» pe 2 ‘eu ' bate wo , » Ms te 5 yer n » hat -e 7 k » . ' val \ y - , bs Ae," ‘ ~~ D veyed \ ‘ . ue + tee ‘ , Lot \ ‘ - q . 7 a ‘ ~~ ' ‘ ‘3 : » i ; . A ‘ % 4 ) i . As tain * : *. ’ ht id . % «bel ‘ . ; . + ; . ; AS . a) f é ae ‘ ENC th AS ; ip ag A yy ha ; r } . 3 ek ‘ a f - : r ‘ ‘ , . - 2 Le ¥ oH ‘ 7 % % t aay 4 ' ie 3 ; ‘ » ‘ aeee ¢! ‘ ‘ ‘ ; Contents ; . 4 ‘: \ ' ov 3 uy +e ~ . - ats . - “ is + f . ‘ TAN : ; a we g ‘ 7 4 \ uN . _ é b, he | ? i / ; ‘ mi ° i " \ ( F ; 4 uae en . ‘he was . # ; Y, ‘ 1A. i , ’ ; ‘ i ; CLAN ‘ ! ; . , J et J < ‘ ’ . s 4 f pet aan . ‘ 3 . uA rN r Shas : E : Fe : , i ‘ " ’ 3 - fi oF ‘ . ‘ . : F ' . j ‘ : : F y . Pe F ‘ é i , 4 4 r , ‘ , ’ , U . “ yee Pe PPD # ' ¥ wey ’ a hay i opt Ar ge rien . ‘ ay ' * ’ my ‘ i ‘ 74 i omea . ‘ F 3 : ‘ é i ve prey" ‘ é ; F 4 Pp “2 eho Aivel q ‘ he ‘ é, “A ‘ av anata ' ; ‘ vo » ¥e 2 ’ ’ ‘ ‘ ‘ ° ore ' ; ort ‘ 7 : +, ; ‘ ra : f ? - ‘ , ’ / * ’ J "* ar ; . apaaat ee ¥ ’ : ryt A cy sat 2 eas ; atdy ‘ ; * y ’ 2 i , ead rt ‘ ; . ’, ‘ Pia e fog ta phde at ’ ’ b H AY Dev atetyan ged . 2 My j vo Lge eregiet a tdeidd Us Ope ted’ u) . \} = a S dh bie = aren ae eal * Mr. Roosevelt and one of his big lions From a photograph by Kermit Roosevelt AFRICAN GAME TRAILS AN ACCOUNT OF THE AFRICAN WANDERINGS OF AN AMERICAN HUNTER-NATURALIST BY THEODORE ROOSEVELT SYNDICATE PUBLISHING COMPANY New YORK LONDON =< « _ ms eae Te ee we eT . “ae mA ah | ene oe ‘ wt fn a's + es ee the e ae “esa” x . ee i Ae ae yet, te. ae T é » oe 3 - . ar bs _ af ’ a —$ — * - Copyricut, 1909, 1910, by CHARLES SCRIBNERS’ SONS All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages, including the Scandinavian. Exchange — Augustana College Liby. . Sept. <8 1934 Fed ° “ e e787" ee eee e,.° ' « he An - * . ? = : . * J ss aa ~ es. - TO KERMIT ROOSEVELT MY SIDE-PARTNER IN OUR **GREAT ADVENTURE” FOREWORD “T speak of Africa and golden joys”; the joy of wan- dering through lonely lands; the joy of hunting the mighty and terrible lords of the wilderness, the cunning, the wary, and the grim. In these greatest of the world’s great hunting-grounds there are mountain peaks whose snows are dazzling under the equatorial sun; swamps where the slime oozes and bubbles and festers in the steaming heat; lakes like seas; skies that burn above deserts where the iron desolation is shrouded from view by the wavering mockery of the mirage; vast grassy plains where palms and thorn-trees fringe the dwindling streams; mighty rivers rushing out of the heart of the continent through the sadness of endless marshes; forests of gorgeous beauty, where death broods in the dark and silent depths. There are regions as healthy as the northland; and other regions, radiant with bright-hued flowers, birds and butter- flies, odorous with sweet and heavy scents, but, treacherous in their beauty, and sinister to human life. On the land and in the water there are dread brutes that feed on the flesh of man; and among the lower things, that crawl, and fly, and sting, and bite, he finds swarming foes far more evil and deadly than any beast or reptile; foes that kill his crops and his cattle, foes before which he himself per- ishes in his hundreds of thousands. . ix x FOREWORD The dark-skinned races that live in the land vary widely. Some are warlike, cattle-owning nomads; some till the soil and live in thatched huts shaped like beehives; some are fisherfolk; some are ape-like naked savages, who dwell in the woods and prey on creatures not much wilder or lower than themselves. The land teems with beasts of the chase, infinite in num- ber and incredible in variety. It holds the fiercest beasts of ravin, and the fleetest and most timid of those beings that live in undying fear of talon and fang. It holds the largest and the smallest of hoofed animals. It holds the mightiest creatures that tread the earth or swim in its rivers; it also holds distant kinsfolk of these same creatures, no bigger than woodchucks, which dwell in crannies of the rocks, and in the tree tops. There are antelope smaller than hares, and antelope larger than oxen. ‘There are creatures which are the embodiments of grace; and others whose huge ungainliness is like that of a shape in a nightmare. ‘The plains are alive with droves of strange and beautiful ani- mals whose like is not known elsewhere; and with others even stranger that show both in form and temper something of the fantastic and the grotesque. It is a never-ending pleasure to gaze at the great herds of buck as they move to and fro in their myriads; as they stand for their noontide rest in the quivering heat haze; as the long files come down to drink at the watering-places; as they feed and fight and rest and make love. The hunter who wanders through these lands sees sights which ever afterward remain fixed in his mind. He sees the monstrous river-horse snorting and plunging beside the boat; the giraffe looking over the tree tops at the nearing horseman; the ostrich fleeing at a speed that none may rival; the snarling leopard and coiled python, with their FOREWORD xl lethal beauty; the zebras, barking in the moonlight, as the laden caravan passes on its night march through a thirsty land. In after years there shall come to him memories of the lion’s charge; of the gray bulk of the elephant, close at hand in the sombre woodland; of the buffalo, his sullen eyes lowering from under his helmet of horn; of the rhinoceros, truculent and stupid, standing in the bright sunlight on the empty plain. These things can be told. But there are no words that can tell the hidden spirit of the wilderness, that can reveal its mystery, its melancholy, and its charm. ‘There is de- light in the hardy life of the open, in long rides rifle in hand, in the thrill of the fight with dangerous game. Apart from this, yet mingled with it, is the strong attraction of the silent places, of the large tropic moons, and the splendor of the new stars; where the wanderer sees the awful glory of sun- rise and sunset in the wide waste spaces of the earth, unworn of man, and changed only by the slow change of the ages through time everlasting. THEODORE ROOSEVELT. KHARTOUM, March 15, 1910. 35 40 | ( | ' SCALE OF MILES =o ————————S——_ 10 | 5 6010050 0029 \ I yg’ N I A Queen Margherita E. P \ 5p) J) 1-stesanie r Wf he 3M, ye WA eee Mt-Elgon. is Ay Nyanzg } Regs % + \ 5 (; cf W Swa 70 A 0, Nye : pf EieAibort Edward Ary exe y, GAR ee ine (( akura t . Naku OR nage | Bukoba )) E A L.L.POATES ENG, CO,,N.Y, Longitude Map showing Mr. Roosevelt’s route and hunting trips in Africa CONTENTS CHAPTER I PAGE Peer ROAD LIROUGH THE PLEISTOCENE. %0 0 «le se os I CHAPTER. it PeemnAGT: AFRICAN RANCH! 2...) so 8) eve) ee eee 38 CHAPTER, IT ierieltONUNG ON THE Kapiti PLAINS. < . 9. 006 6 ee «> 67 CHAP TER. IV APART, RHINO AND GIRAFFE 2. 3 «+ «6 0 © 0 # =» O4 CHAP EERRY. Ropeetivmin, = EIPPO AND LEOPARD f°. 0% 6s 0 evs 2 ». + 123 CHAPTER. VI er OEraro HUNT BY THE KAMITE ./ 5°. 30 4 6 6 ie ee 140 CHAPTER VII TREKKING THROUGH THE THIRST TO THE SOTIK . « « « © «© 174 CHAPTER’ VIII PR PRGSEN, TEE, SOTIK «vive Oe * eho el. el Feirw steer el Oe» 204 xiii xiv CONTENTS CHAPTER IX To Lake NaIvasHA CHAPTER X ELEPHANT Huntinc on Mount KENIA CHAPTER XI Tue Guaso Nyero; A RIVER OF THE EQUATORIAL DESERT . CHAPTER) xii To THE Uasin GISHU CHAPTER XIII UGANDA, AND THE GREAT Nyanza LaKEs CHAPTER, XIV THe GREAT RHINOCEROS OF THE LADO CHAP LER Oy. Down THE Nite; THe Giant ELAnp . APPENDIX A [PERSONAL ACKNOWLEDGMENTS] . AppenpDIx B [Lists or Mammats; HELLER’s Notes | ApPENDIX C [Lorinc’s NorTeEs] . AprrpENDIx D [Brotocicat Survey oF Mount Kenia] APPENDIX E [PROTECTIVE COLORATION IN ANIMALS]. AprpEnDIx F [THE Picskin Lrprary] INDEX PAGE 8257 A278 * ooo - S7ae . (426 - 454 » 504 - 533 . 2580 43 . 550 ee + 509 *- Sp TEL ES TRATIONS Mr. Roosevelt and one of his big lions . . . . ... . . . . « Frontispiece PAGE Map showing Mr. Roosevelt’s route and hunting trips in Africa . . adc rre: a Map of the Uganda Railway, British East Africa. ‘Total length from Mom- basa on the Indian Ocean to Port Florence on Lake Victoria Nyanza, 581 Te ilo de oO ean omy a foe ate ss. lei fe hes eae Cd We would gather on deck around Selous to listen to tales of strange adventures 5 aE ME ate VOMIGAGA 5. cra a (e seers as eR) worse te! 8 OR weve 6 Kermit Roosevelt and R. J. Cuninghame preparing to take pictures . . . . 7 SDP ee ae tes ss Nea e WS ratey ell, ot a Mere oe RR Le wk 8 R. J. Cuninghame, known to the Swahilis as ‘‘Bwana Medivu,” the master RCA EN os Dts Bl yd Vasey rok ee othe spy sm as -tey Ye 9 Mr. Roosevelt saying good-by in the Mombasa station . . . . . .. . JI Pe andawixalway Soaks Sepa a ce tik a Pee es by ee fed Mr. Roosevelt, Governor Jackson, Mr. Selous, and Dr. Mearns, riding in front Peenoime onthe way to Kapith a. os! ee OBR fire moosevelt and some members of his caravan ... . 9. . 2 ee ew TY A large American flag was floating over my own tent . . . . .... QI @he-askaris and porters drawn up in line to preet us. . . . . «2... | 22 Our first camp, Kapiti Plains station, on a bare, dry plain covered with brown SMM CUS ATES! 5 C92" se Cn CEM e coh Nottan Sue Mia Coa aah oh batts aaah OM eRe Te PaRe eT ee TELICS 5, 5c ate ol Geadhtg ia cents. s)he ieee elpae ig ANT ns See mommy (Thomson’s gazelle)- 10s. ee BT A herd of zebra and hartebeest . . . . PTE ag ie shirt: 4 nth Bi ee | Head of the wildebeest bull shot by Mr. Roosevelt . . . «. . - «© « + 34 Wie feoosevelt in Africa in his hunting costume... 2 2.6 se 6 6! 35) XV xvl ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE Sir Alfred, Lady, and Miss Pease, on ranch steps with rhino and lion skulls and lion’ Skins’ .. yooh ae steer sree Al ga) ee Mr. Roosevelt and Medlicott at the spot where we nooned on the first (unsuc- cessful) day of lion hunting in the Lucania Donga. . . . . . . . 43 Tree with Wakamba beehives, Kitanga . . . . + : ..% « «ues Percival and his oxen starting off for the giraffes . . . . . . . Sir Alfred with cheetah cub, Botha). . . .:- . = 2.) (2s Klopper and Prinsloo, the two Boers working on Sir Alfred’s ranch . . . 49 Heads of first two big lions shot by Mr. Roosevelt . . . . . “3am Some of the naturalists’ porters and skinners . . . 9. © <9. =: Vulture raven or white-necked raven... . % 5 . =. 6) 2) Kermit Roosevelt, Sir Alfred Pease, and Mr. Roosevelt at the carcass of first Dig Wom 25 5.55 6 ce Seyi pss a aI Clifford Hill’s Kikuyu ostrich boys as they beat the tall grass for lion on the third day of lion hunting at Killima (Hill) Ugami, when we got two large and one small one. The boys had their bows and arrows for protection. 73 Mr. Roosevelt weighing a lioness (shot by him) which the porters brought in entire amid great rejoicings and chantings . . . . .. - =) =): One of the native beaters and/gun-bearers . - . .. . 5 =) The start for the first day’s lion hunting . . 2 . . .° 4). > (eee View of rock where we lunched on the day we got the first four lions . . . 82 Noon at Ugami. Sir Alfred Pease bending over behind Mr. Roosevelt. . . 83 ‘“‘Ben” worrying the second big lion before it died, and when we were afraid it could yet, chargé. 2) ¢.0 02° se.) Kermit Roosevelt and cheetah shot by him . . ... = . «9. S0)susuueuwee The third male lion shot by Mr. Roosevelt . . <).. (2 |= 2050s The caravan on safari at Potha ’....8 2. 24 s).°) 2) 3) oy 6 The American flag was always at the head or near the head of the line of march: oP 606. te ee te eh Uo Stopping for luncheon at Bondoni rocks . . =|. 5.) 2 =) 3) \eeueenee Making camp at Bondont . . 2. 3 3 5 6 ILLUSTRATIONS A tribe of the Wakamba with their chief (in khaki with a golf cap) that came to present Mr. Roosevelt with a sheep near Kilimakiu eyes Skinning the eland. Before he could get quite all the way round in his headlong rush to reach us, I struck him with my left-hand barrel Drawn by Philip R. Goodwin Percival on his way to Kapiti station with trophies Masai Elmoran, Machakos road station A young bull giraffe, shot by Mr. Roosevelt at Kilimakiu . Mr. Roosevelt, Captain Slatter, and rhino shot by Mr. Roosevelt at Kilimakiu The Percival family . Group of skin-laden mules passing by the Bondoni waterhole on their way to the railroad The house at Juja Farm Masai warriors near McMillan’s ranch on the Mua hills ‘Head of a waterbuck bull shot by Kermit Roosevelt . The python . Kermit Roosevelt and the leopard Native boy carrying in a leopard shot by Kermit Roosevelt near Juja Ranch Without any warning, out he came and charged straight at Kermit, who stopped him when he was but six yards off. Drawn by Philip R. Goodwin Judd permanganating the beater who was mauled by the leopard The second rhino . Group—Towing the hippo shot by Mr. Roosevelt. Landing the hippo. Mr. Roosevelt and Bwana Engozi (Judd) Mrs. McMillan and cheetah Heatley with two leopard cubs he caught . Falls on the Rewero River Wildebeest bull shot by Kermit Roosevelt at Kamiti . XVli PAGE 102 105 107 ei 113 115 £UF, 119g I2I 125 127 129 131 Soh) 134 135 137 139 143 145 147 149 151 153 oi ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE Whydah birds’ dancing-ring: . 0s. ee es eS Heatleyyand a buffalo path 2 2 ee Mr. Roosevelt and Kermit Roosevelt with the first buffalo. . . . . . . 161 Cuninghame, Kermit, Mr. Roosevelt, Heller, and Heatley at buffalo camp . 163 It was nota nice country in which to be charged by the herd, and for a moment things trembled in the balance. . . . . -. «. . <2 eam Drawn by Philip R. Goodwin Third buffalo bull shot in the swamp . ... . - 38. 8 Porters dancing when breaking camp at Kamiti . . . . .... =. . 7 Heller preparing to send off game heads of the first five weeks’ shooting . . 172 Mr. Roosevelt after luncheon with the head missionary . . . . . . . . 75 Group—The safari on the march. Ulyate and eland calf brought in by Masai 176 An’ askari on duty~ 20-720 a0 3 3s (oe Ss) ae See or Group—The ox wagons trekking through the scrub. The porter-harper and his native harp... 2 08 (0) ee Se eek a en Ahnalt 2 uf cece ce Ce ee he ge pie ee Every one rested under the fly-tent at noon in the trek through the thirst . . 184 Watering the oxen. Taking their last drink for three days . . . . . . 185 Group—Waxbills. Courser. Elephant shrew. Springhaas. Dikdik Serval kitten. Banded mongoose. Colobus monkey ...... . . . IJ A wounded wildeheest 2. 0. 8 04 2s see me he ns A Colobus monkey fig: u0 (eds css; ioe ee ae ere Group—A wounded tommy. Head of the old bulleland . . . .. . . Ig1 Giant Masai warriors and an average-sized porter. . . 1... -. + « + 4193 Topi (shot by Kermit) . oe a8 fod rne eet 2k «seh, he te The big lion shot by, Kermit... 5 5) 9h ee Tarlton, and cheetah shot by Kermit Roosevelt . . ee A wart-hog shot by Kermit Roosevelt on ee LRU tel or Extreme form of Roberts’ gazelle. «5 5 9) yous) ae) ee ILLUSTRATIONS Group—Masai with stretching-stone in ear. A Masai woman and toto The safari fording a stream Group—A rhino family. Rhino surveying the safari. ‘‘In the middle of the African plain, deep in prehistoric thought” Giraffe at home Bluffs near one of our camping-places . Striped hyena trapped by Heller . Mr. esas, rhino, and bustard shot from rhino Wildebeest at home Rhino and young . A giant candelabra euphorbia by our camp . Group—The wounded lioness ready to charge. The wounded lioness He came on steadily—ears laid back and uttering terrific coughing grunts Drawn by Philip R. Goodwin Mr. Roosevelt, Tarlton, and the big lion shot by Mr. Roosevelt . A rhino ‘‘coming on” Masai guides on Sotik trip The rhino stood looking at us with his big ears cocked forward . Rhino shot from Salt-marsh camp, of the Keitloa type, with rear horn longer than front horn A sick Masai boy and his father . The waterhole we struck after having made a dry camp on our trek to Nai- vasha Camp at Lake Naivasha Water-lilies, Lake Naivasha Group— What one has to shoot at when after hippo on water. Mr. Roosevelt’s hippo charging open-mouthed . Charged straight for the boat, with open jaws, bent on mischief . Drawn by Philip R. Goodwin Group—Black-backed jackal. Tree hyrax. Big gazelle buck. Pelican. Spotted genet. White-tailed mongoose. Porcupine. Baboon . x1x PAGE 201 207 209 211 212 213 216 219 221 225 227 229 233 235 231 240 241 247 249 250 251 253 255 259 Xx ILLUSTRATIONS Mr. Roosevelt and Cuninghame discussing the next few days’ march over a wildebeest shot by Mr. Roosevelt . Bringing the big bull hippo to shore Mr. Roosevelt’s big bull hippo Meru porters carrying trophy ivory . A waterbuck Creek on slopes of Kenia near first elephant camp Kikuyu Ngama, Neri Kikuyu village near first elephant camp West side of Kenia’s peak, taken at an altitude of 15,000 feet Falls on slope of Kenia near first elephant camp Elephant trail in bamboo Group—Camping after death of the first bull. The porters exult over the death of the bull . The ’Ndorobo who had hysterics on the elephant . The chief who acted as guide through shambas country near first elephant camp Tree-ferns on slopes of Kenia near first elephant camp . Suliman Na Meru, one of the elephant guides Trunk of giant fig-tree in Kenia forest . The charging bull elephant Drawn by Philip R. Goodwin The first bull elephant Mr. Roosevelt’s description of one of the elephant pictures—written on the back of it . A herd of elephant in an open forest of high timber . Group—The herd getting uneasy. The same herd on the eve of charging A watch-tower in Meru shambas Mr. Roosevelt’s and Kermit’s camp near which they got the rhino and elephant A cow elephant Kikuyu..warrior: (50. -:.. 7. Sop Meat aie nt ee ee PAGE 263 265 268 271 275 276 279 282 285 See ILLUSTRATIONS Two Kikuyu boys . My boma where I was camped alone An oryx bull Ivory-nut palms on the Guaso Nyero The Guaso Nyero A Boran camp . A domesticated young male eland at Meru Helping a donkey across the stream A mixed herd of Grévy’s and Burchell’s zebras Group—The old bull Athi giraffe. The reticulated giraffe Dressing the porter who was tossed by the rhino Group—Black-and-white crow. Sparrow-lark. Ant wheatear. Ostrich nest. Rusty rock-rat. Sand-rat. African hedgehog. ‘‘Mole-rat.” Juma Yohari with the impalla killed by Kermit Roosevelt at Lake Hannington Mr. Roosevelt in a bamboo forest Kassitura with the roan antelope A hyena by flashlight Yohari with the waterbuck shot by Kermit Roosevelt Tarlton and singsing shot by Mr. Roosevelt . Juma Yohari with Nilotic bushbuck Round the elephant The hyena, which was swollen with elephant meat, had gotten inside the huge body . Mr. Roosevelt and some of the Nandi warriors . Rearing, the lion struck the man, bearing down the shield - Drawn by Philip R. Goodwin The Nandi dance around the speared lion Mr. Roosevelt photographing the speared lion As he fell he gripped a spear-head in his jaws with such tremendous force that he bent it double xxi PAGE Sil. 328 33° 334 Syl 339 343 347 352 359 363 371 377 381 384 387 391 394 397 402 403 406 4II 413 415 416 xxii ILLUSTRATIONS The spears that did the trick . Sailinye, the Dorobo, who was with Kermit Roosevelt when he shot the bongo, holding up the bongo head Dance of boys of the Nyika tribe in honor of the chief's son who had just died Kavirondos returning from market . Group—Kavirondos going down to fill their water-jars. Kavirondo bullock wagons . Entebbe, looking over lake . The Indian elephant at Entebbe . Colonel Roosevelt at Mother Paul’s Mission Mother Paul’s band composed of mission boys . Colonel Roosevelt at the Mission of the White Fathers The situtunga shot by Kermit Roosevelt at Kampalla Road through banana shambas, Uganda . The dead tusker Porters entering camp at Hoima . Cow-herons and Angola ox on the bank of Lake Victoria Nyanza Fac-simile of half of the last page of Chapter XIII of Mr. Roosevelt’s manuscript The ‘“‘white” rhino : Drawn by Philip R. Goodwin Sail-boat at Wadelai Landing . Rhino camp, Lado Enclave Group—Crocodile. Nile bushbuck. Cobus maria. Baker’s roan. Ground hornbill. Wagtail. Nightjar. Fish eagle . Camp in the Lado Veldt pool, rhino camp . The papyrus afire . Group—Cow square-nosed rhino of the Lado, shot by Mr. Roosevelt. Rhino of the usual type, with prehensile lip, shot on the Sotik by Mr. Roosevelt . PAGE 417 421 424 426 427 429 430 433 436 437 439 441 446 449 450 452 455 458 459 461 463 465 469 472 ILLUSTRATIONS XXlii aemvalked wp to within about twenty yards . 3.04. . 6 ew ew oa emaauc amd vulitires. “Che undertakers =. 0. 5) 2 ke we es 479 Seeenueevelt. and Quentm Grogan 9. ee we BE mreeeosevelt with kob, shot at rhmo camp .... .. 9... . . . . 484 The cow and calf square-nosed rhino under the tree after being disturbed by PA SOT UCIEUCATRELA' V4 que aes cce a! hss a Ben At. om sate Ca we, ASF The calf, which was old enough to shift for itself, refused to leave the body . . 488 When alarmed they failed to make out where the danger lay . . . . . . 494 One remained standing, but the other deliberately sat down upon its haunches EU ek Beto Pee mid LO or ay eal xt said we Gey et on Ow ise alt aikce AOS fine imenitor lizard robbing a crocodile’s nest . . . 2. 3. 2's «+ «+ © 409 RET TOMI 0 6. tes Uae Gah ooal\ tyes ely etree: om SOD uae. to Redjai, Belgian askari inthe rear . 9. . 2). . . . «. SIE REELING R 6 SOL. he aan sos els ca ple oe a ee, ae SEO LENGE CARREY OASIS SS Sar Oe OS a De ae ed ae eS PN AN 2 PIII aN Ee arte ee ces syst ee ua ee ve eR eae oh ore SEO Mr. Roosevelt with the Belzniceps rex, or whale-billed stork, at Lake No. . 526 PEM eetey SO DAL INIVED 0%) fhe es ais hee ke US a 528 Slatin Pasha, from the roof of the Khalifa’s palace, shows how he made his ane MNCMAUCENATN Sooke te sa epee «> oe Meu us “oent te. we" 9520 Sete elocan mis Camel: 9.5 ee ee ne ew a ete sew ep eo SQE He loved the great game as if he were their father. —Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Tell me the course, the voyage, the ports and the new stars. —Bliss Carman. AFRICAN GAME TRAILS CHAPTER I A RAILROAD THROUGH THE PLEISTOCENE THE great world movement which began with the voy- ages of Columbus and Vasco da Gama, and which has gone on with ever-increasing rapidity and complexity until our own time, has developed along a myriad lines of interest. In no way has it been more interesting than in the way in which it has brought into sudden, violent, and intimate contact phases of the world’s life history which would normally be separated by untold centuries of slow development. Again and again, in the continents new to peoples of European stock, we have seen the spectacle of a high civilization all at once thrust into and superimposed upon a wilderness of savage men and savage beasts. Nowhere, and at no time, has the contrast been more strange and more striking than in British East Africa during the last dozen years. The country lies directly under the equator; and the hinterland, due west, contains the huge Nyanza lakes, vast inland seas which gather the head-waters of the White Nile. This hinterland, with its lakes and its marshes, its snow- capped mountains, its high, dry plateaus, and its forests of deadly luxuriance, was utterly unknown to white men half a century ago. The map of Ptolemy in the second cen- tury of our era gave a more accurate view of the lakes, mountains, and head-waters of the Nile than the maps pub- lished at the beginning of the second half of the nineteenth century, just before Speke, Grant, and Baker made their great trips of exploration and adventure. Behind these explorers came others; and then adventurous missionaries, traders, and elephant hunters; and many men, whom risk 1 Z AFRICAN GAME TRAILS did not daunt, who feared neither danger nor hardship, traversed the country hither and thither, now for one rea- son, now for another, now as naturalists, now as geog- raphers, and again as government officials or as mere wanderers who loved the wild and strange life which had survived over from an elder age. Most of the tribes were of pure savages; but here and there were intrusive races of higher type; and in Uganda, beyond the Victoria Nyanza, and on the head-waters of the Nile proper, lived a people which had advanced to the upper stages of barbarism, which might almost be said to have developed a very primitive kind of semi-civilization. Over this people—for its good fortune—Great Britain estab- lished a protectorate; and ultimately, in order to get easy access to this new outpost of civilization in the heart of the Dark Continent, the British Government built a railroad from the old Arab coast town of Mombasa westward to Victoria Nyanza. | This railroad, the embodiment of the eager, masterful, materialistic civilization of to-day, was pushed through a region in which nature, both as regards wild man and wild beast, did not and does not differ materially from what it was in Europe in the late Pleistocene. The comparison is not fanciful. ‘The teeming multitudes of wild creatures, the stu- pendous size of some of them, the terrible nature of others, and the low culture of many of the savage tribes, especially of the hunting tribes, substantially reproduces the conditions’ of life in Europe as it was led by our ancestors ages before the dawn of anything that could be called civilization. The great beasts that now live in East Africa were in that by-gone age represented by close kinsfolk in Europe; and in many places, up to the present moment, African man, absolutely naked, and armed as our early paleolithic ancestors were armed, lives among, and on, and in constant dread of, these beasts, just as was true of the men to whom the cave lion was a nightmare of terror, and the mammoth and the woolly rhinoceros possible but most formidable prey. THROUGH THE PLEISTOCENE 3 — SCALE OF GEOGRAPHICAL MILES ——— SL as 0 20 40 60 680 co wo 40 160 ae Map of the Uganda Railway, british East Africa. Total length from Mombasa on the Indian Ocean to Port Florence on Lake Victoria Nyanza, 581 miles This region, this great fragment out of the long-buried past of our race, is now accessible by railroad to all who care to go thither; and no field more inviting offers itself to hunter or naturalist, while even to the ordinary traveller it teems with interest. On March 23, 1909, I sailed thither from New York, in charge of a scientific expedition sent out by the Smithsonian, to collect birds, mammals, reptiles, and plants, but especially specimens of big game, for the National Museum at Washington. In addition to myself and my son Kermit (who had entered Harvard a few months previously), the party consisted of three naturalists: Surgeon-Lieut. Col. Edgar A. Mearns, U.S.A., retired; Mr. Edmund Heller, of California, and Mr. J. Alden Loring, of Owego, N. Y. My arrangements for the trip had been chiefly made through two valued English friends, Mr. Frederick Courteney Selous, the greatest of the world’s big-game hunters, and Mr. Edward North Buxton, also a mighty hunter. On landing we were to be met by Messrs. R. J. Cuninghame and Leslie Tarlton, both famous hunt- 4 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS ers; the latter an Australian, who served through the South African war; the former by birth a Scotchman, and a Cam- bridge man, but long a resident of Africa, and at one time a professional elephant hunter—in addition to having been a whaler in the Arctic Ocean, a hunter-naturalist in Lap- land, a transport rider in South Africa, and a collector for the British Museum in various odd corners of the earth. We sailed on the Hamburg from New York—what head- way the Germans have made among those who go down to the sea in ships!—and at Naples trans-shipped to the Admiral, of another German line, the East African. On both ships we were as comfortable as possible, and the voyage was wholly devoid of incidents. Now and then, as at the Azores, at Suez, and at Aden, the three naturalistsdam@eus and collected some dozens or scores of birds—which next day were skinned and prepared in my room, as the largest and best fitted for the purpose. After reaching Suez the ordinary tourist type of passenger ceased to be predomi- nant; in his place there were Italian officers going out to a desolate coast town on the edge of Somaliland; mission- aries, German, English, and American; Portuguese civil officials; traders of different nationalities; and planters and military and civil officers bound to German and British East Africa. ‘The Englishmen included planters, magis- trates, forest officials, army officers on leave from India, and other army officers going out to take command of black native levies in out-of-the-way regions where the English flag stands for all that makes life worth living. They were a fine set, these young Englishmen, whether dashing army officers or capable civilians; they reminded me of our own men who have reflected such honor on the American name, whether in civil and military positions in the Philippines and Porto Rico, working on the Canal Zone in Panama, taking care of the custom-houses in San Domingo, or serving in the army of occupation in Cuba. Moreover, I felt as if I knew most of them already, for they might have walked out of the pages of Kipling. But I was not as well prepared for THROUGH THE PLEISTOCENE 5 the corresponding and equally interesting types among the Germans, the planters, the civil officials, the officers who had commanded, or were about to command, white or na- tive troops; men of evident power and energy, seeing whom made it easy to understand why German East Africa has We would gather on deck around Selous to listen to tales of strange adventures From a photograph by Kermit Roosevelt thriven apace. They are first-class men, these English and Germans; both are doing in East Africa a work of worth to the whole world; there is ample room for both, and no possible cause for any but a thoroughly friendly rivalry; and it is earnestly to be wished, in the interest both of them and of outsiders, too, that their relations will grow, as they ought to grow, steadily better—and not only in East Africa but everywhere else. On the ship, at Naples, we found Selous, also bound for East Africa on a hunting trip; but he, a veteran whose first hunting in Africa was nearly forty years ago, cared only for exceptional trophies of a very few animals, while we, on the other hand, desired specimens of both sexes of all the species of big game that Kermit and I could shoot, as well 6 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS as complete series of all the smaller mammals. We be- lieved that our best work of a purely scientific character would be done with the mammals, both large and small. No other hunter alive has had the experience of Selous; and, so far as I now recall, no hunter of anything like his A baobab-tree, Mombasa from a photograph by Kermit Roosevelt experience has ever also possessed his gift of penetrating observation joined to his power of vivid and accurate nar- ration. He has killed scores of lion and rhinoceros and hundreds of elephant and buffalo; and these four animals are the most dangerous of the world’s big game, when hunted as they are hunted in Africa. To hear him tell of what he has seen and done is no less interesting to a nat- uralist than to a hunter. There were on the ship many THROUGH THE PLEISTOCENE 7 men who loved wild nature, and who were keen hunters of big game; and almost every day, as we steamed over the hot, smooth waters of the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, we would gather on deck around Selous to listen to tales of those strange adventures that only come to the man who has lived long the lonely life of the wilderness. Kermit Roosevelt and R. J. Cuninghame preparing to take pictures On April 21 we steamed into the beautiful and pictu- resque harbor of Mombasa. Many centuries before the Christian era, dhows from Arabia, carrying seafarers of Semitic races whose very names have perished, rounded the Lion’s Head at Guardafui and crept slowly southward along the barren African coast. Such dhows exist to-day _ almost unchanged, and bold indeed were the men who first steered them across the unknown oceans. They were men of iron heart and supple conscience, who fronted inconceiy- 8 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS able danger and hardship; they established trading stations for gold and ivory and slaves; they turned these trading stations into little cities and sultanates, half Arab, half negro. Mombasa was among them. In her time of brief splendor Portugal seized the city; the Arabs won it back; and now Eng- land holdsit. It lies just south of the equator, and when we saw it the brilliant green of the tropic foliage showed the town at its best. We were welcomed to Government House in most cordial fash- ion by the acting Goy- ernor, Liewtename Governor Jackson, who is not only a trained public official of long experience but a first- class field naturalist and a_ renowned big- game hunter; indeed I could not too warmly express my apprecia- tion of the hearty and generous courtesy with which we were received and treated alike by the official and the unofficial world throughout East Africa. We landed in the kind of torren- tial downpour that only comes in the tropics; it reminded me of Panama at certain moments in the rainy season. That night we were given a dinner by the Mombasa Club; and it was interesting to meet the merchants and planters of the town and the neighborhood as well as the officials. F. C. Selous from a photograph by W. N. McMillan THROUGH THE PLEISTOCENE 9 The former included not only Englishmen but also Ger- mans and Italians; which is quite as it should be, for at least part of the high inland region of British East Africa can be made one kind of “‘white man’s coun- try”; and to achieve this white men should work heartily together, doing scrupulous jus- tice to the natives, but remembering that progress and develop- ment in this particular kind of new land de- pend exclusively upon the masterful leader- ship of the whites, and @aat therefore it is both a calamity and a Evime to permit the whites to be riven in sunder by hatreds and jealousies. ‘The coast regions of British East Africa are not suited for extensive white settlement; but the Memterland is, and piere severything should be done to en- courage such settle- ment. Non-white aliens should not be R. J. Cuninghame, known to the Swahilis as “Bwana Medivu,” the master with the beard From a photograph by Edmund Heller encouraged to settle where they come into rivalry with the whites (exception being made as regards certain particular individuals and certain particular occupations). There are, of course, large regions on the coast and in 10 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS the interior where ordinary white settlers cannot live, in which it would be wise to settle immigrants from India, and there are many positions in other regions which it is to the advantage of everybody that the Indians should hold, be- cause there is as yet no sign that sufficient numbers of white men are willing to hold them, while the native blacks, although many of them do fairly well in unskilled labor, are not yet competent to do the higher tasks which now fall to the share of the Goanese, and Moslem and non-Moslem Indians. ‘The small merchants who deal with the natives, for instance, and most of the minor railroad officials, belong to these latter classes. I was amused, by the way, at one bit of native nomenclature in connection with the Goanese. Many of the Goanese are now as dark as most of the other Indians; but they are descended in the male line from the early Portuguese adventurers and conquerors, who were the first white men ever seen by the natives of this coast. Ac- cordingly to this day some of the natives speak even of the dark-skinned descendants of the subjects of King Henry the Navigator as “the whites,” designating the Europeans spe- cifically as English, Germans, or the like; just as in out-of- the-way nooks in the far Northwest one of our own red men . will occasionally be found who still speaks of Americans and Englishmen as “Boston men” and “King George’s men.” One of the government farms was being run by an edu- cated colored man from Jamaica; and we were shown much courtesy by a colored man from our own country who was practising as a doctor. No one could fail to be impressed with the immense advance these men represented as com- pared with the native negro; and indeed to an American, who must necessarily think much of the race problem at home, it is pleasant to be made to realize in vivid fashion the progress the American negro has made, by comparing him with the negro who dwells in Africa untouched, or but lightly touched, by white influence. In such a community as one finds in Mombasa or Nairobi one continually runs across quiet, modest men whose lives THROUGH THE PLEISTOCENE 1k have been fuller of wild adventure than the life of a viking leader of the ninth century. One of the public officials whom I met at the Governor’s table was Major Hinde. He had at one time served under the government of the Congo Free State; and, at a crisis in the fortunes of the Mr. Roosevelt saying good-by in the Mombasa station From a photograph by Kermit Roosevelt State, when the Arab slave-traders bade fair to get the upper hand, he was one of the eight or ten white men, repre- senting half as many distinct nationalities, who overthrew the savage soldiery of the slave-traders and shattered beyond recovery the Arab power. They organized the wild pagan tribes just as their Arab foes had done; they fought in a land where deadly sickness struck down victor and van- quished with ruthless impartiality; they found their com- 12 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS missariat as best they could wherever they happened to be; often they depended upon one day’s victory to furnish the ammunition with which to wage the morrow’s battle; and ever they had to be on guard no less against the thousands of cannibals in their own ranks than against the thousands of cannibals in the hostile ranks, for, on whichever side they fought, after every battle the warriors of the man-eating tribes watched their chance to butcher the wounded indis- criminately and to feast on the bodies of the slain. The most thrilling book of true lion stories ever written is Colonel Patterson’s “The Man-eaters of Tsavo.” Colonel Patterson was one of the engineers engaged, some ten or ~ twelve years back, in building the Uganda Railway; he was in charge of the work, at a place called ‘[savo, when it was brought to a complete halt by the ravages of a couple of man-eating lions which, after many adventures, he finally killed. At the dinner at the Mombasa Club I met one of the actors in a blood-curdling tragedy which Colonel Patter- son relates. He was a German, and, in company with an Italian friend, he went down in the special car of one of the English railroad officials to try to kill a man-eating lion which had carried away several people from a station on the line. They put the car on a siding; as it was hot the door was left open, and the Englishman sat by the open window to watch for the lion, while the Italian finally lay down on the floor and the German got into an upper bunk. Evi- dently the Englishman must have fallen asleep, and the lion, seeing him through the window, entered the carriage by the door to get at him. The Italian waked to find the lion standing on him with its hind feet, while its fore paws were on the seat as it killed the unfortunate Englishman, and the German, my informant, hearing the disturbance, leaped out of his bunk actually onto the back of the lion. The man-eater, however, was occupied only with his prey; holding the body in his mouth he forced his way out through the window-sash, and made his meal undisturbed but a couple of hundred yards from the railway carriage. sag ns a et ec THROUGH THE PLEISTOCENE 13 The day after we landed we boarded the train to take what seems to me, as I think it would to most men fond of natural history, the most interesting railway journey in the world. It was Governor Jackson’s special train, and in addi- tion to his own party and ours there was only Selous; and we travelled with the utmost comfort through a naturalist’s wonderland. All civilized governments are now realizing that it is their duty here and there to preserve, unharmed, Train on the Uganda Railway Fron a photograph by Kermit Roosevelt tracts of wild nature, with thereon the wild things the de- struction of which means the destruction of half the charm of wild nature. ‘The English Government has made a large game reserve of much of the region on the way to Nairobi, stretching far to the south, and one mile to the north, of the track. The reserve swarms with game; it would be of little value except as a reserve; and the attraction it now offers to travellers renders it an asset of real consequence to the whole colony. The wise peopie of Maine, in our own country, have discovered that intelligent game preservation, carried out in good faith, and in a spirit of common-sense as 14 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS far removed from mushy sentimentality as from brutality, results in adding one more to the State’s natural resources of value; and in consequence there are more moose and deer in Maine to-day than there were forty years ago; there is a better chance for every man in Maine, rich or poor, pro- vided that he is not a game butcher, to enjoy his share of good hunting; and the number of sportsmen and tourists attracted to the State adds very appreciably to the means of livelihood of the citizen. Game reserves should not be established where they are detrimental to the interests of large bodies of settlers, nor yet should they be nominally established in regions so remote that the only men really interfered with are those who respect the law, while a pre- mium is thereby put on the activity of the unscrupulous persons who are eager to break it. Similarly, game laws should be drawn primarily in the interest of the whole people, keeping steadily in mind certain facts that ought to be self-evident to every one above the intellectual level of those well-meaning persons who apparently think that all shooting is wrong and that man could continue to exist if all wild animals were allowed to increase unchecked. There must be recognition of the fact that almost any wild animal of the defenceless type, if its multiplication were unchecked while its natural enemies, the dangerous carni- vores, were killed, would by its simple increase crowd man off the planet; and of the further fact that, far short of such increase, a time speedily comes when the existence of too much game is incompatible with the interests, or indeed the existence, of the cultivator. As in most other matters, it is only the happy mean which is healthy and rational. There should be certain sanctuaries and nurseries where game can live and breed absolutely unmolested; and else- where the laws should so far as possible provide for the continued existence of the game in sufficient numbers to allow a reasonable amount of hunting on fair terms to any hardy and vigorous man fond of the sport, and yet not in sufficient numbers to jeopard the interests of the actual THROUGH THE PLEISTOCENE 15 settler, the tiller of the soil, the man whose well-being should be the prime object to be kept in mind by every statesman. Game butchery is as objectionable as any Mr. Roosevelt, Governor Jackson, Mr. Selous, and Dr. Mearns, riding in front of the engine on the way to Kapiti From a photograph by Kermit Roosevelt other form of wanton cruelty or barbarity; but to protest against all hunting of game is a sign of softness of head, not of soundness of heart, 16 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS In the creation of the great game reserve through which the Uganda Railway runs the British Government has conferred a boon upon mankind, and no less in the enact- ment and enforcement of the game laws in the African provinces generally. Of course experience will show where, from time to time, there must be changes. In Uganda proper buffaloes and hippos throve so under protection as to become sources of grave danger not only to the crops but to the lives of the natives, and they had to be taken off the protected list and classed as vermin, to be shot in any num- ber at any time; and only the great demand for ivory prevented the necessity of following the same course with regard to the elephant; while recently in British East Africa the increase of the zebras, and the harm they did to the crops of the settlers, rendered it necessary to remove a large measure of the protection formerly accorded them, and in some cases actually to encourage their slaughter; and increase in settlement may necessitate further changes. But, speaking generally, much wisdom and foresight, highly creditable to both government and people, have been shown in dealing with and preserving East African game while at the same time safeguarding the interests of the settlers. On our train the locomotive was fitted with a comfort- able seat across the cow-catcher, and on this, except at meal- time, I spent most of the hours of daylight, usually in com- pany with Selous, and often with Governor Jackson, to whom the territory and the game were alike familiar. ‘The first afternoon we did not see many wild animals, but birds abounded, and the scenery was both beautiful and interest- ing. A black-and-white hornbill, feeding on the track, rose so late that we nearly caught it with our hands; guinea-fowl and francolin, and occasionally bustard, rose near by; brill- iant rollers, sun-birds, bee-eaters, and weaver-birds flew beside us, or sat unmoved among the trees as the train passed. In the dusk we nearly ran over a hyena; a year or two previously the train actually did run over a lioness Mr. Roosevelt and some members of his caravan Prem a photograph by Kermit Roosevelt 18 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS one night, and the conductor brought in her head in triumph. In fact, there have been continual mishaps such as could only happen to a railroad in the Pleistocene! ‘The very night we went up there was an interruption in the telegraph service due to giraffes having knocked down some of the wires and a pole in crossing the track; and elephants have more than once performed the same feat. “Iwo or three times, at night, giraffes have been run into and killed; once a rhinoceros was killed, the engine being damaged in the encounter; and on other occasions the rhino has only just left the track in time, once the beast being struck and a good deal hurt, the engine again being somewhat crippled. But the lions now offer, and have always offered, the chief source of unpleasant excitement. Throughout East Africa the lions continually take to man-eating at the expense of the native tribes, and white hunters are continually being killed or crippled by them. At the lonely stations on the railroad the two or three subordinate officials often live in terror of some fearsome brute that has taken to haunting the vicinity; and every few months, at some one of these stations, a man is killed, or badly hurt by, or narrowly escapes from, a prowling lion. The stations at which the train stopped were neat and attractive; and besides the Indian officials there were usually natives from the neighborhood. Some of these might be dressed in the fez and shirt and trousers which indicate a coming under the white man’s influence, or which, rather curiously, may also indicate Mohammedan- ism. But most of the natives are still wild pagans, and many of them are unchanged in the slightest particular from what their forefathers were during the countless ages when they alone were the heirs of the land—a land which they were utterly powerless in any way to improve. Some of the savages we saw wore red blankets, and in deference to white prejudice draped them so as to hide their naked- ness. But others appeared—men and women—with liter- ally not one stitch of clothing, although they might have THROUGH THE PLEISTOCENE 19 rather elaborate hair-dresses, and masses of metal ornaments on their arms and legs. In the region where one tribe dwelt all the people had their front teeth filed to sharp points; it was strange to see a group of these savages, stark naked, with oddly shaved heads and filed teeth, armed — with primitive bows and arrows, stand gravely gazing at the train as it rolled into some station; and none the less strange, by the way, because the locomotive was a Bald- win, brought to Africa across the great ocean from our own country. One group of women, nearly nude, had their upper arms so tightly bound with masses of bronze or cop- per wire that their muscles were completely malformed. So tightly was the wire wrapped round the upper third of the upper arm, that it was reduced to about one-half of its normal size; and the muscles could only play, and that in deformed fashion, below this unyielding metal bandage. Why the arms did not mortify it was hard to say; and their freedom of use was so hampered as to make it difficult to understand how men or women whose whole lives are passed in one or another form of manual labor could inflict upon themselves such crippling and pointless punishment. Next morning we were in the game country, and as we sat on the seat over the cow-catcher it was literally like passing through a vast zoological garden. Indeed no such railway journey can be taken on any other line in any other land. At one time we passed a herd of a dozen or so of ereat giraffes, cows and calves, cantering along through the open woods a couple of hundred yards to the right of the train. Again, still closer, four waterbuck cows, their big ears thrown forward, stared at us without moving until we had passed. Hartebeests were everywhere; one herd was on the track, and when the engine whistled they bucked and sprang with ungainly agility and galloped clear of the danger. A long-tailed straw-colored monkey ran from one tree to another. Huge black ostriches appeared from time to time. Once a troop of impalla, close by the track, took fright; and as the beautiful creatures fled we saw now 20 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS one and now another bound clear over the high bushes. A herd of zebra clattered across a cutting of the line not a hundred yards ahead of the train; the whistle hurried their progress, but only for a moment, and as we passed they were already turning round to gaze. ‘The wild creatures were in their sanctuary, and they knew it. Some of the settlers have at times grumbled at this game reserve being kept of such size; but surely it is one of the most valuable possessions the country could have. The lack of water in parts, the prevalence in other parts of diseases harmful to both civilized man and domestic cattle, render this great tract of country the home of all homes for the creatures of the waste. The protection given these wild creatures is genuine, not nominal; they are preserved, not for the pleasure of the few, but for the good of all who choose to see this strange and attractive spectacle; and from this nur- sery and breeding-ground the overflow keeps up the stock of game in the adjacent land, to the benefit of the settler to whom the game gives fresh meat, and to the benefit of the whole country because of the attraction it furnishes to all who desire to visit a veritable happy hunting ground. Soon after lunch we drew up at the little station of Kapiti Plains, where our safari was awaiting us; “safari” being the term employed throughout East Africa to denote both the caravan with which one makes an expedition and the expedition itself. Our aim being to cure and send home specimens of all the common big game—in addition to as large a series as possible of the small mammals and birds —it was necessary to carry an elaborate apparatus of naturalists’ supplies; we had brought with us, for instance, four tons of fine salt, as to cure the skins of the big beasts is a herculean labor under the best conditions; we had hundreds of traps for the small creatures; many boxes of shot-gun cartridges in addition to the ordinary rifle cartridges which alone would be necessary on a hunting trip; and, in short, all the many impedimenta needed if scientific work is to be properly done under modern con- THROUGH THE PLEISTOCENE 21 ditions. Few laymen have any idea of the expense and pains which must be undergone in order to provide groups of mounted big animals from far-off lands, such as we see A large American flag was floating over my own tent From a photograph by Kermit Rooseveit in museums like the National Museum in Washington and the American Museum of Natural History in New York. The modern naturalist must realize that in some of its branches his profession, while more than ever a science, has also become an art. So our preparations were neces- 22 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS sarily on a very large scale; and as we drew up at the station the array of porters and of tents looked as if some small military expedition was about to start. As a compliment, which I much appreciated, a large American flag was float- | ing over my own tent; and in the front line, flanking this tent on either hand, were other big tents for the members of the party, with a dining tent and skinning tent; while be- hind were the tents of the two hundred porters, the gun- The askaris and porters drawn In front of the tent stood the men in two lines; the first containing the | From a photograph bearers, the tent boys, the askaris or native soldiers, and the horse boys or saises. In front of the tents stood the men in two lines; the first containing the fifteen askaris, the second the porters with their headmen. ‘The askaris were uniformed, each in a red fez, a blue blouse, and white knickerbockers, and each carrying his rifle and belt. The porters were chosen from several different tribes or races to minimize the danger of combination in the event of mutiny. Here and there in East Africa one can utilize ox wagons, or pack trains of donkeys; but for a considerable expedition it is still best to use a safari of native porters, of the type by which the commerce and exploration of the country have THROUGH THE PLEISTOCENE 23 always been carried on. ‘The backbone of such a safari is generally composed of Swahili, the coast men, negroes who have acquired the Moslem religion, together with a partially Arabicized tongue and a strain of Arab blood from the Arab warriors and traders who have been dominant in the coast towns for so many centuries. It was these Swahili ; trading caravans, under Arab leadership, which, in their quest for ivory and slaves, trod out the routes which the up in line to greet us fifteen askaris, the second the porters with their headmen by Edmund Heller early white explorers followed. Without their work as a preliminary the work of the white explorers could not have been done; and it was the Swahili porters themselves who rendered this work itself possible. “To this day every hunter, trader, missionary, or explorer must use either a Swahili safari or one modelled on the Swahili basis. The part played by the white-topped ox wagon in the history of South Africa, and by the camel caravan in North Africa, has been played in middle Africa by the files of strong, patient, childlike savages, who have borne the burdens of so many masters and employers hither and thither, through and across, the dark heart of the continent. 24 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS Equatorial Africa is in most places none too healthy a place for the white man, and he must care for himself as he would scorn to do in the lands of pine and birch and frosty weather. Camping in the Rockies or the North Woods can with advantage be combined with “roughing it”; and the early pioneers of the West, the explorers, prospectors, and hunters, who always roughed it, were as hardy as bears, and lived to a hale old age, if Indians and accidents per- Our first camp, Kapiti Plains station, on a bare, dry From a photograph mitted. But in tropic Africa a lamentable proportion of — the early explorers paid in health or life for the hardships — they endured; and throughout most of the country no man can long rough it, in the Western and Northern sense, with impunity. At Kapiti Plains our tents, our accommodations gener- ally, seemed almost too comfortable for men who knew camp life only on the Great Plains, in the Rockies, and in the North Woods. My tent had a fly which was to protect it from the great heat; there was a little rear extension in which I bathed—a hot bath, never a cold bath, is almost a tropic necessity; there was a ground canvas, of vital mo- THROUGH THE PLEISTOCENE 25 ment in a land of ticks, jiggers, and scorpions; and a cot to sleep on, so as to be raised from the ground. Quite a contrast to life on the round-up! ‘Then I had two tent boys to see after my belongings, and to wait at table as well as in the tent. Ali, a Mohammedan mulatto (Arab and negro), was the chief of the two, and spoke some English, while under him was “Bill,” a speechless black boy; Ali being particularly faithful and efficient. Two other Moham- plain covered with brown and withered grass by Edmund Heller medan negroes, clad like the askaris, reported to me as my gun-bearers, Muhamed and Bakari; seemingly excellent men, loyal and enduring, no trackers, but with keen eyes for game, and the former speaking a little English. My two horse boys, or saises, were both pagans. One, Hamisi, must have had in his veins Galla or other non-negro blood; derived from the Hamitic, or bastard Semitic, or at least non-negro, tribes which, pushing slowly and fitfully south- ward and south-westward among the negro peoples, have created an intricate tangle of ethnic and linguistic types from the middle Nile to far south of the equator. Hamisi always wore a long feather in one of his sandals, the only 26 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS ornament he affected. ‘The other sais was a silent, gentle- mannered black heathen; his name was Simba, a lion, and as I shall later show he was not unworthy of it. The two horses for which these men cared were stout, quiet little beasts; one, a sorrel, [ named Tranquillity, and the other, a brown, had so much the coblike build of a zebra that we christened him Zebra-shape. One of Kermit’s two horses, by the way, was more romantically named after Huandaw, the sharp-eared steed of the Mabinogion. Cun- inghame, lean, sinewy, bearded, exactly the type of hunter and safari manager that one would wish for such an ex- pedition as ours, had ridden up with us on the train, and at the station we met Tarlton, and also two settlers of the neighborhood, Sir Alfred Pease and Mr. Clifford Hill. Hill was an Africander.. He and his cousin, Harold Hill, after serving through the South African war, had come to the new country of British East Africa to settle, and they represented the ideal type of settler for taking the lead in the spread of empire. ‘They were descended from the English colonists who came to South Africa in 1820; they had never been in England, and neither had Tarlton. It was exceed- ingly interesting to meet these Australians and Africanders, who typified in their lives and deeds the greatness of the English Empire, and yet had never seen England. As for Sir Alfred, Kermit and I were to be his guests for the next fortnight, and we owe primarily to him, to his mastery of hunting craft, and his unvarying and generous hospitality and kindness, the pleasure and success of our introduction to African hunting. His life had been one of such varied interest as has only been possible in our own generation. He had served many years in Parliament; he had for some years been a magistrate in a peculiarly re- sponsible post in the Transvaal; he had journeyed and hunted and explored in the northern Sahara, in the Soudan, in Somaliland, in Abyssinia; and now he was ranching in East Africa. A singularly good rider and one of the best game shots I have ever seen, it would have been impossible THROUGH THE PLEISTOCENE 27 to have found a kinder host or a hunter better fitted to teach us how to begin our work with African big game. At Kapiti station there was little beyond the station buildings, a “compound” or square enclosure in which there were many natives, and an Indian store. ‘The last was presided over by a turbaned Mussulman, the agent of other Indian traders who did business in Machakos-boma, Porters and their tents Fron a photograph by J. Alden Loring a native village a dozen miles distant; the means of com- munication being two-wheeled carts, each drawn by four humped oxen, driven by a wellnigh naked savage. For forty-eight hours we were busy arranging our out- fit; and the naturalists took much longer. The provisions were those usually included in an African hunting or ex- ploring trip, save that, in memory of my days in the West, I included in each provision box a few cans of Boston baked beans, California peaches, and tomatoes. We had plenty : 28 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS of warm bedding, for the nights are cold at high altitudes, - even under the equator. While hunting I wore heavy shoes, with hobnails or rubber soles; khaki trousers, the knees faced with leather, and the legs buttoning tight from the knee to below the ankle, to avoid the need of leggings; | a khaki-colored army shirt; and a sun helmet, which I wore in deference to local advice, instead of my beloved and far more convenient slouch hat. My rifles were an _ army Springfield, 30-calibre, stocked and sighted to suit” myself; a Winchester 405; and a double-barrelled 500-450 Holland, a beautiful weapon presented to me by some English friends.* | Kermit’s battery was of the same type, except that in- stead of a Springfield he had another Winchester shooting the army ammunition, and his double-barrel was a Rigby. In addition I had a Fox No. 12 shot-gun; no better gun was ever made. There was one other bit of impedimenta, less usual for African travel, but perhaps almost as essential for real en- joyment even on a hunting trip, if it is to be of any length. * Mr. E. N. Buxton took the lead in the matter when he heard that I intended making a trip after big game in Africa. I received the rifle at the White House, while I was President. Inside the case was the following list of donors: LIST OF ZOOLOGISTS AND SPORTSMEN WHO ARE DONORS OF A DOUBLE ELEPHANT RIFLE TO THE HON. THEODORE ROOSEVELT, PRESIDENT U. S. A. IN RECOGNITION OF HIS SERVICES ON BEHALF OF THE PRESERVATION OF SPECIES BY MEANS OF NATIONAL PARKS AND FOREST RESERVES, AND BY OTHER MEANS E. N. Buxton, Esq. Rt. Hon. Lorp Avesury, D.C.L. (‘The Pleasures of Life,” etc.) Major-GEn. Str F. REGINALD WINGATE, K.C.B. (Governor-General of the Soudan.) Sir Epmunp G. LopeEr, Bart. Hon. N. C. ROTHSCHILD. THE Eart or LonspALe. (Master of Hounds.) Sir R. G. Harvey, Barr. TuHE Rr. Hon. Lorp Curzon or KepieEston, G.C.S.I., G.C.LE. St. GEorGE LITTLEDALE, Esq. Dr. P. CHatmers MiTcHELL, F.R.S., F.Z.S. (Secretary of the Zoological Soc.) C. E. GREEN, Esq. (Master of Essex Hounds.) THROUGH THE PLEISTOCENE 29 This was the “Pigskin Library,” so called because most of the books were bound in pigskin. ‘They were carried in a light aluminum and oil-cloth case, which, with its con- tents, weighed a little less than sixty pounds, making a load for one porter. Including a few volumes carried in the various bags, so that I might be sure always to have one with me, and Gregorovius, read on the voyage outward, the list was as printed in Appendix F. It represents in part Kermit’s taste, in part mine; and, I need hardly say, it also represents in no way all the books we most care for, but merely those which, for one reason or another, we thought we should like to take on this par- ticular trip. I used my Whitman tree army saddle and my army field-glasses; but, in addition, for studying the habits of the game, I carried a telescope given me on the boat by a fellow-traveller and big-game hunter, an Irish hussar cap- tain from India—and incidentally [ am out in my guess if this same Irish hussar captain be not worth watching should his country ever again be engaged in war. I had F. C. Setous, Esq. (‘‘A Hunter’s Wanderings,” etc.) Count BLUCHER. LievuT.-Cor. C. DEtmME RapciirFE, C.M.G., M.V.O. Maurice EGerton, Esq. Lorp DessoroucH, C.V.O. Captain M. McNEILL. CLAUDE H. Tritton, Esq. J. TuRNER-TuRNER, Esq. Hon. L. W. Roruscuitp, M.P. Rr. Hon. Sir E. Grey, Bart., M.P. (Foreign Secretary and author of ‘‘Dry Fly Fishing.”’) Sir M. pe C. Finpray, C.M.G. (British Minister at Dresden.) C. Paitiipps-Wo tery, Esq., F.R.G.S. (‘‘Sport in the Caucasus.’’) Rr. Hon. Sir G. O. TREVELYAN, Bart., D.C.L. (‘‘The American Revolution.’’) WARBURTON PIKE, Esa. Sir Wm. E. Garstin, G.C.M.G. His GRACE THE DUKE OF BEDFoRD, K.G. (‘‘A Great Estate.’’) Her GRACE THE DucHEss OF BEDFORD. Lorp Brassey, G.C.B., M.V.O. (Owner of The Sunbeam.) Hon. T. A. Brassey. (Editor of the Naval Annual.) Ruys WILiIiAms, Esa. Major-Gen. A. A. A. Kintocn, C.B. (‘‘Large Game in Thibet.”) 30 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS a very ingenious beam or scale for weighing game, designed - and presented to me by my friend, Mr. Thompson Seton. I had a slicker for wet weather, an army overcoat, and a> mackinaw jacket for cold, if I had to stay out overnight in © the mountains. In my pockets I carried, of course, a knife,” a compass, and a water-proof match-box. Finally, just be-- fore leaving home, I had been sent, for good luck, a gold-— ‘mounted rabbit’s foot, by Mr. John L. Sullivan, at one time ring champion of the world. a Our camp was on a bare, dry plain, covered with brown — and withered grass. At most hours of the day we could — see round about, perhaps a mile or so distant, or less, the ~ game feeding. South of the track the reserve stretched for a long distance; north it went for but a mile, just enough to prevent thoughtless or cruel people from shooting as they — went by in the train. ‘There was very little water; what) we drank, by the way, was carefully boiled. “The drawback | Sir Wa. LeE-WarneR, K.C.S.I. (‘The Protected Princes of India.”’) | THE Rr. Rev. THE LorD BisHop oF LONDON. | Mayjor-GEen. DALRYMPLE WHITE. | COLONEL CLAUDE CANE. Rr. Hon. SypNEY Buxton, M.P. (Postmaster General, ‘‘Fishing and Shooting.”’) Major C. E. Rapctyrre, D.S.O. Sir A. E. Pease, Bart. (‘‘Cleveland Hounds.”’) Sir H. H. Jonnston, K.C.B., G.C.M.G. (‘‘The Uganda Protectorate.”) ABEL CHAPMAN, Esq. (‘‘Wild Spain.”’) J. G. Mittrats, Esq., F.Z.S. (“A Breath from the Veldt.”’) E. Lort-Puitires, Esa. (Author of ornithological works.) R. Kearton, Esq., F.Z.S. (‘Wild Nature’s Ways.’’) J. H. Gurney, Esq., F.Z.S.. (Works on ornithology.) F. J. Jackson, C.B., C.M.G., Lizut.-GOVERNOR EAsT AFRICAN PROTECTORATE. (“Big Game,”’ Badminton Library.) Cor, Sir F.. Luearp, KC.M.G: CB Dis: Lapy Lucarp. (‘‘A Tropical Dependency.’’) Sir CLEMENT L. Hi1, K.C.B., M.P. (Late Head of the African Department; Foreign O.) Sir H. Seron-Karr, M.P., C.M.G. (‘‘My Sporting Holidays.’’) CapTAIN Boyp ALEXANDER. (‘‘From the Niger to the Nile.’’) Sir J. Kirk, K.C.B., G.C.M.G. (Dr. Livingstone’s companion, 1858-64.) MorETON FREWEN, Esa. THE EArt or WARWICK. P. L.. SCLATER, Esq., D.Sc.; Pa.D.. (uate Sec. Zoolesae)) Cot. J. H. Parrerson, D.S.O. (‘‘The Man-Eaters of Tsavo.”) ‘ THROUGH THE PLEISTOCENE 31 _ to the camp, and to all this plains region, lay in the ticks, which swarmed, and were a scourge to man and beast. ‘Every evening the saises picked them by hundreds off each horse; and some of our party were at times so bitten by the noisome little creatures that they could hardly sleep at night, and in one or two cases the man was actually laid up for a couple of days; and two of our horses ultimately got tick fever, but recovered. In mid-afternoon of our third day in this camp we at last had matters in such shape that Kermit and I could My first “tommy” (Thomson’s gazelle) Fron a photograph by Edmund Heller begin our hunting; and forth we rode, he with Hill, I with > Sir Alfred, each accompanied by his gun-bearers and sais, and by a few porters to carry in the game. For two or three miles our little horses shuffled steadily northward across the desolate flats of short grass until the ground began to rise here and there into low hills, or koppies, with trock-strewn tops. It should have been the rainy season, the season of “the big rains”; but the rains were late, as the parched desolation of the landscape bore witness; nev- ertheless there were two or three showers that afternoon. ; ‘& + oo r & ‘ We soon began to see game, but the flatness of the country and the absence of all cover made stalking a matter of diffi- 32 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS culty; the only bushes were a few sparsely scattered mimo- | sas; stunted things, two or three feet high, scantily leaved, but abounding in bulbous swellings on the twigs, and in — long, sharp spikes of thorns. There were herds of harte- beest and wildebeest, and smaller parties of beautiful ga-_ zelles. The last were of two kinds, named severally after their discoverers, the explorers Grant and Thomson; many : of the creatures of this region commemorate the men—_ Schilling, Jackson, Neuman, Kirke, Chanler, Abbot— who first saw and hunted them and brought them to the ~ notice of the scientific world. “he Thomson’s gazelles, or | ‘Tommies as they are always locally called, are pretty, alert — little things, half the size of our prongbuck; their big — brothers, the Grant’s, are among the most beautiful of © all antelopes, being rather larger than a whitetail deer, : long lyre-shaped horns. . Distances are deceptive on the bare plains under the ~ African sunlight. I saw a fine Grant, and stalked him in ~ a rain squall; but the bullets from the little Springfield — fell short as he raced away to safety; I had underestimated — the range. ‘Then I shot, for the table, a good buck of the smaller gazelle, at two hundred and twenty-five yards; the — bullet went a little high, breaking his back above the ~ shoulders. | But what I really wanted were two good specimens, bull and cow, of the wildebeest. These powerful, ungainly ~ beasts, a variety of the brindled gnu or blue wildebeest of South Africa, are interesting creatures of queer, eccentric habits. With their shaggy manes, heavy forequarters, and generally bovine look, they remind one somewhat of our bison, at a distance, but of course they are much less bulky, a big old bull in prime condition rarely reaching a weight of seven hundred pounds. ‘They are beasts of the open plains, | ever alert and wary; the cows, with their calves, and one or more herd bulls, keep in parties of several score; the old bulls, singly, or two or three together, keep by themselves, © A herd of zebra and hartebeest One of the interesting features of African wild life is the close association and companionship so often seen between two totally different species of game from photographs by Kermit Roosevelt 34 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS or with herds of zebra, hartebeest, or gazelle; for one of the interesting features of African wild life is the close asso- ciation and companionship so often seen between totally different species of game. Wildebeest are as savage as they are suspicious; when wounded they do not hesitate to charge a man who comes close, although of course neither they nor Head of the wildebeest bull shot by Mr. Roosevelt From a thotograph by Edmund Heller any other antelopes can be called dangerous when in a wild state, any more than moose or other deer can be called dan-: gerous; when tame, however, wildebeest are very dangerous indeed, more so than an ordinary domestic bull. The wild, queer-looking creatures prance and rolick and cut strange capers when a herd first makes up its mind to flee from a stranger’s approach; and even a solitary bull will sometimes plunge and buck as it starts to gallop off; while a couple Mr. Roosevelt in Africa in his hunting costume from a photograph by Edmund Heller 36 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS of bulls, when the herd is frightened, may relieve their feel- ings by a moment’s furious battle, occasionally dropping to their knees before closing. At this time, the end of April, there were little calves with the herds of cows; but in many places in equatorial Africa the various species of antelopes seem to have no settled rutting time or breeding time; at least we saw calves of all ages. Our hunt after wildebeest this afternoon was successful; but though by velt law each animal was mine, because I hit it first, yet in reality the credit was communistic, so to speak, and my share was properly less than that of others. I first tried to get up to a solitary old bull, and after a good deal of manceuvring, and by taking advantage of a second rain squall, I got a standing shot at him at four hundred yards, and hit him, but too far back. Although keeping a good distance away, he tacked and veered so, as he ran, that by much running myself I got various other shots at him, at very long range, but missed them all, and he finally galloped over a distant ridge, his long tail switching, seem- ingly not much the worse. We followed on horseback; for I hate to let any wounded thing escape to suffer. But meanwhile he had run into view of Kermit; and Kermit— who is of an age and build which better fit him for suc- cessful breakneck galloping over unknown country dotted with holes and bits of rotten ground—took up the chase with enthusiasm. Yet it was sunset, after a run of six or eight miles, when he finally ran into and killed the tough old bull, which had turned to bay, snorting and tossing its horns. Meanwhile I managed to get within three hundred and fifty yards of a herd, and picked out a large cow which was unaccompanied by a calf. Again my bullet went too far back; and I could not hit the animal at that distance — as it ran. But after going half a mile it lay down, and would have been secured without difficulty if a wretched dog had not run forward and put it up; my horse was a long way back, but Pease, who had been looking on at a distance, was mounted, and sped after it. By the time I THROUGH THE PLEISTOCENE 37 had reached my horse Pease was out of sight; but riding hard for some miles I overtook him, just before the sun went down, standing by the cow which he had ridden down and slain. It was long after nightfall before we reached camp, ready for a hot bath and a good supper. As always thereafter with anything we shot, we used the meat for food and preserved the skins for the National Museum. Both the cow and the bull were fat and in fine condition; but they were covered with ticks, especially wherever the skin was bare. Around the eyes the loathsome creatures swarmed so as to make complete rims, like spectacles; and in the armpits and the groin they were massed so that they looked like barnacles on an old boat. It is astonishing that the game should mind them so little; the wildebeest evidently dreaded far more the biting flies which hung around them; and the maggots of the bot-flies in their nostrils must have been a sore torment. Nature is mer- ciless indeed. 3 The next day we rode some sixteen miles to the beautiful hills of Kitanga, and for over a fortnight were either Pease’s guests at his farm—ranch, as we should call it in the West —or were on safari under his guidance. CHAPTER Ot ON AN EAST AFRICAN RANCH Tue house at which we were staying stood on the beau- tiful Kitanga hills. “They were so named after an English- man, to whom the natives had given the name of Kitanga; some years ago, as we were told, he had been killed by a lion near where the ranch house now stood; and we were shown his grave in the little Machakos graveyard. The house was one story high, clean and comfortable, with a veranda running round three sides; and on the veranda were lion skins and the skull of a rhinoceros. From the house we looked over hills and wide lonely plains; the green valley below, with its flat-topped acacias, was very lovely; and in the evening we could see, scores of miles away, the snowy summit of mighty Kilimanjaro turn crimson in the setting sun. The twilights were not long; and when night fell, stars.new to northern eyes flashed glorious in the sky. Above the horizon hung the Southern Cross, and directly opposite in the heavens was our old familiar friend the Wain, the Great Bear, upside down and pointing to a North Star so low behind a hill that we could not see it. It is a dry country, and we saw it in the second year of a drought; yet I believe it to be a country of high promise for settlers of white race. In many ways it reminds one rather curiously of the great plains of the West, where they slope upward to the foot-hills of the Rockies. It is a white man’s country. Although under the equator, the altitude is so high that the nights are cool, and the re- gion as a whole is very healthy. I saw many children, of the Boer immigrants, of English settlers, even of American missionaries, and they looked sound and well. Of course, there was no real identity in any feature; but again and again the landscape struck me by its general likeness to the 38 232 2 RLY Re arcs Se pd Gok ie : ON AN EAST AFRICAN RANCH 39 cattle country I knew so well. As my horse shuffled forward, under the bright, hot sunlight, across the endless flats or gently rolling slopes of brown and withered grass, I might have been on the plains anywhere, from Texas to Montana; the hills were like our Western buttes; the half-dry water- Sir Alfred, Lady, and Miss Pease, on ranch steps with rhino and lion skulls and lion skins From a photograph by Kermit Roosevelt courses were fringed with trees, just as if they had been the Sandy, or the Dry, or the Beaver, or the Cottonwood, or any of the multitude of creeks that repeat these and similar names, again and again, from the Panhandle to the Saskatchewan. Moreover a Westerner, far better than an Fasterner, could see the possibilities of the country. There should be storage reservoirs in the hills and along the rivers 40 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS —in my judgment built by the government, and paid for by the water-users in the shape of water-rents—and irriga- tion ditches; with the water stored and used there would be an excellent opening for small farmers, for the settlers, the actual home-makers, who, above all others, should be encouraged to come into a white man’s country like this of the highlands of East Africa. Even as it is, many settlers do well; it is hard to realize that right under the equator the conditions are such that wheat, potatoes, strawberries, apples, all flourish. No new country is a place for weak- lings; but the right kind of man, the settler who makes a success in similar parts of our own West, can do well in East Africa; while a man with money can undoubtedly do very well indeed; and incidentally both men will be lead- ing their lives under conditions peculiarly attractive to a certain kind of spirit. It means hard work, of course; but success generally does imply hard work. The plains were generally covered only with the thick grass on which the great herds of game fed; here and there small thorn-trees grew upon them, but usually so small and scattered as to give no shelter or cover. By the occa- sional watercourses the trees grew more thickly, and also on the hills and in the valleys between. Most of the trees were mimosas, or of similar kind, usually thorny; but there were giant cactus-like euphorbias, shaped like candela- bra, and named accordingly; and on the higher hills fig- trees, wild olives, and many others whose names I do not know, but some of which were stately and beautiful. Many of the mimosas were in bloom, and covered with sweet- smelling yellow blossoms. ‘There were many flowers. On the dry plains there were bushes of the color and size of our own sage-brush, covered with flowers like morning- glories. “There were also wild sweet-peas, on which the ostriches fed; as they did on another plant with a lilac flower of a faint heliotrope fragrance. Among the hills there were masses of singularly fragrant flowers like pink jessamines, growing on bushes sometimes fifteen feet high | ON AN EAST AFRICAN RANCH 41 or over. ‘There were white flowers that smelt like narcissus, blue flowers, red lilies, orange tiger-lilies, and many others of many kinds and colors, while here and there in the pools of the rare rivers grew the sweet-scented purple lotus-lily. There was an infinite variety of birds, small and large, dull-colored and of the most brilliant plumage. For the most part they either had no names at all or names that meant nothing to us. There were glossy starlings of many kinds; and scores of species of weaver finches, some brill- iantly colored, others remarkable because of the elaborate nests they built by communities among the trees. ‘There were many kinds of shrikes, some of them big, parti-colored birds, almost like magpies, and with a kestrel-like habit of hovering in the air over one spot; others very small and prettily colored. ‘There was a little red-billed finch with its outer tail feathers several times the length of its head and body. ‘There was a little emerald cuckoo, and a tiny thing, a barbet, that looked exactly like a kingfisher four inches long. Eared owls flew up from the reeds and grass. ‘There were big, restless, wonderfully colored plantain-eaters in the woods; and hornbills, with strange swollen beaks. A true lark, colored like our meadow-lark (to which it is in no way related) sang from bushes; but the clapper-lark made its curious clapping sounds (apparently with its wings like a ruffed grouse) while it zigzagged in the air. Little pipits sang overhead like our Missouri skylarks. ‘There were night-jars; and doves of various kinds, one of which uttered a series of notes slightly resembling the call of our _ whippoorwill or chuckwills widow. ‘The beautiful little sun- _ birds were the most gorgeous of all. Then there were bus- _ tards, great and small, and snake-eating secretary birds, on the plains; and francolins, and African spurfowl with brilliant naked throats, and sand grouse that flew in packs uttering guttural notes. The wealth of bird life was be- _ wildering. There was not much bird music, judged by _ the standards of a temperate climate; but the bulbuls, and One or two warblers, sang very sweetly. The naturalists 42 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS caught shrews and mice in their traps; mole rats with vel- vety fur, which burrowed like our pocket gophers; rats that lived in holes like those of our kangaroo rat; and one mouse that was striped like our striped gopher. ‘There were conies among the rocks on the hills; they looked like squat, heavy woodchucks, but their teeth were somewhat like those of a wee rhinoceros, and they had little hoof-like nails instead of claws. ‘There were civets and wild-cats and things like a small mongoose. But the most interesting — mammal we saw was a brilliantly colored yellow and blue, or yellow and slate, bat, which we put up one day while beating through a ravine. It had been hanging from a ~ mimosa twig, and it flew well in the strong sunlight, look- ing like some huge, parti-colored butterfly. It was a settled country, this in which we did our first hunting, and for this reason all the more interesting. The growth and development of East and Middle Africa © are phenomena of such absorbing interest, that I was de- — lighted at the chance to see the parts where settlement ~ has already begun before plunging into the absolute wilder- — ness. ‘There was much to remind one of conditions in ~ Montana and Wyoming thirty years ago; the ranches planted down among the hills and on the plains still teem- ing with game, the spirit of daring adventure everywhere © visible, the hope and the heart-breaking disappointment, the — successes and the failures. But the problem offered by the — natives bore no resemblance to that once offered by the — presence of our tribes of horse Indians, few in numbers — and incredibly formidable in war. The natives of East Africa are numerous; many of them are agricultural or pas- toral peoples after their own fashion; and even the bravest of them, the warlike Masai, are in no way formidable as_ our Indians were formidable when they went on the war-— path. ‘The ranch country I first visited was in what was once the domain of the Wakamba, and in the greater part of it the tribes still dwell. They are in most ways primitive savages, with an imperfect and feeble social, and therefore a ee Saiee sae: Mr. Roosevelt and Medlicott at the spot where we nooned on the first (unsuccessful) day of lion hunting in the Lucania Donga From a photograph by Kermit Roosevelt 44 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS military, organization; they live in small communities under their local chiefs; they file their teeth, and though they wear blankets in the neighborhood of the whites, these blankets are often cast aside; even when the blanket is worn, it is often in such fashion as merely to accentuate the otherwise abso- — lute nakedness of both sexes. Yet these savages are cattle- keepers and cattle-raisers, and the women do a good deal of simple agricultural work; unfortunately, they are waste- fully destructive of the forests. “The chief of each little vil- lage is recognized as the official headman by the British official, is given support, and is required to help the authori- ties keep peace and stamp out cattle disease—the two most important functions of government so far as the Wakamba themselves are concerned. All the tribes have their herds of black, brown, and white goats, of mottled sheep, and especially of small humped cattle. ‘The cattle form their pride and joy. During the day each herd is accompanied by the herdsmen, and at night it is driven within its boma, or circular fence of thorn-bushes. Except for the milk, which they keep in their foul, smoky calabashes, the natives really make no use of their cattle; they do not know how to work them, and they never eat them even in time of starvation. When there is prolonged drought and conse- quent failure of crops, the foolish creatures die by the hun- dreds when they might readily be saved if they were willing to eat the herds which they persist in treating as ornaments rather than as made for use. Many of the natives work for the settlers, as cattle- keepers, as ostrich-keepers, or, after a fashion, as laborers. The settlers evidently much prefer to rely upon the natives for unskilled labor rather than see coolies from Hindostan brought into the country. At Sir Alfred Pease’s ranch, as at most of the other farms of the neighborhood, we found little Wakamba settlements. Untold ages separated em- ployers and employed; yet those that I saw seemed to get on well together. “The Wakamba are as yet not sufficiently advanced to warrant their sharing in the smallest degree in ON AN EAST AFRICAN RANCH 45 the common government; the “just consent of the governed” in their case, if taken literally, would mean idleness, famine, and endless internecine warfare. ‘hey cannot govern them- selves from within; therefore they must be governed from without; and their need is met in highest fashion by firm and just control, of the kind that on the whole they are Tree with Wakamba beehives, Kitanga From a photograph by Edmund Helles now getting. At Kitanga the natives on the place some- times worked about the house; and they took care of the stock. The elders looked after the mild little humped cat- tle—bulls, steers, and cows; and the children, often the merest toddlers, took naturally to guarding the parties of pretty little calves, during the daytime, when they were separated from their mothers. It was an ostrich-farm, too; and in the morning and evening we would meet the great birds, as they went to their grazing-grounds or returned to the ostrich boma, mincing along with their usual air of foolish stateliness, convoyed by two or three boys, each 46 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS with a red blanket, a throwing stick, copper wire round his legs and arms, and perhaps a feather stuck in his hair. _ There were a number of ranches in the neighborhood— using “neighborhood” in the large Western sense, for they were many miles apart. The Hills, Clifford and Harold, were Africanders; they knew the country, and were work- Percival and his oxen starting off for the giraffes From a photograph by Kermit Roosevelt ing hard and doing well; and in the midst of their work they spared the time to do their full part in insuring a suc- cessful hunt to me, an entire stranger. All the settlers | met treated me with the same large and thoughtful courtesy —and what fine fellows they were! And their wives even finer. At Bondoni was Percival, a tall sinewy man, a fine rider and shot; like so many other men whom I met, he wore merely a helmet, a flannel shirt, short breeches or trunks, and puttees and boots, leaving the knee entirely bare. I shall not soon forget seeing him one day, as he walked beside his twelve-ox team, cracking his long whip, while in the big wagon sat pretty Mrs. Percival with a puppy, and a little cheetah cub, which we had found and presented ON AN EAST AFRICAN RANCH 47 to her and which she was taming. They all—Sir Alfred, the Hills, every one—behaved as if each was my host and felt it peculiarly incumbent on him to give me a good time; and among these hosts one who did very much for me was Captain Arthur Slatter. I was his guest at Kilimakiu, where he was running an ostrich-farm; he had lost his right hand, yet he was an exceedingly good game shot, both with his light and his heavy rifles. At Kitanga, Sir Al- fred’s place, two Boers were working, Messrs. Prinsloo and Klopper. mye forgathered, of course, as I too was of Dutch ancestry; they were strong, upstanding men, good mechanics, good masons, and Prins- loo spoke English well. I afterward stopped at the farm of Klopper’s father, Sir Alfred with cheetah cub, Botha and at the farm of an- From a photograph by Kermit Roosevelt other Boer named Lojjs; and I met other Boers while out hunting—Erasmus, Botha, Joubert, Meyer. ‘They were descendants of the Voortrek- kers with the same names who led the hard-fighting farmers northward from the Cape seventy years ago; and were kinsfolk of the men who since then have made these names honorably known throughout the world. There must of course be many Boers who have gone backward under the stress of a hard and semi-savage life; just as in our com- munities of the frontier, the backwoods, and the lonely mountains, there are shiftless ‘poor whites” and “mean whites,’ mingled with the sturdy men and women who have laid deep the foundations of our national greatness. But 48 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS personally I happened not to come across these shiftless “mean white” Boers. Those that I met, both men and women, were of as good a type as any one could wish for in his own countrymen or could admire in another nation- ality. They fulfilled the three prime requisites for any race: they worked hard, they could fight hard at need, and they had plenty of children. ‘These are the three essential qualities in any and every nation; they are by no means all-sufficient in themselves, and there is need that many others should be added to them; but the lack of any one of them is fatal, and cannot be made good by the presence of any other set of attributes. It was pleasant to see the good terms on which Boer and Briton met. Many of the English settlers whose guest | was, or with whom I hunted—the Hills, Captain Slatter, Heatley, Judd—had fought through the South African war; and so had all the Boers I met. The latter had been for the most part members of various particularly hard-fighting commandos; when the war closed they felt very bitterly, and wished to avoid living under the British flag. Some moved West and some East; those I met were among the many hundreds, indeed thousands, who travelled northward —a few overland, most of them by water—to German East Africa. But in the part in which they happened to settle they were decimated by fever, and their stock perished of cattle sickness; and most of them had again moved north- ward, and once more found themselves under the British flag. ‘They were being treated precisely on an equality with the British settlers; and every well-wisher to his kind, and above all every well-wisher to Africa, must hope that the men who in South Africa fought so valiantly against one another, each for the right as he saw it, will speedily grow into a companionship of mutual respect, regard, and con- sideration such as that which, for our inestimable good fort- une, now knits closely together in our own land the men who wore the blue and the men who wore the gray and their descendants. There could be no better and manlier ee ee ee ~~ @