And this our life exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything/'
The outdoor life sweetens all existence; it cultivates
the pure and wholesome in one's life and aspirations;
it lures from man-made attractions, that pander to
sensation, to God-made attractions, that sustain the
source of being; in advancing years it enables one to
exclaim:
"Though I look old, yet am I strong and lusty;
For in my youth I never did apply
7
THE STORY OF AN OUTING
Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood,
Nor did not with unbashful forehead
Woo the means of weakness and debility."
Acquire a love for the open, sacrifice to the Red Gods,
build shrines to the White Gods, foster the habit of
vacations that recreate and give strength, rather than
those that enervate and impair the strength you have.
II
THE START
HAVING sacrificed to the Red Gods and the White
Gods, and the augury proving favorable, we sailed
on the Mauritania, January 22, 1913, armed with guns,
cameras, and great expectations. Samuel C. Pirie, the
merchant prince and prince of good fellows, delightful
companion, prime sportsman; Lyman N. Hine, H. Lloyd
Folsom, and John T. Terry, Jr., classmates in Yale, just
in the twilight zone that separates school from harder
lessons found in the curriculum of real life, abounding
in health, strength, and enthusiasm three splendid
specimens of young American manhood these made up
our party of five.
We reached London January 28th, put our impedi-
menta on the German steamer Prinzes sin at Southamp-
ton, February 1st, and caught up with the steamer
February I3th, at Naples, having had nine days for
Paris, Monte Carlo, and Rome. A sixteen days' sail on
this sixty-four-hundred-ton vessel, that responded to the
roll of the billows in a way that an Atlantic liner would
scorn to do, brought us to Mombasa. Port Said, Suez,
and Aden were the only intermediate stops after leaving
Naples. The first two are interesting as marking the
termini of that great commercial enterprise, the Suez
9
THE STORY OF AN OUTING
Canal, conceived by and built under the supervision of
De Lesseps, the eminent French engineer. This canal,
eighty-seven miles in length, connects the Red Sea with
the Mediterranean and, thus separating two conti-
nents, makes the circumnavigation of Africa possible. It
brought the remoter parts of the world closer in touch
and has proved a boon alike to trade and travel. Aden,
with fifty-five thousand inhabitants, including the port
and town, occupies a volcanic peninsula between the
Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean. This peninsula, to-
gether with a coast strip on the mainland (eighty thousand
square miles, I believe), belongs to Great Britain, and
from the port and harbor of Aden, as a strategic center,
she manages the recalcitrant Somalis of British Somali-
land. Her long and arduous campaign against the Mad
Mullah and his ilk was costly, as war ever is, and largely
barren of good results, as war usually is. Aden is a
coaling and watering place for vessels in their long sail
to and from Europe and Asiatic and African points.
The coal is of course brought there, and the water is dis-
tilled from the sea retail price, seventy-eight cents per
one hundred gallons.
The five days' sail from Port Said to Aden is bordered
by desert lands on both shores. Aden possesses one
curiosity in the form of water-tanks hewn in the rock
and supplemented with masonry. They begin in a
notch in the hills and extend in a series down to the level,
each lower one supposed to catch the overflow from those
above. The storage capacity of these tanks is very
great; but who built them and why they were built are
questions no one can answer.
Aden and its surroundings are absolutely barren of
10
LOWER WATER-TANK AT ADEN
ONE OF THE UPPER WATER-TANKS
THE STORY OF AN OUTING
vegetable product. It has and can have no population
except as an incident to the traffic that calls as it passes
by. Seemingly this storage of water must have been
planned to serve passing commerce. How were these
tanks to be tilled? It never rains that is, hardly ever.
It rained the day I was there, but only enough to make
surface mud. Since the discovery of these tanks, by
excavation, they have been kept as a curiosity, and there
has not, in this great number of years, been sufficient
rainfall to fill or perceptibly affect any of them. Their
construction cost long years of labor and much capital.
By whom were they built, and when, and why? The
population of Aden is Somali and Arabic, and possesses
all the unwholesome attributes of the East. The beg-
gars had one plaint, whether child or octogenarian, "No
f adder, no mudder, no sister, no brudder, nothing eat,"
and then (with one index ringer stuck into the mouth,
and rubbing their bare belly with the flat of the other
hand^ "back sheesh."
South of British Somaliland for many hundreds of
miles along the coast extends Italian Somaliland. This
includes Cape Guardafui Guard the Faith), the eastern-
most point of Africa, where vessels sharply round the
cape and pass between it and outlying islands, a channel
about sixteen miles wide. There is not a lighthouse on
the cape, nor on anv of the islands, nor anywhere along
the Italian coast. The reason is the tendency of the
Somalis to murder all lighthouse keepers, and the in-
ability or indisposition of Italy to afford military pro-
tection. Italy's experience with Menelik when she in-
vaded Somaliland was disastrous, and the memory of it
is said to have induced a lack of aggression on the part of
I a
THE START
the Italian army during the recent Turko-Tunisian cam-
paign. The- condition in which Menelik paroled five
hundred Italian prisoners is something to be remembered
in more ways than one.
At all events, the eastern coast of Africa, for a very
long distance, including Cape Guardafui, is navigated
HOTEL AT BOMBASA AND BAOBAB-TREE
This tree is very numerous along the coast, and it is a great hollow shell,
supporting itself in upright position like a tub, with occasional small roots
around the periphery, which supply nourishment. The foliage is slight;
the flowers are beautiful
without the protection of lights and buoys so essential
to the preservation of life and property. Wrecks along
this coast are not infrequent.
Mombasa is an island with sixty thousand popula-
tion, only a few hundred of which are white. The nar-
row arm of the sea which makes it an island only admits
vessels of the lighter draught in front of Mombasa, and
hence Kilindini, meaning "deep water," at the other end
of the island, three miles distant, has become the prin-
13
THE STORY OF AN OUTING
cipal port of entry. These places are connected by a
tramway with very light rails or bars of iron. The cars
have one double seat, back to back, capacity four per-
sons, and are propelled by two "niggers," who run very
well, easily beating a horse-car for speed. They call it a
gary, and the word seems to comprehend the track, cars,
and motive power. The hotels here, as well as at Nai-
robi, belong to the Uganda Railway; they are livable,
but are not managed by a "Boldt" or supervised by an
"Oscar." They give you many courses; eggs cooked in
the shell are a safe order, and pastry should be classi-
fied with lion, elephant, and buffalo as dangerous. The
sportsman learns with a shock that all meat in tropical
countries is inclined to be tough; it goes from fresh
to tainted without any intermediate period of tender-
ness. The ice in British East Africa is way upon Mt.
Kenia, and not available for use. The most refreshing
drinks are weak tea made from boiled water, which has
been allowed to cool, and lime juice and similar boiled
water; they are also the safest drinks.
Ill
THE PANORAMA
WE left Mombasa at noon, and until dark ran
through a very rich country, abounding in luxuri-
ant tropical vegetation, with comparatively little culti-
vation in evidence. The frequent stops disclosed a
numerous native population, to whom the passing train
was a passing event. At stations the fruit-stands offered
watermelon, cocoanuts, pineapple, papaw, mangoes, ba-
nanas, all growing in sight of the train, all the tropical
fruits with which we were familiar, and many entirely
new to us and with which we did not experiment.
The Uganda Railway runs triweekly trains from
Mombasa to Victoria Nyanza (triweekly has been thus
jocosely defined, "They run a train through one week
and try to get back the next"). Nairobi is about half-
way, three hundred and twenty-five miles, and enjoys
fifty-four hundred feet of altitude. In their sleepers
they furnish bare bunks, and you are expected to provide
towel, soap, and bedding, and be your own porter. It is
a narrow-gage road, and has ail the rigidity that goes
with steel ties. It was not necessary to call us at day-
break we had already quit our "downy couch" and
were all agog for a first view of the wild life. We were
in the game reservation, and for seven hours the fauna
15
THE STORY OF AN OUTING
RAILWAY STATION AND FRUIT-STAND
of eastern Central Africa was unfolded to our admiring
gaze in a wonderful, natural panorama; the car-window
gave us visage, and Dame Nature, with wonderful pro-
fusion, threw her fauna upon the screen. Congoni, or
hartebeests, were the most numerous and are the swiftest
buck in Africa, with inconsequential antlers, long and
dolorous-looking heads, high on the withers and sloping
aft, awkward, ungainly, loose-jointed, but, withal, keen-
eyed and alert, topping ant-hills or other eminences as
self-appointed sentinels of the wild life. 1
I have frequently seen a single congoni with a bunch
1 All are familiar with elephant, lion, rhinoceros, zebra, and hip-
popotamus, but very few are familiar with the appearance of the
Cape buffalo, eland, oryx, topi, kudu, waterbuck, bushbuck, impala,
congoni, Grant's gazelle, Thomson's gazelle, wildebeest, etc. For the
16
THE PANORAMA
of impala or a band of zebras. His lynx-eyed guardian-
ship has brought to naught many a promising stalk and
been the innocent cause of highly improper remarks.
Your license permits you to shoot twenty, which speaks
well for their reproductive qualities and shows the general
esteem in which they are held. In color they are reddish
NATIVE SOLDIER, SHOWING BARE FEET, BLUE PUTTEES, TRUNKS,
SASH, SHIRT, AND FEZ
or light brown, with the usual white behind, which
characterizes the antelope and gazelle family.
benefit of future sportsmen I have therefore sprinkled through this
volume cuts of the principal bovidae and cervidae obtainable in the
country round about Mt. Kenia, Tana Valley, and Kapiti Plains by
no means all, but most of them. When better photos than those
taken by myself were available, I have used them; some of the best
are by Binks, a first-class photographer at Nairobi.
17
THE STORY OF AN OUTING
A SINGLE CONGONI
Thomson's gazelle (commonly called Tommies) is
very small, weighing, I should guess, forty to fifty
pounds. He has the usual deer color, accentuated by a
bright black band about four inches wide extending
from hip to shoulder just above the belly. They are
very numerous, beautiful, and possessed of the poetic
grace which has ever been associated with the gazelle;
their antlers are small but graceful.
The Grant's gazelles were much in evidence. They
have color like that of the Virginia deer when in the red
coat, and are only a shade smaller. The bucks have
some black marks, and the does have black bands like
the Tommies. The color contrasts are remarkable,
their reddish backs, black-band sides, white bellies, and
18
THOMSON S GAZELLE
GRANT S GAZELLE
THE STORY OF AN OUTING
white buttocks rendering them conspicuous and most
attractive; their antlers are a little coarse, but striking.
The impala were numerous; they are colored very
much like the Virginia deer in the red coat; a band sug-
AN IMPALA
gests a herd of deer at once. The males have beautiful
and gracefully curved corrugated horns, large in pro-
portion to their size; in size they are a shade smaller
than the Adirondack deer.
The wildebeest, also called brindle-gnu or horned
horse, were plentiful. They have a grizzled gray color,
20
THE PANORAMA
suggesting squirrel gray, though more inclined to brown.
They go in bands, but the old bulls are usually found
alone. They attract attention by their tail-switching
and cavorting, half fearful, half defiant, as they with-
draw from the approaching train. From the irrespon-
sible "they say" we gathered that these animals are
the horned horse mentioned in the Bible the unicorn.
The unicorn, however, is, I believ.e, a well-authenticated
myth, while these animals are very real indeed.
THE WILDEBEEST
We saw giraffe, one on the crest of a ridge, gazing at
the train, towered, steepled up into the sky, a splendid
pose for a photo, but before camera could be produced
the onrushing train had kaleidoscoped an entirely differ-
ent view. From the opposite window we saw three in
21
ZEBRA
TOTO (BABY RHINO) AND MAJOR KIRKWOOD
THE PANORAMA
curious pose, about three hundred yards distant. Their
curiosity satisfied, or fear aroused, they shambled off
at a most ungainly gait, from the fact that nature has
slipped their gambrel joints down almost to their
ankles. Perfectly harmless creatures, their only sin
comes of a long neck instead of a bad disposition, for
their necks knock down the low-hung telegraph wires,
and this has given them a bad reputation.
Zebras, with their striking black and white, were every-
where. Many bands of ostriches there were, in number
ranging from three to eleven, and when too near the train,
with perfect composure and with not the slightest show of
confusion and between mouthfuls, for their feeding was
scarcely interrupted, they rapidly receded in the distance.
The restless, ever -active secretary-bird, seemingly
about one-third the size of the ostrich, was several times
seen, usually in pairs, and I did not see more than three
at any one time.
The pachydermatous rhinoceros, stolid and stupid, was
also a contributor. We saw four cheetahs, or hunting-
leopards.
This panoramic menagerie of nature, disclosing in large
degree the fauna of British East Africa, fed the hungry
eyes of the sportsman and tourist alike; a great exhibi-
tion of ^wffcT life ni the wilds of a great continent, for,
however^densely populated with negroes fanrl it is wry
dense in places) , *hfy ar^ Krt\r rpfpnypH from or aH vanrpd
beyond the other animal life.
1 have not essayed to mention every different species
which we saw. The one grandly impressive fact was
the great number of animals, literally thousands upon
thousands.
IV
THE COUNTRY
AJL British East Africa is volcanic. Mt. Kenia cen-
turies ago emptied the bowels of the earth over the
same, down even to within thirty miles of the coast.
Igneous rock shows on the surface over much of its area,
and where soil has accumulated digging down a few feet
will reveal the once molten rock, in size running from
a kernel of rice to two or three tons.
At the time of this great overflow, or, better expressed,
when so much of the earth's interior was blown into the
air, to fall in showers all over what is now British East
Africa, Mt. Kenia blew out its whole mountain-side;
nevertheless, it still towers over seventeen thousand feet
in height and is a portentous and beautiful landmark to
nearly all British East Africa.
Kilimanjaro, nineteen thousand eight hundred feet in
the air, just beyond the German border, presents a mass-
ive dome, ever covered with snow, and, kindled into
brilliancy by the rays of the rising or setting sun, it
gave us many imposing and glorious views, gorgeous in
their color effects. Along the coast the dense tropical
vegetation constitutes a jungle, but comparatively few
miles inland this disappears and open country ensues.
The slopes of Kenia and other mountains abound in
OPEN COUNTRY
OPEN COUNTRY TAKEN FROM THE SAME POINT. LOOKING IN OPPOSITE
DIRECTIONS, AND COVERING A RANGE OF SEVEN
OR EIGHT MILES
THE STORY OF AN OUTING
dense forests, especially the bamboo belt. Trees mark
the watercourses, and acacia predominates, as does the
cottonwood along the streams on our Western plains.
Thorn scrub obtains in localities, but generally the
trees, where they exist, are 'the size and shape of our
fruit-trees, and about as close together. Standing on an
eminence and viewing a wide sweep of country, it is
difficult to believe that all before you is not the well-
kept product of superior husbandry. The spear-grass,
which is everywhere, grows in height from your middle
thigh to shoulder, depending upon richness of soil and
degree of moisture, and waving in the wind looks like
cultivated fields of grass or grain.
This country has two rainy seasons; the small rains
come in October and November, and the big rains in
March, April, and May, and they are torrential at
times. The vegetable growth is so luxuriant and so
dense at the bottom, especially the grasses, that it pro-
tects the earth largely from the evaporation which the
intense heat of the sun might otherwise produce.
The richest country is generally occupied by natives,
and the government scrupulously protects them in their
ownership and control. Of course, game will avoid
populous places and is found largely upon the untillable
plains, where grazing is of the best and protection may
be had. Game in Africa, as did gamejjpon our Western
plains, seeks protection by rusrnng into the open, where
their eyes can see danger and their Meet limbs keep them
out of range. They do not need scientific instruments
to determine the range of modern guns they simply
know. The average shot in British East Africa is two
hundred yards or over, and on Kapiti Plains, about thirty
26
SHOWING THE OPEN CHARACTER OF WOODED HILLS
TYPICAL NEGRO HUTS MADE OF UPRIGHT STICKS PLASTERED WITH
MUD AND THATCHED WITH REEDS
THE STORY OF AN OUTING
miles from Nairobi, where week-enders keep the game
well exercised, the average shot is over three hundred
yards. The country is diversified with plain and
undulation, rising to the dignity of mountains, every-
where covered with luxuriant Vegetation, well kempt, well
groomed in appearance, with new and strange flora,
with flowering shrubs and trees and all things beautiful,
the farthest remove possible from the jungle that my
imagination had always pictured. Of course, there is
thick cover along streams and swamps where lion, ele-
phant, and buffalo can seek safety if they like. The
streams and swamps furnish such cover, but the lion
likes the open, and the leopard, they say, will lie in the
grass and let you pass within a few feet of him as long
as he feels that he is undiscovered.
Decaying vegetation of the centuries has made mill-
ions of acres of rich alluvial soil; in places the soil is very
deep. These rich plains and luxuriant vegetation are
bound some day to furnish sustenance to a better race,
as the crowded centers of more civilized nations send
here their overflow to wage the never-ending battle of
the survival of the fittest.
BUSH BUCK
WATER BUCK
INDUSTRIES AND NATIVES
NAIROBI is the town par excellence of British East
Africa; population, white and Indian, twenty-five
hundred; colored, as many thousand; located on a
plain at the edge of the game country; busy and grow-
ing; big with possibility of agricultural development, with
many willing to exploit the same, but restrained and
embarrassed for the want of labor. White men cannot
work in the fields unde^ran equa.tQ_nal sun T anj the
negroes~will not^ to any great extent. The land is
owned in too large tracts, and small plots are offered at
maximum retail prices. Coffee land four miles from
Nairobi was held at sixty-five dollars per acre in a wild
state. To build a house and other necessary structures,
clear the land and raise a "catch crop," which is neces-
sary to put the ground in condition to receive the coffee
shrubs, and await the growth of the coffee shrub, three
or four years, until a crop may be expected, would add
greatly to the cost of the acreage. This leaves little
to be hoped for in the line of appreciation in value, and
militates against the influx of small investors, which are
indispensable to the development of a new country.
A/\jf Several Americans are among the landed proprietors,
fll\ notably W. R. McMillan and Paul J. Rainey, the sports-
30
FOUR OF THE "FOUR HUNDRED"
THE STORY OF AN OUTING
man, who has purchased a large estate not far from
Nairobi.
Wattle is a tree that grows to merchantable size in
three years, and the bark of which is vastly superior to
oak or hemlock for tanning purposes. Wattle farms are
common. There are many coffee estates, but sisal farms
seem to be the more popular and the more numerous.
Heniquen, or sisal, is the plant which has added so
greatly to the wealth of Yucatan, and produces the
fiber from which most of our cordage is made. The
same volcanic soil and surface exist here as obtain around
Merida in Yucatan. All these industries depend upon
negro labor and compete strongly with recruiting safa-
ris for sportsmen. Until recently both sexes lived in
proximate nudity. Now a blanket thrown over the
right shoulder and hanging against the left hip, leaving
the left shoulder and right hip bare, is a common dress
for men. A similar robe of skin is the common dress for
women. In towns meretricious robes or gowns of calico
are worn by women, and the men are taking to trunks
breeches coming half-way from hip to knee. One of our
porters had somehow become possessed of the remnants
of a heavy overcoat, and he wore it every day, notwith-
standing the intense heat and his heavy load. They
evidently like clothes.
The vanity of the human race is not a product of
civilization it is congenital. Dame Fashion is quite
as imperious and her devotees quite as subservient
in darkest Africa as where the Aryan race holds
sway.
Clothing in tropical Africa^w-ould seem to he an ^jVer-
thought, coming into moderate use in recent times;
MORE OF THE FOUR HUNDRED
THE STORY OF AN OUTING
in^their_^roxiniate nudity, decoration and fashion took
the form of_tatjtoging^and physical disfigurements
I present several photographs sriowmg the extent to
which the rim and lobe of the ear are stretched and
become a receptacle for ornaments by the tribes with
whom I came in contact. They load themselves down
with coils of wire, usually steel or copper. Anything in
the form of metal commands their admiration.
Maize, millet, beans, and a coarse legume are the
principal native food, and enough for their sustenance is
easily raised and with little labor. Why should the
negro work_L The hut tax of three rupees per annum is
got with little effort, and easy indolence marks their
general life. To develop wants on their part, shoes and
clofries7 for instance, tobacco and the white man's food,
seem the only way to improve the labor supply. The
Germans in German East Africa have grappled the
problem in true German fashion. They compel every
negro to work for white men at least two months per
year; each negro is furnished a ticket, upon which is
punched the number of days employed by each em-
ployer. Then the commissioner of labor comes around,
and every man who is short of the required two months is
forced into a gang of workmen and compelled to work
for the government three times the number of days he is
deficient. He may work for whom he pleases and for
as many different employers as he chooses, but he must
contribute at least two months' labor to the white man's
burden. As an incentive he is exempt from taxation in
case he performs the required labor.
Al 1 t h isjrrtj&ts
difficulty ..and at
future must be recruited wi
MILLING INDUSTRY IN AFRICA
MATERNITY
THE STORY OF AN OUTING
increasfid-expense. The safarijippea\s_to the roaming
propensity of the negro and his gregarious nature and
love for gorging himself upon the jrame that_alls to the
s)
"TKe" safari is prominent among the industries and is one
of the principal means of obtaining revenue from other
countries. A brief description of ours may be of interest.
It a>nsisteji-Qjone hundredjmd twenty men, recruited
from the following tribes, if tribes is the proper word
with which to characterize the various natives, who,
under respective local government of their own, occupy
this country: Swahili, Wakamba, Kavirondo, Unum-
wazi, Wa'Kikuyu, Wa'Emba, Baganda, Wa'Mera, Nan-
di, Masai.
The Swahili occupy the coast and are the most ad-
vanced and most important of all from a civilized stand-
point. Their superiority is due to the large admixture
of Arabian and Indian blood. This blood shows itself
in the bearded faces of the men, as well as in the fore-
sight and forethought and business capacity which they
evidence.
The moderate advance over their four-footed neigh-
bors which the natives enjoy was manifested in many
ways. Some of our gun-bearers would just as quickly
undertake to stalk game down-wind as up-wipd; it
never occurred to them to determine that all-important
question before beginning a stalk. They have no judg-
] ment of distance, in fact there is nothing in the regular
^course of their lives to educate them in that respect.
/ An eland is the largest of African cervidae, and fur-
/nishes very choice meat; a good bull will weigh one
r thousand or twelve hundred pounds. When the throat
36
CELEBRATING THE KILLING OF MY LION
LESSER KUDU
THE STORY OF AN OUTING
of one is cut the blood flow is enormous. I was shocked
to see the porters empty their canteens of water and fill
them with blood, and, this done, apply their mouths to
the orifice, or catch the blood in their hands, and thus
gorge themselves. We took great pains in cutting out the
sirloin and carefully wrapping it, in the interest of clean-
liness, for our own table use. When it reached camp,
four miles distant, only one sirloin remained. Investi-
gation showed that the porters had eaten the other raw
on the way to camp. While skinning, they would cut
off hunks of meat, still almost pulsating with life, and
bolt them in true ferce nature? style.
Sufficient unto the day is the responsibility thereof
with them. "The Lord [or Allah, rather] will provide"
is their faith and they live up to it. He has not, how-
ever, provided them with a sense of honor as to contract,
property, or truthfulness. They are very skilful at de-
ceiving.
I was greatly amused by one incident. The day I
killed two lions they went wild in celebrating the event.
They bore me around the camp several times on their
shoulders with much shouting and singing, the Ka-
virondos going through some accustomed ceremony.
Then they bore Cuninghame around in similar manner^
and finally seated themselves in front of my tent in
serial rows, awaiting backsheesh, which I understand
accompanies the killing of a lion in all safaris, since lions
have become scarce and difficult. Their enthusiasm,
much of it, was born, doubtless, of expected backsheesh.
They were lined up and the neopara (head man) went
down the line with a bag of rupees, dropping one in each
hand. One fellow put out his hand, as did the others,
38
INDUSTRIES AND NATIVES
and at the same time put his other arm around the man
standing next to him, and thus received two rupees,
one in each hand. They were no sooner received than
he broke from the line, proclaimed the fact, and with a
rupee in each hand danced in front of my tent in great
glee. His adeptness made him the hero of the occasion
and the envy of his fellows.
Most of the agricultural work is done by women,
and the price of a wife is fifteen sheep or goats, and the
number of wives one may have is limited only by the
number one is able to pay for. The women have nothing
to say about the selection of their husbands, the father
or eldest male relative in each case settles that, however
much they may have to say later. They load themselves
with copper and steel wire, beads and bangles, and
seemingly the supreme test of beauty is the extent to
which the lobe of the ear and the rim of the ear may be
punctured and expanded. For instance, one negro was
extremely proud, wearing^ a^small earthen cheese-jar
in his expanded ear-lobe.
VI
THE TREK
NAIROBI is the hub of British East Africa; here
we organized our safari, and here our party di-
vided, Hine, Folsom, and Terry going south toward
German East Africa, with Outram for guide; Pirie and
myself going to the Tana Valley. For guides we had
the world-renowned sportsman and naturalist, R. J.
Cuninghame, assisted by Major J. A. C. Kirkwood.
Cuninghame is sui generis among sportsmen a Cam-
bridge man, a naturalist and acknowledged authority,
an expert in all the arts of woodcraft and plainscraft, a
genius in the preservation of trophies, a persistent, in-
defatigable worker, deeply interested in all he does and
keenly solicitous to give you the best of opportunities,
possessing a wonderfully pleasing personality, and yet
modest and unassuming withal. Major Kirkwood is a
cultivated English gentleman who inherited a large
fortune, which he exchanged for a good time; until
recently a member of Parliament, an officer of cavalry
in the Boer War, most agreeable and entertaining, tall,
strong, resolute, hard as nails, an eye like a hawk, a
keen and skilful sportsman. No one was ever better
chaperoned in an African hunt than Pirie and myself.
We left New York January 22d, and reached Nairobi
40
TOPI
ORYX
THE STORY OF AN OUTING
March 2d, eleven days plus the month of February;
owing to the bad connections on the eastern end of the
journey, five weeks is about the minimum time in which
this journey can be made. Because of the splendid
European and Atlantic connections the journey from
Nairobi to New York may be made in a month.
On March 5th, 3 P.M., Woodrow Wilson in the chair,
we started our safari four horses, four hunters and
sportsmen, eight gun-bearers, skinners, cooks, and
porters, one hundred and twenty in all. We camped
at Nine Mile Tree on the banks of the Nairobi. Next
day at noon we reached Ju Ja, the nineteen-thousand-acre
estate of W. R. McMillan, where we spent two nights and
a day as his guests. We found him, as all others do,
a most kindly, agreeable, and entertaining host. He
has another near-by estate of seven thousand acres,
Donye Sabok, which, with Ju Ja, contains nearly all
kinds of game that abound in British East Africa, a
princely preserve, which no one is better able to appre-
ciate or enjoy than its most agreeable owner. By
invitation we shot wildebeests next morning. While
stalking a desirable bull and skirting close to the bank of
the river in order to get within possible range, for these
animals are all that their name implies wild beasts we
stumbled upon a python. He seemed big enough then,
but now I wish he had been larger. He was only nine
feet long, and evidently not full grown.
We observed an interesting sight on this morning's
hunt. Wild dogs are quite plentiful, and hunt in packs,
as did their more savage forebears. The morning was
foggy, and hunting was impossible until the sun had
melted the mists away. A band of zebras galloped past,
42
THE TREK
pursued by a pack of wild dogs. The dogs had cut one
zebra out of the herd and, running well forward on both
sides of him, prevented his mixing with the others.
They kept him constantly worried by threatening heels
and flank, with occasional rushes, as if to grab his throat,
and when he lunged at his tormentors on one side, the
WILDEBEEST SHOT AT JU JA
line always receded while the opposite line closed in.
These wavering lines, with glistening fang and hungry
bark, alternately closing in with threatening rush, he
vainly sought to escape. If he charged one side, it
would recede, while the opposite line closed in; it
simply changed his course and separated him more
widely from the protection of the herd. Although the
43
THE STORY OF AN OUTING
mists shrouded the final scene, unremitting, unrelenting
this death dole continued, until, weakened and wearied,
some unguarded point was exposed to ready fangs, then,
every point assailed, the struggling zebra would be borne
to earth, buried in a mass 6f wriggling, hungry dogs,
and they would be well on with their repast ere the
excruciating pain of lingering life had passed.
Thus was the tragedy of wild life illustrated, thus do
God's creatures feed one upon the other
"Life evermore is fed by death,
In earth and sea and sky,
And that the rose may breathe its breath
Something must die."
Next day we trekked to Blue Post, and the two follow-
ing days to Fort Hall. Here thirty-six_of^our porters
deserted, without cause, without notice, simply disap-
peared. They came from a tribe in that vicinity, and
doubtless preferred to go home. Cuninghame was equal
to the occasion. He recruited six men and left thirty
loads in custody of one of the Indian stores. Next day,
March nth, we made Tinga Tinga, where our hunt
began and where we hoped for buffalo.
It took three days to bring up our left-back supplies.
We had no success with the buffaloes here, but got im-
pala, water-bucks, and congoni. We feasted our safari
upon congoni and zebras here. Congoni, or hartebeest,
is good food for any one, and zebras are always very fat,
and the negroes adore fat. From Nairobi to this point
six days' trek there had been no shooting save at
McMillan's. It was through a densely populated dis-
trict along a main road, and one could not shoot a
rifle without danger of taking life. Our custom was to
44
THE TREK
arise at 5 A.M. and commence the day's march at 6 A.M.,
in order to avoid traveling in the hot sun, usually finish-
ing the trek at 12.30 to I P.M.
We had ample opportunity to become acquainted
with the geography of the heavens as they appear in
the evening and early morning. The heavens south of
the equator are perhaps just as beautiful, but very
different from what Northern eyes are accustomed to,
and this made their study a continuing source of in-
terest. Orion, with dagger in belt, stood guard almost
over our heads as we retired at night, but most of our
well-known constellations were invisible. The Southern
Cross is the feature of the Southern Hemisphere, and,
though very beautiful, was somewhat disappointing.
Its shape hardly justifies its name of cross. It consists
of four bright stars; diamond-shaped, or kite-shaped
would better characterize them. The star at the apex of
the kite corresponds in its functions to our North Star
and marks the direction south. Our North Star is always
pointed by two stars in the Big Dipper; the star in the
apex of the Southern Cross is always in direct line with
and pointed by two bright stars, not a part of any con-
stellation. The cross, as well as these two stars, per-
form a diurnal revolution around this apex star, and
whatever its position the alignment of these three stars
is maintained.
It was quite in the habit of showering about five
o'clock in the afternoon, after which the air was very
clear and the heavens very bright and beautiful. I never
saw stars, however, so multitudinous, so clear, so near,
and so beautiful as they appeared to me viewed from
the Selkirk Mountains, near the borders of Alaska.
45
THE STORY OF AN OUTING
The completeness of our outfit in all its appointments
surpassed all my previous experiences. We reveled in
luxury; we each had a wall-tent eight by ten feet, with
bathroom extension in the rear, all covered by a fly
twenty-one by eighteen feet; which in the interest of
coolness and ventilation only came within one foot of
the ground and preserved a one-foot space between
itself and the roof of the wall-tent. By means of hangers,
one ridge-pole served for both. One ridge-pole and three
standards all jointed so as to pack conveniently con-
stituted all the woodwork. Each had a collapsible
canvas bed, with wood and iron slats that shut up into
a package three and one-half feet long by eight or ten
inches thick, all wrapped in canvas; a canvas carpet for
covering the ground of the inner tent; a wash-stand that
consisted of two letters X of light wooden slats and two
letters X of light iron bands that shut up into a roll
three inches in diameter. A canvas wash-basin, with
soap-pocket, holds these slats in place and easily takes
a gallon of water. Opening them out until the frame is
about one foot from the ground, another canvas tub
holds them in place and takes eight or ten inches of
water. For one sitting d la mandarin this affords an
excellent bath; netting along the inner side of the wall-
tent affords ample storage for all loose articles. The
fly affords additional protection from the sun and tor-
rential rains which sometimes obtain, and, projecting
in front of the wall, affords a porch for dining or visiting;
a mosquito netting suspended from the ridge of the
tent envelops, at night, one side of the tent, includ-
ing your bed, and protects, not only from mosqui-
toes, which are few, but from ticks, centipedes, and
INTERIOR VIEW OF TENT
TENTS SHOWING THE USUAL AFRICAN LAWN
THE STORY OF AN OUTING
other crawling and flying insectivora, which are nume-
rous.
This is a brief enumeration of our conveniences. A
hot bath follows the day's work and puts one in proper
trim for dinner and the hard/sound sleep to follow.
AH^jriy valet or tent-boy, also served Colonel Roose-
velt in that capacity throughout his African trip. One
night I said to him:
"Ali, I am especially tired to-night, and I want you to
prepare me a Roosevelt drink; I want just such a drink
as Bwana Roosevelt was in the habit of taking."
He brought me a siphon of carbonated water and a
bottle of lime-juice, and said:
Bwana Roosevelt drink same as you do."
Did he not drink whiskey at all?"
"No, not drink whiskey."
The intense heat renders the notion of stimulants
distasteful, but I noticed that the acclimated Africanders
took their "Sundowners" of Scotch with great regu-
larity, frequently preceded and followed by like potions.
Sundowner is an Australian term for hobo, tramp, one
who turns up after work is no longer possible that day
and asks to be fed. Here they apply the term to the
sweet solace that follows the day's hard doings.
VII
A CHANGE OF BASE
THE buffalo is inclined to roam about and changes
his base quickly when disturbed. Having failed
to get buffalo the first morning at Tinga Tinga, there was
little prospect of success later. We had brought our
supplies up from Fort Hall and decided to cache thirty
loads here under charge of two porters and an escara.
That done, we started with the rest upon a two days'
trek to other buffalo territory.
Hyenas are very numerous. They are held in supreme
contempt by everybody. They are scavengers, are
mangy, dirty, and covered with sores. They come into
your camp and into your tent and will steal anything,
even your boots. Their howl embraces several notes,
is plaintive and rather musical. I heard several all
about us and very near to the camp, and the escara had
hard work to protect the provisions we left behind, and
was much relieved when they were sent for, having used
all his ammunitiofhr-4An^ escara, by the way, is 1m arme<
^guard7 a negro, and he may shoot in defense of the
property left in his charge. Negroes are not allowed to
have guns or use them, with the exception of escaras
and a very few chiefs who are granted Licenses bj
vernment.
THE STORY OF AN OUTING
A bit of fortuitous luck fell to my lot on the first
day's trek. Major Kirkwood, riding ahead, discovered
a crocodile asleep on a shelf of the bank of the river.
There are no sloping banks to the rivers. They are
either rocky or, if in alluvial soil, perpendicular, and range
from four feet upward in height, according to the state
of the water. Rains on Mt. Kenia would give full
banks, and two or three days without rain would reduce
the water-flow to comparatively small dimensions. A
bit of the bank had caved in and formed a shelf perhaps
twenty feet in length. The crocodile was asleep on this
shelf on the opposite side of the river in about one
foot of water, enjoying a sun-bath. Responding to the
Major's signal, we galloped up, leaving the gun-bearers in
the rear. I u^ed_ a saddle scabbard, same as we do in
the Hoddes, and had my .35 automatic Remington
always at hand. To capture the crock I realized that
I must paralyze him. I was about six rods distant, and
from my shoulder to his level was a drop of eight or ten
feet; he was facing me and I shot to break his spine
just back of his neck-joint, and succeeded. I then shot
the remaining four cartridges into practically the same
place. His head, at an angle of fifteen degrees, was
slowly turning one way or another in evident pain.
I went down the river opposite him, and distant about
fifteen yards, and shot him in the eye, at the proper
angle to have the pellet penetrate the brain. A croco-
dile's brain is simply an enlargement of the spinal cord,
and is not more than three or four inches long and not
much larger than your two fingers. I then shot him
twice through the vitals and awaited results. He could
use none of his legs to force himself into the water, but
So
A CHANGE OF BASE
THE CROCK MEASURED SEVENTY-TWO INCHES IN GIRTH BACK OF THE
FORE-LEGS
the final death convulsions were sufficient to joggle
him into the stream, and I feared he was lost. All
streams here have a strong current and are roily. He
floated down a little way and swung, belly up, into an
eddy on my side of the river. Great luck!
The negroes would not go near the water, but Cun-
inghame fearlessly waded in and fastened the big safari
rope to his jaw. We cut away the papyrus that thickly
fringed the river, and forty men hauled him out upon the
bank. He was ten feet nine inches long, and two feet
or more of his tail had been bitten off by a hippopotamus.
His hide also showed two punctures from hippo tusks.
Hippos are granivorous and would not attempt a
THE STORY OF AN OUTING
crocodile diet, and the most ambitious crocodile would
hardly attempt to swallow a hippo, but they find them-
selves thrown together in these narrow pools, and the
natural aggressiveness of both breeds antagonism. A
hippo in his element, the water, is an antagonist to be
reckoned with. The crock measured seventy-two inches
in girth back of the fore-legs. After skinning we opened
him and found a water-buck in his stomach. A water-
buck is about twice the size and weight of the Adiron-
dack deer. He of course crushed the bones more or
less as he swallowed. The contents of his stomach gives
some idea of the reptile's weight.
These crocodiles lay in the pools and at the fords and
seize the foot of any crossing animal, drag it down
beneath the water, and when drowned the process of
crunching, swallowing, and deglutition ensues. Oh! the
tragedy of wild life!
The next day's trek brought us to buffalo grounds.
We saw a rhino on the way, looked him over, rode round
him, and turned him down as not eligible. We reached
our camping-ground about I P.M. At 4 P.M a good
rhino appeared about three hundred yards from camp.
The spear-grass here, and generally, was luxuriant and
as tall as the rhino. I thought I made sufficient allow-
ance, but shot too high and only wounded him, and not
very seriously, so the guides said.
Soon after four o'clock I started for buffaloes, and
one-half mile from camp saw some working toward me.
They were in the thorn scrub and evidently proposed
coming out into the open to feed. In aproahi_ng_they
would^ have to_cross a donga, which is t-he same ^s an
arroyo in the Rockies, a_us\\ ally dryjwaterco^se T which
52
A CHANGE OF BASE
a hard rain will convert into a seething torrent. These
dongas are difficult to cross; their sides are most pre-
cipitous. Two buffaloes entered the donga, a good-
sized bull in the lead, and traveled some distance out of
sight, then started to come out directly in front of me
BUFFALO SKULLS
S3
THE STORY OF AN OUTING
and one hundred yards distant. The opening in the
leaves and grass made by continuous game travel was
filled with the bulk of this bull; it showed distinctly
black; evidently something had aroused suspicion, for
he ceased to advance, and stood looking directly toward
me. Comfortably resting my elbows on my knees, I
aimed at the center of the black with my .450-. 50x5 and
fired. They ran some way in the donga and came out;
I fired the other barrel just as they disappeared in the
thorns. The blood spoor made an easy trail. At about
two hundred yards he had turned and faced us, as we
could easily see from tracks and blood; a hundred yards
farther on he did the same. Major Kirkwood said to
me, "Now, Mr. Hepburn, I can't assume the respon-
sibility of taking you into a thorn scrub after a wounded
buffalo, accompanied by one that is uninjured. It is
more dangerous than you know; he is mortally wounded;
the gun-bearers and I will round him up all right; you
stay here."
I relieved the Major of all responsibility and went
on, but they exercised the greatest scrutiny of every
thorn bush and every side trail, to guard against a side
or rear charge from the unwounded bull. I could hardly
restrain my impatience at the slow progress made, al-
though I knew their precautions to be amply justified.
Buffaloes are said to be treacherous, which means you
can't depend upon what they will do. They will screen
themselves in scrub or grass, watch your advance, and
charge you from side or rear when least expected. Un-
injured buffaloes accompanying a wounded one are prone
to do this.
We soon came upon him, however, at bay and looking
54
A CHANGE OF BASE
CUNINGHAME IN MIDDAY COSTUME CARING FOR TROPHIES
for trouble; peering between two thorns it was easy
to administer finishing shots. Kirkwood announced his
horn-spread as forty-two inches. He was very old, very
large, and very fat. Cuninghame said he was a cast
55
THE STORY OF AN OUTING
bull, which means that age had impaired his virility
and the younger and more aggressive had driven him
from the herd. Word went to camp, and the whole
safari was out to help tote him in; the event_wjas cele-
b rated with great ado, all the more because^ the jne a t
is highly prized by all. Buffalo-tail soup is the best
ever, and buffalo tongue simply delicious. The fact that
we had just made camp and all needed meat served,
doubtless, to kindle enthusiasm.
The next day I left the buffalo field undisturbed, went
IMPALA SHOT BY PIR1E
out in the evening and shot two impala, with very good
antlers.
The following morning I went for my second buffalo,
the license permitting only two. We saw buffaloes a
mile away and feeding from us. It took a long time to
come up with them, walking in dongas, crawling over the
high places and crouching in the tall grass. The last
56
A CHANGE OF BASE
two hundred yards of the stalk was a zigzag, down-
grade crawl. A direct approach would have doubtless
exposed us to view, and no stalk is made directly toward
game. By zigzagging we made the long grass cover us
from possible view.
Imagine traveling on hands and knees, with gun in
BUFFALO
one hand, and sometimes literally crawling, for two
hundred yards, all under the scrutiny of an unsympa-
thetic equatorial sun, at a temperature in the nineties or
hundreds, with perspiration not oozing, but trickling, from
every pore, and you may form a fair idea of the condi-
tion of one's muscles and nerves at the end of the stalk.
I climbed out of the last donga within seventy-five
yards of the best bull. The grass was up to my shoulders
and was waving above his back, yet he stood broadside,
57
THE STORY OF AN OUTING
and I could distinctly make out his outlines; it was a
fair mark and an easy shot but for the tremulous condi-
tion of my muscles. I took the .450 and missed him,
standing, with the first barrel, and then missed him,
running, with the second. The two recoils from the
.450 straightened me out. I quickly changed to the
Remington automatic and caught him, running, in the
vitals, at one hundred and fifty yards, with the first shot,
and broke his back with the second. The spread of his
horns was the same as my first, forty-two inches, but
they were smoother and altogether a better head.
Next day I shot a rhinoceros broke his neck with the
.35 Remington. His head was only fair, but peculiar in
that it had two equally developed horns, eleven inches
in height, instead of having one very short one and the
leading horn sixteen to eighteen inches, which is about
the best obtainable in the Tana Valley.
I was surprised to learn that a rhinoceros's horn is not
attached to his skull; it skins off with the hide. It seems
also strange that the skin on a crocodile head cannot be
taken off, any more than you could skin paint off a
board. You can scrape or sandpaper it off, but cannot
skin it. Rhino tongue does not compare with buffalo,
but is very good food indeed.
Next day I shot an eland, through shoulder into vitals,
with my Remington; the license permits only one, and a
splendid specimen it was horns twenty-six and twenty-
seven inches; he weighed fully one thousand pounds.
The eland is the largest of all antelope, is excellent food,
and is beautiful in a grand way. His fawn-gray coat
and buff-white belly are very attractive. I never saw
beast so round and fat; so round that when he fell dead
58
THE ELAND I SHOT
ELAND, ONE YEAR OLD, IN CAPTIVITY
THE STORY OF AN OUTING
his upper legs did not come within a foot of the ground;
the collapse of death usually brings all feet to the
ground; the rotundity of this eland prevented that and
held the left fore-leg and the left hind-leg projecting at
least one foot from the ground.
This practically completed my license limit of big game
available in that locality, except carnivora; only a few
of the smaller animals, easily acquired, remained.
VIII
ANOTHER CHANGE LIONS
OUR head-man reported that the porters were dis-
abled from sore feet and would require sandals
before another trek was possible. We clothe the safari,
either actually or by a money allowance, which is the
usual way. We were hunting in the early part of the
rainy season. The grass, from knee to shoulder high,
was fast being broken down under the rains. The
grasses in Africa have edges to their blades, especially
the spear-grass, and not only cut feet, but shoes as well.
Most of our trekking had been over the veldt, where
paths were absent or not well defined. In short, I was
asked to furnish three zebra skins that the porters might
be shod. I had no desire to shoot a zebra, beautiful,
graceful, and picturesque. I would have much preferred
to have traded the hard-worked nag that I bestrode for
one of those plump beauties. They are regarded almost
as vermin, and your license permits you to shoot twenty.
They were numerous, and usually not difficult to ap-
proach within two hundred and fifty or three hundred
yards, but this day, in executing my commission, I rode
hard and long, and did not sight one until 12.30 P.M.,
when the hot glow of the sun had raised a shimmering
heat from the wet earth, producing a pulsating, up-
61
ZEBRA
WART HOG
ANOTHERCHANGE LIONS
moving atmosphere similar to that you see over a hot
stove.
All this renders long-range shooting difficult. The
safari was put in traveling condition, but after a long,
hard day, and an unusual mental and temperamental
expenditure. Many things look very easy until you try
them, and the kind of game you do not want is usually
most in evidence. Midday shooting in the tropics is
rendered very difficult on account of heat and radiation
from the wet earth.
My friend's complement of buffaloes not having been
obtained, and the buffaloes being wise to our presence,
another move was deemed necessary, so we crossed two
tributaries in one day's trek and camped on the banks
of the same river Ripingaza. There was much rain at
this camp. One morning, after an all-night rain, lasting
until six o'clock, I started out rather late, with only one
water-buck and one impala to shoot. I was resolved to
be very exacting and take none but the best. This proved
to be the red-letter day in all my shooting experience.
We had gone about three miles, it was nine o'clock,
and the sun had broken through the mists, insuring the
typical equatorial day. Major Kirkwood, about fifty
yards in front of me, rode upon an ant-hill to get a better
view. I saw him drop over on his horse's neck and
swing him round off the ant-hill in haste, and knew
something important was in sight. As we came to-
gether he announced that he had caught a glimpse of a
lion's ear not a hundred yards away in the long grass.
We immediately galloped the grass in ordei^fee-stfr him
upaTTcTget a shot^jind.^]; .die-saffl-tHe- j we~st the gun-
bearers spooring.
63
THE STORY OF AN OUTING
We were at the top of a ridge marking one side of a
valley, and it was about two miles across to the top of
the high ground marking the other side. The inevitable
donga, always difficult to negotiate in a hurry, traversed
the valley. After a little we saw three lions two lions
and a lioness several hundred yards distant, making
across the valley. We started in hot pursuit, but when
we reached the donga all but one had disappeared over
the sky-line. The temptation was great, and I could
not help shooting three times with my Remington with
point-blank sights, as there was no time for readjustments.
It was all useless; I replenished my magazine, and, pull-
ing our horses' heads so high that they could not see the
ground, we spurred them over the brink into the donga,
gave them their heads, and under the excitement they
made the opposite banks beautifully. Then commenced
a long mile up-grade. What we wished to do was to
ride round the lions and bring them to bay, and we
must husband our horses' strength in order to have a
spurt in them when it came to the final dash. A lion
confronted will not turn back nor turn to one side, and
will charge presently. It is an issue joined and you
are sure of him.
A lion's legs are very short; he travels close to the
ground and trots he seems simply to glide. When they
went over the sky-line they probably thought the danger
past and halted, or slowed down at least. We reached
the height, and after going about three hundred yards
saw one of the lions. We tried to round him up, but we
could not gain upon him; our horses were all in, so
Kirkwood took my horse by the bridle; I slid off to
shoot. A mad gallop in tall grass, where neither horse nor
ANOTHER CHANGE LIONS
rider could see his footing, where hidden hole might
invite serious disaster, was a serious mental strain added
to the other excitement.
I fully realized that the chance offered to make mv
THE LION FELL AND NEVER MOVED
trip a great success was squarely up to_rne^_and that
the^ nexr^twojiinutes^won^ Hpt^rmin^ E} 7 e x nerve,
and muscle responded with a calm confidence that made
me proud. I could not see nearly so well off the horse,
65
THE STORY OF AN OUTING
but still that tawny streak gliding though the grass was
distinctly visible. I covered it with my gun and, swing-
ing well to the fore end of it, fired. He went down in a
heap and was up in an instant and faced me with a roar,
head erect, mane bristling, and tail vibrant. When he
roared another lion to the right turned at bay and
roared also, and they kept up a continual growling.
My prayers were answered. The lions were escaping in
parallel lines about forty yards apart, and fortunately I
had come up about midway between them. I never
heard a lion outside a zoo before, and their conversation
is surely impressive snarling, growling, threatening, I
hardly know how to describe it; it was incessant while
it lasted. I never took my eyes from the first lion nor
my gun from my face, it being automatic. Towering
up in all his majesty, his neck afforded a splendid mark,
and I broke it with the second shot; the first had gone
through his vitals and broken the opposite shoulder and
would have been fatal, of course, after a little time. I
turned to the other, sixty to seventy yards distant,
towering well above the grass directly facing me; with
distended mane, swishing his tail and fiercely growling,
he made himself as warlike as possible. I had three
cartridges in my magazine; I decided to give him a fatal
shot in the breast with the first one, and if he charged
depend upon the other two to break some of his on-com-
ing bones. Only a single shot was needed; it entered
the breast a trifle high^ traversed the lumbar regions, and
lodged in the backbone, back of the pelvis, almost to the
tail. He fell and never moved. A lion's roar has a deep,
hollow, hark-from-the-tomb tone and quality that is very
penetra ting andcarries a wonderful distance across country.
66
ANOTHER CHANGE LIONS
Assured that both were dead, we mounted and began
scouring the surrounding grass for the lioness; the two
killed were both lions. I thought I had found her once.
My horse reared, bolted, cavorted, and I thought he
would throw a fit, and throw me, too. I could not force
NINE FEET SIX AND NINE FEET NINE INCHES, RESPECTIVELY
him back there; I could head him toward the place, but
he went backward; so we dismounted, and Kirkwood and
I walked it up. Doubtless she had crouched there re-
cently and the scent must have been very strong. We
coursed about and then formed our ten porters and four
gun-bearers into a line in order to cover the whole,
ground^ Kirkwood and I placed ourselves so as to divide
the line into three equal parts. We had advanced only a
little when I observed that the line had resolved itself
6?
THE STORY OF AN OUTING
into two V's, with the apex pointing to Kirkwood and
myself; evidently the negroes were not anxious to find a
Jion. We careTuTty~coVered the groLmdTbut her majesty
had made good her escape. Instead of turning at bay
with the others, she turned -away, which was good judg-
ment from her standpoint, however disappointing to
me.) The lions measured respectively from tip of nose
tip of tail, nine feet six inches and nine feet nine
jhe^r
The lion belongs to the cat family and stalks game
much the same as our domestic cat; the swish of the
tail is the same. When confronting danger a lion does
not lash his sides, but he does swish his tail vigorously,
elevated at a slight angle until about to charge, when his
tail, straight behind, becomes rigid, save the brush,
which is all a-tremor.
The lion has a clavicle, or collar-bone, the same as a
man, and is, I believe, the only beast that possesses
this human characteristic. He is able to handle his
fore-legs with the same mobility and flexibility that a
man has in his arms. A horse or moose in fighting
strikes with his fore-legs, but the only motion possible to
them is a rotary motion parallel with the line of their
body, hence any blow delivered must be forward and
downward. A lion can deliver a "side swipe" as well as
a man, and for all I know may be a past-master in the
"upper-cut" blow so effective in pugilism.
The possession of this clavicle and consequent com-
mand of his fore-legs adds greatly to his efficiency as a
fighting force.
Well, I had two lions and had got them in the most
approved manner. I did not shoot them at a kill from
68
ANOTHER CHANGE LIONS
a boma nor shoot them at a kill from a tree. I got them
in the great wide open, after the most exciting horse-
back ride I ever experienced. It^as great luck, availed
of with good judgment and good execution, and I was
satisfied. Satisfied^ Every fiber in my system tingled
with delight, every sportsmanlike impulse, every mental
process, reveled in serene happiness.
IX
ANOTHER TREK HIPPO ANTS
THE buffaloes here, though plentiful, proved too
canny, and it was deemed best to return to our
last camp, which had had a four days' rest. Having
reached my limit, save for congoni and zebras and carniv-
ora, I hunted with my second gun-bearer, the talent in
our expedition devoting themselves to rounding up and
locating buffalo. I hoped for lion, and saw two, way
out of possible range, with my horse and sais way in the
rear. The rains had been very heavy, and my fagged
horse could hardly have overtaken them had he been
immediately available. A good, fresh horse would have
made me thrice happy, as I found them in the midst of
an open country. I only saw them as they covered a
space of fifty yards, the long grass soon hiding them
from view.
This was not a hippo country, but in default of any-
thing else I began hunting the river, knowing there were
a few about. A hippo has the best of ears, a keen nose,
and fairly good eyes. I ranged up-country about ten
miles, hoping for lion, leopard, or cheetah, and then
struck the river to hunt up-wind back to camp. I
finally heard the heavy breathing of a sleeping hippo as
he came to the surface of the pool at regular intervals
70
ANOTHER TREK HIPPO-ANTS
for air. I crawled among the reeds, twelve feet high, on
the bank, as close to the stream as prudence would allow,
located the sound, and parted the reeds sufficiently to
afford a fair view of the water. The breathing con-
tinued at intervals, sometimes one long breath and
sometimes two or three shorter ones, but neither with
naked eye nor with field-glass could I detect sufficient
hippo to afford any kind of a mark; so I waited, waited
four hours, from one until five o'clock, lying in the
reeds, my gun-bearer, stolid as the sign of a cigar-store,
sitting a few feet distant. In the^wind-wavpn re^Hsjimj
the music of the rushing waters the panorama of my past
sporting life passed in review before me. I recalled an
experience camping on Mt. Carbon in Colorado at tim-
ber-line, above insect and small animal and bird life,
above the noise, the very considerable noise, that small
living creatures contribute to daily life, to which custom
dulls our ears, and which, therefore, we fail to notice.
It is so still above timber-line that silence is said to be
audible. My camp was half a mile from the Ute Indian
Reservation, and the Utes were to be moved October ist
to another reservation in Utah. Rumors were rife that
they would refuse to move peacefully and would go on
the war-path; United States soldiers were placed at
strategic points, as a precaution, and a good deal of
uneasiness prevailed among the settlers; this was in
1881.
Alone in camp in all this stillness I sat comfortably
bolstered up against the woodpile, reading. My eyes
glancing up from my book, I beheld thirteen Indians
seated in a circle around the cooking-fire with knees
drawn up, arms on knees, and looking at the ground.
THE STORY OF AN OUTING
How in the world they got there without my hearing
them and whence they came were a mystery. What
did they want? Evidently their intentions were not
hostile or I would have discovered it from some overt
act of theirs. I looked about, and my gun was some
distance away. What should I do? What should I say?
I am not a good conversationalist at best, and I never
had such labor in starting a conversation. I "ahemmed "
several times without attracting attention. I said
"Good morning" with equally barren results. I finally
advanced a step or two, paused, and gazed at them;
whereupon the chief of the band arose, advanced, and
held out his hand and said, "How do, son-bitch?" I
recognized the salutation, and shook his hand, where-
upon he returned and resumed his former seat in pristine
stolidity. Evidently they were hungry. We had quan-
tities of game hanging about, and I pointed to the same
and asked if they were hungry. They understood the
gesture and straightway kindled afresh the fire. Each
cutting such a hunk of venison or elk as his appetite
craved, proceeded to cook it on a stick over the fire; they
barely heated it through, and then ate and resumed their
circular seats around the fire. The pipe of peace had
been in my mind for some time. I took a plug of navy
smoking-tobacco about a foot in length, and cut off
thirteen strips and gave one to each. They received the
same with alacrity, filled and lighted their pipes, and
resumed their seats. Well, it was interesting, but I
heartily wished the reception over, and, carelessly seating
myself in proximity to my gun, resolved to sit it out.
Their pipes finished, at a guttural command from their
chief they arose, swung into line, and advanced to me;
72
ANOTHER TREK HIPPO ANTS
the chief held out his hand and said, "Good-by, son-
bitch," whereupon they disappeared down the trail, and
I have not seen them since. The English vocabulary of
that Indian was limited, but he had evidently made a
study of the white man.
At five o'clock the hippo gave evidence of activity,
the breathing moved up-stream. I crawled out of the
reeds and walked up the bank just in time to see the
hippo in very swift water about half-way up his sides,
READY FOR THE AFTERNOON QUEST
just about to enter the grass on the opposite side of the
river, in quest of his feeding-grounds. He gave me a
quartering ear shot, which I took; he stuck his nose up
73
THE STORY OF AN OUTING
in the air in pain and thus gave me a good shot at the
base of the brain, whereupon he collapsed, stern toward
me.
The current slowly rolled the body round and down-
stream, giving a water shot at the head. The body came
along down-stream into the deep water of the pool,
where the current was less swift; we could see it for about
six rods. A hippo always sinks when killed, and he also
sinks when he is disturbed and not killed. In the
sunshine he will bloat and float in two hours in that
country; in the shade or in the night it would require
three hours or more. He would therefore not come up
until long after dark. It had been raining hard on Kenia
all day and the water was up three or four feet next
morning. A bloated hippo with his short legs is much
like a pufF-ball, and he doubtless passed our camp while
we were held fast in sleep. They had to send out
porters with lanterns to light us back to camp; in the
last mile and a half we crossed two very bad dongas.
Ants
Leisure gave me opportunity to study the ant-hills
with which this country is dotted. They are rotund or
conical in shape, eight or ten feet high and fifteen to
twenty feet in diameter on the average. They are built
with surface dirt, carried by these little white ants,
about one-fourth of an inch long. In the center of the
hill is located the queen ant, which is a Brobdingnagian
among Lilliputians. She is from three to five inches long
and one or two inches broad. Her sole function seems
to be to produce her kind, and the process of fertilization
and production is continuous.
X
REMINISCENCES TICKS BIRDS
A
IN the fall of 1911 I made an appointment with /' /1/
grizzly bear at Bear Lake, British Columbia. The
Pacific salmon, both Chinook and sockeye, enter the
Eraser River at Vancouver some time in June of each
year and commence their long, foodless ascent to the
place where they were spawned. It is a strange law
of nature that sends this fish back to the place of its
birth, to, in turn, drop its spawn, and denies it food
after entering fresh water denies by taking away the
desire for food. They go up the Fraser, branching off
at the different tributaries according to their nativity.
It is seven hundred and fifty miles from Vancouver
up the Fraser and up the Bear River to Bear Lake, and
these salmon, the Chinook at the outlet and the sockeye
thirty miles farther up on the inlet, reach their spawning-
beds from the ist to the I5th of September. The jour-
ney is long, the current swift, and they become weak
and thin; the Chinook change to a dark magenta in
color, and the sockeye to scarlet, and are very beautiful
in the water. The female drops her spawn, the male
fertilizes, and both protect for about two weeks, and then,
answering the law of their being, turn a ghostly whitish
color, die and drift upon the sand-bars, where carnivorous
birds and beasts hold revel.
75
THE STORY OF AN OUTING
The bears do not wait for this, but wade in and deftly
throw the fish upon the bank with their paws and then
cache them; one bear will have many caches; they feed
and fatten upon these fish until hibernation, for about
this time the first frost kills all the berries. Bears go
into hibernation, not so much according to the depth of
the snow or the particular time of year, but when they
have accumulated fat enough to carry them through the
winter, and they seem to know when their maximum
condition is reached.
I made elaborate plans to be a party to the bear-
salmon meeting only to find that "the best-laid schemes
gang aft a-gley." The onrushing railroad construction
through Yellowhead Pass had inspired the British
Columbia government to send in a party of surveyors
to survey a territory possessing valuable coal-deposits.
They came to the lake by pack-train, bringing axes,
whip-saws, jack-planes, shaves, etc., and began felling
trees and whip-sawing lumber with which to build
bateaux to carry a party of surveyors, implements, pro-
visions, etc., down the river for a three-months' labor.
The noise of their labors, the fishing and shooting of
their camp foragers, sent all bears out of the country at
once. I still had hopes of the sockeye country above the
lake, but lo! another danger appeared a party of pre-
emptors, three men with their wives, one having three
girls, aged four, eight, and twelve years respectively, six
dogs, quantities of traps, fourteen horses, one thousand
pounds of flour, sugar and bacon to correspond, hay-
ing tools, etc. They immediately asked to be shown
"where them hay-medders is." They had come there
to pre-empt land. They expected to cut hay to winter
REMINISCENCES TICKS BIRDS
their horses, build log barns and huts for beasts and
people, live upon fish from the streams, moose, caribou,
and deer meat plus the provisions they had brought, and
during the winter notice the best land to pre-empt under
the British Columbia Homestead law in the spring.
The grass growing upon the meadows was utterly
unfitted to support animal life; they looked it all over,
and their dogs raced it all over, and my second hope of
bear vanished into thin air. I said to the elder man:
"Pardon my curiosity, but it seems strange to me that
you should come to this place the first of October, a mile
above sea-level, expecting to build homes and winter
your people and horses here."
He named a man, a lifelong friend, who had told
him the land there was the choicest, abundant forage
growing wild, and that it was easy to live upon the game
abounding in forest and stream.
"Why bring these women?"
"They wanted to come." ^^<
"Why bring these girls to be immured in small cabins \
seven months, with the snow seven feet deep; boys might K
get out and disport themselves and relieve the mma
the cabins but girls?"
"Wall, mister, perhaps you think you could follow
them girls on snow-shoes; I'd like to see you try."
"Radishes and lettuce are the only vegetables you
can grow here, and timothy the only crop raisable."
"Yes, yes. I am greatly disappointed. I came on a
false scent, and nothing to do but clear out of here. The
man who sent me here knows good farm land, and he said
he'd been here; he lied, evidently."
"Were you not well located before?"
77
THE STORY OF AN OUTING
"You seem very curious, and you seem to think I've
done wrong. Now I'll tell you all about it. Twenty
years ago this man here and myself pre-empted one
hundred and sixty acres each in southern Oregon. I
cleared up, built buildings, and raised my family. The
neighbors got pretty thick. I had a chance to sell out,
and sold out; had all my stock and loose property and
thirty-eight hundred dollars in the bank. My friend
here leased his place for three years, and we started for
Bear Lake. If I had had money enough to have bought
a section, six hundred and forty acres, when I pre-
empted in Oregon, I'd have been a rich man now. I
expected to pre-empt one hundred and sixty acres here,
buy some more and live here ten or fifteen years and
make the growth in price, and then I'd have money
enough to last me out and take good care of my family.
Now what's the matter with that reasoning? Didn't
I try to do it all right?"
u Yes. The misfortune is that you did not inquire
more about this country. They could have told you in
Vancouver. How long have you been coming?"
"Five months and two weeks."
"You practically crossed the state of Oregon and the
state of Washington, and have come seven hundred and
fifty miles in British Columbia to this place, camping
along the route; you expected to find good land cheap,
because of its remoteness."
"Yes."
This man typified the wanderlust, the landlust that
inspire the pioneer settlers. They cannot endure
neighbors; they hunger for the solitude of forest or
plain; they have a kinship with wild life, and eke out
78
REMINISCENCES TICKS B I RDS
their existence, sufficient unto themselves as to fellow-
ship and social relations. The zest inspired by dog
and trap and gun blinded their eyes to such scrutiny of
the land and place as was easily open to them.
He finally turned upon me and said:
"Now, I'd like to ask you a few questions. What's
your name and where do you live?"
I told him.
"What are you out here for spending your money
on a pack-train and guides? Want to kill a grizzly so
you can go back and brag about it?"
"Yes, that's about right. I wanted to get out into
the open, away from men and business and rest and
brace up so I can go back home and stand the racket
and earn my salary."
"What is your salary?"
When I told him he said:
"God A'mighty, what do you do?"
Told I wasabanker, he asked: "How big is your
The $15,000,000 capital and profits and $140,000,000
deposits found no registering intelligence in his mind.
"How big is New York?"
I told him the last census showed 4,778,000 people.
He puzzled and said, "That is forty-seven times as big
as Vancouver. How long and how wide is it?"
"About fifteen miles north and south and about the
same east and west."
"No, I don't mean prairie, just where the houses is,
good houses, not shacks."
I gave him conservative information as to houses,
told him I lunched on the twenty-fifth floor of a thirty-
79
THE STORY OF AN OUTING
five-story building, and my lunch-club was at least one
hundred yards above the street. I do not know that he
ever heard of Gulliver's Travels, but if he had, he certainly
must have regarded me as the up-to-date Baron Mun-
chausen.
The^country owes much to this spirit of adventure,
wanderlust, a desire to be next to nature and her store-
house, from which one may help himself unhindered and
have the helping seasoned with the excitement of quest
or hunt. I once offered two Monmouth fishermen, fish-
ing for the market, four times what they said their
labor yielded per day upon the average, to take me out
fishing the next day. The reply was:
"No, to-morrow may be the day of all the year that
yields our biggest catch, and should we go with you we
would lose it."
The speculative hope, the element of luck, sweetens
the day dreams, buoys up the expectation, parts the
mists, gives a view, however blurred, of the airy castles
of a better condition, and gives spice to many vocations,
and to none more than the frontiersmen, the pioneers of
advancing settlement.
The Daily Inquest
One of the Carituck duck clubs has inscribed over the
fireplace in the gun-room this poetical sentiment:
"What they hit is history,
What they missed is mystery."
That poignant and significant sentence is a cogent
comment upon and characterization of the reminiscences
of every shooting-club and camp-fire, and safaris are no
exception, but the most fruitful subject of conversation
80
REMINISCENCES TICKS B I RDS
with us was ticks. They have many kinds and they are
all very affectionate. One kind has three interesting
stages. At birth it is almost too small to be seen with
the naked eye, but it can be felt blindfold. It burns
like our sand-flies; it fills itself with blood, and in about
four months grows to medium size on that one meal-
twice the size of a sand-fly and has four legs. It again
fills itself with blood, and in four or five months attains
full size and has eight or ten legs. It has two mouths,
one on each side of its head or throat. It again fills
itself with blood. The female lays its eggs through
the thorax on the top of grass stalks, the male fertilizes,
and, their mission being completed, they die and leave
their nits to continue the circuit. They take the life
out of your horses; it is a good sais who can care for one
horse so as to keep him in condition, keep him fairly
free from these pests. Mosquitoes were few, but suffi-
cient to give both Pirie and Cuninghame malignant
malaria. Two of our horses died from tsetse-fly before
we left, and the other two seemed doomed.
Centipedes, six or seven inches long, a dark olive
green and very poisonous, were plentiful. Scorpions were
also numerous and have a tendency to crawl into boot or
slipper. I saw pufF-adder, but no hooded cobra, although
they abound in the territory where we hunted. One of
our horses had a bad leg from scorpion bite, but very
little is to be feared from poisonous reptiles; it may be
fairly cut out of one's reckoning.
Birds
Crane of various kinds were numerous and beautiful;
the maribou crane was especially neighborly; scavenger
81
THE STORY OF AN OUTING
birds were numerous; the guinea-fowl, a native of Africa,
is quite plentiful, and affords good wing-shooting and
delicious food. You might hunt a long time without
finding any, however, owing to the long grass. You
frequently stumble upon them, especially when making a
difficult stalk for big game.
TYPICAL INDIAN STORE AND DWELLING WHICH DOT THE COUNTRY
AND AFFORD THE NATIVES PLACES TO TRADE AND BARTER
The Francolin pheasant, wrongly so called they be-
long to the grouse family are numerous and excellent
food. Their song or call is in sound and musical har-
mony about midway between an asthmatic pump and
riling a saw, quite on a par with that of the guinea-fowl.
They are easy to shoot on the wing, and also make them-
82
REMINISCENCES TICKS B I RDS
selves conspicuous on some dead tree or other object,
and advertise the fact.
Sand-grouse are plentiful, but get up without warning
and are apt to give you a very wide shot. Quail are
numerous, darker in color, but otherwise like our bob-
whites. There seemed to be many harsh-noted birds,
and, although some had agreeable voices, the melody that
we associate with song-bird life seemed sadly deficient.
Thisjwas not ^wing^to the season; birds mate and ani-
mals breed all times of the~year:
We did little bird-shooting, except when breaking or
moving camp, since shooting-up the country drives the
big game away.
XI
ROUNDING-UP
MY partner, Pirie, gave during this trip an exhibition
of that grit and perseverance which carries men to
success. The intense sunlight affected his eyes beyond
the average, but, in addition, he was far from well.
For many days he had a temperature well above 100
degrees, which was alarming to Cuninghame and my-
self, but seemed to give him no anxiety. He hunted
every day, rain or shine, in wet grass and hot sun, in
a condition which would and should have sent most
men to their bunks.
He had hard work with his buffalo, but by virtue of
persistent determination he succeeded in getting the
two allowed by law. On March 3Oth he shot the com-
manding bull in a herd of twenty-five, a very fine animal
indeed. We had our limit of cervidae available in that
locality, and on April 1st commenced a six-days' trek
to Nairobi.
We had succeeded in obtaining a full complement of
porters, so our whole safari moved along smoothly and
in order. How uninteresting and tiresome was our
return, devoid of the novelty and anticipation which
inspired our outward journey!
"
ROUNDING-UP
OUR "SAFARI" CELEBRATING TIRIE'S FIRST BUFFALO
Elephants
Pirie, notwithstanding his great desire to hunt ele-
phant, abandoned his purpose to do so on account of his
physical condition.
The great question confronting me at this time was
elephants. Should I brave the continuous wet and cold
of a bamboo forest in~the wet season on the__gide_of
Mt. Kenia wet clothes, wet blankets for days at a time?
The more rain, the better for elephant-hunting. The sun
never penetrates a bamboo forest, and once wet through
it drips and drips. Should I encounter these hardships
and add a tusker to my string of trophies, or should
reason hold sway and a physique, no longer young, be
accorded the consideration to which it might fairly lay
claim. Ambition said yes, but discretion ahemmed
somewhat.
At the first circus I attended I stood before the elephant
85
THE STORY OF AN OUTING
with reverential awe; massive, contemplative, dignified
he seemed, and with kindly condescension he reached
out with his trunk, and I thought he wanted to -shake
hands. Instead, he relieved my hand of the uncon-
sumed portion of a cake. He subsequently received pea-
nuts with great familiarity. Having ignored my com-
parative insignificance and raised me to his own social
level by breaking bread with me, he won a place in my
affection and always seemed to me an animal to be culti-
vated, not shot. Useful to man in so many ways, I have
never thought of him as a game animal, and was there-
fore not so keen for elephant-shooting. Hence we made
haste for Nairobi, where we arrived early on April yth.
RAPID TRANSIT IN BRITISH EAST AFRICA
Next day, with greatly reduced safari, we went by
rail to Kapiti Plains, about thirty miles from Nairobi,
returning on the I2th, when we closed our safari and
left on the I4th for New York.
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ROUNDING-UP
We were^thjjg\^ight~daysin the JielcOseven teen of
which were consumed in trekking and twenty-one in
hunting. We went to Kapiti for Thomson's gazelles and
Grant's gazelles, wildebeest, and zebra. We had no dif-
INDIAN BAZAAR, NAIROBI
ficulty in getting these, although the week's-end hunters
from Nairobi keep them very wild, and I did my shooting
atjrom three hundred tofive hundred yards. Successful
marksmanship at such distances has an especial charm.
The grass everywhere was so tall as to largely cover the
game. Shooting, standing, at arm's-length was the only
method possible. The open plains afforded no object upon
which to rest a gun, and to rest your elbows upon your
knees would be to drop so low as to lose sight of the game.
8?
THE STORY OF AN OUTING
One morning, in a comparatively narrow strip a mile
perhaps in width, between the river and the hills, I shot
five different animals, and in so doing I thoroughly
stirred up all the game present, and finally they became
so alarmed that they all stampeded, and going up-river
they passed by within a half-mile of me. It is an under-
statement to say that at least one thousand zebras and
one thousand hartebeests, together with much lesser
number of wildebeests, Grants, Tommies, impala, etc.,
went by in the procession.
A mile above me the procession divided, part continu-
STREET IN NAIROBI
ing on and part crossing the river. It was a wonderful
and beautiful sight, and one long to be remembered.
The difficulty in_^African- shoo tin vis not to kill a
specimen, but to select goodLexamples, and getting the
cervidae that Africa affords is simply a question of going
where they are. To get all the different kinds of buck
ROUNDING-UP
the number exceeds one hundred and fifty would
necessitate covering the continent, and would take
years for its accomplishment, as traveling is difficult.
A few of the greater prizes are difficult, some very much
so, but most of them are comparatively easy.
There is no danger of Africa's being "shot out."
The enormous garne reservations afford ample protection
and ample breeding-grounds. Year by year the number
a sportsman may kill is being reduced. Lions were this
year transferred from "vermin" to the protected list,
and the number a sportsman may kill limited to four.
Game easily learn the danger of man and firearms, and
a good "bag" is a matter of growing difficulty.
Danger
Much discussion obtains as to which is the most dan- ^r
gerous animal to hunt. Left to Africanders to decide,
elephant would be so voted, I think. In elephant-
hunting, in addition to the direct charge of an infuriated
animal, there is danger of being trampled to death in a
stampede. Should one get in among a herd of cows,
which may not under any circumstances be shot, there
is danger in case of a breakaway or stampede of being
run down and killed without especial intent on the part
of the animal inflicting the injury.
The same statement applies to buffalo, and in addition
the buffalo possesses a viciousness that does not obtain
with the elephant. Neither the buffalo nor the elephant
has any use for man, and primarily would escape from
him, whereas the lion will hunt man upon occasion, as a
means of livelihood, and might the sooner charge an
object that would serve his purpose as food. Elephants
THE STORY OF AN OUTING
and buffaloes may be and frequently are encountered in
numbers, whereas lions are found singly or in twos or
threes; it is seldom that large bands are encountered,
and then usually when they are changing from one
hunting-ground to another.' A charging elephant is
ponderously irresistible, and his vitality preserves his
destructive force long after he has received fatal vital
shots. A buffalo is a very large animal, much larger
than the American bison, seems to have an element of
vindictiveness, and also possesses great vitality. He will
live for hours shot through one lung, and may recover,
and shot through both will live long enough to wreak
vengeance upon a sportsman. In order to cripple
elephant, buffalo, lion, or rhino you must break bones,
at least a leg or shoulder. A disturbed rhino makes a
rush in the direction in which he happens to be headed,
and takes everything in his way. His desire seems to
be to escape. He resents intrusion, is stupid, compara-
tively, in locating his danger, and strikes out wildly. He
does not pursue one, as a rule, and is comparatively easy
to avoid, and yet he is capable of anything and every-
thing, and you never can tell what he will do.
An incident that occurred while I was in British East
Africa illustrates the eccentricities of the rhino. Two
sportsmen were in their tent resting after a hunt when
suddenly, without premonition, a rhino charged the
tent, of course knocking it down and injuring one of the
sportsmen severely; the other managed to get out, get
his gun, and shoot him. The rhino had no object what-
ever in charging that tent; the probabilities are he was
passing near by, came within range so as to get the
human scent, which to him meant danger, and imme-
90
ROUNDING-UP
diately charged, following the scent, with the result
above described. In nine cases out of ten he would
have taken the opposite direction to escape danger.
As stated above, they are not vicious and have no use
for man, but are uncomfortable neighbors because they
do such unaccountable things.
I have no personal knowledge of elephant-hunting.
Elephant, buffalo, or rhino in brush or reeds or thick
cover of any kind are difficult to avoid when they
charge, and are difficult to shoot fatally because of the
interference with one's aim; vital spots may be screened
or protected. It is in such circumstances that guns of
large caliber and cartridges of crushing force are needed.
A lion in cover is also doubly dangerous.
In this connection I am permitted to copy from a letter
from H. Lloyd Folsom to his father, describing some of
the experiences the other branch of our party had with
lions:
In Camp y March 19, 1913-
MY DEAR FATHER, Well, we have killed five lions on our
very first permanent camp! Lyman went out and killed a
zebra for bait, and the boys built a small thorn-bush protection
called a boma, and Jack went in for the first night. Zebra
wasn't especially "high" yet. Then Lyman went in and the
lions were growling and snarling at him all around, but didn't
come in close. The next night I went in the thing and was
immediately impressed with the fact that if a lion tried to get
at me the thorns wouldn't do much good and there would be
a grand mix-up. Then came the most nerve-racking experi-
ence of my life. Suddenly I heard a long sniflF right by me
lion investigating the boma! Then a terrific snarl you have
to hear it to appreciate it; it sends a chill clear through you.
She didn't like me, and she didn't intend to let me interfere
with her meal on that ''crawling" zebra. Looked out through
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ROUNDING-UP
an opening and saw her settling down between the legs of the
bait. Then she would raise her head and look over her
shoulder at me and snarl way down in her throat. At this
point in the game the Express went off and did its job right
behind her shoulder. Of all the racket you ever heard! A
lion's roar simply rolls along the ground at you and hits you
in the face. Almost immediately her mate, a big lion with a
red mane, came along to see what it was all about, and I had
just enough light to make out his shoulder he got a .470
plunk! Thought he was going to tear the whole scenery to
pieces, but a .470 isn't exactly the thing to encourage that
business. Then in about half an hour I made out a lioness
standing some distance away, and nailed her. She came right
for me like a flash, but again the .470 was too much for her.
I think she meant business through and through, and I don't
mind saying that when a big black-tipped lion came up and
fairly snarled in my face (and got his burned for his pains)
that my nerves were about gone. That was four lions dead.
Then a big lioness came and proceeded to crawl up and keep
the zebra between me and her, hauled his tail to her and
started to eat her way into him how the bones crunched and
how she purred and growled! She knew I was there, and
thought herself safe enough. Tried the Remington then, but
couldn't get the bullets through the bait at her. Finally I
plugged a .470 solid in her direction, and you can bet your
life that went through, but didn't hit her, but disturbed her
equilibrium. She raised a terrible row and wasn't in the least
afraid. Nevertheless, she knew enough not to expose herself
any more than necessary, and as daylight began to come she
slunk off.
Now comes the real story. Jack wounded her the next
night, and when we came up to him in the morning he told us
about it and we saw we were in for it. We all got together
with all the guns available. I had my .405, with a shot-
gun loaded with ball and buckshot for the close work. She
made for the thickest place in all Africa and got in the middle
of it and waited very much alive. "A lion can hide behind
his own head," and when he once charges he covers one hundred
93
THE STORY OF AN OUTING
yards in eight seconds. If you have an Express you can set
off both barrels, but if you have to pump a Winchester you
will be lucky to get in one shot. I am speaking of shooting
in the open now. This lioness was absolutely hidden, and
before we knew it we were on top of her. Again that awful
snarl, but we couldn't see her. We all jumped back ready
for her, but we hadn't been quite close enough to suit her.
I think the only reason she didn't have one of us down in a
flash was that Jack's bullet had torn a lot of the ligaments
ONE NIGHT IN A BOMA.
H. LLOYD FOLSOM
along her back, and then, also, she had some pups in her,
which was unfortunate, but couldn't be helped. She had
started to come, but thought better of it. Why, I don't
know, unless it was the combination of her wound and the
pups. Then we went out into the open and had a council of
war, in which we all decided that our skins were worth more
than hers, so we made out where she was in the bushes and
94
ROUNDING-UP
started volley-firing. It got her, and that was Jack's first
lion. If I ever have to go through such a thing again as
I don't intend to I think it will cure me of all desire to shoot
lions. Tarlton has given it up long ago as a bad job, and he
is a crack shot. The boma part of it is comparatively safe, but
suppose one gets away from you, what may happen if you are
fool enough to go in after him. The odds are three to one in
his favor even if you do hit him. The range in such con-
dition becomes almost even with the muzzle of the gun, in-
stead of one hundred yards. Volley-firing is the safest
plan if you succeed in locating the lion. Of course, when
you get him in fairly open country he's your meat if you
shoot at all well especially when you have other guns backing
you up.
Folsom is a remarkably good shot. It is easy to
imagine what might have happened to him in his boma
if he had shot badly and wounded his lions instead of
killing them. A wounded^ lion is the personification of
rage and destructive energy.
Popular opinion would vote the lion most dangerous iy
expert opinion would perhaps place elephant and buffalo ^
ahead of lion, especially as you are likely to encounter
these animals in numbers. All would agree, I think, that
the rhino is least dangerous of these four animals.
They are all dangerous, and each sportsman is likely to
be guided by his own experience in awarding the palm
of danger.
Colonel Roosevelt, in Scribner's Magazine for October,
1913, says:
As I have elsewhere said, experienced hunters often differ
widely in their estimates as to how the different kinds of
dangerous game rank as foes. There are many men who
regard elephants as the most dangerous of all; and again
there are many others who regard the lion and the buffalo
95
THE STORY OF AN OUTING
as beyond comparison more formidable. My own view is
that there is a very wide range of individual variation among
the individuals of each species, and, moreover, that the condi-
tions of country and surroundings vary so that one must
be very cautious about generalizing. Judging partly from
my own limited experience and partly from a very careful
sifting of the statements of many good observers with far
wider experience, I believe that, taking the average of a
large number of cases under varied conditions, the lion is the
most dangerous; that a buffalo that does charge, especially a
bull, when it has actually begun its charge, is more dangerous
than a lion and much more dangerous than an elephant;
that a single elephant is less dangerous to attack than a
single buffalo, and that the charge of an elephant is more
easily stopped or evaded than that of a buffalo; but that
elephants are very much more apt themselves to attack than
are buffaloes, and that therefore there is more danger in the
first approach of an elephant herd than is the case with
buffaloes.
I received a letter from Lyman N. Hine, briefly re-
viewing the experiences of himself, Terry, and Folsom.
It is a very interesting presentation, and serves to round
out the doings of our party as a whole. It follows:
After seeing you and Mr. Pirie disappear from view on your
fiery steeds, Jack, Lloyd, Outram, and I completed our prep-
arations for the trip, and that evening with our entire safari
entrained for Kijabe. The Uganda Railway furnished us
with a hearty meal of red dust, which we washed down with
Nairobi beer, the combination forming what might be called
a stomachic brick. Our feast was cut short by the train
bumping into Kijabe about I A.M., and the railway rest-
house there was a very welcome sight, affording us a com-
fortable night's, or rather morning's, sleep.
On awakening at daybreak we had the first real view of our
safari, consisting of about forty natives, four mules, and two
carts, each drawn by sixteen oxen. These ox-carts were used
> o
THE STORY OF AN OUTING
as our base of supplies, and we only saw them about four
times during the whole trip. I might say here that only four
of the thirty-two oxen came back alive, owing to the tsetse-
fly's fondness for fresh beef. Unfortunately I ran into the
owner of the oxen on niy return to Nairobi, and in a few
minutes' conversation discovered that his sense of humor
had been badly sprained by the loss. We rode mules instead
of horses, as part of the country into which we were going
was sure death for the latter. It did not take me long to
discover that my animal was to be the bane of my existence,
and I became converted to the belief in the transmigration of
souls, and to the theory that the devil himself once lived on
earth and after death reappeared in the form of that mule.
He was not content with bucking until my saddle slipped off,
and I with it, but when I was firmly planted on earth he
would stand over me, with one ear cocked forward, the other
backward, a sinister sneer in his satanic eye, and carefully
contemplate whether this time he would use his hoofs or his
teeth on me before I could roll out of the way. Jack, Lloyd,
and Outram fared better in the mule proposition, but my beast
furnished a lot of amusement, largely at my expense, and
exercised our ingenuity in inventing means to check his non-
parlor tricks. We found a twitch operated from the saddle
to be the best remedy, but I fear the mule could not quite
look at it from our point of view. He never became quite
reconciled to said twitch.
In general, our route was southwest from Kijabe, across the
southern Guasinyero to the border of German East Africa,
then along the border in a southeasterly direction to a point
about south of Nairobi, then north across Lake Magadi (a
caustic soda lake) through the game reserve to Nairobi.
The nature of the country was quite different from that
which I judge you found. The altitude varied from about
seven thousand feet above the sea-level to nine hundred feet
above. We found comparatively few open plains, and the
country consisted for the most part of jungle, thick bush
country, long grass, and occasionally dried-up, rolling plains.
This nature of the country accounts for the method of lion-
ROUNDING-UP
BOMA AND ZEBRA-KILL FROM WHICH EIGHT LIONS WERE KILLED
shooting which we employed there namely, boma shooting,
at which Outram excels.
A short description of a boma might interest you, as I
judge you had none of this kind of shooting. A boma con-
sists of a circlet of thick branches cut from surrounding trees,
the center of which is large enough to hold a white man and
his gun-bearer. It is usually between five and six feet high.
Its purpose is to serve as a means of concealment, but I
doubt if it would be much of a protection should the lions
try to get in. About fifteen feet from this boma a bait,
usually a dead zebra, is placed. This bait, before being put
by the boma, has been dragged perhaps five or six miles in
order to lay a scent to attract lions. Fresh bait does not
seem to attract lions or other animals, but our experience
showed that the "higher" the bait became the greater attrac-
tion it had for animals. Hardly a night in a boma failed to
produce something of interest. It might be a pack of wild
dogs yelping by at full tilt, chasing game, the indescribable
whir of a leopard, the midnight supper of hyenas and jackals,
or the visit of lions. An opening is made in the boma, through
which to shoot in the direction of the zebra. I say "in the
99
THE STORY OF AN OUTING
direction of the zebra," because it is often so dark that you
cannot see the lion, but have to take a chance at hitting him
by firing where you think he is. If you only wound him you
have next morning the ticklish proposition of following a
wounded lion. The inmate of the boma has a chance to see
the lion feeding at, you might" say, a disagreeably close range.
Boma-shooting is, of course, an all-night job, the hunter going
in before sunset and staying there until dawn. As an illustra-
tion of a night in a boma, it may interest you to hear of a night
that Jack and I spent in one.
Immediately after we entered our thorny "couch" things
became disagreeable. The rain came down in torrents, com-
pletely drenching us and lasting the whole night. It was so
dark we could neither see the bait nor the sights of our rifles,
so we decided if a lion came we would take a chance and fire
in its general direction. We could hear lions grunting as soon
as it became dark, and we waited, expecting to hear their
grunts sound nearer and nearer. We were disappointed in
this, and had almost given up hope of their coming when
about ten o'clock, when everything was still, we suddenly
heard a roar and snarl, and a lioness jumped on the zebra,
clawing and crunching the body and making such a racket
that we both pretty nearly had nervous prostration. You
have no idea what a fiendish noise they make, feeding. In-
tensify a billion times the gurglish demonstrations of a billion
newly rich people eating soup, and you will have a small idea
of some of the sounds. The crunching noise defies an attempt
at description. Presently the lioness left the bait, came for
the boma, and started clawing at it within two feet of us. We
both crouched, with our rifles ready for action, should she try
to get in. We couldn't shoot, because we couldn't see any-
thing to shoot at, and at that close range a random shot
would only have made matters worse.
We had to stick in this position for two hours. The lioness
occasionally came out to crunch at the body, and then would
come back and turn her attention to us. Finally we thought
the lioness had gone away, as for a long time we heard no sound
from her. So Jack and I decided to lie down and rest. We
100
ROUNDING-UP
were in this position for about half an hour when we decided
we would take a look through the opening to see what was
doing. We had both got our faces at the opening and were
peering out when, quick as a flash, came a roar from the
lionesss, only six inches from our faces. It seems she had
been on a tour of inspection and happened to be scrutiniz-
ing the opening at the very moment we decided to satisfy
our curiosity by peeping out. Jack, who had his gun-barrel
in the opening, pulled the trigger, and after the roar of the
gun all was quiet. We had to wait until daylight before we
could find out the result of that shot.
On coming out of the boma at dawn we found blood spoor,
showing that the bullet had hit its mark, but no sign of the
beast. We tracked her where she had gone into the thick
bush, and then Outram and Lloyd came up and we decided to
go in after her. We went single file through the thick stuff,
with our guns ready, as we did not know whether she was
ten feet or three-quarters of a mile away, and had to be
ready for anything. We were just next to a very thick bush
when Outram, who was behind me, yelled, "Look out, here
she comes!" And not ten feet away we heard the terrible
roar a lion gives preliminary to the spring, and just had time
to jump back and turn, ready to fire. She was so close to us
that had she made a spring she would have inevitably got
one of us. Luckily for us, however, she did not spring, the
reason being that Jack's shot during the night had ripped the
muscles in her back so that she was half paralyzed. She had
evidently been waiting for us to get within springing distance
of her before letting us know of her whereabouts. Not a
sound did she make until that terrific roar. We got out of the
thick bush as quickly as possible, into a small open space,
from where we could peer into the bush where the lioness was.
A shot as she lay there finished her.
I suppose the variety to be got in the country we hunted
was about the same as what you found. It is possible to get
zebras, kongoni, Grants, impala, Tommies, wildebeests, ro-
bertsi, giraffes, topi, elands, waterbucks, bushbucks, klip-
springers, mountain-ree^-bucks, rhinoceroses, roan antelopes,
101
THE STORY OF AN OUTING
greater and lesser kudu, lions, Colobus monkeys, and other
animals too numerous to mention.
These young men had flattering success in securing
wonderful trophies of the vajious kinds of game available
in the territory comprised within their hunt.
We were all supplied with photographic apparatus,
and succeeded fairly well with our pictures. Hine car-
ried a tripod and kinetoscope from New York, a cumber-
some and troublesome bit of baggage, but his enthusiasm
was well repaid, as he secured some first-class moving
pictures.
Guns
Distinguished Africanders >of much experience, like
'arl E. Akeley, Cuninghame, and others, think that a
.450 rifle or one of larger capacity is indispensable to
one's safety, and such opinions may be accepted as con-
clusive. It requires no argument to prove that the
larger the bore and the stronger the charge of powder,
the more destructive will be the weapon, but a well-
placed smaller bullet will prove effective when a badly
placed larger one would not.
The gun should be adapted to the man and should be
no heavier in weight than he can handle with ease and
reasonable celerity, and the cartridge, while it must be
effective, should not involve a charge so heavy as to
invite flinching from the recoil or otherwise interfere
with accuracy of aim.
Mr. Selous says:
The best weapon for elephants and buffaloes, which are
usually met with in dense jungle or bamboo forest, where it
102
ROUNDING-UP
may be impossible to obtain a picked shot, is the heaviest
cordite rifle a man can use with ease and comfort. For a
man of medium weight and build a .450 or .470 bore is quite
heavy enough. 1
For soft-skinned animals Mr. Selous favors small-
bore rifles and favorably mentions calibers ranging from
.256 to .303. Ex-President Roosevelt used with excel-
lent results the American army Springfield rifle, .280
caliber, with short-pointed bullet.
R. J. Cuninghame says:
During the Roosevelt expedition I had ample opportunity
to observe the effect of the pointed bullet. The rifle used by
ex-President Roosevelt was not a Ross, but an American army
Springfield, firing a very sharp, solid bullet. The trajectory is
extremely flat and the smashing power on such game as ante-
lope was quite remarkable. 2
Rowland Ward, in his Sportsman s Handbook, presents
the views of Selous and Cuninghame approvingly.
Personally, for dangerous game I want an automatic
rifle, so that the whole magazine will be at my fingers'
end without the trouble or delay of working a bolt or
lever action. Where allowed by law to shoot but a
single animal, and very likely be compelled to hunt for
days or even weeks for that opportunity, I also want an
automatic. Many times they insure success when a
lever or bolt action might result in failure. I am quite
aware that there are experts who can shoot bolt and lever
action guns with phenomenal rapidity and accuracy.
I have in mind the busy man who goes afield once a
year for his vacation and whose maximum grade would
be a "fairly good shot" not an expert.
1 Rowland Ward's Sportsman's Handbook. 2 Ibid.
103
THE STORY OF AN OUTING
I have used for years with great satisfaction the .35
Automatic Remington and the .405 Winchester. These
guns are equal to any game on the North American con-
tinent, and with moderate, exceptions any game any-
where.
Continual hunting in Africa will bring experiences
where the shocking power of more powerful cartridges
than these guns use is necessary to stop or turn game
and preserve one's life. A man always has two guns;
I had thie the .35 Remington in my saddle scabbard,
a .450.500, and a Mannlicher-Schoenauer .256 Magnum
pattern with my two gun-bearers. The .450-. 500 is a
good, powerful gun and well known. The .256 has a
sharp-pointed bullet, both solid and soft-nose, three
thousand feet initial velocity, very flat trajectory, and
was most satisfactory. The destructive power of these
soft-nose bullets on all soft -skinned animals was won-
derful.
XII
EXPENSE
"God gives no value unto man
Unmatched by meed of labor,
And cost of worth has ever been
The closest neighbor."
AN[ African big -game hunt costs money, it costs
time, it costs hard work, and it costs inconvenience
and annoyance from insectivora and excessive heat, and
involves exposure to possible local and climatic disease.
The experience, the pleasure, and general satisfaction
of the trip surpass all cost and all risk. If what you get
by way of outfitting and what you pay for were a little
closer neighbors, it would be more satisfactory. They
tell you to beware the charge of the elephant, the buffalo,
the lion, and the rhino, but there is another charge that
many think falls within the danger zone, and from which
there is no escape the charge of the outfitters. They
look after their safaris and give them good service, and
if their charges seem to follow the rule formerly in vogue
with our railroads in fixing freight charges, of charging
"what the traffic will bear/' per contra, they do their
business systematically and well, look after their safaris
painstakingly and most efficiently, and that is a service
for which one can afford to pay.
105
THE STORY OF AN OUTING
The cost of reaching British East Africa depends
largely upon the line of travel selected. If you take the
North Atlantic route and go by rail across Europe to
Marseilles or Naples, if you -take a cabine de luxe instead
of less expensive quarters, if you are entertained by and
entertain your friends en route, the expense will be
larger in proportion. Two hundred dollars will, how-
ever, buy a ticket, with a good room, from Marseilles or
Naples to Mombasa, and fifteen dollars will take you
by rail on to Nairobi. The cheaper route would be by
steamer from New York to Naples.
The expense of my hunt from my arrival in Nairobi
until my departure for home was slightly under two
thousand dollars, lessened, undoubtedly, because of the
fact that I had a partner. License, not including
elephant, accounted for two hundred and fifty dollars,
loss on horses (my share) about two hundred and fifty
dollars. If you are young and strong and time is no object,
you can do your hunting and trekking on foot. If your
time is valuable and you wish to avail yourself of every
chance to get game ( I could not have got my lion
unmounted), then horses are desirable and an economic
investment. They come high, considering the quality,
and you must buy and transport by porters grain for
their sustenance. We lost two from tsetse- flies, and
the remaining two seemed fly-struck, which is always
fatal.
If you have a large safari some one who can speak the
native language is indispensable to handle it; an experi-
enced man will save money and trouble, especially in
view of the labor complications now obtaining. My
share of the amount paid our two guides was five hundred
1 06
EXPENSE
and twenty-five dollars, for two months, and in my case
it was an excellent investment. We might have got
along very well indeed with one, but we wanted results
more than economy. With a small safari this item
could be greatly reduced and perhaps omitted altogether,
but not wisely, I think. No one without experience
knows how to hunt in that country, and it is cheaper to
pay a guide than pay for your own blunders. Tested
from any American standpoint, the labor seemed very
cheap; the food supply was expensive, as you would
naturally expect in a new and remote country. Posho,
upon which jthe_negroes-^iib*ist, together with the game
you supply them, is coarsely ground corn. The principal
expense with reference to that lies in the number of por-
ters necessary to carry the same. If two sportsmen
occupy the same tent it saves the cost of one tent, one
tent-boy, and two porters.
In many ways the expense may be toned down, but
hunting in Africa is a luxury and should be so treated;
the experience you have and the trophies you get make
it worth many ordinary vacations; economize on the
ordinary vacations and save up for this one. Whether
young or old, rich or poor, unacclimated in that strange
country, under a tropical sun, it is better to pay for
guides, and horses even, rather than risk taking it out
of your constitution.
A very large item of expense comes from the cost of
curing, caring for, treating, and shipping your trophies.
It runs up into surprisingly large figures, but all this
can easily be saved by missing instead of hitting.
There is no rest, nothing static in nature or in life;
107
THE STORY OF AN OUTING
sound, light, color, heat in short, life is motion; only
the dead are at rest.
A vacation consists in going away somewhere and get-
ting another kind of tire; a. tire which enables you to
return and appreciate the comforts of your home, the
society of your friends, the nobility of your calling, and
resume your functions as a useful factor in the economy
of life with energy and confidence.
The North Star in the northern hemisphere, the South-
ern Cross in the southern hemisphere, serve to point
direction and guide the traveler's course; in all hemi-
spheres there is a lodestone that compels the wanderer's
course and sets his pace, and that lodestone is the
hearthstone.
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