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COPYRIGHT, 1920, 1921, 1922, 1923, BY DOUBLE-
DAY,PAGE & COMPANY. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES AT THE
COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y.

FOREWORD

I have written this Foreword, not after reading the manuscript of thevolume thoroughly, but after a quarter of a century acquaintance withthe experiences, thoughts, and ideals of the author himself. This isthe daybook, the diary, the narrative, the incident, and the adventureof an African sculptor and an African biographer, whose observationswe hope may be preserved in imperishable form, so that when the animallife of Africa has vanished, future generations may realize in somedegree the beauty and grandeur which the world has lost.

Sculptor and Biographer of the vanishing wild life of Africa—I do notfeel that I can adequately and truthfully characterize Carl E. Akeleybetter than in these words. I have always maintained that he was asculptor, that sculpture was his real vocation, in which taxidermy wasan incidental element. The sculptor is a biographer and an historian.Without sculpture we should know far less of the vanished greatness ofGreece than we do. Through sculpture Carl E. Akeley is recording thevanishing greatness of the natural world of Africa. We palæontologistsalone realize that in Africa the remnants of all the royal families ofthe Age of Mammals are making[Pg x] their last stand, that their backs areup against the pitiless wall of what we call civilization. Human rightsare triumphing over animal rights, and it would be hard to determinewhich rights are really superior or most worthy to survive.

Akeley came twenty-seven years ago into the midst of this unequalcontest between the flesh and blood of the animal kingdom and thesteel and lead of the sportsman, of the food and ivory hunter, and hissympathies were all on the animal side in the fight. If his sympathieshad been on the human side he could not be the biographer of theAfrican vanishing world who speaks in the pages of this volume, lost inadmiration of the majesty of the elephant, the unchallenged reign ofthe lion, the beauty and grace of the antelope, the undaunted courageof the buffalo, and, last but not least, of certain splendid qualitiesin the native African hunter. We know of only one other sculptor whohas immortalized the African Negro in bronze; this is Herbert Ward,whose splendid life work is now in the United States National Museum.

Similarly, Carl E. Akeley's life work will be assembled in the Africanand Roosevelt Halls of the American Museum, in human bronzes, in agreat group of the elephant, in rhinoceroses and gorillas, each grouprepresenting his unerring portrayal of the character of the animaland his sympathetic admiration of its finest qualities. It is inmaking close observations for these groups that he has lived so longin Africa and come very close to death on three[Pg xi] occasions. We mayfind something base in animal nature if we seek it; we may also findmuch that is excellent and worthy of emulation. In this respect animalnature is like human nature—we may take our choice. The decadentsculptor and the decadent writer may choose the wrong side in humannature, and the sensational writer may choose the wrong side in animalnature; Akeley has chosen the ennobling side and does not dwell on thevices either of the animals or of the natives but on their virtues,their courage, defence of their young, devotion to the safety of theirfamilies—simple, homely virtues which are so much needed to-day in ourcivilization.

Truthfulness is the high note of the enduring biographer of animallife as well as of human life. "Set down naught in malice, nothingextenuate" is an essential principle in the portrayal of vanishingAfrica as it is in our portrayal of the contemporary manners andcustoms of modern society; to know the elephant, the lion, theantelope, the gorilla as they really are, not as they have beenpictured by sensational writers who have never seen them at close rangeor who have been tempted to exaggerate their danger for commercialreasons. Akeley's work on the gorilla is the latest and perhaps hisbest portrayal of animal life in Africa as it really is. He defends thereputation of this animal, which has been misrepresented in narrativeand fiction as a ferocious biped that attacks man at every opportunity,abducts native women as in the sculptures of Fremiet, a monster withall the vices of man and none of the[Pg xii] virtues. For this untruthfulpicture Akeley substitutes a real gorilla, chiefly a quadruped inlocomotion, not seeking combat with man, ferocious only when his familyrights are invaded, benign rather than malignant in countenance. Thushe explodes the age-long gorilla myth and we learn for the first timethe place in nature of this great anthropoid and come to believethat it should be conserved and protected rather than eliminated. Inother words, the author shows that there are good grounds for theinternational movement to conserve the few remaining tribes of thegorilla.

Akeley has come into closest touch with all these animals in turn,even at great personal risk, always leaving with increased rather thandiminished admiration for them. This quality of truthfulness, combinedwith his love of beauty of the animal form—beauty of hide, of muscle,of bone, of facial expressions—will give permanence to Akeley's work,and permanence will be the sure test of its greatness.

LIST OF LINE DRAWINGS

IN BRIGHTEST AFRICA

CHAPTER IA NEW ART BEGUN

As a boy I lived on a farm near Clarendon, Orleans County, N. Y., andfor some reason, about the time I was thirteen, I got interested inbirds. I was out of place on the farm for I was much more interestedin taxidermy than in farming. As a matter of fact, by the time I wassixteen I announced to the world that I was a taxidermist. I hadborrowed a book which had originally cost a dollar, and from that bookI learned taxidermy up to a point where I felt justified in havingbusiness cards printed stating that I did artistic taxidermy in all itsbranches. I even went so far as to take several lessons in paintingfrom a lady who taught art in Clarendon, in order that I might paintrealistic backgrounds behind the birds that I mounted. So far as Iknow, that was the first experiment of painted backgrounds used formounted birds or animals. I believe that my first attempt in thisdirection is still in existence in Clarendon but I have been a littleafraid to go to see it.

In the fall of the year in which I was nineteen, after the crops werein, I set out to get a wider field for my[Pg 2] efforts. There was at thattime in the neighbouring town of Brockport an Englishman named DavidBruce, whose hobby was taxidermy. By calling he was a painter andinterior decorator—a very skilful craftsman who did special work farand wide through the country. As a recreation he mounted birds andanimals for sportsmen. His office was filled with birds in cases and hewas surrounded with other evidences of his hobby.

To me it seemed that he led an ideal life, for he had a successfulbusiness and one that gave him enough spare time to indulge his fanciesin taxidermy. It hadn't entered my head at the time that a man couldmake a living at anything as fascinating as taxidermy, so I felt thatthe best possible solution of the problem was that which Mr. Bruce haddevised. I went to see if I could get a job with him in his decoratingbusiness in order that I might also be with him in his hobby. He wasmost kindly and cordial. I remember that he took me out and boughtme an oyster stew and told me, while we were eating, that if I camewith him he would teach me all his trade secrets in painting anddecorating, which he had kept even from his workmen. It seemed to methat a glorious future was settled for me then and there. If I was notin the seventh heaven, I was at least in the fifth or sixth and goingup, and then my prospects became so favourable as to become almostterrifying. Mr. Bruce, after having made me such alluring offers tocome with him, said that he thought I ought to go to a much betterplace than his shop—a place where I[Pg 3] might actually make a living attaxidermy. In Rochester there was a famous institution, Ward's NaturalScience Establishment. At that time, and for years afterward, thisestablishment supplied the best museums in this country with nearly alltheir mounted specimens and also most of their other natural historycollections. Professor Ward was the greatest authority on taxidermy ofhis day. It was to this place that Bruce suggested I should go. Thestep which he planned seemed a great venture to me, but I determinedto try it. I went home from Brockport and told the family what Brucehad said and what I intended to do. I got up early next morning—Ididn't have to wake up for I had hardly slept a wink—and walked threemiles to the station to take the train to Rochester. When I reachedthere, I walked all over town before I found Ward's Natural ScienceEstablishment and the more I walked the lower and lower my couragesank. The Establishment consisted of Professor Ward's house andseveral other buildings, the entrance to the place being an arch madeof the jaws of a sperm whale. An apprentice approaching the studio ofa Rembrandt or a Van Dyke couldn't have been more in awe than I was.I walked up and down the sidewalk in front of the Professor's housefor a while until I finally gathered courage to ring the door-bell.I was admitted to an elaborately furnished room, and after a littlewhile Professor Ward came in. It had been a long time since I had hadbreakfast, but he hadn't quite finished his, and this contrast seemedto increase[Pg 4] my disadvantages in his presence. Moreover, Professor Wardwas always very busy and very brusque and was a very fierce man. Noteven when a leopard sprang on me in Africa have I had a worse momentthan when this little man snapped out, "What do you want?"

The last vestige of my pride and assurance was centred on my businesscard, and without a word I handed him this evidence of my skill andart as a taxidermist. The card seemed to justify my belief in it, forthe great man asked me when I could go to work and offered me themunificent sum of $3.50 a week. I discovered a boarding house where Icould get a room and my meals for $4 a week and on this basis I beganto learn the art of taxidermy and to run through my slender resources.

The art of taxidermy as practised at Ward's Natural ScienceEstablishment in those days was very simple. To stuff a deer, forexample, we treated the skin with salt, alum, and arsenical soap. Thenthe bones were wired and wrapped and put in his legs and he was hung,upside down, and the body stuffed with straw until it would hold nomore If then we wished to thin the body at any point, we sewed throughit with a long needle and drew it in. Now to do this, no knowledge ofthe animal's anatomy or of anything else about it was necessary. Therewas but little attempt to put the animals in natural attitudes; noattempt at grouping, and no accessories in the shape of trees or othersurroundings. The profession I had chosen as the most satisfying and[Pg 5]stimulating to a man's soul turned out at that time to have very littlescience and no art at all.

The reason for this was not so much that no one knew better. It wasmore the fact that no one would pay for better work. Professor Wardhad to set a price on his work that the museums would pay, and at thattime most museums were interested almost exclusively in the collectionof purely scientific data and cared little for exhibitions that wouldappeal to the public. They preferred collections of birds' skins tobird groups, and collections of mammal data and skeletons to mammalgroups. The museums then had no taxidermists of their own.

However, many of the prominent museum men of to-day had their earlytraining at Ward's Natural Science Establishment. Soon after I wentto Ward's another nineteen-year-old boy named William Morton Wheeler,now of the Bussey Institution at Harvard, turned up there. E. N.Gueret, now in charge of the Division of Osteology in the Field Museumof Natural History, George K. Cherrie, the South American explorer;the late J. William Critchley, who became the chief taxidermist inthe Brooklyn Museum of Arts and Sciences; Henry L. Ward, director ofthe Kent Scientific Museum in Grand Rapids; H. C. Denslow, an artistformerly associated with several of the leading museums as birdtaxidermist; William T. Hornaday, director of the New York ZoölogicalPark, and Frederick S. Webster, who was the first president of theSociety of American Taxidermists, were all among the friends I made inthose early days.[Pg 6] A long list of others, not my contemporaries at thatinstitution, but men with whom I have since been associated in museumwork, might be added. Dr. Frederic A. Lucas had left Ward's shortlybefore my arrival to take up his duties at the Smithsonian Institutionbut I came to feel that I knew him very well through the stories andreminiscences of my companions. It was not until my return from mythird expedition in 1911 that my delightful association with him as thedirector of the American Museum of Natural History was begun.

I have a theory that the first museum taxidermist came into existencein about this way: One of our dear old friends, some old-fashionedcloset naturalist who knew animals only as dried skins and had beengetting funds from some kind-hearted philanthropist, one day, underpressure from the philanthropist, who wanted something on exhibition toshow his friends, sent around the corner and called in an upholstererand said, "Here is the skin of an animal. Stuff this thing and makeit look like a live animal." The upholsterer did it and kept on doingit until the scientist had a little more money. Given more work theupholsterer became ambitious and had an idea that these animals mightbe improved upon, so he began to do better work. But it took more timeand cost more money so that he lost his job. Thus it has been that fromthe very people from whom we expected the most encouragement in thebeginning of our efforts, we received the least.

I remember very well one time when an[Pg 7]opportunity came to do somethinga little better. A zebra was brought into the Establishment. I had beenstudying anatomy and I had learned the names of all the muscles and allthe bones. When I saw the zebra I realized that here was an opportunityto do something good and I asked to make a plaster cast of the body.I had to do it in my own time and worked from supper until breakfasttime, following out a few special experiments of my own in the process.Nevertheless, the zebra was handed out to be mounted in the old way andmy casts were thrown on the dump.

I stayed at this leading institution of taxidermy for four years andwhile I was there we stuffed animals for most of the museums in thecountry, for hunters and sportsmen, and various other kinds of people,including Barnum's circus. The animal we stuffed for Barnum's circuswas the famous elephant Jumbo. We had to use a slightly differentmethod for Jumbo, not only because of his size but because he had to bemade rigid and strong enough to stand being carted around the countrywith the circus; for this old elephant served dead as well as alive toamuse and instruct the public. As a matter of fact, he is still at it,for his skin on the steel-and-wood frame we made for it at Ward's isat Tufts College and his skeleton is at the American Museum of NaturalHistory.

Between the time that I first went to Ward's and my last job there,which was on Jumbo, there was an intermission which I spent in thetaxidermy shop of John Wallace on North William Street in New York. Iroomed in Brooklyn with Doctor Funk, of Funk &[Pg 8] Wagnalls, and worked inthe basement shop of Wallace's, and a more dreary six months I neverhad spent anywhere. So when Ward came after me to go back, saying thathis having fired me was all a mistake due to erroneous reports thathad been given him, I went, and stayed three years. During this timeI got to know Professor Webster of Rochester University, who laterbecame president of Union College, and he urged me to study to becomea professor. In spite of the fact that my education had stopped earlyon account of a lack of funds, I set to work to prepare myself to goto the Sheffield Scientific School. But between working in the daytimeand studying at night I broke down, and when examination time cameI wasn't ready. However, my chances of further education, althoughdelayed, seemed improved. At the time I was studying for the SheffieldScientific School my friend, William Morton Wheeler, had left Ward'sand was teaching in the High School in Milwaukee. He wrote and offeredto tutor me if I would go out there. So I went to Milwaukee and got ajob with the museum there, which was to give me food and lodging whileI prepared for college. It did more than that, for it absorbed me sothat I gave up all thought of abandoning taxidermy. I stayed eightyears in Milwaukee, working in the museum and in a shop of my own.

Several things happened there which stimulated my interest intaxidermy. One of the directors had been to Lapland and had collectedthe skin of a reindeer, a Laplander's sled, and the driving[Pg 9]paraphernalia, and he was anxious to have these shown in the museum.This material we turned into a group of a Laplander driving a reindeerover the snow. That was fairly successful, and we induced the museum tobuy a set of skins of orang-outangs, which Charles F. Adams, another ofmy former colleagues at Ward's, had collected in Borneo. We arrangedthem in a group using some bare branches as accessories.

In making these groups we had had to abandon the old straw-rag-and-bonemethod of stuffing and create modelled manikins over which to stretchthe skins. As soon as this point was reached several problemspresented themselves, the solution of which meant an entirely new erain taxidermy. If a man was going to model a realistic manikin for ananimal's skin, instead of stuffing the skin with straw, it was evidenthe would have to learn to model. Likewise it turned out that, even ifa man knew how to model, he couldn't model an animal body sufficientlywell for the skin to fit it unless he knew animal anatomy. And we foundout also that making a manikin from a model was not as simple as itsounds, but that on the contrary it is about as difficult as casting inbronze, the difference being that the art of bronze casting has beendeveloped through many years, while the art of making manikins had tobe created comparatively quickly and by a very few people. We workedat these problems step by step in Milwaukee and made a good deal ofprogress.

The reindeer and orang-outang work encouraged me to suggest a seriesof groups of the fur-bearing[Pg 10] animals of Wisconsin, the muskrat groupto be the first of the series. This suggestion was more tolerated thanencouraged when it was first made, but I went as far as I could gowith my dream and before I left there I finished the muskrat group, asI did most of my early experiments, in spite of the opposition of theauthorities. It was the old, old story of starting a thing and havingto give it up because of lack of support. But my idea won eventually.It was only a short time until my friend Wheeler was made director ofthe museum and from then on there was full sympathy for the plan. Thiswas an entering wedge, and since that time group after group has beenadded, until now that museum has a magnificent series.

Wheeler, who had encouraged me to go to Milwaukee, also was the causeof my leaving. One year, while he was director, he went to Europe,and while abroad had a talk with Sir William Flower of the BritishMuseum, in which Flower intimated that he would like me to go there.So I planned to quit Milwaukee and to go to London. However, I didn'timmediately get any farther than Chicago. I stopped there and happenedto go into the Field Museum of Natural History. It was then housedin the old art gallery of the Columbian Exposition. Professor DanielG. Eliot was its curator of zoölogy. He offered me some taxidermycontracts on the spot and I accepted. While I was doing them hesuggested that I go with him on an expedition to Africa. We started in1896.

When we got back from that trip I continued at the[Pg 11] Field Museum aschief of the Department of Taxidermy. Before leaving Milwaukee I hadbeen working on an idea of four deer groups, to be called the "FourSeasons," to show the animals in natural surroundings of spring,summer, autumn, and winter. I collected a good deal of the necessarymaterial and put a lot of work on the project in my own shop, andfinally reached a point where it became necessary for me to knowwhether the museum was going to want the groups or not. I approachedthe curator of zoölogy. He said that he would recommend the purchase ofone of the four. Later I saw the president of the museum. After somediscussion he asked why it was that the museum couldn't have the fourgroups. I gave him every assurance that it could. I spent four years onthese four groups. It wouldn't take so long now but at that time we hadnot only to make the groups but also to perfect the methods of doingit at the same time. Four years is a long time to take on four deergroups, but the number of things in taxidermy we worked out in doingthose groups made it a very full four years' work. In fact, the methodfinally used for mounting those deer groups is the method still in use.

Briefly, that method is this: For each animal a rough armature wasmade, on which a life-sized clay model was shaped just like a claymodel made for casting in bronze except that to facilitate accuracy theskull and leg bones of the animal were used. This model was checked bymeasurements made of the dead animal in the field, by photographs, and[Pg 12]frequently by anatomical casts made in the field. The final resultwas a model not only of the species but of the actual animal whoseskin we were going to use. All this took a lot of time, study, andmoney, and it was quite a different thing from stuffing a skin withrags and straw. For a temporary effect the skin could be mounted on theclay model, but an animal so mounted would deteriorate. For permanentwork it was necessary to devise some light, durable substance, whichwould not be affected by moisture, to take the place of the clay ofthe manikin. After a lot of experimentation I came to the conclusionthat a papier-mâché manikin reënforced by wire cloth and coated withshellac would be tough, strong, durable, and impervious to moisture.It isn't possible to model papier-mâché with the hands as one mouldsclay, so the problem resolved itself into making a plaster mould of theclay model and then using that to build the papier-mâché manikin. Whena man wishes to make a bronze in a mould he can pour the melted metalinto the mould and when it has cooled remove the mould. But you can'tpour papier-mâché reënforced with wire cloth and if you put it into aplaster-of-paris mould it will stick. The solution of this difficultystruck me suddenly one day when I was riding into town to go to themuseum.

"I've got it!" I exclaimed, to the amusement of my friends and the restof the car full of people. As soon as I could get to my shop I triedit and it worked. It was to take the plaster moulds of the clay modeland coat the inside of them with glue. On this glue[Pg 13] I laid a sheet ofmuslin and worked it carefully and painstakingly into every undulationof the mould. On this went thin layers of papier-mâché with the wirecloth reënforcement likewise worked carefully into every undulation ofthe mould. Every layer of the papier-mâché composition was carefullycovered with a coating of shellac so that each layer, as well as thewhole, was entirely impervious to water. For animals the size of a deertwo layers of reënforced composition give strength enough. For animalsthe size of an elephant four are sufficient and four layers are onlyabout an eighth of an inch thick. When the final coat of shellac waswell dried I immersed the whole thing in water. The water affectednothing but the thin coating of glue between the mould and the muslin.That melted and my muslin-covered, reënforced papier-mâché sections ofthe manikin came out of the plaster mould clean and perfect replicasof the original clay model. The four sections of the manikin wereassembled with the necessary leg irons and wooden ribs and the wholewas ready for the skin.

The combination of glue and muslin was the key to the whole problem.The manikin so made is an absolutely accurate reproduction of theclay model, even more accurate than bronze castings for there is noshrinkage. The manikin of a deer so constructed weighs less than thirtypounds, but it is strong enough to hold a man's weight. I have sat onthe back of an antelope mounted in this manner and done it no harm.Moreover, it is entirely made of clean and[Pg 14] durable materials. There isnothing to rot or shrink or to cause shrinkage or decay in the skin.Of the animal itself only the shells of the hoofs and horns, and theskin are used, and the skin is much more carefully cleaned and tannedthan those of women's furs. An animal prepared in this way will lastindefinitely. This was a long step from the methods we used at Ward'sof filling a raw skin with greasy bones of the legs and skull andstuffing the body out with straw, excelsior, old rags, and the like.

I believe that there has not yet been devised a better method oftaxidermy than that described here and its use has become almostuniversal. Although it does not take much time to tell about it, themounting of an animal in this way is a long and tedious process.Moreover, it is hard work. Consequently, but few of the people usingit do a thoroughly constructed manikin. In an attempt to save time andmoney cheaper processes are resorted to and many animals, mounted bymethods that only approximate that which I have evolved, fail to showgood results. When the method was first introduced at the AmericanMuseum of Natural History, the authorities objected to its expense,and to cut down the cost a light plaster cast, believed to be "just asgood," was substituted for the manikin. Many specimens mounted in thismanner have since been thrown on the dump heap.

I finally got the four deer groups finished and the Field Museum boughtthem at the price agreed upon. When I figured it out financially Ifound that I had[Pg 15] come out even on my expenditures for labour andmaterials but for my own time and for profit there was nothing.However, I had the experience and the method and I felt that it was apretty good four years' work.

In the old days at Ward's a taxidermist was a man who took an animal'sskin from a hunter or collector and stuffed it or upholstered it.By the time I had finished the deer groups I had become pretty wellconvinced that a real taxidermist needed to know the technique ofseveral quite different things.

First, he must be a field man who can collect his own specimens, forother people's measurements are never very satisfactory, and actualstudy of the animals in their own environment is necessary in makingnatural groups.

Second, he must know both animal anatomy and clay modelling in order tomake his models.

Third, he should have something of the artistic sense to make hisgroups pleasing as well as accurate.

Fourth, he must know the technique of manikin making, the tanningof skins, and the making of accessories such as artificial leaves,branches, etc.

With all these different kinds of technique in taxidermy it is obviousthat if a man attempts to do practically everything himself, as I didin the deer groups, taxidermy must be a very slow process—just as ifa painter had to learn to make his own paint or a sculptor to cast hisown bronzes or chisel his concepts out of granite or marble.

The proper care of the skins in the field is itself a[Pg 16] subject ofinfinite ramifications. I remember, for instance, my experience inskinning the first elephant that I killed. I shot him in the earlyafternoon. I immediately set to work photographing and measuring him.That took about an hour, and then I set to the serious work of gettingoff his skin. I worked as rapidly as I could, wherever possible usingthe help of the fifty boys of mysafari, and by strenuous effortsfinished taking the skin off and salting it by breakfast time the nextmorning. And that was not quick enough. Before I got all the skin offthe carcass some of it on the under side had begun to decompose andI lost a little of it. This was a particularly difficult beast toskin because he had fallen in a little hollow and after skinning theexposed side of him all the efforts of the fifty black boys to roll himover, out of the depression, so that we could easily get at the otherside, failed. After I had had more practice, I was able to photograph,measure, and skin an elephant and have his hide salted in eight hours.But then the work on the skin was only begun. A green skin like thisweighs a ton and a quarter and in places is as much as two and a halfinches thick. There is about four days' work in thinning it. I have hadthirty or forty black boys for days cutting at the inside of the skinin this thinning process or sharpening the knives with which they didthe work.

When it is finally thinned down, thoroughly dried and salted, itpresents another problem. Moisture will ruin it. Salt, the onlyavailable preservative, attracts moisture. It isn't possible to carryzinc-lined[Pg 17]cases into the forests after elephants. I tried buildingthatched roofs over the skins but it was not a success. I speculated onmany other plans but none appeared feasible. Finally Nature provided asolution for the difficulty.

There are, in the elephant country, many great swarms of bees. I setthe natives to work collecting beeswax which is as impervious tomoisture as shellac. I melted the wax and used it to coat unbleachedcotton cloth, known in East Africa as Americana. In this water-tight,wax-covered cloth I wrapped my dried and salted rolls of skins andpacked them on the porters' heads down to the railroad.

As a matter of fact, field conditions make it so difficult to care forskins properly that only a very small percentage ever reach a taxidermyshop in perfect condition.

Similarly the measurement of animals for taxidermy presents manydifficulties. The size of a lion's leg, for instance, measured as ithangs limp after the animal's death is not accurate data for the legwith the muscles taut ready for action. Nor is an animal's body thesame size with its lungs deflated in death as when the breath of lifewas in its body. All these things must be taken into account in usingmeasurements or even casts to resurrect an animal true to its livingappearance.

My work on the deer groups impressed me with the fact that taxidermy,if it was to be an art, must have skilled assistance as the other artshave. I began to dream of museums which would have artist-naturalists[Pg 18]who would have the vision to plan groups and the skill to model themand who would be furnished with skilled assistance in the making of themanikins and accessories and in the mounting of the animals. And itseemed as if the dream were about to come true. About this time I had aconference with Dr. Herman Bumpus, then director of the American Museumof Natural History in New York. He told me that he had then at themuseum a young man named James Clark who could model but who did notknow the technique of making manikins and mounting animals. The resultof our talk was that Clark came out to my shop in Chicago and togetherwe went through the whole process, mounting a doe which now stands inthe American Museum. But the old museum trouble broke out again. Itcost a lot to mount animals in the method which Clark brought back. Sothere was pressure to reduce the cost and, under this pressure, themethods, in the words of O. Henry, "were damaged by improvements."However, in the course of time it was demonstrated that while it oftenhappens that an honest effort to make a thing better often makes itcheaper also, an effort merely to cheapen a thing very seldom makes itbetter.

In the meanwhile, in 1905, I went to Africa again, to collectzoölogical material for the Field Museum.

Again, in 1909, I went, this time for the American Museum of NaturalHistory. I stayed two years, studying elephants, lions, and lionspearing. When I got back and set to work mounting the elephant groupin the American Museum in New York, I[Pg 19]discovered that with thesehairless skins there was opportunity for a little simplification ofthe method used in the deer groups. It was possible actually to modelthe skin on the clay manikin, only in this case the clay manikin wasfor convenience in three pieces. A layer of plaster of paris was thenlaid on outside the skin to hold it firmly in shape. Then the clayremoved from the inside was replaced with a layer of plaster. Thusevery detail of the skin was held firmly in the matrix of plasteruntil it was thoroughly dried, when the plaster was removed from theinside and replaced with succeeding layers of wire cloth and shellacedpapier-mâché, making the skin an integral part of the manikin. Inother words, the skin functioned practically as does the muslin in themanikins made for haired animals. When this was done the plaster mouldwas taken off the outside and the clean, light, durable half-sectionsof elephants were put together.

When I got back from Africa in 1911 I was dreaming of a great AfricanHall which would combine all the advances that had been made intaxidermy and the arts of museum exhibition and at the same time wouldmake a permanent record of the fast-disappearing wild life of that mostinteresting animal kingdom, Africa.

CHAPTER IIELEPHANT FRIENDS AND FOES

I have sat in the top of a tree in the middle of a herd a quarter ofa mile from a native village in Uganda in a last desperate effort toinspect the two hundred and fifty elephants which had been chevying meabout so fast that I had not had a chance to see whether there wereany desirable specimens among them or not. I have spent a day and anight in the Budongo Forest in the middle of a herd of seven hundredelephants. I have stood on an ant-hill awaiting the rush of elevenelephants which had got my wind and were determined to get me. I havespent a day following and fighting an old bull which took twenty-fiveshots of our elephant rifles before he succumbed. And once also I hadsuch close contact with an old bull up on the slopes of Mt. Kenia thatI had to save myself from being gored by grabbing his tusks with myhands and swinging in between them.

I have spent many months studying elephants in Africa—on the plains,in the forests, in the bamboo, up on the mountains. I have watchedthem in herds and singly, studied their paths, their feeding grounds,everything about them I could, and I have come to the conclusion thatof all the wild animals on this earth[Pg 21] now, the African elephant isthe most fascinating, and that man, for all the thousands of years hehas known of elephants, knows mighty little about him. I am speakingonly of the African elephant. He has not been domesticated as hisIndian cousin has. The two are different in size and different in shapeand different in habits. The low point of an African elephant's backline is the highest point of that of the Indian elephant. The Africanelephant's ears and tusks are larger, and his tusks usually spreadwider at the points instead of coming together. Unless one studies himin his native haunts, one cannot get to know him. His disposition isheld to be wilder than that of the Indian elephant, but the infrequencyof his appearance in circuses and in zoölogical parks may be attributedto the ease with which tamed elephants may be obtained from Indiarather than to a difference of temper in the two beasts. An Africanelephant at Washington and one in the Bronx zoölogical park are theonly ones I know of in this country, and no animal in captivity cangive one more than a slight idea of his natural habits in his junglehome.

Very few people have studied African elephants in the field.Ninety-five per cent. of those who have followed them have been purelyhunters and their desire has been, not to study, but to shoot—to seethe elephant the shortest possible time. Time to judge the ivories andget a bead on the brain was all that they wanted. Of other elephantknowledge all that they needed was the simple facts of how to followand[Pg 22] find them. The comparatively few men who have tried to studythe elephant have not gained as much knowledge as one would imagine,because without trying it one cannot realize how extremely difficult itis to study the live African elephant.

For example, as I said before, I spent a day with seven hundredelephants in the Budongo Forest, but although I heard them all the timeand was very acutely conscious that they were near me, I do not believethat I actually had my eyes on an elephant more than half an hour, alltold, during the day. It happened this way.

One night about dark, after a week or two of hunting, we heard thesqueal of an elephant while we were sitting at dinner. A little laterthere were more squeals and occasional trumpeting—more and more,clearer and clearer—and by the time we had finished dinner the noisewas only a mile or so away. It was a continuous row which suggested atremendous herd. We went to bed early with elephants getting closer tocamp all of the time. There is little danger of elephants attacking acamp, and, as there is no way to study them at night, about the onlything left to do was to go to bed and get in good shape for the nextday. Along about midnight Mrs. Akeley came over to my tent and saidthat she had loaded my guns and that they were all ready. She couldnot sleep; so she went out to sit by the fire. The elephants were thenwithin a hundred yards of our tents and there was a continuous roarmade up of trumpetings, squealing, and the crashing of bushes and trees.

To photograph, measure, and skin an animal the size of this onerequires eight or ten hours of work
even with the assistance of fortyor fifty negro boys

I got up in the morning and had breakfast before daybreak. Theelephants had moved on down the edge of the forest. What had been ajungle of high grass and bush the day before was trampled flat. Therewere at least seven hundred elephants in the herd—government officialshad counted them on the previous day as they came down. I followedthe trails to the edge of the forest but saw none. I started back tocross a littlenullah (a dry water course), but felt suspicious anddecided to look the situation over a little more closely. I ran up ona sloping rock and, almost under me on the other side, I saw the backof a large elephant. Over to one side there was another one, beyondthat another, and then I realized that the littlenullah throughwhich I had planned to pass was very well sprinkled with them. I backedoff and went up to a higher rock to one side. Elephants were driftinginto the forest from all directions. The sun was just coming up overthe hills and was shining upon the forest, which sparkled in thesunlight—morning greetings to the forest people. The monkeys greetedone another with barks and coughs. Everything was waking up—it wasa busy day. There was not a breath of air. I had gone back a millionyears; the birds were calling back and forth, the monkeys were callingto one another, a troop of chimpanzees in the open screamed, and theirshouts were answered from another group inside the forest. All theforest life was awake and moving about as that huge herd of elephants,singly and in groups, flowed into the forest from the plain. There wasone[Pg 24] continuous roar of noise, all the wild life joining, but above itall were the crashing of trees and the squealing of the elephants asthey moved into the forest on a front at least a mile wide. It was thebiggest show I ever saw in Africa.

Then an old cow just at the edge of the forest suddenly got my wind,and wheeling about, she let out a scream. Instantly every soundceased, everything was quiet. The monkeys, the birds—all the wildlife—stopped their racket; the elephants stood still, listeningand waiting. For a moment I was dazed. The thought came through mymind—"What does it all mean? Have I been dreaming?" But soon I heardthe rustling of the trees as though a great storm were coming. Therewas no movement of the air, but there was the sound of a wind stormgoing through a forest. It gradually died away, and I realized that theelephants had made it as they moved off. It was the rustling of the dryleaves on the ground under their feet and the rubbing of their bodiesthrough the dried foliage of the forest. I never heard a noise likethat made by elephants—before or since. The conditions were unique,for everything was thoroughly parched, and there had not even been adew. Ordinarily, if there is any moisture, elephants when warned cantravel through a forest without the slightest noise. In spite of theirgreat bulk they are as silent and sometimes as hard to see in theircountry as a jack rabbit is in his. I remember on one occasion being soclose to an old cow in the jungle that I could hear the rumbling of herstomach, and yet when she[Pg 25] realized my presence the rumbling ceased,as it always does when they are suspicious, and she left the clump ofgrowth she was in without my hearing a sound.

But going back to the big herd. From the time I had seen the firstelephant until the last of them disappeared in the forest it had beenperhaps fifteen minutes—fifteen minutes in which to see the sight of alifetime, a thing to go to Africa a dozen times to get one glimpse of.But what did I learn about the habits of the elephant in that fifteenminutes? A little perhaps but not much. It takes a long time and muchpatience to get at all intimate with old Tembo, as the Swahilis callhim, on his native soil.

After the herd disappeared in the forest I watched for ten or fifteenminutes and heard the squeal of the elephants and the noise of themonkeys again. Their suspicions were over. I followed into the forestwhere the trails showed me that they had broken up into small bands. Ifollowed along on the trail of one of these bands until I got a glimpseof an elephant about fifty yards ahead of me in the trail. You don'tsee a whole elephant in the forest. What you do see is just a glimpseof hide or tusk or trunk through the trees. And if you want to get thisglimpse without disturbing him you must do your glimpsing from down thewind.

There was a little open space ahead of the group I was following.I worked around until I got to a place where I could see them asthey passed through this open space. They were moving along slowly,[Pg 26]feeding. Two or three came out into the opening, then they becamesuspicious and wheeled into the forest again. I followed cautiously.I had gone only a short distance when I saw a very young calf abouttwenty yards ahead of me. As I halted, the mother came trotting backdown the trail looking for the baby. I froze to the side of a treewith my gun ready. She came to the baby and turning, boosted it alongwith her trunk after the rest of the herd. I followed along afterthem into an opening where I found them rounded up in a patch ofburned-over ground. They were milling around in a rather compact massseemingly preparing for defence. I could not see very plainly, for acloud of dust rose from the burned ground as they shuffled about. Istood watching them a little time and suddenly caught sight of a finetusk—an old bull and just what I wanted for the group I was workingon for the Museum of Natural History. I ran up behind a bush at theedge of the clearing and peeked through it. There, not more than twentyyards from me, was my bull, partially exposed and partially coveredby the other animals. I could not get a shot at his brain as he wasstanding, but the foreleg on my side was forward exposing his side sothat I had a good shot at his heart—a shot I had never made before.The heart is eighteen or twenty inches long and perhaps a foot up anddown—a good mark in size if one's guess at its location is accurate.If you can hit an elephant's vertebræ and break his back you can killhim. You can kill him by hitting his heart, or by hitting his brain. Ifyou[Pg 27] hit him anywhere else you are not likely to hurt him much and thebrain and heart shots are the only safe bets. I fired at his heart withboth barrels and then grabbed my other gun from the gun boy, ready fortheir rush, but the whole herd, including the old bull, made off in theother direction, raising a cloud of dust. I ran around and climbed anant-hill four or five feet high to keep them in sight.

When I caught sight of them they had gone about fifty yards and hadstopped. And then Idid learn something about elephants. My old bullwas down on the ground on his side. Around him were ten or twelve otherelephants trying desperately with their trunks and tusks to get himon his feet again. They were doing their best to rescue their woundedcomrade. They moved his great bulk fifteen or twenty feet in theirefforts, but were unable to get him up. I don't know of any other biganimals that will do this. I had heard stories that elephants had thechivalry to stick by their wounded and help them, but I was never suremyself until I had actually seen this instance. Some time later MajorHarrison, a very experienced elephant hunter and a keen observer,told me of an even more remarkable instance that he had seen. He wasshooting in the Congo and came upon four big bulls. One he killed andanother he wounded. The wounded one went down but the two survivorshelped him regain his feet, and with one on each side helping him thethree moved off. Although Major Harrison followed the rest of the dayhe was not able to catch up with them.

I did not see the end of their efforts to raise the bull I had shot,for those that were not helping him began to circle about with theirears out to hear anything of their enemy and with their trunks upfeeling for my wind. They were moving in ever-increasing circles whichthreatened to envelop my ant-hill, and I beat a hasty retreat. Not longafter they evidently were convinced that the bull was dead and alltogether they moved away. I then went to the body. He was dead, butas we approached there was a reflex action which twitched his trunkfrom time to time. This frightened the gun boys so that I went up andslapped the elephant's eye, the customary test, and as there was noreaction the boys were convinced. When I looked the carcass over Iwas disappointed to find that only one of his tusks was big and welldeveloped. The other was smaller, and out of shape from an injury;consequently I decided not to take him for the museum group. He was,however, a good deal of a temptation, for he was one of the largestelephants I had ever seen, measuring eleven feet four inches to thetop of his shoulders, and the circumference of his front foot wassixty-seven and a half inches. To the best of my knowledge this is arecord size by about four inches. I did not even skin him but contentedmyself with taking his tusks, which I sold for nearly $500 without evengoing down to Nairobi.

The phenomenon of elephants helping each other when wounded is notgeneral by any means. Only a few days after shooting the big bull Ihad an instance[Pg 29] of elephants abandoning one of their number that waswounded and not very badly wounded, either.

I had gone into the forest again, and had come upon another bunch invery thick country. I could only get little glimpses of a patch of hideor ivory once in a while. After working along with them for a while inthe hope of getting into more open ground I tried the experiment ofbeating on the tree trunks with sticks. This was new to them as it wasto me. I felt sure it would make them run but I wasn't sure whetherthey would go toward it or away from it. Happily they bolted fromthe forest into the high grass, grumbling all the while. I followedas closely as I dared until finally, in hope of getting a view overthe top of the high grass, I started to climb a tree. Just then theyrushed back into the forest, fortunately to one side of me. I thoughtit was time to quit, so we started back to camp. At that moment I heardanother group of elephants. They were coming out of the forest into thegrass. I climbed up an ant-hill where I could see them as they passedover a ridge. There were eleven of them and not a specimen that Iwanted among them. I stood watching to see what would happen next. Theywere about three hundred yards away when they got my wind. Back theycame, rumbling, trumpeting, and squealing. I knew that I had trouble onmy hands. The only thing for me to do was to stick, for if I got downin the tall grass I couldn't see anything at all. They came up over ahill, but they were not coming straight toward me and it looked as ifthey would pass me at[Pg 30] forty or fifty yards; but, unfortunately, thecow in front saw me standing in full view on my ant-hill pedestal. Theyturned straight at me. When the leading cow was as close as I wantedher to get—about twenty-five yards—I fired. She hesitated but againsurged on with the others. A second shot knocked her down. The restsurged past her, turned, smelled of her, and ran off into the forest.After a few minutes she got upon her feet and rather groggily went offafter them.

Elephants have the reputation of having very bad eyesight. I personallyam of the opinion that their sight is pretty good, but on this subject,as on most others about elephants, information is neither complete noraccurate. But my experience makes me think that they can see prettywell. In this case the cow that saw me was only about fifty yards away,but at another time on the Uasin Gishu Plateau an elephant herd chargedme from 250 yards with the wind from them to me. The behaviour of thisparticular herd gave me a clue to their reputation for bad eyesight.The elephant is not afraid of any animal except man, and consequentlyhe is not on the alert for moving objects as are animals that arehunted. Neither does he eat other animals, so he is not interested intheir movements as a hunter. In fact, he isn't normally particularlyinterested in moving objects at all. He pays no attention. When wefirst came up with this herd on the Uasin Gishu Plateau we could movearound within fifty yards of them without attracting their attention.However, after[Pg 31] they got our wind and recognized us as enemies, theywere able to see us at a distance of 250 yards, and charge us.

But however good the elephant's sight, it is nothing in comparison withhis smelling ability. An elephant's trunk is probably the best smellingapparatus in the world, and he depends on his sense of smell more thanon any other sense. When he is at all suspicious he moves his trunkaround in every direction so that he catches the slightest taint in theair, from whichever way it comes. I have often seen elephants, whendisturbed, with their trunks high in air reaching all around for mywind. I likewise, on one occasion, had an intimate view of a very quietsmelling operation by which an old cow escaped me. I was on an elephantpath one day on Mt. Kenia looking for an elephant I had heard, when mygun-bearer gripped my shoulder and pointed into the forest. I lookedand looked but could see nothing but the trees. Finally I noticed thatone of the trees diminished in size toward the ground and I recognizedan elephant's trunk. My eyes followed it down. At the very tip it wascurled back, and this curled-back part, with the nostrils distended,was moving slowly from side to side quietly fishing for my wind. Shewas waiting concealed beside the trail to pick me up as I came along.She was no more than forty feet away, but when she decided to give upand moved away, I could not hear her going although it was a denseforest and she was accompanied by two youngsters. Very often in theforest where there is very little air stirring[Pg 32] it is hard to tell thedirection of the wind. I used to light wax taper matches as tests, forthey could be struck without any noise and the flame would show thedirection of the slightest breath of air.

In many other ways besides its smelling ability the elephant's trunk isthe most extraordinary part of this most extraordinary animal. A man'sarm has a more or less universal joint at the shoulder. The elephant'strunk is absolutely flexible at every point. It can turn in anydirection and in whatever position it is, and has tremendous strength.There is no bone in it, of course, but it is constructed of interwovenmuscle and sinew so tough that one can hardly cut it with a knife. Anelephant can shoot a stream of water out of it that would put out afire; lift a tree trunk weighing a ton and throw it easily; or it isdelicate enough to pull a blade of grass with. He drinks with it, feedshimself with it, smells with it, works with it, and at times fightswith it. Incidentally, a mouse that endeavoured to frighten an elephantby the traditional nursery rhyme method of running up his trunk wouldbe blown into the next county. There is nothing else like an elephant'strunk on earth.

And for that matter, there is nothing else like the elephant. He hascome down to us through the ages, surviving the conditions which killedoff his earlier contemporaries, and he now adapts himself perfectly tomore different conditions than any other animal in Africa.

He can eat anything that is green or ever has been green, just so longas there is enough of it. He can[Pg 33] get his water from the aloe plants onthe arid plains, or dig a well in the sand of a dry river bed with histrunk and fore feet, and drink there, or he is equally at home livinghalf in the swamps of better-watered regions. He is at home on thelow, hot plains of the seacoast at the equator or on the cool slopesof Kenia and Elgon. So far as I know, he suffers from no contagiousdiseases and has no enemies except man. There are elephants on Keniathat have never lain down for a hundred years. Some of the plainselephants do rest lying down, but no one ever saw a Kenia elephantlying down or any evidence that he does lie down to rest. The elephantis a good traveller. On good ground a good horse can outrun him, but onbad ground the horse would have no chance, and there are few animalsthat can cover more ground in a day than an elephant. And in spite ofhis appearance, he can turn with surprising agility and move throughthe forest as quietly as a rabbit.

An elephant's foot is almost as remarkable as his trunk. In the firstplace, his foot is encased in a baglike skin with a heavy paddedbottom, with some of the characteristics of an anti-skid tire. Anelephant walks on his toes. His toes form the front part of his footand the bones of his foot run not only back but up. Underneath thesebones at the back of his foot is a gelatine-like substance, which isa much more effective shock absorber than rubber heels or any otherdevice. One of the curious things about this kind of a foot is that itswells out when the weight is on it and contracts when the weight isremoved.[Pg 35] As a consequence an elephant may sink four feet into a swampbut the minute he begins to lift his legs, his feet will contract andcome out of the hole they have made without suction. The elephant'sleg, being practically a perpendicular shaft, requires less musculareffort for him to stand than it does for ordinary animals. This is oneof the reasons why he can go for a century without lying down.

A map of the elephant country showing Mt. Elgon and Mt.Kenia, on whose slopes Mr. Akeley has hunted elephants. It was on
Mt.Kenia that Mr. Akeley was mauled by an old bull

A country that elephants have long inhabited takes on some of theparticular interest of the animals themselves. I believe that beforethe white man came to East Africa the elephant was nearly as much aplains animal as a forest animal, but he now tends to stay in theforests where the risk is not so great. On the plains there are noelephant paths now, if there ever were, for in open country elephantsdo not go in single file. But in the forests there are elephant pathseverywhere. In fact, if it were not for the elephant paths travel inthe forest would be almost impossible, and above the forests in thebamboo country this is equally true. One travels practically all thetime on their trails and they go everywhere except in the tree ferns.Tree fern patches are not very extensive, but I have never seen anelephant track or an elephant in them. The elephants are constantlychanging the paths for various reasons; among others, because thenatives are in the habit of digging elephant pits in the trails. Butthere are some trails that have evidently been used for centuries. Onetime we had followed a band of elephants on the Aberdare Plateau andhad devilled them until they[Pg 36] began to travel away. We followed untilthe trail led through a pass in the mountains and we realized that theywere going into a different region altogether. That trail in the passwas a little wider than an elephant's foot and worn six inches deep inthe solid rock. It must have taken hundreds of years for the shufflingof elephants to wear that rock away.

At another place on Kenia I found an elephant passage of a streamwhere the trail was twenty feet wide. Single paths came in frommany directions on one side of the stream and joined in this greatboulevard, which crossed the stream and broke up again on the otherside into the single paths radiating again in every direction. Inmany places where the topography of the ground is such that there isonly one place for a trail there will be unmistakable evidence thatthe trails have stayed in the same place many years—such as treesrubbed half in two by the constant passing of the animals or damp rockspolished by the caress of their trunks. And along all the trails, oldand new, are elephant signs, footprints, dung, and gobs of chewed woodand bark from which they have extracted the juices before spitting themout.

But finding the elephants is not so frequent or easy as themultiplicity of the signs would indicate. One reason is that the signsof elephants—tracks, rubbed trees, and so forth—are more or lessenduring, many of them being very plain in places where the elephantshave not been for months or even years. If, however, you come on freshelephant tracks, not more than a[Pg 37] day old, you can usually catch upwith the elephants, for as they feed along through the country theydo not go fast. Only if they are making atrek from one region toanother it may take much longer to catch them.

Once up with an elephant, if you are shooting, you are pretty surethat, even if he is charging you, a bullet from an elephant gun,hitting him in the head, will stop him even if it does not hit himin a vital spot. Moreover, if you stop the leader of a bunch that ischarging you, the bunch will stop. I never heard of a case in whichthe leader of an elephant charge was stopped and the others kept on,and I doubt if we ever will hear of such a thing, for if it doeshappen there won't be any one to tell about it. It is unusual for anelephant to keep on after being hit even if the hit does not knock himdown. The old cow that charged me at the head of ten others was ratherthe exception to this rule, for after my first shot stopped her shecame on again until my second shot knocked her down. But I had oneexperience that was entirely at variance with this rule. One old bulltook thirteen shots from my rifle and about as many from Mrs. Akeley'sbefore he was content either to die or run away.

In Uganda, after six months in the up-country after elephants, wedecided to go down to the Uasin Gishu Plateau for lion spearing, forthe rainy season was beginning and the vegetation growing so thickthat elephant hunting was getting very difficult. On the way down wecame one morning upon the fresh trail[Pg 38] of a herd of elephants. Wefollowed for about two hours in a high bush country over which werescattered clumps of trees. Finally we came upon the elephants at thetime of their mid-day siesta. The middle of the day is the quietesttime of the twenty-four hours with elephants. If they are in a herd,they will bunch together in the shade. They do not stand absolutelystill, but mill about very slowly, changing positions in the bunch butnot leaving. They are neither feeding nor travelling but, as nearly asthey ever do, resting. I even saw a young bull once rest his tusks inthe crotch of a tree during this resting period. We got up to withintwenty-five yards of them behind some bushes down the wind. We finallydecided upon one of the bulls as the target. Mrs. Akeley studiedcarefully and shot. The bull went down, apparently dead. Ordinarily, weshould rush in for a finishing shot, but in this case the rest of theherd did not make off promptly, so we stood still. When they did go offwe started toward the apparently dead animal. As we did so, he got uponhis feet and, in spite of a volley from us, kept on after the herd. Wefollowed, and after half an hour's travel we caught sight of him again.We kept along behind him, looking for a place where we could swing outto one side and get abreast to fire a finishing shot at him. He wasmoving slowly and groggily. It was hard to move anywhere except in histrail without making a noise, and I suddenly discovered that the trailwas turning so that the wind was from us to him.

Immediately we swung off to one side, but it was too[Pg 39] late. I didn'tsee him when he got our wind but I knew perfectly he had it forthere was the sudden crash of his wheel in the bushes and a scream.An elephant's scream is loud and shrill and piercing. And it isterrifying, too—at least to any one who knows elephants—for it meansan angry animal and usually a charge. Then came a series of grunts andrumblings. A second or two later he came in sight, his ears spread outtwelve feet from tip to tip, his trunk up and jerking fiercely fromside to side. There is no way of describing how big an elephant looksunder these conditions, or the speed at which he comes. At about thirtyyards I shot, but he took it. He stopped, seemingly puzzled but unhurt.I shot the second barrel and looked for my other gun which was thirtyfeet behind me. The boy ran up with it and I emptied both barrels intothe elephant's head, and still he took it like a sand hill. In themeanwhile, Mrs. Akeley had been firing, too. And then he turned andwent off again. I went back to Mrs. Akeley. Everything that I knewabout elephant shooting had failed to apply in this case. I had stoppedhim with one shot. That was normal enough. But then I had put threecarefully aimed shots into his head at short range, any one of whichshould have killed him. And he had taken them with only a slight flinchand then had gone off. I felt completely helpless. Turning to Mrs.Akeley, I said:

"This elephant is pretty well shot up, and perhaps we had better waitfor developments."

I agreed as we reloaded, and we were about to start following when hisscreaming, grunting, roaring attack began again. Exactly the same thinghappened as the first time except that this time Mrs. Akeley, the boy,and I were all together. We fired as we had before. He stopped withthe first shot and took all the others standing, finally turning andretreating again. Apparently our shots had no effect except to makehim stop and think. I was sick of it, for maybe next time he wouldn'tstop and evidently we couldn't knock him down. We had about finishedreloading when we heard him once more. There was nothing to do butstand the charge, for to run was fatal. So we waited. There was anappreciable time when I could hear his onrush but couldn't see him.Then I caught sight of him. He wasn't coming straight for us, but wascharging at a point thirty yards to one side of us and thrashing backand forth a great branch of tree in his trunk. Why his charge was somisdirected I didn't know, but I was profoundly grateful. As he ran Ihad a good brain shot from the side. I fired, and he fell stone dead.With the greatest sense of relief in the world I went over to him. As Istood by the carcass I felt very small indeed. Mrs. Akeley sat down anddrew a long breath before she spoke.

Then I heard a commotion in the bush in front of the dead elephant andas I looked up a black boy carrying a cringing monkey appeared. Onlythe[Pg 41] boy wasn't black. He was scared to an ashen colour and he wasstill trembling, and the monkey was as frightened as the boy. It was J.T. Jr., Mrs. Akeley's pet monkey, and Alli, the monkey's nurse. Theyhad followed to see the sport without our knowledge, and they had drawnthe elephant's last charge.

This experience with an animal that continued to make charge aftercharge was new to me. It has never happened again and I hope neverwill, but it shows that with elephants it isn't safe to depend on anyfixed rule, for elephants vary as much as people do. This one was theheaviest-skulled elephant I ever saw, and the shots that I had firedwould have killed any ordinary animal. But in his case all but the lastshot had been stopped by bone.

I couldn't measure his height, but I measured his ear as one indicationof his size. It was the biggest I ever heard of. And his tuskswere good sized—80 pounds. He was a very big animal, but his footmeasurement was not so large as the big bull of the Budongo Forest.Later I made a dining table of his ear, supporting it on three tusksfor legs. With the wooden border it was eight feet long and seatedeight people very comfortably.

Most wild animals, if they smell man and have an opportunity to getaway, make the most of it. Even a mother with young will usually try toescape trouble rather than bring it on, although, of course, they arequickest to fight. But elephants are not always in this category. Inthe open it has been my experience that they would rather leave thanprovoke a fight; if[Pg 42] you hunt elephants in the forest, you are quitelikely to find that two can play the hunting game, and find yourselfpretty actively hunted by the elephants. If the elephants after you aremaking a noise, it gives you a good chance. When they silently wait foryou, the game is much more dangerous.

The old bull, who is in the centre of the elephant group in the Museumof Natural History now, tried to get me by this silent method. I wasout on a trail and I saw that a big bunch of animals were near. Iwasn't following any particular trail for they had moved about so thatsigns were everywhere and much confused. Finally I came to a gully. Itwasn't very broad or very deep, but the trail I was on turned up it towhere a crossing could be made on the level. The forest here was highand very thick, and consequently it was quite dark. As I looked up thetrail I saw a group of big shapes through the branches. I thought theywere elephants and peered carefully at them, but they turned out to beboulders. A minute later I saw across the gully another similar groupof boulders, but as I peered at them I saw through a little openingin the leaves, plain and unmistakable, an elephant's tusk. I watchedit carefully. It moved a little, and behind it I caught a glimpse ofthe other tusk. They were big, and I decided that he would do for mygroup. I couldn't get a glimpse of his eye or anything to sight by,so I carefully calculated where his brain ought to be from the placewhere his tusk entered his head, and fired. Then there was the riot ofan elephant herd suddenly starting. A few[Pg 43] seconds later there was acrash. "He's down," I thought, and Bill, the gun boy, and I ran over tothe place where the animals had been. We followed their tracks a littleway and found where one of the elephants had been down, but he hadrecovered and gone on. However, he had evidently gone off by himselfwhen he got up, for while the others had gone down an old trail he hadgone straight through the jungle, breaking a new way as he went. WithBill in the lead, we pushed along behind him. It was a curious trail,for it went straight ahead without deviation as if it had been laid bycompass. One hour went by and then another. We had settled down for alongtrek. The going wasn't very good and the forest was so thickthat we could not see in any direction. We were pushing along in thisfashion when, with a crash and a squeal, an elephant burst across ourpath within fifteen feet of us. It was absolutely without warning, andhad the charge been straight on us we could hardly have escaped. Asit was, I fired two hurried shots as he disappeared in the growth onthe opposite side of the trail. The old devil had grown tired of beinghunted and had doubled back on his own trail to wait for us. He hadbeen absolutely silent. We hadn't heard a thing, and his plan failed,I think, only because the growth was so thick that he charged us onscent or sound without being able to see us. I heard him go through theforest a way and then stop. I followed until I found a place a littlemore open than the rest, and with this between me and the trees he wasin I waited.[Pg 44] I could hear him grumbling in there from time to time.I didn't expect him to last much longer so I got my lunch and ate itwhile I listened and watched. I had just finished and had a puff or twoon my pipe when he let out another squeal and charged. He evidently hadmoved around until he had wind of me. I didn't see him but I heard him,and grabbing the gun I stood ready. But he didn't come. Instead I heardthe breaking of the bushes as he collapsed. His last effort had beentoo much for him.

The efforts of the next elephant who tried the quiet waiting game on mewere almost too much for me.

We had just come down from the ice fields seventeen thousand feet up onthe summit of Mt. Kenia, overlord of the game regions of British EastAfrica, and had come out of the forest directly south of the pinnacleand within two or three miles of an old camping ground in the temperateclimate, five or six thousand feet above sea level, where we had campedfive years before and again one year before. Instead of going on aroundtoward the west to the base camp we decided to stop here and have thebase camp brought up to us. Mrs. Akeley was tired, so she said shewould stay at the camp and rest; and I decided to take advantage of thetime it would take to bring up the base camp to go back into the bambooand get some forest photographs.

There was perfectly good elephant country around our camp but I wantedto go back up where the forests stop and the bamboo flourishes, becauseit was a bamboo setting that I had selected for the group[Pg 45] of elephantsI was then working on for the African Hall in the American Museum ofNatural History. I started out with four days' rations, gun boys,porters, camera men, and so forth—fifteen men in all. The second dayout brought me to about nine thousand feet above sea level where thebamboo began. Following a well-worn elephant trail in search of thisphotographic material, I ran on to a trail of three old bulls. Thetracks were old—probably as much as four days—but the size was sounusual that I decided to postpone the photography and follow them. Idid not expect to have to catch up their four days' travel, for I hopedthat they would be feeding in the neighbourhood and that the trail Iwas on would cross a fresher trail made in their wanderings around forfood. I had run upon their tracks first about noon. I followed untildark without finding any fresher signs. The next morning we started outat daybreak and finally entered an opening such as elephants use as afeeding ground. It is their custom to mill around in these openings,eating the vegetation and trampling it down until it offers littlemore, and then move on. In six months or so it will be grown up againeight or ten feet high and they are very apt to revisit it and gothrough the same process again. Soon after we entered this opening Icame suddenly upon fresh tracks of the elephants I had been following.Not only were the tracks fresh but the droppings were still steamingand I knew that the animals were not far away; certainly they had beenthere not more than an hour before. I followed[Pg 46] the trail amongstthe low bush in the opening but it merely wandered about repeatedlybringing me back to the place where I had first seen the fresh tracks,and I realized that I might do this indefinitely without getting closerto the elephants. I decided to go outside the opening and circle aroundit to see if I could find the trail of my bulls as they entered theforest. This opening was at the point on the mountain where the forestproper and the bamboos merged. I followed an elephant path out ofthe opening on the bamboo side and had gone but a little way when Idiscovered fresh signs of my three bulls, who had evidently left theopening by the same path that I was following, and at about the sametime I heard the crackling of bamboo ahead, probably about two hundredyards away. This was the signal for preparation for the final stalk.

I stood for a moment watching one of the trackers going up the trail toa point where it turned at right angles in the direction of the soundsI had heard. There he stopped at rest, having indicated to me by signsthat they had gone in that direction. I turned my back to the trail,watching the porters select a place to lay down their loads amidst aclump of large trees that would afford some protection in case of astampede in their direction. The gun boys came forward presenting theguns for inspection. I took the gun from the second boy, sending himback with the porters. After examining this gun I gave it to the firstboy and took his. When I had examined this I leaned it against mybody while I chafed my hands[Pg 47] which were numb from the cold mists ofthe morning, knowing that I might soon need a supple trigger finger.During this time the first gun boy was taking the cartridges, one byone, from his bandoleer and holding them up for my inspection—theordinary precaution to insure that all the ammunition was the rightkind, and an important insurance, because only a full steel-jacketedbullet will penetrate an elephant's head. While still warming my hands,inspecting the cartridges, and standing with the gun leaning against mystomach, I was suddenly conscious that an elephant was almost on topof me. I have no knowledge of how the warning came. I have no mentalrecord of hearing him, seeing him, or of any warning from the gun boywho faced me and who must have seen the elephant as he came down on mefrom behind. There must have been some definite signal, but it was notrecorded in my mind. I only know that as I picked up my gun and wheeledabout I tried to shove the safety catch forward. It refused to budge,and I remember the thought that perhaps I had left the catch forwardwhen I inspected the gun and that if not I must pull the triggers hardenough to fire the gun anyway. This is an impossibility, but I rememberdistinctly the determination to do it, for the all-powerful impulse inmy mind was that I must shoot instantly. Then something happened thatdazed me. I don't know whether I shot or not. My next mental recordis of a tusk right at my chest. I grabbed it with my left hand, theother one with my right hand, and swinging in between them went tothe ground[Pg 48] on my back. This swinging in between the tusks was purelyautomatic. It was the result of many a time on the trails imaginingmyself caught by an elephant's rush and planning what I would do, anda very profitable planning, too; for I am convinced that if a manimagines such a crisis and plans what he would do, he will, when theoccasion occurs, automatically do what he planned. Anyway, I firmlybelieve that my imaginings along the trail saved my life.

He drove his tusks into the ground on either side of me, his curled-uptrunk against my chest. I had a realization that I was being crushed,and as I looked into one wicked little eye above me I knew I couldexpect no mercy from it. This thought was perfectly clear anddefinite in my mind. I heard a wheezy grunt as he plunged down andthen—oblivion.

The thing that dazed me was a blow from the elephant's trunk as heswung it down to curl it back out of harm's way. It broke my nose andtore my cheek open to the teeth. Had it been an intentional blow itwould have killed me instantly. The part of the trunk that scraped offmost of my face was the heavy bristles on the knuckle-like corrugationsof the skin of the under side.

When he surged down on me, his big tusks evidently struck something inthe ground that stopped them. Of course my body offered practicallyno resistance to his weight, and I should have been crushed as thinas a wafer if his tusks hadn't met that resistance—stone, root, orsomething—underground. He seems to have thought me dead for he leftme—by some good[Pg 49] fortune not stepping on me—and charged off afterthe boys. I never got much information out of the boys as to whatdid happen, for they were not proud of their part in the adventure.However, there were plenty of signs that the elephant had run out intothe open space again and charged all over it; so it is reasonable toassume that they had scattered through it like a covey of quail andthat he had trampled it down trying to find the men whose tracks andwind filled the neighbourhood.

Usually, when an elephant kills a man, it will return to its victimand gore him again, or trample him, or pull his legs or arms off withits trunk. I knew of one case where a man's porters brought in his armwhich the elephant that had killed him had pulled off his body and leftlying on the ground. In my case, happily, the elephant for some reasondid not come back. I lay unconscious for four or five hours. In themeanwhile, when they found the coast was clear, the porters and gunboys returned and made camp, intending, no doubt, to keep guard overmy body until Mrs. Akeley, to whom they had sent word, could reach me.They did not, however, touch me, for they believed that I was dead,and neither the Swahili Mohammedans nor the Kikuyus will touch a deadman. So they built a fire and huddled around it and I lay unconsciousin the cold mountain rain at a little distance, with my body crushedand my face torn open. About five o'clock I came to in a dazed wayand was vaguely conscious of seeing a fire. I shouted, and a littlelater I felt[Pg 50] myself being carried by the shoulders and legs. Lateragain I had a lucid spell and realized that I was lying in one of theporter's tents, and I got clarity of mind enough to ask where my wifewas. The boys answered that she was back in camp. That brought theevents back to me, how I had left her at camp, found the trail of thethree old bulls, followed them and, finally, how I was knocked out.I was entirely helpless. I could move neither my arms nor legs and Ireached the conclusion that my back was broken. I could not move, butI felt no pain whatever. However, my coldness and numbness brought tomy mind a bottle of cocktails, and I ordered one of the boys to bringit to me. My powers of resistance must have been very low, for hepoured all there was in the bottle down my throat. In the intervals ofconsciousness, also, I got them to give me hot bovril—a British beeftea—and quinine. The result of all this was that the cold and numbnessleft me. I moved my arms. The movement brought pain, but I evidentlywasn't entirely paralyzed. I moved my toes, then my feet, then my legs."Why," I thought in some surprise, "my back isn't broken at all!" Sobefore I dropped off again for the night I knew that I had some chanceof recovery. The first time I regained consciousness in the morning,I felt that Mrs. Akeley was around. I asked the boys if she had come.They said no, and I told them to fire my gun every fifteen minutes.Then I dropped off into unconsciousness again and awoke to see hersitting by me on the ground.

When the elephant got me, the boys had sent two[Pg 51] runners to tell Mrs.Akeley. They arrived about six in the evening. It was our custom whenseparated to send notes to each other, or at least messages. When theseboys came on to say that an elephant had got me, and when she foundthat there was no word from me, it looked bad. Mrs. Akeley sent word tothe nearest government post for a doctor and started her preparationsto come to me that night. She had to go after her guides, even intothe huts of a native village, for they did not want to start at night.Finally, about midnight, she got under way. She pushed along with allspeed until about daybreak, when the guides confessed that they werelost. At this juncture she was sitting on a log, trying to think whatto do next. And then she heard my gun. She answered, but it was morethan an hour before the sounds of her smaller rifle reached our camp.And about an hour after the boys heard her gun she arrived.

She asked me how I was, and I said that I was all right. I noticeda peculiar expression on her face. If I had had a looking glass, Ishould probably have understood it better. One eye was closed and theforehead over it skinned. My nose was broken and my cheek cut so thatit hung down, exposing my teeth. I was dirty all over, and from timeto time spit blood from the hemorrhages inside. Altogether, I was anunlovely subject and looked hardly worth saving. But I did get entirelyover it all, although it took me three months in bed. The thing thatwas serious was that the elephant had crushed several of my ribs[Pg 52] intomy lungs, and these internal injuries took a long time to heal. As amatter of fact, I don't suppose I would have pulled through even withMrs. Akeley's care if it hadn't been for a Scotch medical missionarywho nearly ran himself to death coming to my rescue. He had been in thecountry only a little while and perhaps this explains his coming sofast when news reached him of a man who had been mauled by an elephant.The chief medical officer at Fort Hall, knowing better what elephantmauling usually meant, came, but he didn't hurry. I saw him later andhe apologized, but I felt no grievance. I understood the situation.Usually when an elephant gets a man a doctor can't do anything for him.

But this isn't always so. Some months later I sat down in the hotelat Nairobi with three other men, who like myself had been caught byelephants and had lived to tell the tale. An elephant caught Black inhis trunk, and threw him into a bush that broke his fall. The elephantfollowed him and stepped on him, the bush this time forming a cushionthat saved him, and although the elephant returned two or three timesto give him a final punch, he was not killed. However, he was badlybroken up.

Outram and a companion approached an elephant that was shot and down,when the animal suddenly rose, grabbed Outram in his trunk and threwhim. The elephant followed him, but Outram scrambled into the grasswhile the elephant trampled his pith helmet into the ground, whereuponOutram got right under the elephant's tail and stuck to this position[Pg 53]while the elephant turned circles trying to find him, until, becomingfaint from his injuries, Outram dived into the grass at one side.Outram's companion by this time got back into the game and killed theelephant.

Hutchinson's story I have forgotten a little now, but I remember thathe said the elephant caught him, brushed the ground with him, and thenthrew him. The elephant followed him and Hutchinson put off fate a fewseconds by somehow getting amongst the elephant's legs. The respitewas enough, for the gun boy, by this time, began firing and drove theelephant off.

In all of these cases, unlike mine, the elephants had used their trunksto pick up their victims and to throw them, and they had intendedfinishing them by trampling on them. This use of the trunk seems morecommon than the charge with the tusks that had so nearly finishedme. Up in Somaliland Dudo Muhammud, my gun boy, showed me the spotwhere he had seen an elephant kill an Italian prince. The elephantpicked the prince up in his trunk and beat him against his tusks, theprince, meanwhile, futilely beating the elephant's head with his fists.Then the elephant threw him upon the ground, walked on him, and thensquatted on him, rubbing back and forth until he had rubbed his bodyinto the ground.

But elephants do use their tusks and use them with terrible effect.About the time we were in the Budongo Forest, Mr. and Mrs. Longdon wereacross Lake Albert in the Belgian Congo. One day Longdon[Pg 54] shot a bullelephant and stood watching the herd disappear, when a cow came downfrom behind, unheard and unseen, ran her tusk clear through him and,with a toss of her head, threw him into the bush and went on. Longdonlived four days.

But although the elephant is a terrible fighter in his own defencewhen attacked by man, that is not his chief characteristic. The thingsthat stick in my mind are his sagacity, his versatility, and a certaincomradeship which I have never noticed to the same degree in otheranimals. I like to think of the picture of the two old bulls helpingalong their comrade wounded by Major Harrison's gun; to think ofseveral instances I have seen of a phenomenon, which I am sure is notaccidental, when the young and husky elephants formed the outer ringof a group protecting the older ones from the scented danger. I liketo think back to the day I saw the group of baby elephants playingwith a great ball of baked dirt two and a half feet in diameter which,in their playing, they rolled for more than half a mile, and theplayfulness with which this same group teased the babies of a herd ofbuffalo until the cow buffaloes chased them off. I think, too, of theextraordinary fact that I have never heard or seen African elephantsfighting each other. They have no enemy but man and are at peaceamongst themselves.

It is my friend the elephant that I hope to perpetuate in the centralgroup in the Roosevelt African Hall as it is now planned for theAmerican Museum of Natural History—a hall with groups of African[Pg 55]animal skins mounted on sculptured bodies, with backgrounds paintedfrom the country itself. In this, which we hope will be an everlastingmonument to the Africa that was, the Africa that is now fastdisappearing, I hope to place the elephant group on a pedestal in thecentre of the hall—the rightful place for the first animal of them all.

And it may not be many years before such museum exhibits are the onlyremaining records of my jungle friends. As civilization advances inAfrica, the extinction of the elephant is being accomplished slowly butquite as surely as that of the American buffalo two generations ago. Itis probably not true that the African elephant cannot be domesticated.In fact, somewhere in the Congo is a farm where fifty tame elephants,just as amenable as those in India, are at work. But taming elephantsis not a sound proposition economically. Elephant farming is a prince'sgame, and Africa has no princes to play it. An elephant requireshundreds of acres of land, infinitely more than cattle and sheep andthe other domesticated animals. So it is that as man moves on the land,the elephant must move off.

Moreover, African settlers are making every effort to hasten theprocess. Wherever the elephants refuse to be confined to theirbailiwicks and annoy the natives by raiding their farms, the Governmenthas appointed official elephant killers. The South African elephantin the Addoo bush was condemned to be exterminated several years ago.Here, however, the hunters sent into the bush to kill them off foundthe[Pg 56] elephant too much for them and finally gave up the attempt. Nowthey are being shot only as they come out to molest the natives,with the result that they are able to persist in the bush in limitednumbers. Uganda also has official elephant killers wherever theelephants make trouble in the natives' gardens. In British East Africaand in Tanganyika a similar situation exists. The game must eventuallydisappear as the country is settled, and with it will be wiped out thecharm of Africa.

We had heard much of Ruindi Plains in the Belgian Congo as thewonderful game country that it no doubt used to be. To me it seemsavast graveyard. There, too, commercialism has played its part inexterminating the animals and, while we found two or three speciesof antelope and many lions, other large game is very rare. I supposethat the Ruindi Valley was discovered among the last of the great gamepockets and that ivory poachers are responsible for the disappearanceof much of the other game as well as of the elephant. The forestedvalley, which I went through for perhaps ten miles, carried everyevidence of having been a wonderful game country in the past, butonly a pitiful remnant of the splendid animals who once made it theirhome remains. Along great elephant boulevards, all overgrown, weavingthrough the forest, one may occasionally track a single elephant or asmall band. A small herd of buffalo grazes where a few years ago therewere great numbers.

In our journey north from Cape Town by rail we saw not a single head ofgame until we reached the[Pg 57] Lualaba River, and during the five days thatwe spent going down that river we saw only a few antelope, perhaps ahalf dozen elephants and, as I remember it, two or three hippopotami.On the entire journey to within fifty miles of Lake Edward and in allour hunting we found signs of only a few small bands of elephants. Menhave spoken of darkest Africa, but the dark chapters of African historyare only now being written by the inroads of civilization.

CHAPTER IIIMY ACQUAINTANCE WITH LIONS

For many thousands of years lions have appeared in literature and artas savage and ferocious animals. For about that length of time man hasbeen attacking lions and when the lions fought back man has set downthis judgment against them. At the same time, with the criticism ofhis savagery, man has put in all his records testimony to the courage,strength, and fighting qualities of what has been called through theages the King of Beasts.

The lion's savagery is very much the same as man's—that is, he killsother animals for food and not having developed any specializedindustries like the packers, each lion kills for himself. His day'swork, instead of getting money to buy food, consists chiefly in gettingfood, and he goes about it something in this manner. About dusk hecomes out from his resting place, yawns, stretches, and looks aboutfor something to eat. In East Africa his favourite diet is zebra, buthe likes any of the game animals, and he prefers the larger animalsto the smaller antelope because the larger ones are easier to catch.His intention is to get his food the easiest and quickest way. He goesout on the plains and by scent, sight, and[Pg 59] hearing locates a herd ofzebra, for example. He then gets down wind from what he hopes will behis next meal and stalks to within rushing distance. He can outruna zebra for a short distance, and when within striking distance hemakes a sudden dash. I think that the zebra is thrown by the lion'sspring and then killed by a bite in the back of the neck, but thisimpression is from deduction and not from observation. I have seen alot of animals that lions had killed but I never saw a lion in the actof killing. In fact, the methods which lions use in hunting are notknown in detail from observation, for not enough instances have everbeen witnessed and recorded to make the basis for any general statementwhich could be considered scientifically accurate.

When he has captured his animal the lion will eat and then lie near itperhaps all night, perhaps all the next day, if he is not disturbed,eating as he desires. If he leaves his kill the jackals, hyenas, andvultures will clean it up immediately, and as the lion kills for foodand not for sport or the pleasure of killing, he is content with onekill as long as the meat lasts.

The lion group, as I have designed it for the Roosevelt African Hall,will show in the foreground a trickling stream where the lions havecome at dawn to drink, while, at a distance on the plains, the vulturesand jackals are approaching the kill the lions have just left.

Lion hunters are not agreed about how much lions depend on sight, onsound, and on smell. It is not[Pg 60] altogether easy to tell how soon theyknow the presence of man or of other animals, for they do not alwaysshow what they know. For instance, I once had the startling experienceof getting within three feet of a lioness before she moved. She, ofcourse, knew I was there long before I got that close, and yet until Ialmost stepped on her she made no sign. There is, however, no questionbut that the lion has a sharp, far sight in the daytime, and from thesize of the pupil and his nocturnal habits of hunting I think he hasunusually keen sight at night. I have never seen any indication that alion has the keen smell of a dog or any animal that hunts by scent, norhave I ever seen anything to make me believe that he has any abnormalsense of hearing.

While many things about lions' habits are controversial, I think thatpractically everyone who has had experience with them will agree thatthey are not savage in the sense of killing for the mere sake ofkilling. There are a few isolated cases which seem to conflict withthis statement, but the great mass of testimony confirms it. There wasa seeming exception to this rule which happened to an English travellerand his wife in Somaliland. They were intent on getting a lion by"baiting"—that is, they killed an animal and left it as bait for thelions while they hid in a thornboma which they built near by. Therewas only a small hole in theboma through which to watch and shoot.They stationed a black boy at this hole to watch while they slept. Theyawoke to find that a lion had stuck his head into the hole and killedthe[Pg 61] black boy—bitten his head clear off, so the local story goes.However, no one knows why the lion killed the boy in this case for, ofthe three possible witnesses, two were asleep and the third dead.

It is possible, of course, that the lion deliberately attacked theboma without provocation, but it seems unlikely, for lions are drivento these extremities chiefly by hunger; and in this case the lion couldhave satisfied his hunger by the bait that had been laid out for him.The usual man-eater is an old lion, who in the season of scatteredgame finds it impossible with his failing strength and speed to catchanimals for food. To keep from starving he attacks the native flocksand herds, or the natives themselves. The most famous man-eaters, thelions of Tsavo, which spread such terror as almost to stop constructionon a part of the Uganda railway, were, indeed, an exception to therule. Colonel Patterson, whose classic account of them is one of thegreat animal stories of the world, accounted for these young, vigorousanimals becoming man-eaters because some of the coolie workers whodied were put in the bush unburied and the lions had acquired a tastefor human flesh by eating these bodies. After this taste was acquiredthese lions hunted men just as the ordinary lion hunted zebras. Theymade a regular business of it. It was their daily fare, and they tooka terrible toll before they were finally killed. But these lions werekilling for food just as if they were killing zebras.

Even when forced to fight, the lion is not vindictive. If an elephantgets a man he is likely to trample on[Pg 62] his victim and mutilate himeven after he is dead. I have never known of lions doing this. On theother hand, as soon as their adversary is dead, often as soon as he isquiet, they will let him alone. The game animals on which the lionsare accustomed to feed corroborate this characteristic. They knowthat the lion kills for food at night and they likewise know that hekills only for food, so in the daytime they do not bother about lionsparticularly. I have seen lions trot through a herd of game withineasy striking distance of many of the animals without causing anydisturbance.

So far as I know, except for the comparatively few man-eaters, lionsare never the aggressors. More than that, they prefer to get out of theway of man rather than fight him, and they will put up with a good dealof disturbance and inconvenience and even pain before they will fight.But once decided to fight they will fight with an amazing courage evenif there are plenty of opportunities to escape.

I had an experience which showed both these aspects of a lion's nature.Frederick M. Stephenson, John T. McCutcheon, the cartoonist, Mrs.Akeley, and I were hunting lions. I had a moving-picture camera and theothers were armed with guns. One day the natives rounded up a lionessin a patch of uncommonly tall, thick grass. The beaters hesitated to goin after her, so I took a gun and McCutcheon and I joined the porters,leaving Stephenson and Mrs. Akeley outside. The grass was so thickthat we had to take our rifles in both hands and push the[Pg 63] grass downin front of us and then walk on it. We had made some progress in thismanner when suddenly, as we were pushing down the grass, it was thrownviolently back, jerking our rifles up and almost throwing us over. Itwas the lioness. We had pressed the grass down right on her back. Yetdespite this intrusion she made off and did not attack us.

As she went out of the grass into the open, Stephenson shot at her andmissed. Some of the boys rode after her on horseback and rounded herup in another patch of cover. By this time, however, her patience hadrun out. She could have run some more had she wanted to, but she didn'twant to. When Stephenson approached the cover with his gun boys shetook the initiative and charged. His first shot stopped her a second,but she came on again. His second shot killed her.

My first black-maned lion showed the same characteristics. He, too,preferred peace to war, although I originally disturbed him with hiskill, but finally, when he declared war, although he was badly wounded,he preferred to charge two white men and thirty natives rather than tryto escape.

I had gone up on the Mau Plateau to shoottopi. The plateau is about8,000 feet above sea level there and I didn't expect to find any lions.One day I discovered twotopi in a little valley between two gentlerises. I was crawling up to the top of one of the rises overlookingthe valley to get a shot when I noticed some movement in the grasson the slope[Pg 64] opposite. I thought it was anothertopi. As I raisedmyself a little to shoot I noticed that the original pair that I washunting were gazing with fixed attention toward some movement on thefar hillside. I looked again and saw an old lion get up and walk tothe top of the hill, turn round facing me, and lie down to watch thevalley from his side as I was watching it from mine. We were about 400yards from each other. In the valley between were thetopi, and alsoI noticed a dead zebra. Evidently I had disturbed him at his previousnight's kill. My pony and gun boys were some distance behind and I hadonly one cartridge left in my double-barrelled cordite rifle. Underthese conditions I reluctantly decided to go back for proper equipment.My reluctance was not merely at losing a lion but at losing thatparticular lion, for he had a great black mane and no one had killed ablack-maned lion in that part of Africa.

By the time I got back with my cartridges and the gun boys, he haddisappeared. We began beating about to see if we could find him orhis trail, but without success. We did, however, find the remains ofseveral kills, which led me to think that this single old fellow hadfound the neighbourhood good hunting, and was making a more or lessprolonged stay. Under the circumstances I felt it wise to go to campand get my companion, Shaw Kennedy, and our thirty beaters to hunt himout the next day.

Before going, however, I planned a campaign. Not far from where thelion had been a ravine began,[Pg 65] which ran some distance and ended in athick piece of forest. The sides of the ravine were covered with clumpsof thick bush. Into one of these I felt sure the lion had retreated.Unless closely pushed he would not go into the forest. My plan was toenter the ravine the next day at the forest end so that he could notescape to safety among the trees, and drive up the ravine to force himout into the open.

When we got to the edge of the forest the next morning Kennedy and Idrew lots for the choice of position. He won and chose the upper endof the ravine toward which we were to drive, while I was to follow upbehind the beaters to get him if he broke back. Of course we were notsure that our quarry was even in the neighbourhood, but I had greathope of everything except getting this first black-maned specimenmyself, for Kennedy's position made it almost certain that he would getthe animal if any one did. The first patch of bush that the beaterstackled was about 100 yards long and 50 yards wide. As they set uptheir usual racket before entering I thought I heard a lion's grunt,but as nothing more developed I concluded it had been merely some ofthe boys. This patch of bush was a mass of nettles, briers, and thorns,and made exceedingly disagreeable going. The porters were making veryslow progress, so I went in to encourage them. However, by the time wewere halfway through I was so scratched and torn that I quit and wentout toward the bottom of the ravine. The briers had somewhat cooledmy faith in the theory that the lion was in the ravine. I[Pg 66] sat downon an ant-hill where I had a fair view. Kennedy fired and I lookedquickly. The lion which had come out in front of Kennedy had turnedand was running down across the ravine and up the other side. I had agood shot at him and the bullet knocked him over. However, he got upand went into a clump of bush. This clump just filled a kind of pothole about fifty yards in diameter. Kennedy watched one side and I theother so that we had every avenue of escape covered. The beaters thenbegan throwing stones and sticks into the bush. The lion made no move.He might be dead or he might be lying close. We wanted to know, but noone wanted to know sufficiently to crawl in and see. Finally Dudo, mygun-bearer, suggested that we light a fire and make some firebrands.We busied ourselves with this. In the meanwhile, there was no responsefrom the lion. When the firebrands were ready Dudo asked leave tothrow the first one for he maintained that he knew where the lion was.Dudo threw, and as his firebrand disappeared in the brush there wasa roar and a shaking of the bushes that told exactly where the beastwas hidden. A shower of firebrands followed but with no effect. Thenthe boys threw rocks. But nothing resulted. By this time Kennedy hadjoined the crowd. All the beaters and both of us were grouped on oneside of the pot hole. Dudo now took a small-bore rifle and fired, notin an effort to kill the lion but to move him. It succeeded, and hemoved, not away from us but toward us. The way of retreat was open buthe didn't take it. Dudo[Pg 67] fired again, and again the bushes moved towardus. Finally the old fellow was so close to the edge of the brush thatwhile we couldn't see him he undoubtedly could see us. He stood lookingout on thirty black men and two white men in front of a great fire—acrowd of his enemies. The path was not blocked in any other direction.He looked us over carefully for fully five minutes and then of his ownvolition, with a great roar, he charged out of the brush and up fromthe pot hole. Halfway up the slope the fatal bullet hit him. He waskilled charging his enemies and without thought of retreat—the firstblack-maned lion ever shot in British East Africa.

He was old and had been through various vicissitudes. At one time hehad had a leg broken but it had healed perfectly. The tip of his tailwas gone also. But for all that he was a great specimen.

These two instances are fair examples of the usual method of huntinglions in British East Africa. Riding after them on horseback might beconsidered a different method than the beating, but as a matter offact, the two merge into each other. When beating, the lion hunterusually rides until he actually reaches the lion's cover, and if heruns on to a lion in the open he rides after it until the superiorspeed of the horse over any fair distance forces the lion to stop andlie down at bay. And, likewise, if one is riding after lions and thelion gets into cover, the game is up unless there are beaters to gethim out.

Paul Rainey introduced an added element to the horseback method of lionhunting when he imported[Pg 68] his lion hounds. I call them lion houndsfor they chased lions—that is the only thing the pack had in common.It included curs, collies, airedales, bear hounds from the South, andalmost every other kind of canine. When Rainey and the hounds appeared,the Governor of East Africa remarked that the lions were going to getsome good dog meat. But within a couple of years "hounding lions"was stopped because the lions fell too easy a prey to the hounds andhunters. When Rainey took his hounds there no one was certain howthe lions would act, and it was a sporting thing to try. But it soondeveloped—and Rainey, who is a thorough sportsman, was one of thefirst to see it—that the hounds kept the lion so busy once he wasbrought to bay that the hunter could approach and take as many shots asnecessary with almost perfect immunity from a charge. It is not quiteaccurate to say that Rainey introduced the practice of hunting lionswith dogs. Foa, the French traveller, speaks of the practice ten yearsbefore Rainey went to Africa. He even tried to organize a pack. Hispack failed. But the principle of having dogs keep the lions so busythat they would not charge, he described completely.

Besides these daylight methods of hunting it was a common practice tohunt lions at night by baiting—that is, to kill an animal and hidenear it in the hope that a lion would come to eat, and then shoot him.There is not much danger in this, for the thornbomas, or hidingplaces, are a good protection, and the lion would not be likely toattack any one unless he was[Pg 69] shot at or molested. There is, of course,the instance of the black man killed in theboma in Somaliland, butthat event is the exception.

As a method of killing lions, night baiting is not very sportsmanlike,but as a method of photographing it is not only legitimate but it hasproduced by far the best lion pictures ever made in Africa—especiallythose of Schilling and A. Radclyffe Dugmore. Rainey and Buffalo Jonesgot some remarkable moving pictures of hunting lions with dogs, butthe total number of all pictures of live lions ever taken is still inkeeping with the small amount of detailed and accurate knowledge oflions' habits which we have. To my mind the finest lion-hunting pictureever taken was brought back by Lady Grace McKenzie. Her operator gota moving picture of a wounded lion charging. It shows the lion's rushfrom the bush at Lady McKenzie and her companion—a white man. It showsthe man turn and run and the lion rush right by Lady McKenzie afterhim. There the picture ends. On his recent trip Martin Johnson got amotion picture of five lions crossing the plains, one of which was shotby Mr. Johnson.

But neither beating, baiting, nor hounding is the really sportsmanlikemethod of hunting lions—it is spearing, and spearing takes a black man.

One time in Uganda, after I had been under a considerable strain whileelephant hunting, I decided that I needed a rest and a change. I setout for the Uasin Gishu Plateau where I got together one hundred Nandispearmen. We had no difficulty in getting[Pg 70] volunteers, for they wereto be paid and fed for playing the game they loved. During the firsthalf day out from the government station, where we gathered our forcetogether, the alarm of lion was sounded. We were approaching a patchof bush. The spearmen entered the bush from all sides. I placed mymotion-picture camera at a point of vantage. The idea was to drive thelion out in front of the camera and have the spearmen at that pointspear him. Above the din of the spearmen in the bush I finally heardthe angry growl of a leopard. There was great excitement in the bushfor a few seconds. Then three of the boys came out of the bush. Themiddle boy of the three was being carried and his scalp was hangingdown over his face. Behind this trio came a group carrying the deadleopard. Later, when his skin was stretched, it showed sixty spearholes.

I promptly took the wounded boy under the shade of a mimosa tree,shaved him, and sewed his scalp back into place and cared for his otherwounds. He showed little interest in the proceedings beyond asking aquestion of the other black boys about what I was doing. Seemingly thewhole operation was over before he recovered from the shock of hismauling. The next morning when I sent him home he was much troubled.He said that he had not committed any offence and he did not see whyhe had to be sent home. His wounds did not seem to trouble him or todampen the ardour of the others in the slightest.

We went on for a week. One day, just as we were making camp near awaterfall, an alarm was sounded[Pg 71] near the forest. One of the boys hadseen a lion. His whereabouts was discovered after much beating back andforth. I got my camera ready as before at the place the boys thoughtthe fight would take place, but the lion did not do his part. He brokein a different direction and another bunch of spearmen got him twohundred yards away. It was so exasperating to have something preventthis most exciting of all movie photography from succeeding that Ialmost failed to appreciate the courage and skill of the spearmen.

A few days later, soon after our start in the morning, Mrs. Akeley andI were riding ahead of the procession when we met several lions comingout of the grass and bush near a small stream. The spearmen immediatelysurrounded the bush into which the lions plunged. The lions tried toescape, but in whatever direction any lion tried to go a spearmanbobbed up out of the grass in front of him. That is a simple statement,but to jump up in front of a lion or three lions with nothing but aspear and shield as protection is a thing not to be taken lightly. Asthe lions sought one escape after another, and found each closed, theyfought it out. There was about ten minutes of pandemonium. Then we tookstock. Three dead lions gathered together in a pile; pretty authenticreports that two others escaped—and not a picture.

At the next spearing, however, I did get two pictures. We were ridingalong early in the morning through a rough bush country. All at onceI heard a lion grunt. The gun boy held up his hand as a signal tostop. The camera was rushed forward to the bank[Pg 72] of a little ravine,but before it was assembled ready for the operation a lioness cameup within ten feet of the camera, turned to the left, and then ranback by the same route. The boys waved to me to come down twenty-fiveyards. There, from a little knoll, we got the first movie record oflion spearing. A young, full-grown lion was at bay in tall grass atthe bottom of the ravine. The camera trained on the place caught thefirst spear thrown. The first one was followed by a shower of spears,and a few seconds later the boys rushed in and got their spears. It wasall over quicker than it takes to tell it. In the film not only do thefalling spears show but also the movement of the lion in the grass, butthe cover and a dark day made any part of the film impossible to use asa still picture. Hardly had I finished turning the handle on this scenewhen I was called off twenty-five yards to another lion at bay. He washeld for the camera and a similar record of this one was made. In themeantime, a lone spearman making desperate effort to get into the showstumbled on an old lioness. They fought it out, man and beast together.When we discovered him he was on his back protecting himself with hisshield, a single bite in his leg and the lioness dying beside him. Hehad killed a lioness practically alone, which entitled him to wear alion's skin headdress.

On this trip of twenty days we had three occasions in which thespearmen rounded up five lions in a bunch and each time they got threeof the five. Altogether, we got ten lions and five leopards. One boywas mauled by a leopard, another was bitten[Pg 73] on the leg by the lion.These were the only injuries to the men. Not a shot was fired duringthe twenty days. Our last encounter involved five old lions, three ofwhich were speared, and three cubs captured alive—but no pictures. Ithappened like this:

Three lions going up a slope, signal given, pandemonium turned loose.Movements of men looked as if the lions had gone over the hill beyondto a dry stream bed. With the heavy camera I ran down the foot of thehill when I was called back and had to run back to the top of the hillwhere the lion was at bay. He might have been held indefinitely therein the open sunlight—a wonderful chance for a picture. But in spite oflong teaching, of threats, promises, and urging, the boys' excitementovercame them. The spears began to fly before the camera was ready. AsI was adjusting the camera the lion was speared in full view in theopen sunlight. A camera man never had such a chance before, but it waslost because the camera was slow. After the planning, the care, thework—the luck to have it go like this was too much, and my instinctwas to grab my gun and shoot the man who threw the first spear. I thinkit was the most heartbreaking failure I ever had. I intended never tohave another, and from that minute I began working on a camera thattakes no time to adjust. I got it finally, but that one moment ofpoignant disappointment cost me many months of toil.

Here is the way I see this lion spearing. A naked savage gets iron ore,then he gets fire from two sticks, and then charcoal. Then he makes aretort of clay[Pg 74] in which he smelts the iron ore. With a hunk of granitefor an anvil and another for a hammer he rough forges the spear. Withsoft iron hammers forged in a similar way he finishes the spear whichis finally sharpened on native stones. With this equipment he startsout to kill the lion that has been preying on his flocks or herds. Hetakes a great pride in the achievement, for he will make from the manea headdress which his exploit entitles him to wear. Of course this doesnot happen just this way now, but the Nandi's spearmen speared lionswith the arms they made before the white men came. It is a fair contestbetween man and beast. And the courage and skill of these men arewonderful.

Paul Rainey had a ranch on the west shore of Lake Naivasha. One morninghis boys reported to him that a lion had invaded thekraal the nightbefore. He set out on horseback with a few of his dogs and two Masaiherd boys with their spears. The dogs soon took up the spoor of thelion and brought him to bay under an acacia tree on the grassy plain.The sun had just risen above the hills on the other side of the lake.The long shadows of the table-top acacias lay across the plain, thelion underneath in full sunlight. Rainey jumped off his horse, threwthe reins over a bush, and grabbed his rifle from its boot. He then sawthe two Masai boys run on toward the lion. As they approached the lion,one threw his spear and missed. They were between him and the lion, andhe could not shoot. The boys stood stock still till the lion was inmid-air in his final spring[Pg 75] when the one with the spear stepped to oneside and thrust his spear into the lion's neck killing him instantly.He fell at their feet. As the boy withdrew the spear and carefullywiped the blood off on the corner of his breechcloth he remarked toRainey:

That is how the Masai figured it. But I never have felt so. The firstwild lion I ever saw scared me almost to death, and a good many of themhave scared me since. The first lions that I saw were in Somaliland.

An oryx hunt had just come to a close. We were about to mount ourponies when one of the black boys pointed. There were three lionswalking quietly across a patch of hard, dry sand. They were perhapsa hundred yards away. They looked as big as oxen to me. I had neverbefore seen a lion outside of a cage. We turned our ponies over tothe Somali gun boys who galloped after them to round them up. My nextview of the lions was when the beaters had gone in to drive them outof a bit of jungle. A roar came from immediately in front of me and Isaw a lioness in mid-air as high as my head, springing, thank heaven,diagonally away from me. But she saw me as she sprang and landed facingme. As I fired, a lion jumped over her back, which so disconcerted methat my shot only wounded her. This lion disconcerted her, too, forshe followed him. Two more shots at her and she disappeared in anotherclump of cover with the lions. In our efforts to drive them out of thiscover we finally set it on fire. The[Pg 76] two lions rushed out and escapedus. The lioness, more seriously wounded than I thought, never came. Ihad failed to get a lion, but I felt satisfied none the less, becausethe lions had likewise failed to get me. That one moment in that day,when I saw the lioness in the air, I'll never forget, for I realizedthat death was but an instant away.

From that time until now I have seen a great many lions, shot some, andhandled nearly fifty specimens, so that I have made a fairly extendedstudy of the measurements and anatomy of the king of beasts. I havetried also to study his living characteristics and habits, but that ismuch more difficult. After all, perhaps the most impressive thing abouta lion is his foreleg. The more you know of elephants the more youregard the elephant's trunk. The more you know of lions, the more yourespect the lion's foreleg and the great padded and clawed weapon atthe end of it. It is perhaps the best token of the animal's strength.It is probably two or three times as powerful in proportion to weightas the arm of a man. He can kill a man with one blow of his paw. Hisother weapon, his jaw, is strong enough to break a zebra's neck at onebite. These are a rather rough measure of an animal's strength, butthey give some idea of it.

There is a record which says that a lion has dragged an African buffalofifty yards. A buffalo weighs at least three times as much as a lion. Ihave never had evidence of this much "pulling power" but I have knownof many instances of lions dragging zebras[Pg 77] that far, and the zebrasweigh nearly twice as much as the lions do.

Another test of a lion's strength is his ability to stand punishment.I have seen a lion charge with seven lead bullets from an old .577Express rifle through his shoulder, and only finally succumb to theeighth bullet in his head.

L. J. Tarlton, one of the best shots that has ever hunted game inAfrica, told me once, when we were both recuperating from sickness,that he was going to quit shooting lions. What had brought him to thisconclusion was an experience which he had just had with a charginglioness. He had hit her three times in the chest. She finally diedtouching his feet. When he examined her, all three bullets were withina three-inch radius and every one should have been fatal. Yet she hadalmost reached him despite his fast and accurate shooting.

These instances are exceptions, but often in African hunting theexceptions are about as common as the rule and one exception may beenough to end the story.

My nearest approach to being mauled by a lion came from this samecapacity of a lion to carry lead, and from my own carelessness. I hadseen a lion standing some little distance away from me clearly inview, and had shot him. The bullet knocked him down and, as I thought,hurt him badly. After a while he got up and came my way. When aboutforty yards away he gave me another clear shot. So without reloadingthe first barrel of my double-barrelled[Pg 78]rifle I fired the second. Ihit him again, but not with the desired result. He charged. There Iwas with an empty gun to meet the charge of a wounded lion, and withno one else, not even a gun boy, near. All the rules of lion huntingsay that you must meet a charge without moving. But all the promptingsof instinct were to move, and I moved. I slipped to one side behinda clump of high grass as fast as I could, endeavouring meanwhile toreload. A few seconds after I had left the spot where I should havestood the lion's spring landed him directly on it. He had had to comethrough a little depression, and this and the long grass had obscuredhis sight so he had not seen me move. Not landing on me as he expectedso disconcerted him that, even though he saw me, he dived into thethick bushes right ahead of him instead of coming at me. There hestopped, threatening for a time to repeat his charge. Finally, changinghis mind, he headed deeper into the brush and, as it was too thickto follow him, I let him go. In the mix-up mysyce had become socompletely frightened that he had jumped into the river, so he wasquite unable to tell whether the lion had got my pony or the pony hadrun away. After a certain amount of fruitless searching I walked theten miles back to camp.

The usual movement of a lion is a walk or a kind of fox trot. At speedhe will still continue to trot except at maximum effort, when hegallops.

Lions do not usually have any habitation; but occasionally they livein caves. When I say live, I do[Pg 79] not mean that they inhabit themcontinuously. They roam about, following the movements of the game. Ifthey happen to be working in a country where there is a cave, they willuse it while in the neighbourhood. But a given band of lions usuallystays in one place only a short time. The phrase "band of lions" isperhaps not very accurate. Lions go in all kinds of combinations ofnumbers. There is a cave on the MacMillan ranch near Nairobi from whichsixteen lions have been seen to come. Personally I have never seen morethan eight lions together, but I have seen almost all combinations ofnumbers, ages, and sexes below that number. Lions are more often intwos, threes, or fours than in other combinations.

But although I know that lions are accustomed to roam after game, oneof the most interesting lion encounters I ever had came from acting onexactly the opposite theory.

There is a place where a little stream flows into the Theba River,where, in 1906, I was looking for buffalo and heard the snarling of twolions. We stopped the buffalo hunt momentarily to locate the lions.We started at the river bank to drive up the small stream toward thehigher land and the open. The beaters began their work with theirusual noises, which I checked as soon as possible for fear that thelions would go out too far ahead of us to get a shot. I instructedthe beaters to go up the little stream with the cover along its banksthrowing stones in ahead of them. But my precautions were too late.They had hardly started to work when I noticed on the hills[Pg 80] a lion anda lioness—one going to the left and the other to the right. They werein the open. The lion disappeared over the crest of the first hill. Ihad a theory that he would lie down on the top of that crest and watchus. I accordingly left part of the men in sight while I, with a fewothers, approached the hill under cover. I finally succeeded in gettingto a point behind a pile of rocks. Motioning the men to stay quiet andkeep back, I carefully poked my head up and saw the old fellow as helay looking toward me about seventy-five yards away. I drew back, andthen to my disgust one of my companions rose up in full view of thelion, who made off unscathed by the hurried shots I fired at him. Thislion stayed constantly in my mind.

Three years later I was camped on the Tana River with Mrs. Akeley,John McCutcheon, and Fred Stephenson. When we decided to march fromthe Tana to the Theba I told the crowd that I was going by the spotwhere I had lost the big lion three years before. I had a "hunch" thathe would still be there—or perhaps be revisiting the spot as I was.Anyway, the feeling was strong enough to make me go. Stephenson wentoff on an independent hunt. The others with thesafari came with me.We loitered along photographing rhinoceroses until we came in sightof my spot—the place where the little stream emptied into the Theba.I noticed that Stephenson was coming toward us and about to cross thelittle stream. I remarked, "Fred is going to drive our lions out andnever know it." I then felt a little[Pg 81] foolish but nevertheless watchedhim go through my pet lion bed. Only a few minutes later McCutcheonpointed toward the upper end of the stream and said:

They were going up the hill exactly as they had three years beforeexcept this time they did not separate. We watched them to the top ofthe hill. We started out to head them off. As we reached the top of thehill to one side of where they had gone, we heard a lion grunt behindus. There, about a hundred and twenty-five yards away, were the lionand lioness apparently in a very nasty humour. We all crouched down,and as we did so the lions rose up to see us. I said to Mrs. Akeley:

I was pretty nervous, for a couple of mad lions in the grass make avery bad outlook.

She fired and missed clean. The lioness began lashing her flanks. Mrs.Akeley fired again. The lion fell dead with a bullet through his brain.

McCutcheon and I urged each other to shoot the lioness, who, in themeantime, bolted and got away. I have handled nearly fifty lions, butthis one that Mrs. Akeley killed was the largest of all and he had agood yellow mane. I can't prove that it was the same pair I had seenthree years before. What we know of lions is against it, but I stilllike to think it was. This was Mrs. Akeley's first lion—a splendidtrophy, cleanly killed.

CHAPTER IVHUNTING THE AFRICAN BUFFALO

The buffalo is different from any other kind of animal in Africa. Alion prefers not to fight a man. He almost never attacks unprovoked,and even when he does attack he is not vindictive. The elephant, likethe lion, prefers to be left alone. But he is quicker to attack thanthe lion and he isn't satisfied merely to knock out his man enemy.Complete destruction is his aim. The buffalo is even quicker than theelephant to take offence at man and he is as keen-sighted, clever, andvindictive as the elephant. As a matter of fact, the domesticated bullis more likely to attack man without provocation than any wild animalI know, and those who wandered on foot around the bulls on our Westernprairies in the old cattle days probably experienced the same kind ofcharges one gets from African buffaloes.

Nevertheless, despite all these qualities, which are almost universallyattributed to the African buffalo, I am confident that the buffalo,like the elephant and other wild animals, has no instinctive enmityto man. That enmity, I am sure, is acquired by experience. I had anexperience on the Aberdare Plateau with a band of elephants that hadseen little or nothing of man, and until they learned about men from methey[Pg 83] paid no more attention to me than if I had been an antelope. Butafter I had shot one or two as specimens, they acquired the traditionalelephant attitude. I had a curiously similar experience with buffaloes.

It happened in this way. Mrs. Akeley, Cuninghame, the famous hunter,and I had been trying for some time, but with little luck, to getbuffalo specimens for a group for the Field Museum at Chicago.

We had reason to believe that there was a herd of buffaloes living inthe triangle made by the junction of the Theba and Tana rivers. Asthe buffaloes would have to water from one stream or the other, wefelt pretty sure of locating them by following down the Theba to thejunction and then up the Tana.

From the swamp down the Theba to its junction with the Tana occupiedthree days in which we saw no fresh signs of buffalo. On the secondmarch up the Tana, as I was travelling ahead of thesafari at aboutmidday, looking out through an opening in a strip of thorn bush thatbordered the river, I saw in the distance a great black mass on theopen plain which, on further investigation with the field glasses, Iwas reasonably certain was a herd of buffaloes. Sending a note back toCuninghame, who was in charge of thesafari, suggesting that he makecamp at a hill on the banks of the Tana about two miles ahead of myposition and await me there, I started off over the plain with my twogun boys. Coming up out of a dry stream-bed that I had used to conceal[Pg 84]my approach, I came on to a large herd of eland, and my first fear wasthat I had mistaken eland for buffaloes.

Going farther on, however, we saw a herd of about five hundredbuffaloes lying up in a few scattered thorn trees four or five hundredyards away. At first it seemed an almost impossible situation. Therewas practically no cover and no means of escape in case the herddetected us and saw fit to charge, and at that time my respect for thebuffaloes led me to be extremely cautious. We worked around the herdtrying to find some place where a safe approach might be made. Finally,seeing a little band of a dozen buffaloes off at one side on the bankof a ravine which offered splendid protection, we stalked them but,unfortunately, not one in the band was desirable as a specimen. Sincethis was so, I tried them out, giving them my wind, then going up wherethey could see me better. I found that they were quite indifferenteither to the scent or the sight of man. They finally moved offquietly without alarm. I then knew that this herd, like the Aberdareelephants, had had little or no experience with men, and that therewas perhaps less to fear from them than from the traditional buffaloof the sportsman. So going back to the main herd, I crept up boldlyto within a hundred yards of them. They saw me, faced about, closelyinspecting me, but with no sign of alarm. It was approaching dusk, andin this great black mass it was difficult to pick out a good pair ofhorns except with the aid of glasses. I carefully located a fine bulland then shot,[Pg 85] as I supposed, at the one I had located. As I fired,the animals bolted, first away, then back toward me. They wheeled,ran halfway between the dead animal and me, and passing on about ahundred yards to the right wheeled about again and stood watching me,the bulls in the front, lined up like soldiers, the calves and cows inthe background. On coming up to the dead animal, I found, much to myregret, that I had shot a cow and not the bull I had picked out throughthe glasses.

I returned to camp feeling that now at last, from this herd livingapparently in the open, we should have relatively little difficultyin completing our series of specimens. On the following morning, muchto our disappointment, our first glimpse of the herd was just as itdisappeared in the thorn bush along the bank of the river. We put innearly a week of hard work to complete the series.

During those seven days of continual hunting, that herd which had beenindifferent and unsuspecting at the beginning, like the elephants,became cautious, vigilant, and aggressive. For instance, on oneoccasion near the close of the week, after having spent the day tryingto locate the herd, I suddenly came face to face with them just at theedge of the bush at night on my way back to camp. They were tearingalong at a good pace, apparently having been alarmed. I stepped to oneside and crouched in the low grass while they passed me in a cloudof dust at twenty-five or thirty yards. Even had I been able to pickout desirable specimens at this time I[Pg 86] should have been afraid toshoot for fear of getting into difficulties when they had located myposition. I turned and followed them rapidly as they sped away overthe hard ground until the noise of their stampede suddenly stopped. Ithen decided that it was best to get to some point of vantage and awaitfurther developments. I climbed an acacia tree that enabled me to lookover the top of the bush. Fifty yards ahead I could see about fiftybuffaloes lined up in a little open patch looking back on their trail.As I was perched in the tree endeavouring to pick out a desirableanimal, I suddenly discovered a lone old bull buffalo coming from thebush almost directly underneath me, sniffing and snuffing this way andthat. Very slowly, very cautiously he passed around the tree, then backto the waiting herd, when they all resumed their stampede and made goodtheir escape for the day.

One morning I came in sight of the herd just as it was entering thethorn bush and followed hurriedly on the trail, until just at the edgeof the jungle I happened to catch sight of the two black hoofs of anold cow behind the low-hanging foliage. I stopped, expecting a charge.After a few moments I backed slowly away until I reached a tree where Ihalted to await developments. Stooping down I could see the buffalo'snose and black, beady eyes as she stood motionless. The rest of theherd had gone on out of hearing and I think she was quite alone in herproposed attack. After a few moments, apparently realizing that herplan had failed, she turned about[Pg 87] and followed the herd, moving veryquietly at first, then breaking into a gallop.

On the following day toward evening we came up again with the herd inthe same region. As we first saw them they were too far away for us tochoose and shoot with certainty. We managed to crawl to a fair-sizedtree midway between us and the herd, and from the deep branches pickedout the young herd bull of the group. When we had shot and he haddisappeared into the bush, a calf accompanied by its mother gave us afleeting glimpse of itself, with the result that we added the calf toour series.

The herd disappeared into the bush and after a few minutes we descendedfrom our perch and inspected the calf, then started off in thedirection the wounded bull had taken, and found him lying dead just afew yards away.

This completed the series, much to our great joy, for by this time wewere thoroughly tired of buffalo-hunting. It had been a long, hardhunt, and oursafari as well as ourselves were considerably the worsefor wear. To shoot a half-dozen buffaloes is a very simple matterand ought to be accomplished almost any day in British East Africaor Uganda, but to select a series of a half dozen that will have thegreatest possible scientific value by illustrating the development frombabyhood to old age is quite a different matter.

These buffaloes of the Tana country that we found on the plains andin the bush apparently rarely or never go into the swamps, a fact notonly confirmed[Pg 88] by observation but also indicated by the condition ofthe hoofs. These are horny, round, and smooth as a result of travellingon the hard and more or less stony ground of the region. But thetinga-tinga buffaloes have lived in the swamp for years and spendpractically no time on hard ground; hence the hoofs are long, sharp,and unworn as a result of walking always in the soft mud and water. Allthis despite the fact that these two herds may actually come in contactat the edge of the swamp. Other herds live in forest country but comeout into the grasslands to feed at night, always going back into theforest at daybreak.

In Uganda, where buffaloes are recognized as a menace to life and areof no particular value except for food, they are officially treatedas vermin and one may shoot as many as he will. Here the herds hadincreased to an enormous extent and, because of the dense jungles andgeneral inaccessibility of the country, it was rather difficult to huntthem. While elephant-hunting in Uganda we found the buffaloes a decidednuisance, frequently coming on to them unexpectedly while hot on anelephant trail, sometimes having difficulty in getting rid of them, notwishing to shoot or stampede them because of the danger of frighteningaway the elephants, to say nothing of the constant menace of runninginto a truculent old bull at very close quarters in dense jungle. Thebuffaloes actually mingle with the elephants, each quite indifferentto the other excepting that on one occasion we found elephant calves[Pg 89]charging into a herd of buffaloes, evidently only in play. Theychased about squealing and stampeding the buffaloes, who kept at asafe distance but did not actually take alarm. Occasionally an old cowwhose calf was being hard-pressed by the young elephants would turn,apparently with the intention of having it out, but would always boltbefore the elephant could actually reach her. Despite the fact that therecord head, fifty-four inches in spread, was shot by Mr. Knowles inUganda, from our general observation the heads in Uganda run smallerthan those of British East Africa while the animals are perhaps heavier.

Although in our buffalo-hunting we have never had any actually seriousencounters, I fully appreciate that the buffalo deserves his reputationas one of the most dangerous of big-game animals. His eyesight is good,he has keen scent, and is vigilant and vindictive. While the lion isusually satisfied with giving his victim a knock-out blow or bite, thebuffalo, when once on the trail of man, will not only persist in hisefforts to find him but, when he has once come up with him, will notleave while there is a vestige of life remaining in the victim. In somecases he will not leave while there is a fragment of the man remaininglarge enough to form a target for a buffalo's stamping hoofs.

A hunter I met once told me of an experience he had with a buffalowhich shows in rather a terrible way these characteristics of theanimal. He and a companion wounded a buffalo and followed it into[Pg 90]the long grass. It was lurking where they did not expect it and witha sudden charge it was upon them before they had a chance to shoot.The buffalo knocked down the man who told me the story and then rushedafter his companion. The first victim managed to climb a tree althoughwithout his gun. By that time the other man was dead. But the buffalowas not satisfied. For two hours he stamped and tossed the remainswhile the wounded man in the tree sat helplessly watching. When thebuffalo left, my informant told me, the only evidence of his friend wasthe trampled place on the ground where the tragedy had taken place.There is nothing in Africa more vindictive than this.

There was another case of an old elephant hunter in Uganda who shot abuffalo for meat. The bullet did not kill the animal and it retreatedinto the thick bush where there were even some good-sized trees. Theold hunter followed along a path. Suddenly the buffalo caught himand tossed him. As he went into the air he grasped some branchesoverhanging the trail. There he hung unable to get up and afraid todrop down while the wild bull beneath him charged back and forth withhis long horns ripping at the hunter's legs. Happily the gun boy cameup in time to save his master by killing the beast. This hunter was anextraordinary character. He was very successful and yet he was almoststone deaf. How he dared hunt elephants or any other big game withoutthe aid of his hearing I have never been able to conceive, yet he didit and did it well.

One morning Cuninghame, having gone out with some boys to shoot meatfor camp, came upon three old buffaloes. He sent a runner back tocamp with the news, and Mrs. Akeley and I started out to join him.Halfway from camp we were obliged to make a wide detour to avoid anold rhino and calf, but soon caught up with Cuninghame. He reported,however, that the buffaloes had passed on into some dense bush. Westarted to follow but suddenly came upon two rhinos. We quickly turnedto leeward in order not to disturb them by giving them our wind, forwe were not anxious to bring on a general stampede of the game in theneighbourhood. This turn brought us to the windward of the old cowand calf that we had first avoided, with the result that she camecharging up, followed by the calf close at her heels, snorting likea locomotive. Cuninghame helped Mrs. Akeley up a convenient tree. Hestood at the base of the tree and I at the foot of another where wewaited with our guns ready, watching the old cow go tearing past withintwenty feet of us.

We continued on the buffalo trail, but the stampede of the rhino hadresulted in alarming the buffaloes so that instead of finding them nearby, we were forced to follow them for an hour or more before againcoming in sight of them; and again twice more they were stampededby rhinos that happened to get in our path. At last the buffaloesevidently became tired of being chased from place to place, and cameto rest on a sloping hillside which we could approach only by crawlingon our hands and knees in[Pg 92] the grass for a considerable distance. Inthis manœuvring it happened that Mrs. Akeley was able to stalk the bestbull, and a few minutes later he was finished off and we were busyphotographing, measuring, and preparing the skin.

About twenty-five miles to the northwest from the Tana, across theplain on the Theba River, is a marsh where a herd of nearly a hundredbuffaloes was known to live, but the Provincial Commissioner haddefinitely said that we were not to shoot these. We decided finally toask for the privilege, which was granted, but with a warning in theform of an explanation: that he had told us not to shoot there becauseof the danger involved.

We found a reed marsh about one by two miles in extent with, at thattime, a foot or two of water in the buffalo trails that crisscrossedit in all directions. On arriving, and while making camp at one end ofthe marsh just at dusk, we saw the herd come out on dry land a halfmile away—but they returned to cover before we could approach them.In fact, during nearly two weeks that we spent there we saw them comeoutside the swamp only twice, each time to return immediately.

We made several attempts to approach them in the marsh, but foundthat while it was quite possible to get up to them it was out of thequestion to choose our specimens. Also it would have been impossibleto beat a retreat in case of a charge or stampede; so we adopted acampaign of watchful waiting. From the camp at daybreak we would scanthe marsh for[Pg 93] the snowy cow herons that were always with the buffaloesduring the daytime. These would fly about above the reeds from onepart of the herd to another, and at times, where the reeds were low,they could be seen riding along perched on the backs of the animals.Having thus located the herd and determined the general direction ofits movements, we would go to a point at the edge of the marsh where itseemed likely that the animals would come out, or at least come nearenough to be visible in the shorter reeds. It was in this way thatwe secured the specimen that makes the young bull of the group—andtwo weeks spent there resulted in securing no other specimen. On thisone occasion the buffaloes, accompanied by the white herons, had cometo within about a hundred yards of our position on the shores of theswamp. They were in reeds that practically concealed them, but theyoung buffalo in question, in the act of throwing up his head todislodge a bird that had irritated him, disclosed a pair of horns thatindicated a young bull of the type I wanted. A heron standing on hiswithers gave me his position, and aiming about two feet below the bird,I succeeded in killing the bull with a heart shot.

CHAPTER VLEOPARDS AND RHINOS

There is a general belief firmly fixed in the popular mind by constantrepetition that the ostrich is a very stupid bird. A man might wellexpect easy hunting of a bird that tried to hide by the traditionalmethod of sticking its head in the sand. But I found that the ostrich,like other African animals, did not always realize its obligation totradition or abide by the rules set down for its behaviour. I went along way into the waterless desert of Somaliland after ostriches. Wewere just across the Haud and were camped in a "tug" or dry streambed where by digging we could get water for our sixty men and thecamels. During two days of hunting in the dry bush of this desert Ihad seen many ostriches, but none of them had put its head into theground and left its big black-and-white plumed body for me to shoot at.On the contrary, in this my first experience with them I found themexceedingly wary. They kept their bodies hidden behind the bush. Onlytheir heads were exposed, each head only about large enough to carrya pair of very keen eyes and much too small to serve as a target atthe distance that they maintained. As a result of being continuallyoutwitted by them for[Pg 95] two days I began to think ill of the man whooriginally started the story about their stupidity.

With the difficulties of the chase firmly in mind I set out early onthe third day to see if I could get a specimen. Concluding that thesmaller the party the better the opportunity, I took only a mule and mypony boy. When only a half mile from camp I met an old hyena who wasloafing along after a night out. He looked like a good specimen, butafter I shot him, one look at his dead carcass was enough to satisfyme that he was not as desirable as I had thought, for his skin wasbadly diseased. I had very good reason to think of this very hard laterin the day. A little farther along I shot a good wart hog for ourscientific collection. Leaving the specimen where it lay, I marked thespot and continued in search of the plume-bearers.

Soon after this I climbed to the top of a termite hill about eightfeet high to look the country over with field glasses. As I held theglasses to my eyes while adjusting the focus, I suddenly realizedthat the letter S that I was focussing on was the head and neck ofan ostrich and that there was a second letter S beside it. The birdsremained perfectly motionless watching and I did likewise, locatingtheir position meanwhile by the termite hills which were nearly in linebetween us. Suddenly the heads ducked and disappeared behind the bush.I dropped from my perch and ran rapidly to where they had been, butfound only their trail in the sand.

When I had given up tracking them and was about[Pg 96] to start fartherafield I came into an opening in the bush that was about thirty yardswide and two hundred yards long. Near the centre of the opening was adense green bush a dozen feet in diameter. A beautiful cock ostrichbroke into the clearing at full speed just below the bush and as Iraised my rifle he disappeared behind the bush. I held ready to catchhim as he passed out from behind it on the other side, where there wasfifteen or twenty yards of clear ground before he would reach coveragain. I stood there ready with my gun up until I felt foolish. Then Iran quickly to the bush expecting to find him just on the other side.He was nowhere in sight, but his trail told the story. As he had comeinto the open he had seen me and when behind the bush he had stoppedshort, as indicated by a great hole and swirl of sand where he hadcaught himself by one foot, had turned at right angles and run straightaway the length of the clearing, keeping the bush between himself andhis enemy. I have not known many animals to do a more clever thing thanthis. I got one shot at him later—putting my sights at three hundredyards—but the bullet struck in the sand between his legs.

We returned to camp later in the afternoon and after a little rest andrefreshment I started out again with only the pony boy and carryingthe necessary tools to get the head of the wart hog that I had shotin the morning. We had no difficulty in finding the place where I hadshot him, but there was nothing to be seen of the pig. The place wasstrewn with vulture features, but surely vultures could not make away[Pg 97]with the head. A crash in the bushes at one side led me in a hurry inthat direction and a little later I saw my pig's head in the mouth of ahyena travelling up the slope of a ridge out of range. That meant thatmy wart hog specimen was lost, and, having got no ostriches, I felt itwas a pretty poor day.

The sun was setting, and with little to console us the pony boy and Istarted for camp. As we came near to the place where I had shot thediseased hyena in the morning, it occurred to me that perhaps theremight be another hyena about the carcass, and feeling a bit "sore" atthe tribe for stealing my wart hog, I thought I might pay off the scoreby getting a good specimen of a hyena for the collections. The ponyboy led me to the spot, but the dead hyena was nowhere in sight. Therewas the blood where he had fallen, and in the dusk we could make out atrail in the sand where he had been dragged away.

Advancing a few steps, a slight sound attracted my attention, andglancing to one side I got a glimpse of a shadowy form going behinda bush. I then did a very foolish thing. Without a sight of what Iwas shooting at, I shot hastily into the bush. The snarl of a leopardtold me what kind of a customer I was taking chances with. A leopardis a cat and has all the qualities that gave rise to the "nine lives"legend. To kill him you have got to kill him clear to the tip of histail. Added to that, a leopard, unlike a lion, is vindictive. A woundedleopard will fight to a finish practically every time, no matter howmany chances it has to escape. Once aroused, its determination is[Pg 98]fixed on fight, and if a leopard ever gets hold, it claws and bitesuntil its victim is in shreds. All this was in my mind, and I beganlooking about for the best way out of it, for I had no desire to tryconclusions with a possibly wounded leopard when it was so late in theday that I could not see the sights of my rifle. My intention was toleave it until morning and if it had been wounded, there might then bea chance of finding it. I turned to the left to cross to the oppositebank of a deep, narrowtug and when there I found that I was on anisland where thetug forked, and by going along a short distance tothe point of the island I would be in position to see behind the bushwhere the leopard had stopped. But what I had started[Pg 99] the leopard wasintent on finishing. While peering about I detected the beast crossingthetug about twenty yards above me. I again began shooting, althoughI could not see to aim. However, I could see where the bullets struckas the sand spurted up beyond the leopard. The first two shots wentabove her, but the third scored. The leopard stopped and I thoughtshe was killed. The pony boy broke into a song of triumph which waspromptly cut short by another song such as only a thoroughly angryleopard is capable of making as it charges. For just a flash I wasparalyzed with fear, then came power for action. I worked the bolt ofmy rifle and became conscious that the magazine was empty. At the sameinstant I realized that a solid point cartridge rested in the palm ofmy left hand, one that I had intended, as I came up to the dead hyena,to replace with a soft nose. If I could but escape the leopard until Icould get the cartridge into the chamber!

The dotted line indicates Mr. Akeley's movement duringhis encounter
with the leopard. The dashes show the route taken by theleopard. At
position (1), Mr. Akeley fired into the bush. Of the threeshots fired at
position (2), two went above the leopard and the thirdinflicted only a skin
wound. The hand-to-hand combat took place atposition (3).

As she came up the bank on one side of the point of the island, Idropped down the other side and ran about to the point from whichshe had charged, by which time the cartridge was in place, and Iwheeled—to face the leopard in mid-air. The rifle was knocked flyingand in its place was eighty pounds of frantic cat. Her intention wasto sink her teeth into my throat and with this grip and her forepawshang to me while with her hind claws she dug out my stomach, for thispleasant practice is the way of leopards. However, happily for me, shemissed her aim. Instead of getting my throat she was to one side. She[Pg 100]struck me high in the chest and caught my upper right arm with hermouth. This not only saved my throat but left her hind legs hangingclear where they could not reach my stomach. With my left hand I caughther throat and tried to wrench my right arm free, but I couldn't doit except little by little. When I got grip enough on her throat toloosen her hold just a little she would catch my arm again an inch ortwo lower down. In this way I drew the full length of the arm throughher mouth inch by inch. I was conscious of no pain, only of the soundof the crushing of tense muscles and the choking, snarling grunts ofthe beast. As I pushed her farther and farther down my arm I bent over,and finally when it was almost freed I fell to the ground, the leopardunderneath me, my right hand in her mouth, my left hand clutching herthroat, my knees on her lungs, my elbows in her armpits spreading herfront legs apart so that the frantic clawing did nothing more than tearmy shirt. Her body was twisted in an effort to get hold of the groundto turn herself, but the loose sand offered no hold. For a moment therewas no change in our positions, and then for the first time I began tothink and hope I had a chance to win this curious fight. Up to thattime it had been simply a good fight in which I expected to lose, butnow if I could keep my advantage perhaps the pony boy would come witha knife. I called, but to no effect. I still held her and continued toshove the hand down her throat so hard she could not close her mouthand with the other I gripped her throat in a strangle hold. Then Isurged down on[Pg 101] her with my knees. To my surprise I felt a rib go. Idid it again. I felt her relax, a sort of letting go, although she wasstill struggling. At the same time I felt myself weakening similarly,and then it became a question as to which would give up first. Littleby little her struggling ceased. My strength had outlasted hers.

After what seemed an interminable passage of time I let go and tried tostand, calling to the pony boy that it was finished. He now screwed uphis courage sufficiently to approach. Then the leopard began to gasp,and I saw that she might recover; so I asked the boy for his knife. Hehad thrown it away in his fear, but quickly found it, and I at lastmade certain that the beast was dead. As I looked at her later I cameto the conclusion that what had saved me was the first shot I had firedwhen she went into the bush. It had hit her right hind foot. I thinkit was this broken foot which threw out the aim of her spring and madeher get my arm instead of my throat. With the excitement of the battlestill on me I did not realize how badly used up I was. I tried toshoulder the leopard to carry it to camp, but was very soon satisfiedto confine my efforts to getting myself to camp.

When I came inside thezareba, my companions were at dinner beforeone of the tents. They had heard the shots and had speculated on theprobabilities. They had decided that I was in a mix-up with a lionor with natives, but that I would have the enemy or the enemy wouldhave me before they could get to[Pg 102] me; so they had continued theirdinner. The fatalistic spirit of the country had prevailed. When Icame within their range of vision, however, my appearance was quitesufficient to arrest attention, for my clothes were all ripped, my armwas chewed into an unpleasant sight, and there was blood and dirt allover me. Moreover, my demands for all the antiseptics in camp gavethem something to do, for nothing was keener in my mind than that theleopard had been feeding on the diseased hyena that I had shot in themorning. To the practical certainty of blood poisoning from any leopardbite not quickly treated was added the certainty that this leopard'smouth was particularly foul with disease. While my companions weregetting the surgical appliances ready, my boys were stripping me anddousing me with cold water. That done, the antiseptic was pumped intoevery one of the innumerable tooth wounds until my arm was so full ofthe liquid that an injection in one drove it out of another. During theprocess I nearly regretted that the leopard had not won. But it wasapplied so quickly and so thoroughly that it was a complete case.

Later in the evening they brought the leopard in and laid it beside mycot. Her right hind foot showed where the first shot had hit her. Theonly other bullet that struck her was the last before she charged andthat had creased her just under the skin on the back of the neck, fromthe shock of which she had instantly recovered.

This encounter took place fairly soon after our[Pg 103] arrival on my firsttrip to Africa. I have seen a lot of leopards since and occasionallykilled one, but I have taken pains never to attempt it at such closequarters again. In spite of their fighting qualities I have nevergot to like or respect leopards very much. This is not because of mymisadventure; I was hurt much worse by an elephant, but I have greatrespect and admiration for elephants. I think it is because the leopardhas always seemed to me a sneaking kind of animal, and also perhapsbecause he will eat carrion even down to a dead and diseased hyena. Aday or two before my experience with the leopard someone else had shota hyena near our camp and had left him over night. The next morningthe dead hyena was lodged fifteen feet from the ground in the crotchof a tree at some distance from where he was killed. A leopard, verypossibly my enemy, had dragged him along the ground and up the tree andplaced him there for future use. While such activities cannot increaseone's respect for the taste of leopards, they do give convincingevidence of the leopard's strength, for the hyena weighed at least asmuch as the leopard.

The leopard, like the elephant, is at home in every kind of country inEast Africa—on the plains, among the rocky hills, among the bamboo,and in the forest all the way up to timber line on the equatorialmountains. Unlike the lion, the leopard is a solitary beast. Exceptfor a mother with young, I have never seen as many as two leopardstogether. It is my belief that like the lion they do their huntingat night almost[Pg 104] exclusively, and I am quite sure that this is theirgeneral habit despite the fact that the only unmistakable evidenceof day hunting I ever saw myself in Africa was done by a leopard. Iwas out one day in some tall grass and came upon the body of a smallantelope. As I came up I heard an animal retreat and I thought Irecognized a leopard's snarl. The antelope was still warm. It hadevidently just been killed and the tracks around it were those of aleopard.

One of the leopard's chief sources of food supply consists of monkeysand baboons. I remember a certain camp we had near the bottom of acliff. Out of this cliff grew a number of fig trees in which thebaboons were accustomed to sleep fairly well out of reach of theleopards. They were, however, not completely immune, and we could hearthe leopards at the top of the cliff almost every night, and oncein a while the remnants of a baboon testified to the success of theleopard's night prowling. Besides monkeys and baboons, leopards seeminordinately fond of dogs. A pack of dogs like Paul Rainey's can makeshort work of a leopard, but on the other hand a leopard can make shortwork of a single dog and seemingly takes great pleasure in doing so.One night in a shack in Nyiri, a settler sat talking to his neighbour,while his dog slept under the table. Suddenly, and quite unannounced, aleopard slipped in through the open door. Confusion reigned supreme fora moment and then the men found themselves on the table. The leopardwas under the table killing the dog and[Pg 105] somehow in the excitementthe door had been closed. One after the other the men fled out of thewindow, leaving the dog to his fate. A traveller had a similar but morepainful experience with a leopard at the Dak Bungalow at Voi. Voi is astation on the Uganda Railroad where there was, and I suppose still is,a railroad hotel of a rather primitive kind known as the Dak Bungalow.One night a man was sleeping in one of the Bungalow rooms and, hearinga commotion outside, he started out to see what it was. As he passedthrough the open doorway on to the porch he was attacked by the leopardthat had evidently come stalking his dogs.

Leopards are not particularly afraid of man. I never knew one to attacka man unprovoked except when caught at such close quarters as the caseat Voi, but they prowl around man's habitation without compunction. Ihad a camp in Somaliland once where the tents were surrounded by twothorn thickets—the inner and outerzareba. A leopard came in onenight, killed a sheep, dragged it under the very fly of my tent on theway out, jumped thezareba, and got away. Fifteen years ago, whenNairobi was a very small place, the daughter of one of the governmentofficers went into her room one evening to dress. As she opened thedoor she heard a noise and looking she noticed the end of a leopard'stail sticking out from under the bed with the tip gently moving fromside to side. With great presence of mind the young lady quietly wentout and closed the door. Nairobi had many possibilities of thrills inthose days. It[Pg 106] was about the same time that a gentleman hurrying fromtown up to the Government House one evening met a lion in the middle ofthe street to the embarrassment of both parties.

There are some phrases in Tennyson's "Charge of the Light Brigade" thatput me in mind of the rhinoceros, or "rhino," as everyone calls him inAfrica.

But it is stupidity, not duty, that keeps the rhino from reasoning. Heis the stupidest old fellow in Africa. I know that many experiencedhunters likewise consider him one of the most dangerous animals inAfrica. I can't quite agree with this. Of course, if he runs over younot only is it dangerous, but it is also likely to be fatal. It isalso true that as soon as he smells man he is likely to start chargingaround in a most terrifying manner, but the rhino is never cunninglike the elephant, nor is his charge accurate like that of a lion, noris the rhino vindictive like the buffalo or the leopard. Most men'sestimates of the relative dangers of African animals are based upontheir own experiences. The animals that have mauled them worst orscared them worst they hold most dangerous. I have been mauled by anelephant, chewed by a leopard, and scared half to death a dozen timesby lions, so that I have the very firmest convictions about the dangersof these animals. On the other hand, I have twice been caught by rhinosin positions where an elephant, a lion, or a leopard would[Pg 107] have had mein no time, and both times the rhinos left me unmolested.

When I first went to Africa I had the same experience as everyoneelse. Rhinos getting wind of me would charge me and to save myself I'dshoot. I suppose I had stood off twenty of these charges with my riflebefore I discovered that if I did not shoot it would not necessarily befatal. I discovered the fact, of course, quite by accident. I was goingalong the bank of the Tana River one day with my camera. My gun boyswere some distance behind so as not to disturb any animal that mightafford a picture. Suddenly I was set all a-quiver by the threshingsand snortings of a rhino coming through the bushes in my direction. Ivery hastily took stock of the situation. There was nothing to climb.Between me and the thicket from which the rhino was coming was abouttwenty-five feet of open space. Behind me was a 30-foot drop to thecrocodile-infested waters of the Tana. The only hope I saw was a bushoverhanging the brink which looked as if it might or might not holdme if I swung out on it. I decided to try the bush and let the rhinoland in the river, trusting to luck that I wouldn't join him there. Thebushes were thrust aside and he came full tilt into the opening wherehe could see me. Everything was set for the final act. He suddenlystopped with a snort. His head drooped. His eyes almost closed. Helooked as if he were going to sleep. The terrible beast had becomeabsolutely ludicrous. While this was going on I felt a poke in my back.I reached[Pg 108] behind and took my rifle from the gun boy who had comeup with equal celerity and bravery. I drew a bead on the old fellowbut I could not shoot. A stupider or more ludicrous looking object Inever saw. I began talking to him, but it did not rouse him from hislethargy. There he stood, half asleep and totally oblivious, whileI, with the gun half aimed, talked to him about his ugly self. Aboutthis time my porters came into hearing on a path behind the rhino. Hepricked up his ears and blundered off in that direction. I heard theloads dropping as the porters made for the trees. The rhino chargedthrough thesafari and off into the bush.

At another time, somewhat later, three of them charged me when I wassitting down and unarmed. I couldn't rise in time to get away orreach a gun, so I merely continued to sit. This time they didn't stopand doze, but they went by on both sides ten or fifteen feet away.Such a charge was much more pleasing to me and apparently quite assatisfactory to them as one in which they were successful in theirattack. These experiences have led me to think that in his blunderingcharges the rhino has no clear objective, as a lion has, for instance.Even his blundering charge is dangerous, of course, if you are in theway, but I firmly believe that the rhino is too stupid to be eitheraccurate in his objective, fixed in his purpose, or vindictive in hisintentions.

This does not mean that a lot of people have not been killed by rhinos.They have; but I do believe that compared with other African animalsthe danger[Pg 109] of the rhino is generally exaggerated. When he smellssomething he comes toward the scent until he sees what it is. As hecan't see very far, no man with a gun is likely to let him come withinseeing distance without shooting. So the stupid old beast goes chargingaround hoping to see the source of what he smells and in addition togetting himself shot has made a reputation for savagery. In fact, hehas blundered around and been shot so much that old rhinos with bighorns are growing scarce.

I remember coming up over the top of a little rise one day and seeingacross the plain an old rhino standing motionless in the shade of asolitary acacia about two hundred yards away. The usual tick birds saton his back. It was a typical rhino pose. As I stood looking for moreentertainment, a second rhino came mouching along between me and numberone. Number one evidently heard him. The birds flew off his back, hepricked up his ears, and broke into a charge toward number two. Numbertwo reciprocated. Their direction was good and they had attained fullspeed. I longed for a camera to photograph the collision. But thecamera would have done me no good. The collision did not happen. Whenabout twenty feet from each other they stopped dead, snorted, andturned around, number one returning to doze under his tree and numbertwo continuing the journey which had been interrupted. I suppose thatrhinos have acquired the habit of charging whenever they smell anythingbecause until the white man came along they could investigate in thispeculiar[Pg 110] manner with impunity. Everything but an elephant or anotherrhino would get out of the way of one of these investigating rushes,and of course an elephant or another rhino is big enough for even therhino's poor eyes to see before he gets into trouble.

The coming of the white man with the rifle upset all this, but therhino has learned less about protecting himself from man than theother animals. Man went even further in breaking the rules of rhinoexistence. The railroad was an even worse affront than the rifle. Therhino furnished some of the comedy of the invasion of the game countryby the Uganda Railway. In the early days of that road a friend ofmine was on the train one day when a rhino charged it. The train wasstanding still out in the middle of the plain. An old rhino, eitherhearing it or smelling man, set out on the customary charge. The traindidn't move and he didn't swerve. He hit the running board of one carat full speed. There was a terrific jolt. My friend rushed to theplatform. As he reached it the rhino was getting up off his knees. Heseemed a little groggy but he trotted off, conscious, perhaps, thatrailroad trains cannot be routed by the rhino's traditional method ofattack.

CHAPTER VIALONG THE TRAIL

"The land teems with the beasts of the chase, infinite in number andincredible in variety. It holds the fiercest beasts of ravin, and thefleetest and most timid of those beings that live in undying fearof talon and fang. It holds the largest and the smallest of hoofedanimals. It holds the mightiest creatures that tread the earth or swimin its rivers; it also holds distant kinsfolk of these same creatures,no bigger than woodchucks, which dwell in crannies of the rocks and intree tops. There are antelope smaller than hares and antelope largerthan oxen. There are creatures which are the embodiments of grace, andothers whose huge ungainliness is like that of a shape in a nightmare.The plains are alive with droves of strange and beautiful animals whoselike is not known elsewhere; and with others even stranger that showboth in form and temper something of the fantastic and the grotesque."

So Theodore Roosevelt, in that vivid word picture of jungle sightsand sounds, the foreword of "African Game Trails," suggests the vastvariety of animal acquaintances the hunter may make in Africa. I havesought out or happened upon many others besides my particular friends,the elephants and gorillas.

One of those whose "huge ungainliness is like that of a shape in anightmare" is the hippopotamus. The small dugout in which the nativemakes his way up and down the Tana River is just a nice mouthful forhim. He can splinter one between his great jaws in no time if he issufficiently stirred up, but fortunately for the natives he is noteasily enraged. He is more or less like the rhinoceros except that,while he is equally stupid, he rarely gets mad and so is not oftendangerous.

Along the Tana River in 1906 the hippos were still very abundant, and Ipresume that a hunter passing along that stream to-day might shoot allhe could possibly want. Although I saw probably only a small proportionof all I actually passed, I counted more than two hundred in a ten-milemarch along the Tana. Sheltered by the rather high and precipitousbanks of the river, the hippopotami if undisturbed bask quietly on thesand-bars during the day. If one is disturbed, he takes to the water,leaving exposed only the top of his head, his eyes, and nostrils, sothat if he remains motionless one usually has to spend some time todetermine whether the object protruding from the water is a hippo'shead or a slate-coloured rock. If really frightened, he submergesentirely, exposing only his nostrils and those just long enough to blowand take in a fresh supply of air. Then down he goes, not to appearagain for several minutes, frequently in quite a different place.

Cuninghame and I had a good opportunity to test[Pg 113] his disposition oneday as we were crossing Lake Naivasha. I was sitting at the tiller inthe stern of the boat about half asleep in the hot sun of midday whenthere was a sudden explosion and our boat was lifted well out of thewater. The keel had struck the back of a submerged hippopotamus. Hecame up thirty yards away with his mouth open, but he made no attemptto attack. We had the good luck to come down right side up, shippingonly a little water. I hope he was as badly frightened as I was.

Because he is so little sport, even the pot hunters have left the hippoalone. However, most of the African tribes consider hippopotamus meatgood eating and he is frequently killed by the natives for food. Thefact is that in times of famine this animal is a valuable source ofsupply. In 1906, when we were on the Tana River, I found a bone yardwith the bones of a great number of hippopotami along with varioushuman bones. In a famine some fifteen or twenty years earlier, so thestory goes, the natives had gravitated toward the Tana River to killhippopotami to keep from starving and there had fought over this lastsource of food.

Double rows of tracks with grass growing between them, like those madeby a wagon, trail along the Tana and are cut deep into the river'sbanks, where through long years the hippos have come up at night tograze and browse. His is a double track, because in travelling he doesnot place one foot before the other. He finds no food in the water, buthe is at home there, and sometimes travels long distances[Pg 114] overlandfrom one pool or stream to another. How far he treks in this way I donot know, and the question is much disputed. I am certain that it issometimes as much as fifty miles.

While I have found but little enjoyment in shooting any kind of animal,I confess that in hunting elephants and lions under certain conditionsI have always felt that the animal had sufficient chance in the game tomake it something like a sporting proposition. On the other hand, muchof the shooting that I have had to do in order to obtain specimens formuseum collections has had none of this aspect at all and has made mefeel a great deal like a murderer. One of the worst of my experienceswas with the wild ass of Somaliland on my first trip to Africa. Theseanimals are rare, and as they are the only members of the horse familyin that part of Africa, the Field Museum of Natural History was anxiousto get specimens of them.

After several heart-breaking days' work my companion, Dodson, and I hadsecured but one specimen and several were needed for a group. One dayunder guidance of natives who promised to take us to a country wherethey abounded, we started out at three o'clock in the morning, witha couple of camels to bring back the skins if we got them. At abouteight, as we were crossing a sandy plain where here and there a dwarfedshrub or tuft of grass had managed to find sustenance, one of thegun-bearers pointed out in the distance an object which he[Pg 115]declaredto be an ass. We advanced slowly. As there was no cover, there was nopossibility of a stalk, and the chance of a shot at reasonable rangeseemed remote, for we had found in our previous experience that thewild ass is extremely shy and when once alarmed travels rapidly and forlong distances. We approached to within two hundred yards and had begunto think that it was a native's tame donkey and expected to see itsowner appear in the neighbourhood, when it became uneasy and started tobolt; but its curiosity brought it about for a last look and we tookadvantage of the opportunity and fired. It was hard hit, apparently,but recovered and stood facing us. We approached closer, and thinkingit best to take no chances fired again—and then he merely walkedabout a little, making no apparent effort to go away. We approachedcarefully. He showed no signs of fear, and although "hard hit" stoodstolidly until at last I put one hand on his withers and, tripping him,pushed him over. I began to feel that if this was sport I should neverbe a sportsman.

We now discovered that our scant supply of water was exhausted andalthough we wished to continue the hunt we realized that to get fartherfrom camp without water would be risky indeed. The guide had assured usthat there would be plenty of opportunity to get water on our route butwe knew that it was five hours back to water, the way we had come, andfive hours without water in the middle of the day would mean torture.It is said that in that region thirty hours without water means deathto the native and[Pg 116] twelve hours is the white man's limit. The guideassured us that if we would continue on an hour longer we would findwater. After four hours of hard, hot marching we arrived at a holein the ground where some time there had been water but not a dropremained. After a little digging at the bottom of the hole the nativesdeclared there was no hope. Our trail for the last hour had been undera pitiless noonday sun along a narrow valley shut in on either side bysteep, rocky hills, while we faced a veritable sand storm, a strong,hot wind that drove the burning sand into our faces and hands. The drywell was the last straw.

The guides said there was one more hole about an hour away and theywould go and see if there was water there. They with the gun-bearersstarted out, while we off-saddled the mules and using the saddles forpillows and the saddle blankets to protect our faces from the drivingsand, dozed in the scant shade of a leafless thorn tree.

At four o'clock the boys returned—no water. Dodson and I received thereport, looked at one another, and returned to our pillows beneaththe saddle blankets. A little later a continued prodding in the ribsfrom my gun-bearer brought me to attention again as he pointed outan approaching caravan consisting of several camels and a couple ofnatives. Each of the natives carried a well-filled goatskin from hisshoulders, and realizing that these goatskins probably contained milk,I knew that our troubles were nearly over. I instructed the gun-bearerto make a bargain[Pg 117] for part of the milk and covered my head again toescape the pelting of the sand and waited.

We were both in a semi-comatose state and I paid no further attentionto proceedings until I was again prodded by the gun-bearer who was nowgreatly excited. He pointed to the receding camels while he jabberedaway to the effect that the natives would not part with any of theplentiful supply of milk. The white men might die for all they cared.

When I had come to a realization of the situation, there seemedto be only one solution to the affair—a perfectly naturalsolution—precisely the same as if they had stood over us with theirspears poised at our hearts. I grabbed my rifle and drew a bead onone of the departing men and called to Dodson to get up and cover theother. I waited while Dodson was getting to an understanding of thegame and then when he was ready and I was about to give the word thenatives stopped, gesticulating wildly. The gun-bearer who had beenshouting to them told us not to shoot, that the milk would come, and itdid. Milk! Originally milked into a dung-lined smokedchattie, souredand carried in a filthy old goatskin for hours in the hot sun. But itwas good. I have never had a finer drink.

An hour before sundown, greatly refreshed, we started back to camp.Just at dusk the shadowy forms of five asses dashed across our pathfifty yards away and we heard a bullet strike as we took a snap atthem. One began to lag behind as the others ran wildly away. Theone soon stopped and we[Pg 118]approached, keeping him covered in case heattempted to bolt. As we got near he turned and faced us with great,gentle eyes. Without the least sign of fear or anger he seemed towonder why we had harmed him.

The only wound was from a small bullet high in the neck, merely aflesh wound which would have caused him no serious trouble had hecontinued with the herd. We walked around him within six feet and Ialmost believe we could have put a halter on him. Certainly it wouldhave been child's play to have thrown a rope over his head. We reachedcamp about midnight and I announced that if any more wild asseswere wanted, someone else would have to shoot them. I had had quiteenough. Normally, the ass is one of the wildest of creatures and it isdifficult to explain the actions of these two. They appeared not torealize that we were the cause of their injuries but rather seemed toexpect relief as we approached—and yet one English "sportsman" boastedof having killed twenty-eight.

While I have never had a zebra stand after being wounded, in all otherrespects his habits resemble very closely those of his kin, the wildass of Somaliland. Occasionally, man has captured and domesticatedzebras so that he may use them in a four-horse team. But this is doneonly for the amusement it affords, because the zebra, like all wildanimals, has never quite enough of the endurance that is bred intoa domesticated horse to make him useful in harness. In wild life herequires only sufficient stamina to outrun a lion for a short distance.

There is no fun in shooting zebras and wild asses. It makes oneuncomfortable. Probably we are particularly thin-skinned when it comesto shooting the members of the horse family because we are used tothem, or at least to their kindred, as domesticated friends, but as amatter of fact that is quite as reasonable as to think of killing deeror antelope as a sport. With most deer there is no danger. The onlyproblem is to get close enough for a shot. While an approach may bedifficult in some parts of the world—and this is true with certainspecies of antelope in Africa—most of the plains antelope cannot beshot on the ground of sport. For food and scientific purposes, however,the case is different.

One of the hardest to shoot among the so-called bovine antelopes is thekoodoo. He is a beautiful, high-bred animal with clean-cut head andlong spiral horns. While almost as large as an elk, he is gracefullybuilt and stylish in action. His coat is gray, delicately marked withwhite stripes. As the animal matures, the hair becomes short and thinand the stripes fade. All in all, the koodoo is one of the finest bigantelope. On that score he has no competitors except the sable and theroan.

A group of greater koodoos was a particular desideratum of the FieldMuseum and therefore one of the special objectives of my first Africantrip. As a matter of fact, we succeeded in collecting the materialnecessary and the group is on exhibition in the Field Museum in Chicagonow. The old bull standing with lifted head on top of the rock in thepresent[Pg 120] group was the second koodoo that I ever saw. The first onewas his mate whom I was about to shoot, totally unconscious of thepresence of the old bull. He stood beside her, his outline broken up bysurrounding rocks and bushes, and I overlooked him entirely until hebegan to move. As he started to run I fired a shot. He bounded into theair, and as he struck the ground I fired again. The first shot had gonethrough his heart and the second broke his back.

When talking to people about shooting, I like to recall my koodooexperiences, because, while I am not a good shot as shooting goes inAfrica, my two experiences with koodoos compare pretty favourably withthe best. On the first occasion, one of my two shots landed in theheart and the other broke the koodoo's back. In my next koodoo hunt,my shooting was even more remarkable and for me more unusual. I camein sight of this second koodoo when he was too far away to shoot atand he rapidly ran out of sight through a country of little hills andravines and scrub growth. I tracked him until I lost his trail. Then Idecided to try to follow him by instinct and, constituting myself anescaping koodoo, I went where I thought such an animal should. I knewI was not exactly on his route because I could see no tracks. Then,too, something cord-like, weaving together the bushes on either sideof my path, for a moment impeded my progress. It was a strand of web,the colour of gold, spun by a handsome yellow spider with black legs.Twisted together, it was substantial enough to be wound around and[Pg 121]around my watch chain where I wore it for several years. Had my koodoopassed between those bushes, the web would, I knew, have been hisnecklace instead of my watch charm.

After following instinctively for two or three miles, I came to thetop of a ridge which looked down across a ravine 500 to 600 yardswide. I crawled to the edge and looked over carefully, hoping to seemy prey, but as I saw nothing I decided to get up and either scarehim or give up the chase. As I stood up I saw him halfway across theravine a little more than 300 yards away. When I rose, he began torun in the opposite direction. I had little chance of hitting him andso I fired at the rocks on the other side of the ravine. The wind wasblowing from him to me and I did not know how distinctly he could hearthe rifle, but there was no doubt about his hearing the rocks clatterdown where the bullets struck. He stopped abruptly, listening, and ashe did so I lay down and rested my rifle on the rocks. He was pausingbehind a candelabra euphorbia so that I could see nothing but hishead. I took careful aim and fired. A fraction of a second after theshot, when I had recovered from the kick of the rifle and had focussedmy eyes on the spot, the koodoo was nowhere in sight. When I reachedthe euphorbia, he lay there dead. I looked him over to find where thebullet had hit him but found no sign of it. I turned him over andlooked at his other side with no better results except that I found afew drops of blood. On further search I discovered that the bullet hadgone[Pg 122] in behind his ear. As he listened to the falling rocks, the earhad been thrown forward; as he fell, the ear had swung back to normalposition and covered the tiny hole made by the full mantled bullet.The bullet had come out of his eye, but when I got there the eye wasclosed, so that the point of exit had been concealed also.

One day as I approached the hills, while I was still hunting koodoo formy group, I saw in the distance four animals which I took to be koodoo.They stood on a rock-strewn slope beneath an acacia tree and, as therewere no horns visible, I assumed that they were cows and calves. Irequired one of each to complete my group. I made a careful stalk alongthe same ravine from which I had approached my first koodoo and, whenI thought that I was at about the right point, I peered out and foundthe animals standing where I had seen them first, apparently about 200yards away. I fired, and one dropped in his tracks. They were startledbut had not located my direction and ran about confusedly. My secondshot dropped another and the third shot wounded one which ran almostdirectly toward us. He covered the distance in an amazingly short timeand went down beneath the bush only a little way from me. It was thenthat I came to a realization of what was happening. Instead of beingkoodoo 200 yards away, these were antelope pygmies less than 50 yardsaway and not more than twenty-three inches high at the shoulder. I hadbeen completely fooled, but by what? That was the question.

I went over to the bush where the wounded animal had gone down near me,and stood for a moment looking at him open-mouthed and wondering whathe was. Never had I heard of such an antelope. He had sharp straighthorns four inches long and was a beautiful French gray in colour.Before I could observe anything else, he sprang to his feet and dartedaway on three legs faster, it seemed to me, than anything I had everseen travel. I shot several times but never touched him. I followed forhours but did not overtake him. Later I learned that he was one of thelittle beira antelope. The species had been described some time beforefrom fragments of skin obtained from natives. As far as records show,these specimens, an adult female and a half-grown one, were the firstspecimens taken by a white man.

This is a good example of a mistake that a hunter may easily make wherethere is nothing about of known size to give scale. The outline ofthe beira, characterized by the large ears, is almost a miniature ofthat of the koodoo. These tiny antelope had stood against a backgroundof acacias on a pebbly slope. Acacias grow both large and small anda pebble among pebbles on a distant hillside may appear as a largeboulder.

I continued hunting the little devils in a desperate effort to geta male at least. Several times I spent the day working about thetwo cone-shaped hills, now and then catching glimpses of the beira,only to have them disappear before I could shoot or get near enoughto shoot. Several times when leaving the[Pg 124] hills at dusk I turnedaround to see just on the skyline the heads and necks of three littleantelope watching me as I went away discouraged. I believe they are thecunningest little beasties in all Africa.

As my beira antelope was the first specimen ever taken—or at leastrecorded—by a white man, it was a record. Another record head which Itook came equally by chance. One evening as I came out of the forest,after some rather troublesome experiences with elephants, I caughtsight of a bush buck. He caught sight of me also, and instead of makingoff he seemed to glare at me and stood stamping his foot. I may haveimagined his emotions, but it seemed to me that all the animals wereangry with me that day. I remember that it went through my mind, "Ibelieve this fellow is going to charge, too." Then it occurred to methat we needed meat in camp, so I shot him and told the boys to cut himup and bring him in. As soon as they reached him, they called to me andI went over to see what was the matter. They showed me an unusuallyfine head. So I saved it. It turned out to be the record bush buck headat that time and I am not sure that it is not still.

The lesser koodoo, which is to be found in Somaliland in the aloecountry at the base of the Golis range, is likewise a truly sportinganimal, keen of sight and scent and fleet of foot. My first lesserkoodoo stood looking at me through a bush no more than twenty-fiveyards away. My gun boy tried to point him out to me but I saw nothinguntil something bit the koodoo's ear and he flicked it. Realizingthat he[Pg 125] had given himself away, he jumped before I could shoot and Itracked him for an hour before I again came upon him. Then I saw himfirst. There is no finer sight in Africa than a lesser koodoo bullbounding over the spiny aloes with all of the grace of a porpoise inthe water.

One of the most interesting antelope of Somaliland is the dibitag orClark's gazelle. The dibitag live in the waterless bush country of theHaud and are shy and difficult to stalk. With their long legs and longnecks they resemble and are closely related to the gerenuks (Waller'sgazelle), but are less well known as they are confined to a limitedrange. In following an old male who had been travelling at full speed Ifound that its stride averaged twenty-eight feet, but at the same timehe kept so close to the ground that midway of the stride, when one footwas carried forward, it scraped the sand. The animal weighs no morethan seventy-five pounds. It is the most beautifully developed antelopeI have ever handled, with muscles and loins rounded out like thoseof a prize fighter. These gazelle never have any fat and never drinkany water. In fact, there is no water to be had except that in thevegetation, which is very little in a country where it has not rainedfor two years.

Unlike these sporting animals, the gazelle of the plains remind oneof great herds of sheep, so gentle where they have not been huntedthat one may come close enough to throw stones at them. On the otherhand, where they have been shot, they grow wild and very difficult toapproach. Here again is evidence[Pg 126] that the thing that makes animalswild is man. In the antarctics and other places where man has notpreviously come and where the animals know no fear, the explorer canfairly tickle the seals under the chin. Animals in their natural stateare not instinctively afraid of man, but they have learned from sadexperience that man is bad medicine.

In direct contrast to the camp in Somaliland where we had been forcedto quench our thirst with soured goat's milk taken from a passingcaravan at the point of a rifle, was our camp on Lake Hannington, thehome of the flamingos. The caravan route from Nakuru on the UgandaRailway to Lake Baringo swings in close to the Laikipia Escarpmentat the east side of the Rift Valley and just at the north end ofHannington. Therefore, travellers usually get their first view of thelake at this northern point where few flamingos are to be seen exceptin breeding season and where the water is shallow, bordered by low mudflats crusted with a deposit of salts mingled with feathers, bones, andthe droppings of the great colony. If the unattractiveness of the placewere not sufficient to discourage a disposition to explore the lake,the sickening stench from the green waters must dishearten any one whohas not a definite object in further investigation. Being unfamiliarwith the region, we ignored the trail which would have given us thisforbidding northern approach. As we neared the escarpment from thesouth, we found a small stream of crystal-clear water, and although itwas too[Pg 127] warm to be palatable, we were delighted with the discoverysince the porters and horses were sadly in need of water. We decidedto make camp here, and while selecting a place for the tents, the cookdiscovered a spring of boiling water which he appropriated for hisuses. A little farther on a spring of ice-cold water was located sothat we had all modern improvements as far at least as water supply wasconcerned.

After making camp, an hour's walk brought us to the top of a rockyhill from which we had an excellent view of nearly the entire lengthof the lake, an irregular sheet of water eight or ten miles long byperhaps two miles at the widest point. It lay before us, a shimmeringblue-green mirror with occasional strips of snow-white beach. At thesouth end, that part nearest us, the water was much darker in colourowing to its greater depth, and the steep slopes of the escarpmentwere mirrored in its surface. Here and there along the shores jets andclouds of steam spurted forth from the numerous boiling springs andminiature geysers. Far away toward the centre of the lake what seemedgreat peninsulas and islands of rosy pink broke the placid surface ofthe lake—these were the flamingos that we had come to see.

A two hours' journey up the tortuous rock-strewn western shore broughtus to the region which seems to be their favourite haunt. On ourapproach, the great flocks rose from the water and flew across towardthe opposite shore, many alighting in mid-lake. As the birds arose,the splashing of water made by[Pg 128] their running over the surface to geta start, the beating of wings, and the "kronk-kronk" of their callscreated an indescribable din, while the charm of the marvellouslybeautiful sight was tempered by the odours that arose from the putridwaters churned by the activity of the birds.

The flamingos that had settled in mid-lake soon began to drift backin our direction and we hurriedly constructed a rude blind of greenboughs on the shore. Here I awaited their return, camera in position,and within half an hour was surrounded by acres of the beautifulcreatures. The greater number of the birds proved to be of the small,more brilliantly coloured species of African flamingo (Phoenicopterusminor), although a few of the larger species (Phoenicopterus roseus)were in small isolated flocks or scattered here and there among theirsmaller relatives. Evidently flamingos spend the entire year at LakeHannington. So greatly did they interest us on this January visit thatwe returned in May hoping to find them nesting, but we were some sixweeks too late. The young birds in their gray plumage were abundant andtraces of the nests were to be seen at the north end of the lake.

One soon forgets about snakes in Africa although there are manypoisonous species. In my experience of more than five years in thejungles, wandering about with from one hundred to two hundred and fiftysemi-naked, barefoot men, I have never had to deal with a snake bite.On my last journey to the Kivu I had glimpses of two snakes all told.

Nor have I been pestered by mosquitoes. In all my African experience Ihave never had as many mosquitoes to contend with as I have had in asingle night in my apartment on Central Park West. However, one avoidsa single African mosquito as one would avoid the pest, because that isjust what he may turn out to be. For six months at a time my mosquitonets have remained in the duffle bags.

In the game country there are millions of ticks, but as a rule theirworst offence is simply to crawl over one. The spirillum tick mustbe avoided. I have never seen one but I have been incapacitated andbrought near the door of death as a result of his work. And when thejigger decides to establish a colony under one's toenails he cannot betoo quickly nor too carefully dispossessed.

There are other pests besides insects, snakes, and drouth to be guardedagainst in Africa. One of these is fire. In making a camp, it is alwayswise to burn off the ground about the tents for the sake of protection.The most strenuous fight I ever had to make against a grass fire tookplace in Uganda the day that I killed the big bull elephant now in theMilwaukee Public Museum. We had been working hard from eleven o'clockin the morning until early evening. Meanwhile, camp had been madeclose to our work in a country of bush and high grass. Immediatelysurrounding our camp the grass was five feet high and very dense anddry. To the east of us was a great jungle of elephant grass, a sortof cane growing to a height of ten or fifteen feet. For two[Pg 130] or threehours I was conscious of a great fire to the east, but there was littlewind and it travelled slowly. Whenever it came to one of the fields ofelephant grass the roaring and crackling was quite appalling, and whenit finally reached the clump of grass nearest our camp we realized thatwe would probably have to make a fight. There was no time to backfireand so we tried the next best thing. About twenty-five yards from thetents we started to make a trail stretching for a hundred yards acrossthe path of the fire. This was done by bending the grass down on bothsides, leaving a path along which we could move freely. Then the jobwas to stop the fire at the parting of the grass. A hundred men, eachprovided with an armful of green branches, scattered along this thinline to beat the fire out as it reached the division. We had a terrificfight. In several places the fire jumped across the trail, but eachtime enough men concentrated at that point to kill it before it got anoverpowering foothold. It was hot, smoky, desperate work. When it wasended, the tents were safe although the men were thoroughly done up.

It was one of these grass fires, although by no means such a persistentone, that threatened Roosevelt's camp the night after our elephant hunton the Uasin Gishu Plateau.

CHAPTER VIIBILL

He is a little Kikuyu thirteen years old who has attached himself tooursafari; a useful little beggar, always finds something to busyhimself with; better take him with you. We call him Bill. "Come here,Bill."

Bill came up—a little, naked, thirteen-year-old "Kuke" with greatblack eyes. The eyes did it. Mrs. Akeley decided that Bill should gowith us. He was given a khaki suit two sizes too big for him whichmade the black eyes sparkle. He was made the assistant of Alli, Mrs.Akeley's tent boy, and his training as tent boy began.

In six months Bill had become a full-fledged tent boy, with plenty oftime always at his disposal to mix up with almost everything goingon in camp. I think of him now, after three expeditions in which hehas been with me, as the best tent boy, the best gun-bearer, the besttracker, and the best headman that it has ever been my lot to know—aman who, I know, would go into practically certain death to serve me.If I were starting out on an expedition among unknown people in AfricaI would rather have Bill as a headman and as a counselor in dealingwith[Pg 132] the savages, even though they were people of whom Bill knewnothing, than any one I know of.

During that first six months' apprenticeship Bill was always busy. Whenthere was nothing to do about camp he would borrow some of Heller'straps and set them for jackals, or he would be poking about the bushlooking for lizards or snakes that we might want for the collections.Months passed, and Bill was an inconspicuous member of our little armyof followers. We were camped on the top of the Aberdare; Cuninghameand I were returning from a fruitless four days on elephant trails. Aswe neared camp we saw Mrs. Akeley come out on the road ahead of us,with Alli acting as gun-bearer. An elephant had passed a few hundredyards from camp and she had come out to the road in the hope of gettinga shot as it crossed. A little farther on toward camp we met Bill,stripped to the waist, carrying my 8 mm. rifle and a pocket of 6 mm.cartridges. If there was anything doing Bill had to be in it.

A few weeks later on, our wanderings took us into Kikuyu country andnear to Bill's native village. He sent for his "mamma," to whom hewanted to give some of his earnings. So his mother came to camp andBill introduced her. He led me out to where she was leaning againsta rock, and pointing to her said, "mamma." She was a youngshenziewoman of the usual type, dressed in a leather skirt and bead and brassornaments.

One day Bill had the sulks and was scolded for not doing something thathe had been told to do. He[Pg 133] said he knew his work and didn't have to betold what to do. It made him perfectly furious to be continually toldto do things which he knew to be a part of his duties. Nor would heshirk his duties. If he failed to do things at the proper time, in ninecases out of ten it was because someone had been telling him to do thethings and it had made him ugly. This characteristic is as pronouncednow as ever, and has been the cause of the most of poor Bill's troubles.

At last our work was over and we returned to Nairobi to prepare for ourdeparture from Africa. As soon as we arrived Bill demanded his pay. Wewanted him to stay until we were ready to leave Nairobi, but no, hewanted to be free to spend his money; so he left us in spite of thefact that in doing so he sacrificed hisbacksheesh. He promptly spentall his money for clothes, having them made to order by the Indiantraders, but within two weeks he had lost all the clothes in gambling.Thus ended Bill's first year's career as a tent boy.

Four years later we returned to East Africa. Several months previously,Alli and Bill had been engaged for the Roosevelt Expedition, but beforewe reached there Bill had disgraced himself, and had been turned outand black-listed. But knowing something of the probable conditionswhich had contributed to his downfall, we were glad to get him andhe was glad to come. There were four of our party, and most of theother tent boys and the kitchen contingent were Swahilis, so we ratherexpected that Bill would have trouble. But his first real trouble[Pg 134]came of an exaggerated sense of loyalty to me, or at least that washis excuse. During my absence from camp one of my companions askedBill for some supplies from a box to which Bill had the keys, but herefused to get them, saying that he must have an order from his ownBwana. It was cheek, and he had to be punished; the punishment wasnot severe, but coming from me it went hard with him and I had to givehim a fatherly talk to prevent his running away. Whenever we reached aboma, or Nairobi, we expected Bill to have a grouch. His irresistibleimpulse to spend money and the desire to keep it, too, upset him,and going to Nairobi usually meant that he would be paid in full anddischarged; but the next day he would turn up and continue to do hiswork with a long face until he would manage to screw up courage to askif theBwana would take him on the next trip, and then he would beall grins and the troubles were over.

Sometimes in hunting dangerous game I would take him along as extragun-bearer and usually on these occasions his marvellous keenness ofeye and ability to track would result in the regular gun-bearers beingrelegated to the rear. One time while hunting elephants in Uganda Ilet him go with me. We had finished inspecting a small herd, decidedthere was nothing in it that I wanted, and were going back to take upthe trail of another lot in a section where the country was all troddendown by the going and coming of numerous herds. As we went along Billdetected the spoor of two big bulls and I[Pg 135] told him to follow it, notthinking for a moment that he would be able to hold it in the mazeof herd tracks. On our last visit to town he had invested in a stiffbrim straw hat and a cane, and he looked like anything but an elephanttracker as he walked jauntily along with his straw hat on the back ofhis head and swinging his cane like a dandy. For five hours he followedthat trail with the utmost nonchalance, in places where it would havegiven the professional tracker the greatest trouble and where nine outof ten would have lost it. At last, as it led us through a dense bush,Bill suddenly stopped and held up his cane as a signal for caution; asI drew up to him there were two old bulls not twenty feet from us. Whenone of them was dead and the other gone I felt much more comfortablethan when I first realized the situation into which we had blundered.

But the time that Bill earned our everlasting gratitude and immunityfrom punishment for present misdeeds was when I was smashed up bythe elephant on Mt. Kenia. He was with Mrs. Akeley at the base campwhen the news reached her at dusk, and it was past midnight when shewas ready to come to me through that awful twenty miles of forestand jungle in the blackness of a drenching rain. While headman andaskaris were helpless, stupidly sharing the fear and dread of theforest at night which paralyzed the porters and guides, it was Billwith a big stick who put them in motion and literally drove them aheadof Mrs. Akeley to me. And then it was he who directed the cutting ofthe road out of the forest for the[Pg 136]passage of my stretcher, enlistingthe services of a chief with his people to cut a road in from theshambas to meet our porters who were working outward.

One day when I was convalescing, Bill called on a porter to performsome service about my tent. The porter refused to come. Bill went outto "interview" him. The porter was twice as large as Bill—there wasa little scuffle, and Bill came right back and did the work himself.Then he went over to the doctor's tent and conducted him out to wherehe had left the porter. It took the doctor a half hour to bring theporter to. Then the other porters came up in a body and said that Billmust go or they would all go. I told them that the first of theirnumber who complained of Bill or refused to do his bidding would get"twenty-five." The average black boy would have taken advantage of thesituation created by these victories—not so with Bill. After that,whenever he had occasion to pass an order to a porter, he always did itthrough the headman.

Perhaps I should explain at this point just what the normal personnelof asafari in British East Africa is. First, there is the headman,who is supposed to be in charge of the whole show, excepting thegun-bearers and tent boys, who are the personal servants and underthe immediate direction of their masters. Theaskaris are soldierswho are armed and whose duties consist of the guarding of the campat night and looking after the porters on the march. There is oneaskari to from ten to twenty porters. The cook and his assistant orassistants, the number of whom is[Pg 137] determined by the size of the party,are important members of thesafari. Then there are tent boys, oneto each member of the party, whose duty is to look after the tentsand clothing, and to serve their masters or mistresses at table. Thesyces are pony boys, whose duties are to look after the horses andequipment. In addition to those already named come the rank and fileof porters whose duties are manifold, carrying loads on the march,gathering wood under the direction of theaskaris and the cook,bringing in game, beating for lions, setting up the tents under thedirection of the tent boys, and so forth.

I do not know of any case where Bill's character was betterdemonstrated than at the time when I was convalescent after theelephant smashed me up. I was able to walk about, but had to havesomeone carry a chair along so that I could sit down to rest. A littledistance away from camp, at the edge of the Kenia forest, there was agreat swampy place surrounded on three sides by a high ridge and on thefourth side by the forest. One day the natives came in and reportedthat an old bull elephant had come out into this swampy place, andthey said that he would probably stay in there for a week or ten days.These old lone bulls come out into one of these feeding grounds, wherethey are not likely to be disturbed by their companions, and for a timesimply loaf around and feed and then go away again. We started outone morning to look this one up, and went to the edge of the forest,where the boys showed us his trail. We followed it, and found that itwas joined by the[Pg 138] fresh trail of a second elephant. I started to walkdown the trail, but found that I was not in physical condition to goon, so I sent the boys up and around the ridge of this crater-likedepression, instructing them to throw stones into the bush as they wentalong. They had not gone far when one of the elephants was beaten outand started to go across the bottom of the crater, over open ground.He was probably three hundred yards away from me, and as he approachedthe forest on the other side it occurred to me that I might get himrattled by shooting into the trees ahead of him. So I shot—the bulletscrashed through the trees in front and frightened him, and he wheeledaround and started back. I had hoped that he would come my way, but hedid not. In the intense excitement I shot at him three or four times. Alittle puff of dust from his dry hide told me the story of my aim, andwhile one or two of the bullets apparently struck in the right place,it was evident that there was not sufficient penetration to get results.

The whole thing was very foolish, but since I had wounded him it wasabsolutely essential that I finish the job. The elephant turned againand went on across to the opposite side, and now I had to get onhis trail and follow him. From a hundred yards away he got our windmomentarily, and threatened to charge. Another shot turned him, and hedisappeared into the bush. An hour later I had a good view of him atabout seventy-five yards and under conditions where I normally couldhave made an[Pg 139]approach to within a distance from which I might havedropped him in his tracks. But at this point I was so exhausted that Itook a final shot at him from where I stood, seventy-five yards away.He went down, but got to his feet again and went into the bush. Theboys helped me back into camp. I felt perfectly certain that we wouldfind him dead in the morning. The whole thing had been stupid andunsportsmanlike.

The next morning, with a few of the boys, I went back and took uphis trail; but much to my disappointment and surprise I found thathe and his companion had kept right on into the forest and wereapparently going strong. I knew that he was mortally wounded, and itwas necessary that he should be followed and finished off. It was toobig a job for me in my condition, so it was up to Bill. I gave Bill oneof my gun-bearers and each of them a heavy .470 cordite rifle, withinstructions to stick to the trail until they found the elephant. Theywere not to shoot except in emergency. When the elephant was found, oneof them was to remain with it while the other came back to report.

I went back to camp and waited. The boys had no supply of food withthem and I had no idea but that they would be back in camp beforenight, but it was not until midnight of the second day that Bill cameto my tent, awakened me, and told his story. They had followed theelephant without ever coming up with him except that at one time theyheard him ahead of them; and they had finally decided it was best tocome back to get food and instructions. Bill[Pg 140] was just about exhausted;and the gun-bearer, a big husky fellow, had fallen by the wayside.Bill had left him some five miles back in the forest on the trail.Evidently Bill considered my elephant guns of more importance than oneblack gun boy, as, for fear that something would happen to the rifles,he had lugged both of the heavy guns into camp, leaving the boy withnothing but his knife with which to protect himself. I felt, however,that there was little danger to the gun boy except from exposure, andagainst that he no doubt had built a fire. I could think of nothing todo until daylight. A half hour later some commotion in camp caused meto send for the headman, but Bill came instead. I asked him what wasdoing, and he said that he had had trouble in getting some of the boysto go with him. "Go where?" I asked. He replied that he was going backto the gun boy with food. Then I came to. I sent for the headman andaskaris, told Bill to describe to them the gun boy's location, andtold them they were to go to his relief, and Bill that he was to go tobed. This he finally did, after using up what remaining strength he hadin protest. The elephant was not located.

About a year and a half later, after we had returned to the States,Bill went back into his home country and began to search for thewounded elephant. He must have done some very clever detective work,for he finally located the native who had found the dead elephant.This native had secured the tusks, and had sold one of them to anIndian trader; but the[Pg 141] second was still in his possession. Accordingto the laws of the land he should have turned in the two tusks to thegovernment officials, who would have paid him a nominal price for theivory, and I, having filed a claim with the Government, would have comeinto possession of the tusks; but the native had evidently thoughtthat he could get more out of them by selling them one at a time, andhad taken a chance. But he made a mistake in leaving Bill out of hiscalculations. Bill followed up the case with the final result that theremaining tusk was taken and sent to me, and the Government confiscateda certain number of cattle belonging to the native as penalty for theone he had sold. Thus, to both Bill and me, the final results from thatparticular elephant hunt were satisfactory.

One time in Uganda I was using Bill as a gun-bearer in preference tothe regular gun-bearers, because I had by that time realized thatBill was the best tracker as well as the most keen and alert hunter,black or white, that I had ever known. We had followed a small bandof elephants into some dense forest, and for a long time had beencrouching beneath some undergrowth where we could get an occasionalglimpse of the elephants' legs, but nothing more. They had beenquietly feeding during this time, but at last they moved away andcrossed a trail down which we had a vista of a hundred yards or so.When we thought the last one had passed, we went down this trailquickly and quietly to the point where they had crossed, and there westopped, listening[Pg 142] intently in an attempt to locate them. At firstI thought they had gone out of hearing, when I suddenly discoveredthe rear elevation of a bull not more than twenty feet from us. Hewas motionless. We had come in so quietly that he had not heard us,and then I did not dare move for fear of attracting his attention. Icraned my neck in an effort to get a glimpse of his tusks, and in doingthis I became conscious of a cow standing beside the bull and lookingstraight at us. Bill was about five feet back and to one side of me. Istood motionless, without swinging my gun in the cow's direction, butwaited for her to make the move. I doubt whether she saw us distinctly.The bull began to move away and the cow, in turning to follow, moveda pace more or less in my direction. I was perfectly certain that shewas going to follow the bull, and to Bill there was no indication thatI had seen her. Bill thought she was coming at me, raised his gun, andfired point blank into the cow's face. The elephants bolted. I wheeledand slapped Bill, because he had broken one of the rules of the game,which is that a black boy must never shoot without orders unless hismaster is down and at the mercy of a beast. Of course it did not takelong for me to come to a realization that Bill's shooting was done inperfectly good faith because he thought that I had not seen the cow,and he also thought that she was coming straight at me. Bill's heartwas broken and my apologies were forthcoming and were as humble as thedignity of a white man would permit.

The next day Bill came to me and said that he wanted to quit and goback to Nairobi. I satisfied myself that it was not the incident of theday before that had brought him to this frame of mind, but he admittedthat he was scared and tired. In other words, the pace had been too hotfor him. It was a case of nerves, and he was worn out. I persuaded himto stay, telling him that he need not go with me on elephant trails fora week. I would take the other boys and he could just stay in camp toloaf and rest. But the next morning, when I was preparing to go, Billwas on the job and would not be left behind. He told Mrs. Akeley thathe was not afraid for himself but was afraid for hisBwana. So wecontinued our elephant work at an easier pace than before.

The Wakikuyus (to give them their full name) are an agriculturalpeople, and one does not normally look among them for gun-bearers orhunters. They are a comparatively mild and gentle race, and thus Billwas quite an exceptional individual. Bill was always on the job, and ifit were not for the two occasions of which I have told, I would be ableto say that he is one human being whom I have never seen tired.

Bill never was and never will be completely tamed. His loyalty tothe master in whom he believes and for whom he has an affection isunbounded, and I firmly believe that Bill would go into certain deathfor such a master. He has an independence that frequently gets himinto trouble. He does not like to take orders from any one of his owncolour. The Somalis and the Swahilis, associated with Bill, were[Pg 144]constantly putting up jobs to get him in bad with the master because,to these two peoples, the Wakikuyus are a very inferior race. There isno doubt in my mind that Bill's disgrace with the Roosevelt Expeditionwas due entirely to the connivance of the Swahilis and the Somalis.

When we had finished with our lion-spearing expedition on the UasinGishu Plateau, numerous things had been stolen, and the Somalisinsisted that Bill was the guilty party. A white man whom I hademployed to take charge of the Nandi spearmen was not fond of Bill, andone day he ordered him to open his bag for inspection. Bill refused,and when the case was brought to me and I investigated it, Bill wasso rebellious that we found it necessary to take him in hand for mildpunishment. He ran from camp and I sent anaskari after him. Theaskari overtook him, but he did not bring him back, because Bill hada long knife and he was prepared to use it to a finish. I realized thatI would have to see it through, although my sympathies were all withBill. We were near a governmentboma, and I turned my case over tothe officials. Bill was arrested, put in jail, and we went on withouthim.

Some weeks later we were making the ascent of Mt. Kenia, back in Bill'sold country, where Bill's services had been almost invaluable; and Icontinually felt the need and frequently an actual longing for Bill. Wewere up about ten thousand feet on Kenia, following an elephant trail.We came to an elephant pit in which some animal had been trapped andmade[Pg 145] its escape. I was busy reading the story, which was very simple.A giant hog had got into the pit and had worked with his tusks andfeet at the sides of his prison until he had raised the bottom to apoint which enabled him to scramble out and make his escape. I had beenlonging for Bill all morning because of certain troubles we were havingwith our boys. Just as we were about to leave the pit to continue ourmarch up the mountain side I heard a voice behind me:

I recognized Bill's voice. I turned and saw the most disreputable Billthat I had ever seen. His clothing was worn to shreds, his shoes werepractically all gone, and the only thing about him that was perfectlyall right was his grin. I wanted to hug him. I never knew just whathappened at theboma except that after two weeks Bill got out, tookup our trail, and followed us in all of our meanderings, and finallycame up with us at the elephant pit in the gloomy bamboo forest. He hadprobably travelled a couple of hundred miles in overtaking us.

Bill's training as a tent boy, as I have said, was under Alli. Alliwas a Swahili, and he was not only one of the most efficient tent boysand all-around men that we ever had in Africa, but he was especiallyvaluable onsafari because of his ability to entertain and amuse hisfellow men around the campfire at night. Alli's sense of the dramaticwas extremely keen. Night after night he would stand in the centre ofa circle of admirers, telling them stories.[Pg 146] We would often sit andwatch him, and we had no difficulty in following his story, thoughwe understood, at that time, no Swahili at all. He might perhaps bedescribing to his fellows some white man. He would describe his dressin detail—his tie, his shirt, his cuffs—and we were usually able torecognize the individual from the pantomime of his description. Thesestories were sometimes made up from the day's experience. For instance,it might be that during the day I had had some interesting experienceor adventure the story of which Alli had gathered from the gun boys ontheir return, and when the work was finished in the evening Alli wouldgive it to his audience in full detail—probably with some additionsthat furnished intense interest—often eliciting loud applause.

One time we had been on an elephant trail a day and a half. I laybeneath a tree, "all in" with spirillum fever, and felt that I couldgo no farther that day; so I ordered Bill to make camp. I was awakenedfrom a doze by Bill, and when I asked him if my tent was ready hereplied that it was not but that the hammock was. He had improvised ahammock which he ordered me to get into. He had doubled up the loads ofthe few porters so that four were released to carry me. Bill made theporters trot the ten miles to camp. It was nearly a month before Billand I had recovered sufficiently to take up the elephant trails again.

Another time I was down with black-water fever in the Nairobi hospital.I had been booked to "go[Pg 147] over the Divide" the night before, butsomehow missed connections. I opened my eyes with my face to a windowoverlooking the porch, and there, looking over the rail, was Bill,like a faithful dog. It seemed to me that he stood there for hourswith tears in his eyes staring at his master. A few days later he wasallowed to come into my room. He approached the foot of the bed with alow "Jambo, Bwana."

At an African Big Game Dinner in New York almost ten years after I leftBill, one of my friends who had just returned from British East Africacame to me and announced that he knew all about me now, that he had hadBill in hissafari, and Bill never lost an opportunity to tell himstories aboutBwana Akeley. So I know that Bill is still loyal, andthere is no one in all Africa whom I am more keen to see. I missed himconstantly on my trip into the gorilla country, but because I enteredAfrica from the south when I headed for Kivu, I was forced to make upmysafari without him.

CHAPTER VIIISAFARI HUNTERS

In 1905 Nairobi was a town of tin houses, many black people, a fewHindus, and fewer white men. Before my departure for the Athi Plains,where I planned to begin my collections, I wished to find a place inNairobi where I might store material as I sent it in from time totime from the field. Around and around I wandered without findingany one who was able to offer a helpful suggestion. Then one day,as I was passing the open door of an unpromising galvanized ironbuilding, I heard the encouraging clatter of a typewriter and lostno time in investigating. At the rear of a bare room about thirtyfeet wide and forty feet long was a door on the other side of whichsomeone was plying the typewriter furiously. Finally there came forthfrom behind that closed door a blue-eyed, red-haired chap, apparentlyextraordinarily busy and much annoyed at being interrupted. However,his annoyance vanished when I told him what I was looking for and hesuggested that I use a third of the front part of his building at arental of five rupees—about a dollar and a half—per month. Thisarrangement was eminently satisfactory to me and we closed the bargainat once.

The red-haired man was Leslie J. Tarlton. No description of BritishEast Africa is complete without some reference to Tarlton, the Boer Warveteran now known to hunters the world over because of the flourishingbusiness he has built up in Nairobi—a part of which is equippingsafari hunters with everything from food to niggers.

Tarlton and his partner, Newland, were Australians who had servedin the Boer War. At its close they set out to make their fortunessomewhere in Africa. Coming to Nairobi with none too much of thisworld's goods but plenty of ambition and enthusiasm, they were castingabout for an objective when on that morning in 1905 I stumbled uponTarlton's iron house. Thesafari business into which they fell thatday helped to make them prosperous men until the opening of the WorldWar in 1914 put an end to African hunting for a time.

Tarlton afterward confessed to me that the typewriter that firstattracted my attention would not write at all. Its only use was tomake a noise when a prospective client came in sight. It was perhapsthe first propounder in Nairobi of the modern business principle thatnothing succeeds like success and it propounded no less diligentlybecause Tarlton had not yet discovered what his post-war professionwas to be. Two or three weeks after our first meeting, when I came infrom the plains, mysafari laden with collections to be packed inbrine, Tarlton was much on the job, observing the process and assistingwhenever he saw an opportunity. Finally he asked why[Pg 150] he could notlearn to do such work for me. His proposal was that he act as myagent, sending food and other supplies to us in the field as they wererequired and thus obviating the necessity of my coming in whenever aconsignment of skins was made. As time is precious in the field and onedoes not often happen upon a helper of such ingenuity and diligence, wesoon came to terms. Newland, Tarlton, and Company had acquired theirfirstsafari client. Later on we provided poison tanks and the otherparaphernalia necessary in caring for trophies before they can beshipped. Since that time, Newland and Tarlton have prepared skins andpacked and shipped them for innumerablesafaris.

When in 1911 black-water fever so nearly got me, Tarlton was alsothought to be dying in the Nairobi hospital, but he, too, surprised hisfriends by his unwillingness to conform to their expectations, and,while we were both convalescing, invited me to his house to stay. Thoseweeks in Nairobi were a great time for reminiscence. Tarlton told me astory every morning before breakfast as he whistled and chirped abouthis dressing. And he always ended with the assertion that some day hewas going to write a book on that particular subject. One morning herecited an anecdote about Theodore Roosevelt, adding, "Some day I amgoing to write a book on 'Ex-Presidents I Have Known'."

But the story I recall with the keenest relish recounts the adventuresof three Boer War veterans. They had reached the bottom of theirluck after the[Pg 151] war, and making a pot, went into the Congo to poachelephants. They had good shooting at first, then no luck at all. Theirsupplies were nearly exhausted. But they took heart one evening whenthey came upon elephant signs and carefully laid their plans for thenext day's hunt. A last pot of jam remained in their commissariat, anda last pot of jam is treasured by a man in that country as one savesa last bottle of champagne. The hunter must have fruit, and since nowild fruit grows there, in the old days his supplies included largequantities of preserved fruit and marmalade. The three adventurershad saved that last pot of jam to be used to celebrate and theyagreed that the time for celebration had come provided they broughthome ivory on the morrow. Their plan was that each man should take adifferent direction. On his return that night the first hunter's trailcrossed that of one of his companions. Both had their ivory and theywent into camp together ravenously hungry, their appetites whetted byanticipation, to find that the third fellow had stayed in camp all dayand had eaten the jam alone and unabetted. His companions saw red. Thenormal thing in a frontier country when a man fails to play his part isto kill him. That was their intention, but they made up their minds notto be rash about it. They decided to take the man into the woods somemorning and come back alone. But they thought better—or worse—of itthe next day.

"Well, ladies and gentlemen, my next book will[Pg 152] be entitled 'Murderedfrom Marmalade,' or 'The Jam that Jerked him to Jesus'."

Tarlton was the best game shot I have ever known. We had gone outtogether on one occasion to get meat for dinner when we sighted aThompson's gazelle at a distance of 225 yards.

"Let me try my new Rigby on Tommie," Tarlton said, as he drew a beadon the centre of the gazelle's chest. When we reached the antelope andfound the bullet one inch below where he expected it, he remarked thathe had suspected that his rifle was not accurately sighted. This was noconceit on his part. He expected to place his bullet exactly where hewished and if his gun was accurately sighted he rarely missed.

Tarlton's first lion was shot about this time. The lion had charged hisfriend and with his front paws on the man's shoulder, and his mouthopen, was reaching for the man's head when Tarlton pulled the triggerfifty yards away. The friend escaped without a scratch.

In the conduct of his business in Nairobi, Tarlton must have come incontact with all sorts of men, for there are sportsmen and so-calledsportsmen of all shades and degrees. There is the man who goes overkeen to get a representative head of every species of game animal. Noone can take exception to him while there is plenty of game left. Onthe other hand, there is the man who hunts for record heads and withhim I have little patience. One man came into camp in Somaliland who,although he never shot[Pg 153] unless he believed his prey to be unusual, hadkilled seventy-five aoul or Soemmerring's gazelle before he got therecord. Another class of sportsmen is made up of men who seem to thinkthat the end to be attained is to kill all the law will allow them. Ihave seen a great many of this type. Having paid for a license whichallows them to kill a given number of animals of each species, theyare never content until they have killed the full number regardless oftheir needs, the size of the horns, or anything else. In the same classwith the man who kills to his limit is the man who has made carefulpreparation for a hunt in Africa and who goes there determined to killevery available species within three months. One I know told his agentsthat he would pay them for the full time if they would so arrange itthat he could get his game in three weeks. His idea is to kill and getout of Africa. He has none of that appreciation of Africa's charm andof that real interest in its animals which create in the true sportsmanthe desire to remain as long as possible.

There are many professional hunters in British East Africa, but perhapsR. J. Cuninghame is the most notable of the type. I met him first in1906. I wanted elephants, and everyone at Nairobi agreed that he wasthe best elephant hunter. So I went to him and asked him to teachme to hunt elephants. We had some trouble in arranging the termsbecause he did not want any remuneration for helping an expeditionbent on scientific collection. I couldn't accept his time gratis buthave always appreciated[Pg 154] this offer. Coming from a Scotchman it wasquite unexpected, but it was typical of Cuninghame's generosity andindicative of his interest in scientific work.

He taught me as much as one man can learn from another about the gameof hunting elephants. There are some things which one can learn onlythrough experience, and in elephant hunting most of the essentialsmust be learned in that way. It is easy and natural to assume thatthese huge beasts will always be too obvious for the unexpected tohappen. But in spite of their size they are not always easy to see,for in their own country elephants are the colour of the shadows andon occasion quite as silent. In a forest or rock environment one mayalmost literally run on to an elephant before being aware of itspresence. The fact that Cuninghame spent so many years hunting thegreat game of Africa without ever being mauled is evidence of his skill.

We went together to the Aberdare and killed one elephant—the singletusker now in the group in the Field Museum in Chicago. Then we wentdown to the government station at Fort Hall and got permission to go upon Mt. Kenia for further elephant shooting. We spent six weeks on theslopes of the mountain, I as an amateur under Cuninghame's tutelage.And he was a real elephant hunter. He had killed many elephants, andhis long experience had given him a great deal of that knowledge aboutelephants which would enable him to kill them without himself beingkilled. On the other hand,[Pg 155]Cuninghame hunted elephants for ivory, andwhen a man approaches a herd looking for ivory, he is not likely to seemuch excepting tusks. It is natural, therefore, that from the ivoryhunters we learn comparatively little of the more intimate things thatwe should like to know about the every-day life of the elephant. Theworld has no record of the knowledge of wild life that their experienceshould have given the ivory hunters.

It is for this reason that the camera hunters appeal to me as beingso much more useful than the gun hunters. They have their pictures toshow—still pictures and moving pictures—and when their game is overthe animals are still alive to play another day. Moreover, according toany true conception of sport—the use of skill, daring, and endurancein overcoming difficulties—camera hunting takes twice the man that gunhunting takes. It is fortunate for the animals that camera hunting isbecoming popular.

The first notable camera hunter in Africa was Edward North Buxton,whose book, "Two African Trips," was published in 1902. In the prefaceto this book Buxton writes that "it would better be described as apicture-book than a volume of travels." This book paved the way foranother in 1905, "With Flashlight and Rifle," by C. G. Schillings.Considering the state of photography at that time, Schillings' book isa truly remarkable record of wild animal life. In 1910, A. RadclyffeDugmore brought out his book, "Camera Adventures in the African Wilds."In it are several pictures of lions taken by flashlight at night[Pg 156] froma blind that are photographically as good as are ever likely to betaken.

Then came the first of the moving-picture hunters. The first successwas the film called "The Water Hole" taken by Mr. Lydford, who wastemporarily the photographer of Paul Rainey's expedition. Although itis not photographically as good as some of the later ones, it was aremarkable achievement, as all who saw it will testify, especially whenthey realize that this was Mr. Lydford's first experience in makingmotion pictures and that his equipment was not as good as equipmentis now. The film had a deservedly popular run. Like all such films itwas arranged for public exhibition by piecing together parts taken ondifferent occasions, so that the audience gets in one crowded hour thefruits of weeks and months of painstaking effort.

The next successful moving picture that I know of was taken on theexpedition of Lady Grace McKenzie. It has in it the very remarkablepiece of film showing a charging lion. The lion almost got the operatorand ended the picture but fortunately both escaped. This reel has neverbeen extensively shown.

After this came a film made by James Barnes and Cherry Kerton whichwas shown with a lecture and not, as was Rainey's, by itself. Thatwas nearly the whole roll call until 1922 when two men came back withfilms. The first to reach New York was a film made by H. A. Snow. Itwas shown at the Lyric Theatre and had a great success for which I am[Pg 157]personally sorry. I look upon it with more disapproval than I canwell state, for I think that many of the titles on the pictures aremisleading and that some of the pictures fall into the same category.All naturalists welcome the spread of animal lore by motion picturesso that a knowledge of true natural history may become more general,and there is no better way to disseminate such information. But ifin order to make a film a more hair-raising and popular picture, themoving-picture producer puts misleading titles on the pictures andresorts to "fake" photography, the harm they can do is just as great asthe good they would otherwise effect.

While most of us who are interested in true nature photography werefeeling somewhat blue about Mr. Snow's pictures, Martin Johnson cameback to New York. He came in to see me and I asked him what he wasgoing to do about his titles. He was prompt and positive. He was quitewilling to submit them all to the American Museum of Natural History.That was a big decision, for the Museum would not agree to the kind oftitles which it was likely the moving-picture business might desire.This might militate heavily against his chance of selling the picture,and in Johnson's case selling the picture was a necessity, for all hehad in the world and more besides was invested in it. But he stuck tohis decision when the pressure came and his film goes forth, the firstever endorsed by the American Museum of Natural History, a credit tohim and to the company distributing it. I feel that this is a greatstep. With this[Pg 158]precedent I believe we have begun a new era indisseminating natural history through motion pictures—a step in whichwe can count on the assistance of Mr. Will H. Hays, the president ofthe Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America.

But I must return to the gun hunters, for I have not mentioned thetruest sportsman of them all—Theodore Roosevelt.

I first met Theodore Roosevelt on my return from Africa in 1906.Previously, on his visit to Chicago as Vice-President, soon after Ihad finished the deer groups for the Field Museum of Natural History,he called at the Museum and was so interested in the groups that heasked to see me, but unfortunately I was not there. From that time onhe was interested in my endeavours and, learning that I was on my wayout of Africa, had asked Congressman Mann to bring me to Washington.Congressman Mann's invitation was waiting for me when I reached NewYork.

At a dinner at the White House during that visit the Roosevelt Africanexpedition was inaugurated. Among the other guests was a gentleman fromAlaska who had been describing the hunting in that region and, as wewere entering the dining room, the President remarked:

I shall never forget that dinner at the White House. I sat throughcourse after course and did not eat a bite, for the President keptme busy telling stories of Africa. There was no time to exhaust mysupply,[Pg 159] but I believe I said quite enough, for as we were leaving thedining room, the President turned to me and said:

"Alaska will have to wait," Roosevelt replied with finality. Plansfor the Roosevelt African expedition went forward at once and I hadsomething to do with their arrangement.

At this dinner at the White House I retold to the President the storyof the sixteen lions coming out of the cave on MacMillan's estate. ThePresident, who had been very frank in his comments about all things,was having difficulties with the Senate at the time. When I hadfinished the story, he addressed Congressman Mann who sat beside him atthe table,

"Congressman," he said, "I wish I had those sixteen lions to turn loosein the Senate."

Congressman Mann stammered and stumbled a bit, but finally drew himselftogether to reply.

"B—but, Mr. President, aren't—aren't you afraid the lions might makea mistake?"

So he really invented the idea which they turned on him later. Whenhis administration was over and he finally started for Africa, the cryof the Senate crowd was, "America expects every lion to do his duty."A cartoon of the day that I particularly[Pg 160] remember showed a contentedlion sitting up on his haunches with drawn and bulging stomach.Beneath, the caption read, "He was a good President."

I was planning an expedition to collect materials for an elephant groupin behalf of the American Museum of Natural History about the time thatRoosevelt was arranging for his African hunt, and it was a fancy ofmine that he should shoot at least one of the elephants for my group.Upon my request that he should do so, we planned to meet in Africa,but as I was delayed in getting over, it was only by chance that hissafari and mine met on the Uasin Gishu Plateau.

One day while on the march I sighted asafari. I was aware that theRoosevelt outfit had gone into that region, but I assumed that he hadalready left there for Uganda. Nevertheless, while we made camp on thebanks of the river, I sent a runner to see if it could be the Rooseveltsafari. My runner met a runner from the other outfit and returnedwith a message from Roosevelt himself which said that if we wereAkeley's party he would go into camp at a near-by swamp. I mounted mypony and went to meet him as he approached on horseback accompanied byhis son, Kermit, Edmund Heller, and their guide, Tarlton. We all wentback to our camp for luncheon, where I gave Roosevelt a bottle of verychoice brandy, a present from Mr. Oscar Strauss. Mr. Strauss had beenone of our steamer companions across the Atlantic and, learning that Iwas likely to meet Roosevelt, he asked me to take this choice[Pg 161] brandyto him in the jungles. Roosevelt accepted it with much interest in theaccompanying message but apparently with mighty little interest in thebrandy. He passed the bottle on to Cuninghame and I felt certain itwould eventually meet with just appreciation.

We went over to Roosevelt's camp for the night, thoroughly pleasedthat the hunt we had looked forward to together, but had been forcedto abandon, was to take place after all. We intended to get an earlystart the next morning, for Roosevelt had seen one herd of elephantsthat day. We started with Tarlton leading. Suddenly he slipped offhis horse and directed that we swing down side to get off wind. In aclearing just ahead of us were our elephants, a band of eight cows andcalves, enjoying their midday siesta and milling about under the trees.We stood hidden by a great ant-hill while I picked out a cow I thoughtwould do for my group and pointed her out to Roosevelt. Of course, Iassumed that he would shoot her from behind the ant-hill, well outof sight and protected. Instead he went around the hill and startedstraight toward the elephants, Kermit and I following one on eitherside and in back of him. I had an impulse to climb on Roosevelt'sshoulder and whisper that I wanted him to shoot her, not to take heralive. But Roosevelt's theory of meeting trouble was to meet it halfwayand he got just about halfway when the old cow started across theopen space. Then the other seven headed toward us. Roosevelt shot.The elephant I had selected went part way down and got up again. Onthey came.[Pg 162] He shot again and got her. However, there were three deadelephants instead of one when we stopped them, for Kermit and I had toshoot, too, to head off the others. The rule in elephant hunting is toget as close as you can before shooting, and in whatever Roosevelt wasdoing he came out in the open and went straight to the point.

Kermit's baby elephant, now mounted in the group, was taken that day,also. After we had turned them, I saw a calf I wanted, asked Kermit toshoot him, and he did so.

While Tarlton and Kermit returned for the camp equipment and thesupplies required in caring for the elephants, Colonel Roosevelt and Isat together resting in the shade of an acacia. We were alone in theheart of Africa and he talked to me of his wife and children at home.He had not seen any one from the United States, excepting the membersof his own party, for a good many months, while I was fresh from theStates, fresh from Oyster Bay. In those three hours I got a new visionand a new view of Theodore Roosevelt. It was then that I learned tolove him. It was then that I realized that I could follow him anywhere;even if I doubted, I would follow him because I knew his sincerity, hisintegrity, and the bigness of the man. Since his death those qualitiesthat I caught a glimpse of in Africa under the acacia tree—thosequalities that made Theodore Roosevelt what he was—I have seen morefully and completely as they are reflected in his children and hischildren's children.

Our remaining days together were comparatively uneventful. A grassfire, fortunately not one of the most persistent, came down upon ourcamp that night and all hands fell to and fought it. Lions roared aboutour camp all night, too. At daybreak the Colonel and I went out in ourpyjamas, hoping to find them. We saw no lions, but on our return, as weapproached the carcass of one of our elephants, a hyena stuck his headup on the other side. The Colonel fired but the shot was unnecessary.The hyena was trapped. In his greediness, he had rammed his headthrough a wall of muscle in the elephant's stomach and could not get itout. The hair was worn thin on his neck by his efforts to escape, buthe was literally tied up in the thing he loved best.

CHAPTER IXINVENTIONS AND WARFARE

Soon after my return from my 1905 trip to Africa I got my attentionturned away from taxidermy for a little while in a curious fashion.The Field Museum was still in the old Columbian Exposition Building inwhich it had started. The outside of this stucco building kept peelingso that it had a very disreputable appearance. The Park Departmentprotested to the museum authorities. I happened to be in the museum oneday when one of the officers had this on his mind and he said:

"Akeley, how are we going to get the outside of this buildingrespectable at a reasonable cost?"

I got to thinking about it. In the many experiments of one kind andanother that I had tried in working out methods for manikin making Ihad among other things used a compressed air spray. It occurred to methat it would be possible to make an apparatus on this principle thatwould spray a very liquid concrete on to the side of a building. I setto work and rigged up a somewhat crude apparatus and set it up outsidethe museum building. It was not a finished piece of mechanism and ithad the further disadvantage of having its compressed air come quite along way in a hose. Nevertheless it worked, and[Pg 165] the old building wasrepaired with this apparatus. The Field Museum never used the cementgun any more but some friends came along and offered to put moneyenough behind the idea to perfect, manufacture, and sell it. As withall such things the first money went and then a second like amount, butin the end the cement gun succeeded, and during the war it, among otherthings, was used to make the concrete ships. This occupied most of mytime between 1907 and 1909. In fact, I drove the first motorized cementgun down to the house of its chief financial backer on Long Island in1909, and went back to New York to go again to Africa.

As I am no longer financially interested in the cement gun, I may saywith pride that there are now approximately 1,250 machines in use, notonly in the United States, but also in the principal foreign countries.In addition to the use for which it was originally designed, thatof restoring masonry and concrete structures, many other importantpurposes are now served by this mechanism. In coal mines it is beingused to keep slate roofs from falling and to fireproof the timbers.Irrigation ditches and reservoirs are being lined and dams are beingfaced and protected against the destructive action of water and frostby this method. In tunnel construction, a lining put in with the cementgun prevents falls and insures an absolute sealing. It protects steel,protects piles against teredo and fire, protects structures againstacid, restores boiler settings and preserves them from further actionof the heat, rebuilds[Pg 166] baffle walls, makes economical floor and roofslabs, and is being used extensively in putting up walls of buildingsthat are permanent and fireproof.

My next trip to Africa in 1909 also served to develop another activitybesides taxidermy. One of the principal objects of this trip was toget moving pictures of the Nandi spearing lions. However, I found thatyou can't stage a native lion hunt with any certainty, for neither thelion nor the native, once the action begins, pays any attention to themovie director. In order to have even a fair chance of following theaction with a camera you need one that you can aim up, down, or in anydirection with about the same ease that you can point a pistol. Therewere no movie cameras like this, and after failing to get pictures ofseveral lions I determined not to go to Africa again until I had one.

When I got home I set to work on the problem and after muchexperimentation completed a working model that bore no likeness tothe conventional motion-picture apparatus. To one familiar with theold types of camera the Akeley resembled a machine gun quite as muchas it resembled a camera. During the war I used to say that the boyswho operated it would be well protected andPhotoplay in January,1919, related a story of the American advance in France which boreout my opinion. While setting up the machine to make some shots ina still-burning and newly occupied village, a young lieutenant wasconfronted suddenly by seven Germans. Mistaking his formidable filmapparatus for a new type of[Pg 167]Yankee machine gun, they threw up theirhands and surrendered. The story is probably all the better because itstruth is doubtful.

Since its perfection the Akeley camera has been carried into many ofthe far-away corners of the globe by museum expeditions and explorers.The Katmai Expedition of the National Geographic Society, the MulfordBiological Expedition to the Amazon Basin, the Third Asiatic Expeditionof the American Museum of Natural History, the MacMillan ArcticAssociation, and the British Guiana Tropical Research Station atKartabo under the direction of William Beebe, are some of those whichhave been equipped with Akeleys. In taking "Nanook of the North," thepicture made for popular distribution by the Revillon Frères ArcticExpedition, Mr. Flaherty used two of my cameras. Martin Johnson,whose motion pictures of the South Sea Islands and of Africa have wonhim renown as a "camera hunter," is planning to include three in theequipment for his next African expedition. To a degree at least, thecamera is accomplishing the purpose for which it was designed.

While I had little idea at first that this camera would fill anyother needs than my own, as it has been perfected it has proved itspracticability for general use. The fundamental difference between theAkeley motion-picture camera and the others is a panoramic device whichenables one to swing it all about, much as one would swing a swivelgun, following the natural line of vision. Thus instead of having tomanipulate two cranks with the left hand, one to tilt the camera[Pg 168] andthe other to move it horizontally, the operator by means of a singlecontrol secures a steady movement which may be vertical, horizontal, ordiagonal, and which enables him to keep a moving object always in thecentre of the field. This flexibility especially adapts the camera notonly for wild animal photography, but also for studio work, where anerratic follow-up is to be accomplished, and for news reel photography.It was this advantage, combined with another special qualification,the freer use of the telephoto lens—which brings a distant objectinto the foreground on the screen—which made possible a successfulpicture of the Man-o'-War race and the Dempsey-Carpentier prize fight.Anthropologists have found the telephoto lens useful in making motionpictures of natives of uncivilized countries without their knowledge.Because of the difficulty of securing the proper lighting in the woods,I had paid particular attention to the shutter so that as perfectedthe shutter admits thirty per cent. more light than the usual camerashutter. This characteristic also has commended the camera to generaluse. In out-of-door photography on a dark day as well as in the studio,where the lighting is one of the greatest items of expense, itsadvantage is obvious. Tom Mix and Douglas Fairbanks are both makingextensive use of the camera now and a recent feature directed byLawrence Trimble was made with it.

I was working on the camera, modelling a little and mounting theelephant group, when the war came on us. That meant a call for everyman's energy and[Pg 169] brains. I was keen to do something, but there poppedinto my head an old unfortunate phrase that had long held lodgmentthere. "Nothing but a taxidermist." That was the sentiment of aneditorial published in theYouth's Companion, a magazine which wasalmost my Bible, some fifty years ago. As a youngster I always had tocombat the feeling that taxidermy was of no importance, both on myown part, when I was not completely lost in the joy of my work, andalso on the part of those about me. But, inasmuch as it had been theadvertisements of books on taxidermy in theCompanion that had givenme my first encouragement, I felt a particular resentment toward amagazine which would so betray its advertisers and its readers.

My conviction that museum exhibition is playing an important part inmodern education has long since satisfied me that the work which Ihave chosen as mine is worth while, but all through my experiences atWard's and in Milwaukee the doubt persisted. Was I not wasting my lifeon something that did not count? And, needless to say, my own doubt wasdeepened by the indifference of others.

With the war came the cessation of all normal life. An occupationpopularly considered as unessential as mine ought to stop among thefirst. Anyway, I had to get into it. The only way to be happy was toget into it, but there was something rather ridiculous about the ideathat an African naturalist and a "good-for-nothing taxidermist" couldbe of much service in wartime. At first it did not strike me—or anyone[Pg 170] else, for that matter—that the principles I had worked out fortaxidermy, for the cement gun, and for the camera might be applied tothe mechanical devices of warfare.

But work began with an order from the Government for a lot of Akeleycameras. A call from the Signal Corps of the War Department askingme to bring them down took me to Washington shortly after war wasdeclared, with the result that I accepted a contract whereby theentire output of the camera shop was turned over to the United StatesGovernment.

Soon after I became a Specialist on Mechanical Devices and OpticalEquipment in the Division of Investigation, Research, and Developmentof the Engineer Corps. My chief was Major O. B. Zimmerman, who thirtyyears before had been my student in Milwaukee. He had wanted to becomea taxidermist, but in those days taxidermy seemed a mighty poor gameand I did my best to dissuade him from any such mad career. Hiswisdom in following my advice is proved by the fact that when the warbroke out he was in Belgium as one of the leading engineers for theInternational Harvester Company. I had a desk in Major Zimmerman'soffice, but my actual work was done in the camera shop in New York, inthe American Museum of Natural History, and in various laboratories.At least once each week I rode back and forth from Washington to NewYork. My duties were those of a consulting engineer, but they were muchvaried, for we had several things under way all the time. Wherever aproblem, mechanical[Pg 171] or otherwise, arose, I went to look things over,and if I had any suggestions to make, I was assigned to that job. Ispent several weeks at Brunswick, Georgia, where concrete ships wereunder construction and where my experiments with the cement gun servedme in good stead. The fact that the concrete ships were not successfulwas not the fault of the concrete gun. It did its part.

After devoting a good deal of thought to searchlights and searchlightmirrors, I helped in lightening the apparatus materially and developeda device for searchlight control. This control, which involves the samerotary principle as my motion-picture camera, enables the operatorstanding at the end of an arm to direct the rays of the light towardany object in the sky and to keep it in view by following up itsmovements with the light. It is one of several devices developed atthat time which have since been patented by the Government in my name.

Roosevelt once asked me why I declined to wear the major's uniformoffered to me. "Well, Colonel Roosevelt," I replied unhesitatingly,for I had my good reason for so doing, "if I were wearing a uniform, Icould not go to my colonel and tell him he was a damn fool."

As a civilian I went about wherever work was going on, talked freelywith the workmen, heard them discuss their mechanical difficulties, andgot from them their ideas for improvements. As a civilian I was[Pg 172] alsofree to carry those ideas wherever they could do the most good. If Ihad had to comply with the red tape of army officialdom, not only wouldmy own work have been handicapped, but also the ideas and troubles ofthe private actually handling the machine might never have gone pasthis sergeant. When the armistice was signed, I was planning to gooverseas to observe the difficulties that the men were having at thefront, so that I narrowly escaped the khaki.

Whatever my services may or may not have contributed to the defeat ofthe Germans, at least I have escaped the accusation directed towardmany a dollar-a-year man of being overpaid. The usual dollar-a-yearman, though the dollar was never paid him, received his expenses,while my contract called for a salary of ten dollars per day withoutexpense money. My original agreement was to include expenses, butsome slip was made which always seemed too difficult to correct. Thisarrangement made my loss even greater than that of those men whoreceived the fabulous amount prescribed by law, for needless to say myweekly stipend was inadequate to cover the one item of railway fare.Still one had to serve to be happy in those days, no matter what thecost. Inasmuch as the Akeley camera also lost heavily on war contracts,I have had the additional satisfaction of escaping governmentalinvestigation on the score of excess profits. After it was all over, Iungrudgingly paid the normal tax on the money I had lost, and I wouldnot swap those months with the Government for anything else in myexperience.

Since the war, with the intermission of my trip to Africa for gorillasin 1921, I have stuck to my sculpture and taxidermy except for variouslecture trips.

A man who is fortunate enough to have witnessed the beauties of theAfrican forests and who has come to know the forest's inhabitantsand their ways, is almost sure to be called upon to share his goodfortune with others, and I have done a good deal of lecturing. My firstlectures were to be given at Fullerton Hall in Chicago for the FieldMuseum shortly after my return from Africa in 1906. Fortunately, I hadoccasion to deliver a lecture in South Chicago a few days before myfirst museum lecture was scheduled. Otherwise, I probably would havedropped dead when I faced the Fullerton Hall audience. I think thething that saved me from running then was the fact that I had a smallaudience behind a screen at the rear of the platform and knew that itblocked my escape.

I had tried to prepare a lecture, had realized that that wasimpossible, and had finally decided to show my audience the picturesand make whatever comments they brought to mind. Then, when I goton the platform without the vaguest idea of what I was going to sayfirst, it suddenly occurred to me that I was no worse frightenedthan I had been one day on the banks of the Tana when I suddenlyfound myself, with nothing but a camera in my hand, charged by arhinoceros. Apparently I had no escape except a thirty-foot drop intothe crocodile-infested waters[Pg 174] of the Tana below. But the rhino stoppedten or fifteen feet from me, gazed at me stupidly, and settled downwith the apparent intention of going to sleep. I took hope when thethought crossed my mind that this new terror might settle down with thesame intention as the old rhino, leaving me to my own resources quiteunharmed. So I told my audience the story of the rhino, the ice wasbroken, and I fear I nearly talked them to death before the lectureended.

Since that time I have talked far and wide. I hope I have given somepleasure and entertainment to the good people who have listened. I hopealso that I have created in the minds of my hearers a background thatwill help the art of taxidermy and its practitioners in the future.More especially I hope that I have contributed something to the studyof natural history and that I have stimulated a decent attitude towardwild life.

CHAPTER XA TAXIDERMIST AS A SCULPTOR

After I had got over my first youthful enthusiasm about taxidermy andhad seen how it was practiced, I recognized that, as it then was, itwas not an art—that it was in fact little better than a trade. I hadmoments when I felt like abandoning the whole thing. I used to studysculpture, particularly animal sculpture, in relation to taxidermy. Iremember that when I was twenty-eight years old I came to New York andspent hours at the Metropolitan Museum of Art with the itch in my handsand brain to become a sculptor. But one thing restrained me. I hadenough common sense to know that while I might become a sculptor andeven a fairly successful one I could never contribute to that art whatI could contribute to taxidermy. I believed then that I could starttaxidermy on the road from a trade to an art. So I turned away fromsculpture. Nevertheless, the idea of being a sculptor kept running inmy mind. And whenever it did, it depressed me. Finally, I gave up goingnear the Art Museum altogether.

But the discipline that I inflicted on myself I could not inflict onother people. I had to make little clay groups as studies and modelsfor the animal groups[Pg 176] that I was mounting. Many people who saw theseclay models would suggest that I have them cast in bronze. If I had notstill had the fever of sculpturing in my blood, these remarks wouldnot have stuck in my mind, but as it was they did. So this idea becamefamiliar to me.

However, it was a good many years after it first became a regularinhabitant of my mind that I put it in practice, for along with ithad grown up the notion that I should not merely turn models intobronzes but that I would wait until I had a real contribution. Realcontributions did not seem abundant and so year after year went by withno bronzes made.

Then in 1912 a situation arose which I thought forced sculpture uponme. I had a dream of a great African Hall of forty groups of animalswith all the ingenuity, all the technique, and all the art the countrycould boast of. By that time I had come to feel that taxidermy couldbe a great art. I felt that a beautifully modelled animal requiredat least as much knowledge, taste, skill, and technique as a bronzeor stone animal. But I knew that this conception was not common.A taxidermist couldn't talk art. Especially he couldn't talk artconvincingly to the kind of men who supported great museum ventures. Itwas a recognized thing to support art. Taxidermy had no such tradition.The only way out of the dilemma that I could see was to prove thatwhether or not taxidermy was an art at least a taxidermist could be anartist.

It was my desire to make an appeal to those men[Pg 177] who support artfinancially that stimulated my first work in bronze. I felt that wemight expect the aid of these men in such undertakings as the AfricanHall if I could once get them to see the artistic possibilities oftaxidermy. The American Museum of Natural History already had friendswho were interested in art, but it had not occurred to them that theMuseum's animal groups had any relation to sculpture because thesegroups had not been presented in the accepted materials of sculpturesuch as stone and bronze. Through the medium of bronze I hoped to leadthem to see in the taxidermist's productions something worthy of theirsupport as patrons of art.

So I set to work to do a bronze that would prove that a taxidermistcould be an artist. Years before I had heard the story of an elephantbull wounded by hunters, whose two comrades had ranged themselves oneon either side and helped him to escape. I have told the story indetail elsewhere. It always appealed to me as showing a spirit in theelephant that I should like to record. I set to work on The WoundedComrade. It was a part of the story of the elephant, a theme thatalways aroused enthusiasm in me. And I felt it was a labour of love forAfrican Hall. It was pleasant work. It went well. The thing seemed totake shape naturally. It was soon finished. Then came its test.

Mr. J. P. Morgan came to the Museum to talk over African Hall. Iexplained the whole plan, showed him the model of the hall andincidentally The Wounded Comrade. He liked the scheme. As[Pg 178] he left hesaid that he was convinced. "And," he added, "I don't mind saying,"pointing to the little bronze of The Wounded Comrade, "that it is whatdid it." I shall always be indebted to Mr. Morgan for that sentence. Itgave me an extraordinary amount of contentment. A. Phimister Proctor,the animal sculptor, also came to see The Wounded Comrade in my studio.He spent a long time in silence, carefully studying the little model.I knew that Mr. Proctor never gave praise lightly, but that he neverhesitated to express admiration when in his opinion the work had merit.I felt that much depended on his praise or blame. And when he finallyspoke, his enthusiasm was keen. I did not realize how keen until anorder came for a bronze of The Wounded Comrade from Mr. George Pratt,a friend of Mr. Proctor, whose only impression of the piece was gainedfrom Mr. Proctor's description. Throughout my career as a sculptornothing has meant so much to me as the encouragement and appreciationof the man who first declared The Wounded Comrade a success.

In recognition of this first bronze, I was made a member of theAmerican Sculpture Society. Inasmuch as such a cordial reception wasaccorded to The Wounded Comrade by artists as well as by the generalpublic, I felt justified in devoting more attention to sculpture. Ifelt that I had many stories to tell about elephants and that I couldtell these stories more effectively by the work of my hands than in anyother way. One chapter is told in the group of[Pg 179] mounted elephants nowin the American Museum of Natural History. Many others can be told insmall bronzes. I want to tell these stories, and in the time I have onearth I could not record many elephant stories in taxidermy, for onegroup really done well takes years—but I can tell these stories inbronze.

After The Wounded Comrade had made a success, many of my friends cameto my studio (where I did taxidermy) in the Museum and advised me tokeep on making bronzes. "Here's your opportunity," they said. "You havea market. Fortune favours you. Don't neglect the fickle lady."

But I did not follow this advice and make many bronzes. It may havebeen because I was lazy or busy with other things, but I like to thinkthat it was because I had decided not to make bronzes unless I had areal story to tell. I wanted to do justice if I could to my friend, theelephant. And, also, I wanted to do what I did well enough to provethat a taxidermist could be, as he ought to be, an artist.

So I progressed with sculpture very slowly. In the nine years since TheWounded Comrade was made I have made only six bronzes.

In my second piece I have pictured a scene that will always remain veryvivid in my memory—a charging herd. I had been following a large herdof elephants, two hundred or more, in the Budongo Forest for two days.They had broken up into small bands and the particular band which I wasfollowing had got near the edge of the forest. Nevertheless, I was[Pg 180]having a hard time to get a look at them. Finally, I had recourse tothe somewhat hazardous experiment of beating on the tree trunks withsticks in the hope of scaring them into the open. This was successful.I followed them, but the grass was so high that I couldn't see over it.I was in the act of climbing a tree for better observation when theycame rolling along, grunting and squealing, back to the forest. Theypassed me within twenty-five yards. They were irritated sufficientlyto convince me that it was time to let them alone and go to camp. Istarted along the edge of the forest. As I was pushing along throughthe high grass a few minutes later I heard another band coming out ofthe forest. As I couldn't see over the grass I ran to an ant-hill. Thisant-hill was six or seven feet high. As I got on top it I saw, aboutone hundred yards away, eleven great animals pass one by one over alittle rise. I had as good a view of this majestic march as a man willever get. When they had gone two or three hundred yards, they suddenlystopped. They had got down wind and had smelt me. Then they began totalk. There was grumbling and rumbling. Conversation of this kindmeant trouble. It was an old story to me. And trouble came. They cameback squealing and roaring. I had to wait the first two hundred yardsof the charge without shooting for they were behind the ridge. Thenthey loomed up over it, led by an old cow with her trunk up and hergreat ears cocked. As the leader lost the scent and slowed a little,they jammed into a solid mass. Then the old cow saw me[Pg 181] perched on myant-hill. Changing course, they came toward me, falling apart as theycame.

That picture stays in my memory. And as I saw it I have put it inbronze. The bronze shows the first seven elephants of the herd jammedtogether in that moment of hesitation just after the old cow saw me andturned in my direction. Her trunk is curled up tight, her ears backand all cleared for action. The elephant on her left is following herexample. The others still have their trunks extended, feeling for myscent.

The next elephant story that I told in bronze grew out of anotherexperience of mine. I was following a herd of elephants in bushcountry. I was some distance behind them and they knew nothing of me.Suddenly I heard a great commotion, squealing and beating of bushes. Afew minutes later the herd moved on. When I came to the spot where thecommotion had been I found the bushes all trampled down and, at oneside of the area of destruction in the sand, the remains of a big greentree snake that had been stamped into the ground. I followed after theherd but was soon deflected from the main body by noises in a littleglade off at one side of the main trail. I went to the edge of thisglade and saw a young bull elephant smashing about in the forest alone,breaking down trees, squealing, and in general acting like a small boywho had been stung on the nose by a hornet. After a while he quieteddown and went along after the others, grumbling and protesting. I cameto the conclusion that while feeding in the[Pg 182] bushes he had thrust histrunk too close to a poisonous tree snake and had been stung; that hehad beaten the snake on to the ground with his trunk and stamped it todeath. In the bronze I pictured the snake alive on the ground and theelephant in the act of trampling it to death.

In addition to these elephant bronzes I have done one other bronze ofa combat between a lion and a buffalo, and I have two other elephantsubjects started in clay. I have never seen a lion and a buffalofight nor do I know of any one else who has. But I know at leasttwo authentic records of the dead bodies of a lion and a buffalotogether—mute evidence of a fight to a finish and death to both. And Ihave seen dead buffalo carcasses from which one could tell pretty wellhow the lion had killed his prey. The lion tries to throw the buffaloin much the same manner as a cowboy "bulldogs" a steer—that is, hethrows him by jerking the buffalo's head down. In the bronze I haverepresented the lion as having "bulldogged" the buffalo by catching hisnose with a front paw and bending his head to the ground in his effortto throw him. The buffalo has saved himself from a fall by bracinghimself with one front foot and the scene is set for a battle royalunless the lion bolts.

One of the bronzes that will soon be published records a scene thatwill always be a pleasant memory to me. I was watching an elephant herdon the march through an open grass country. The elders moved alongsedately enough, but at one side of the herd[Pg 183] several babies weresquealing and pushing each other—having a fine time at play. Sometimesthey were ahead of the herd and sometimes behind it, but all the timein a very gay mood. There seemed to be something that they were playingwith, but the grass was too high and I was too far off to make outwhat it was. However, where the trail of the herd finally went intothe forest, I discovered the babies' plaything. It was a big dirt ballabout two and one half feet in diameter, a fragment of an ant-hill.These ant-hills are made of a mixture of saliva and sand which whenbaked by the African sun gets almost as hard as brick. A steel-jacketedbullet will be cut all to pieces before penetrating the surface of anant-hill at all. In some way the baby elephants had got a fragment ofan old ant-hill that was nearly round and this they had used as a ballto roll along in their play. It is not so surprising, therefore, thatan elephant can be made to do tricks with a ball in the circus!

The other is called At Bay and represents an elephant with trunk upstanding at bay with his hind leg tied to a great log.

One of the native's methods of hunting elephants is to dig a pit in anelephant path, cover the pit over with a "basket"—a kind of trap—puta noose on top of the "basket," and camouflage the whole with grassand leaves. When the trap is set there is no evidence of anything buta plain and safe path. The[Pg 184] noose is one end of a twisted rawhidecable, the other end of which is fastened to a heavy log. If the trapworks, the elephant steps on the "basket" and his leg goes through. The"basket" sticks to his leg and holds the noose until the elephant movesenough to draw it tight. Then he begins to drag the heavy log throughthe forest. He cannot go far or fast and he leaves an unmistakabletrail. He is a high-strung, nervous creature and when after a few daysof trekking about with his tormenting log the natives come up withhim, he is weak from lack of food and water. There he stands at bay,as I have pictured him in bronze. But his defiance is of slight avail,for there is little to be feared from his charge. It is comparativelysimple for his enemies to finish him off with poisoned spears andarrows.

In my bronzes I am telling bit by bit my stories of African animals.A series of three groups telling the story of native lion-spearingwill be finished by the time this book is out and will ultimately takeits place in Roosevelt African Hall. In 1911 I got together a band ofNandi spearmen on the Uasin Gishu Plateau to hunt lions. I wanted amotion picture of native lion-spearing, the most dramatic thing Africahas to offer. In twenty days the Nandi had speared ten lions and fiveleopards. My moving pictures were not very satisfactory but I did gettwo other very diverse results from the trip—the determination toinvent a better camera for wild-animal photography, and the idea forthese lion-spearing groups.

The first two groups represent three native[Pg 185]spearmen in the act offacing the charge of a lion and lioness, the lioness characteristicallyleading the charge. The third group, a sequel to the other two, showsthe three hunters chanting a requiem over the dead lion.

I have done another lion—one that interests me more than all theothers. And this piece of sculpture came about in this way. When I metPresident Roosevelt at the White House on my return from Africa in1906, I was impressed with the power and humanity of the man as allwere who knew him. One of the great experiences of my life was thatquiet talk with Theodore Roosevelt in the shade of the acacia tree onthe Uasin Gishu Plateau when I came to know the man and to love him.After our return from Africa, he was constantly reminding me of myunwritten African book and saying that he wanted to write a forewordand a chapter for that book. But I had no such hankering to write as Ihad to do sculpture, and so I put it off. At last, however, in 1919,after the war was over, I sat down one day and started to write him aletter to say that I would begin the book. I had written the two words,"Dear Colonel," when the telephone rang. It was my friend, George H.Sherwood, the executive secretary of the Museum.

For me the bottom dropped out of everything. From that time until Igot back from the funeral I did nothing. When I returned from thefuneral I was terribly depressed. I had to find expression. I found itmost naturally in modelling. I set to work[Pg 186] on a lion. I meant to makeit symbolic of Roosevelt, of his strength, courage, fearlessness—ofhis kingly qualities in the old-fashioned sense. And this modellingafforded me great comfort and relief. I worked on it day after day.Taxidermy, groups and bronzes, were all forgotten. While I was soengaged one day an old friend of mine, James Brite, an architect,called me on the telephone. I asked him if he wouldn't come up anddesign a pedestal for the lion. He came up not only that day but manyothers. Neither of us knew just what we were going to do with it whenit was finished. I had a vague idea of casting it, making one bronzefor Mrs. Roosevelt, and destroying the model.

We were still working when one day Archie Roosevelt came in. I showedthe lion to him.

"None of us want to see statues of Father," he said. "They can't makeFather," and as he put his arms about the pedestal of the lion, "butthis is Father. Of course, you do not know it, but among ourselves weboys always called him the 'Old Lion' and when he died I cabled theothers in France, 'The Old Lion is dead.'"

Other members of the Roosevelt family and friends of the Colonel came,and what they said encouraged us. I made one model after another,trying to blend the majesty of a real lion with the symbolism. Then oneday when Mr. Brite and I were in the studio a man came in whom we hadnever seen before. After some desultory conversation he asked how largethe lion was to be. We said we didn't know. "How[Pg 187] big ought it to be?"we asked. "It ought to be as big as possible and it ought to be placedin Washington," was his reply.

Brite pointed out that so large a lion would necessitate a pedestalthat would nearly cut him off from view from the ground. And thendeveloped the idea of placing the lion in a great bowl.

That was the beginning of a long period of work on a great plan for aRoosevelt Memorial.

All this was originated without thought of the Roosevelt MemorialSociety which had raised a million and a half dollars among otherthings to erect a monument to Roosevelt. The natural thing to do wasto submit this offering of ours to that society. We have done this,and it will be judged in competition with the designs of others. If itshould be chosen it will be because no other competitor, though theyall be better sculptors, can possibly have the same deep desire as I toperpetuate the spirit of Theodore Roosevelt and to do him all honour.

CHAPTER XIHUNTING GORILLAS IN CENTRAL AFRICA

In 1910 I was in British East Africa collecting specimens for the groupof elephants recently completed in the American Museum of NaturalHistory in New York. My plan at that time was to leave the region ofsnow-capped Mt. Kenia when I had finished making my elephant studies,and to go into German East Africa, as it was then, in an endeavour toget specimens for a group of gorillas to be mounted for the Museum. Ihad obtained the proper papers from the German authorities, and I hadfunds for the purpose. Nevertheless, I had to abandon the plan at thattime because an elephant caught me unawares and mauled me sufficientlyto prevent my carrying out my project.

But the gorilla group remained as an interesting prospect ahead, andI read eagerly any reports which came to my knowledge of hunters orscientists who had seen or killed any of these animals. Most gorillasreported since their original discovery had been reported from nearerthe west coast of Africa than the region which I had intended toexplore for them, but I had heard of one instance of a gorilla inGerman East Africa. The story was of a German who had tried to catch agrown gorilla in a net. He[Pg 189] had succeeded in getting the net over theanimal and then the animal had succeeded in tearing his way out of thenet and killing the man. Whether this story was true or not I do notknow. Before I left Africa, in 1911, I heard that a man named Grauerhad gone into the country where I had intended going and that he hadcome out through Nairobi with eight gorilla skins. Altogether therecame to me considerable corroboration of my belief that there weregorillas in the Lake Kivu country of Central Africa, and my intentionto go there and collect the material for a group remained constantalthough, through the period of the war, inactive.

It came to life in 1920. One night I was expounding the beauties ofAfrica to my friend Mr. H. E. Bradley when he turned to Mrs. Bradleyand said, "Let's take him at his word and spend a year in Africa." Mrs.Bradley asked what they should do with their five-year-old daughter.Nothing pleased me more than to assure them that an expedition toCentral Africa was entirely safe and practicable for women andchildren, and so an expedition was agreed upon. Years before, when shewas a child, I had promised the niece of a friend of mine, Miss MarthaMiller, to take her to Africa. I had never been allowed to forget thepromise. Now the time for fulfillment had come. So the party was formedof these two ladies, Bradley, the five-year-old child, Miss PriscillaHall, and me. Miss Hall had agreed to look after the youngster whilethe others hunted. Not long afterward it was definitely decided thatthe[Pg 190]expedition was to be a gorilla expedition. I received a letterfrom an Englishman, Mr. C. D. Foster, who had shot a male and femalegorilla and caught a baby in the country I had in mind. That led usto base our plans on gorillas alone, and it was a gorilla expedition,although Miss Miller killed an elephant the first time she shot atanything in Africa and both she and Mrs. Bradley killed lions.

To me the gorilla made a much more interesting quarry than lions,elephants, or any of the other African game, for the gorilla is stillcomparatively little known. Not many people have shot gorillas andalmost none have studied them in their native habitat. The gorilla isone of the most remarkable and least known large animals in the world,and when is added to that the fact that he is the nearest to man of anyother member of the animal kingdom, a gorilla expedition acquires atremendous fascination.

An Englishman named Battell—a captive of the Portuguese of Angola—in1590 described an animal which in all probability was the gorilla.Vague stories from other sources appeared in travellers' accounts, butno real description of the gorilla came to Europe or America untilDecember, 1847, when Dr. Thomas S. Savage, a missionary, published apaper in the BostonJournal of Natural History. Doctor Savage wasdetained in April of that year at a mission on the Gaboon River in WestAfrica and there made his discovery. He did not see a live gorillahimself, but from skulls and information brought him by[Pg 191] natives, madea rather remarkable description of the animals, part of which is asfollows:

Eight years afterward the first white man killed a gorilla. In 1855Paul Du Chaillu, a French-American, went to West Africa after gorillas.To our party, with the intention of not only shooting gorillas but ofstudying them and taking moving pictures of them, the narrative of thisintrepid little hunter had particular fascination.

On the day that Du Chaillu saw the first gorilla ever seen by a whiteman his black and savage attendants had assuaged a hunger that besetthe party by eating a snake. This was more than Du Chaillu could do.His account [1] reads:

Both Savage and Du Chaillu and all succeeding authorities, includingthe standard works on natural[Pg 196] history, speak of the gorillas as amongthe most powerful and ferocious animals on earth. And this reputationis so firmly established in the popular mind that our plan of takingladies with no previous hunting experience of any kind into a gorillacountry in Central Africa was looked upon as madness. But to thegeneral theory of the ferocity of wild animals I have never been aconvert. And the more I have seen of wild animals in Africa the lessI have believed in their ferocity. Consequently, I explained my creedconcerning the gorillas in this fashion:

The rest of the party had the courage of my convictions and with thesetenets we set out, men, women, and child to hunt the "ferocious"gorilla in the heart of Africa.

While getting provisions and equipment in London I had the good fortuneto be able to check up with accuracy the location of the gorillacountry. I had lunch with Sir Northrop Macmillan from Nairobi, KeniaColony, Sir Charles Ross, and Mr. Grogan, who[Pg 198] twenty-four years beforehad walked alone from the Cape to Cairo—the first man who ever madethat trip. Sir Charles Ross had directions from Mr. T. Alexander Barnesfor getting to the Kivu region where Barnes had the year before killeda gorilla. Mr. Grogan supplemented these directions, for in this veryregion on his famous walk he had found a gorilla skull. He knew theregion well, for he had been stationed in it during the war. With thisvery valuable corroboration we set sail for Cape Town.

To the Kivu gorilla country from Cape Town is a varied and interestingjourney. It took us about six weeks of constant travelling. Thejourney from Cape Town to Bukama, where we left the railroad, occupiedseventeen days including stops which are quite a feature of SouthAfrican travel. At one place we waited six days for a train. It isworth notice that on this entire railroad journey we did not see asingle head of game—so rapidly has African wild life disappeared inthe south. From Bukama we travelled on a steel barge towed by a riverboat for a five-day run down the Lualaba which is really the upperwaters of the Congo. The boat ran along during the day and tied up atnight so that we missed nothing of the beauty and interest of that partof the river's course. The bird life was in great profusion. Greattrees hung over the river and were reflected from its placid surfacewith almost perfect outline and detail. There were a few crocodiles insight. We saw one hippopotamus and once on this trip we saw elephantssome distance from the bank.

A map showing Mr. Akeley's route to the gorilla countrynorth of Lake Kivu and
its location in Africa

At the end of this lazy steamer trip we came to Kabalo from whichoccasionally a train sets out upon the journey to Albertville on LakeTanganyika. A boat on the lake took us from Albertville to Usumburafrom which a seven days'safari brought us to the lower end ofLake Kivu. To get from the bottom of Lake Kivu to the upper end, wehad to make arrangements for a special trip of the little governmentboat. This we did with the Belgian Administrator at Usumbura. Here,as elsewhere, my experience with the administrative officers in theseoutposts of the Belgian Congo was one of courtesy and effectiveness.Halfway up the lake we stopped at the White Friars' Mission on thewest bank and heard the story of a gorilla recently killed in thevicinity. This gorilla had come down into a banana grove not far fromthe Mission. The chief of the village which owned the grove told hisfollowers to go out and chase the beast away, but not to go armed, forthe beast, in the superstition of the neighbourhood, had some sacredattributes. The chief's subjects accordingly went forth with sticks todrive out the gorilla, but he refused to be driven and resented thedisturbance enough to catch one of his tormentors and kill him. Afterthis the chief thought the gorilla less sacred and ordered his subjectsto take their spears with them and kill the animal.

I was not entirely clear about the veracity of this tale nor whetherit confirmed my theory about the gorilla or the more usual "ferocious"theory. If the natives were willing to go out to chase the gorilla[Pg 201]away armed only with sticks, its reputation for ferocity could not begreat. On the other hand, the confidence in the animal's harmlessnessseemed to have been misplaced. But one fact did stand out. We weregetting into the real gorilla country. That quickened the blood. Thenext day we went to the head of the lake.

A Belgian administrator and his wife who were on the boat with us leftus at Kissenyi at the northern end of Lake Kivu. They had a threeweeks'trek before them, over the mountains to their own home and thedistrict over which the administrator had supervision. They had toldus many stories of gorillas in their section of the country, of thegorillas becoming so aggressive that they had entered several villagesand driven out the natives, and they had urged us to go with them, butwe stuck to our original plan.

Here at Kissenyi was another Belgian station and here we met Mrs. T.Alexander Barnes, the wife of a man whose directions we had receivedfrom Sir Charles Ross. Barnes himself was in the interior huntinggorillas for the British Museum. We sent a note to him because we didnot want to interfere with his hunting, and in the meanwhile set towork to get our porters and guides ready. We decided it would be bestfor the women to stay at Kissenyi for the time being and for me to pushon for the gorilla country. There were two reasons for this decision.Mrs. Bradley had a little touch of fever and it was not advisablefor her to leave, and secondly, while I[Pg 202] did not believe much in thedanger to us from the gorillas, I was greatly afraid that with a largehunting party there might be equally little danger to them. So it wasdetermined that I should try to insure the Museum some specimens and ifpossible get the first moving pictures of live wild gorillas ever taken.

It was a three days' march from Kissenyi to the White Friars' Missionat Lulenga in the interior. This Mission I found was the base fromwhich Barnes operated and also, I learned, it was the base the Princeof Sweden had used. It lay near the foot of Mt. Mikeno in a country ofvolcanic origin. The White Friars themselves carry on here the teachingof the Catholic religion to which they add the practice of medicineand teaching of manual training. Some of the friars have been there aslong as seventeen years. At the Mission I was supplied with a guide. Iwent a little way into the woods and was shown signs that gorillas hadfed there within a day or two. I was nervous and anxious. The long tripwas done. I was actually in the gorilla country. I was an alternatingcurrent of eagerness to go and fear that I should find nothing.

The latter mood prevailed the next morning, for although I was ready tostart for the bamboos by daylight my guides, who were supposed to be incamp, were nowhere to be found. I had to send for them, but we did notget started before eight.

We trailed up through the forest into the bamboos, seeing signsof elephant and buffalo—some of the signs being made the nightbefore—and I had to[Pg 203] pinch myself occasionally to bring about therealization that I was not hunting elephants on a miniature Kenia.There was the same vegetation, except that the trees were smaller.There were elephant trails, but only a few and with small tracks. Therewere no great forest trees like those of Kenia, no bamboos seventy-fivefeet high with five-inch stems. There was just little stuff, but stillit was all reminiscent of Kenia. One thing, the slopes were just assteep and just as slippery, and the mud in the level places just asdeep and sticky as Kenia's.

Through this forest there are native trails or game trails almosteverywhere. We had followed these trails for about two hours up theside of Mikeno when we came to a spot where there was a little mudhole in the path. I'll never forget it. In that mud hole were themarks of four great knuckles where the gorilla had placed his hand onthe ground. There is no other track like this on earth—there is noother hand in the world so large. Nearest to it is the hand of thechimpanzee, and he does not place his hand on the ground in the sameway. As I looked at that track I lost the faith on which I had broughtmy party to Africa. Instinctively I took my gun from the gun boy. Iknew then the feeling Du Chaillu described in his quaint phrase, "Myfeelings were really excited to a painful degree."

I had more thrill from the sight of this first track than from anythingthat happened later. I forgot all about Kenia as the guide took up thetrail. Half an hour later we came upon other tracks, tracks made[Pg 204] bythe feet of the beast, enormous human-looking tracks showing the marksof a heel which no other living thing in the world but the gorilla andman has. I gave the boy back the Springfield and took the big .475elephant gun. And although the next bit of going was hard and wearing,I carried the gun myself and trusted it to no gun boy.

We followed the trail for two hours, and I think a full half hour wasspent on all fours in true storybook fashion.

It led us through a clearing where bamboo cutters had been at work,and we failed to pick it up again even though I offered the guidesa king's ransom (in their eyes) if they would show me the old boybefore dark. They were lackadaisical about the whole affair. I hadto give it up, and as I started for camp I realized that I was verytired. Then we spent an hour going straight up the steepest possibleslope and down again following sounds that turned out to be made bya troop of monkeys. When we reached camp at three o'clock in theinevitable downpour of this season, I was "all in." The rain stopped,and I called a conference of the guides with the result that I came tothe conclusion that they were entirely useless. They did not want togo on at all. I broke camp immediately and started a two-and-a-halfhour march to the Mission not knowing just what my next move wouldbe—probably to hunt up some "bushmen" as guides. I reached the Missionbefore sundown, in the usual rain, and went to bed.

The next morning I came around to the southwest[Pg 205] of Mikeno, about threehours from the Mission, to the village of the Sultan of Burunga whocame out to meet me. I explained my mission, and he immediately broughtforward from the group of natives who accompanied him two splendidfellows who he said would guide me. There was a gleam of real hope inthe situation. We would camp at Burunga for the night and start upthe mountain in the morning. As I turned to go toward the indicatedcamping place, a husky, handsome native came up in breathless haste,and presented a note of recommendation as gun-bearer signed by T. A.Barnes. He was promptly engaged and everything seemed bright again.

I was ready to start soon after daylight. I had felt so keen for thecoming of the light and had hoped for so much from the new gun-bearerand guides. They had a cozy nest some distance from camp; they hadseemed so enthusiastic the day before and had promised an early start.I waited and waited till my patience was exhausted. I feared anotherfarce so finally sent for them. They came smiling, confident, and keento be off. They insisted that no porters could go—it would not bepossible to carry cameras or any of the scientific kit where they weregoing. It was up to them. I had put myself in their hands. I wanted toat leastsee a gorilla. I still doubted that there could be such athing in this part of the world—even though Ihad seen its tracks.

We started down into that deep chasm to the west which the campoverhung, then up to the other side—up[Pg 206]and up—crawling andscrambling, the guides cutting a way through the dense growth ofgreenery, beating down and cursing the nettles which were everywhere.On and on up to the crest of the ridge and then up along the "hogback"until we were five hundred feet above camp—then at a level alongthe western slope. I earnestly hoped they would go no higher; it wasgrilling work. We were overlooking another chasm with a still higherridge on the far side. We stopped occasionally to scan the oppositeside. It was deathly still—there was rarely the slightest breeze.Someone heard a sound across thenullah—very slight—but the guideswere suspicious. We went on, stopping now and then to look and listen.The youngest guide, a boy of fourteen, perhaps, pointed to a spotwhere he had seen a movement of the vegetation. We watched closelyfor five minutes, then a great black head slowly appeared above thegreen—rather indistinct, but there could be no doubt as to what it was.

It was my first glimpse of a wild gorilla. It has left an everlastingimpression, for it was so totally different from anything I hadexpected. In a solid wall of vivid green a great scraggly black headrose slowly into view where it remained motionless for perhaps a halfminute, giving me time to view it with field glasses so that I was ableto make out the features. I was actually seeing a live wild gorilla.At the end of a long journey I was face to face with the creature Isought. I took the gun with slight intention of chancing a shot atthat distance unless[Pg 207] there should be opportunity for very careful anddeliberate aim. The shaggy head was withdrawn—then a glimpse of thegreat silvery back and we saw no more. We went into the beastly chasmand up again to where he had been.

The guides were too eager; I had constantly to hold them back while Istopped to breathe. We took up his trail. He led us on to the crestofthat ridge and then along the "hogback" till we were about onethousand feet above camp. Then as the trail swung along the other slopeat the level we heard one short roar ahead of us. The thrill of it! Ihad actually heard the roar of a bull gorilla! It seemed perhaps twohundred yards ahead. I thought it indicated alarm and that he wouldlead us a merry chase. We continued along the trail slowly, for it ledalong a slope so steep that without the rank vegetation we could nothave stuck on.

We had gone not more than one hundred and fifty yards from the time weheard the roar, with the gun-bearer just ahead and the second gun andguides behind. The gun-bearer stopped, looking up into the dense tangleabove us. It was still as death—no sound of movement could I hear.The gun was in his left hand; with his right he clung to the bank justbeside him. Behind there was a four-inch tree between me and a straightdrop of twenty feet, then a slide of fifty feet to the edge of a chasmmore than 200 feet deep. I leaned my back against this tree that Imight straighten up for a better look. The gun-bearer turned slowly andpassed me the .475. As I[Pg 208] took it I heard that roar again—thirty feetaway, almost directly above. One plunge and down we would all go threehundred feet to the bottom. Without the support of the sapling at myback it would not be humanly possible to fire the big gun upward fromthat trail. There was a deal of comfort in the feel of that old guneven though theoretically I did not fear gorillas; it had stood by mein more than one close place. After the roar there was silence for aninstant—not a branch stirred—then a crashing rush along at a level,above and past me—another roar—back again to where he had been. Ihad seen nothing but a swaying of the mass of vegetation right down toour feet. He stopped where he had been at first. Silence. Through thegreen against the sky I seemed to make out a denser mass—the outlineof his head. I aimed just below and his fourth roar was broken by theroar of the .475. A terrific crashing plunge of three or four hundredpounds of beast, he struck the trail eight feet from me. The gun was onhim. There was a soft nose in the left barrel ready for him, but it wasunnecessary. The slight ledge of trail did not stop him in the least.He crashed on down over and over, almost straight downward toward theedge of the chasm.

My heart sank for I realized that if he went to the bottom I wouldstand little chance of being able to recover him and my first gorillawould have been killed in vain. Overhanging the edge of the chasm therewas a lone tree, two feet in diameter, and the gorilla in his plungestruck this tree, rolled[Pg 209] up on its leaning trunk, and back again toits base, where he came to rest with his head hanging over on one sideof the tree and his feet on the other. Had there been a single movementin him he must have gone on. The solid from the right barrel had doneits work well—in just above the heart through the æorta, through thespine, and out through the right shoulder blade. As he came crashingdown I somehow felt confident that all was well. I have never had amore thrilling experience, but I've been much more frightened manytimes. The gun-bearer was a trump. He was the worst scared black manI ever saw. If I looked as frightened as he, I am thankful no moviecamera was on the job. You see, he was between me and the beast when hestruck the trail eight feet away.

I had left the cameras and tools in camp to be sent for if they wereneeded. As the beast lay, a camera could not be used. I could donothing in sketches worth while, so I sent for nothing. I set to workwith my jack-knife and one of the boys had a native iron knife and withthese two tools we skinned and skeletonized the gorilla. As we turnedhim over it kept all hands busy to avoid losing the balance of thebeast and ourselves. It took more than a half hour to get the skin andskeleton back to where I had shot from—a human rope stunt. The boysall worked beautifully. Then we had the long, hardtrek back to camp.

All hands in camp (forty odd) got a present—enough so that theywere all happy, although that[Pg 210] did not take much. I was busy all thefollowing day with skin and skeleton, making such studies as werepossible. Everything was set for a real hunt on the next day, but Icould not hope for a more thrilling and dramatic episode than thetaking of my first gorilla.

CHAPTER XIIADVENTURES ON MT. MIKENO

The day after I shot my first gorilla on the slopes of Mikeno I spentin camp. I should have preferred to spend it resting, for the daybefore had been a strenuous one, especially for a man suffering fromblood poisoning, as I was. I had had it for some time and had lostabout twenty pounds during the preceding three weeks. This left me ina weakened condition and a rest would have been welcome. Had I beenhunting merely to kill I should have laid off a day. But science isa jealous mistress and takes little account of a man's feelings. Ihad skinned the old gorilla roughly in the field the day before. If Iwanted properly to preserve the specimen, there was no time to be lost.I set the Negroes at work cleaning the skeleton, keeping an eye on themas I worked at other things to see that they did not lose any of thebones. I had personally to take care of the feet, hands, and head. Thislatter I set up and photographed. Then I made a death mask of the face.The brains and internal organs I had to preserve in formalin. The wholebusiness was a full hard day's work. One of the chief difficulties withscientific collecting is the necessity for doing all the skinning,cleaning, measuring, and preserving at once.[Pg 212] For one man one gorillaproperly attended to is a full day's work. If a man gets two or threespecimens, he has to keep working night and day until he gets them done.

This is one of the reasons why, although great numbers of animalsare shot in Africa, there is so comparatively little scientific andtaxidermical data about them. This day I was up about daybreak. I hadan English breakfast, most of which had come from London with me—tea,toast, marmalade, and bacon. From then until dark I measured andskinned and preserved, and when night came I rolled into my blanketsand slept the sleep of exhaustion.

When daybreak came I was ready to start again. Had I felt certain offinding gorillas in that country as easily as I now know they can befound I might have waited a day. But I had come 15,000 miles to seegorillas and I couldn't wait for the fulfillment of my hopes, nor didthe ease of finding my first prize assure me that I was certain ofgetting the others I wanted.

We set out in the same direction as on the previous hunt. In the woodson these mountain sides the ground growth is extremely thick, andas high up as we went there were no elephant or other paths. It wasnecessary to go through the woods. The natives' method of travellingis to cut a trail as they proceed. They used a hooked knife of greateffectiveness with which to cut the undergrowth. The stuff is thickenough to impede one's progress, but far worse than that it is filledwith nettles, so that unless it is cut[Pg 213] out in this way one isconstantly and unmercifully stung. That is bad enough for a white manwho is clothed, but is even worse for the blacks who wear nothing toprotect them. Nevertheless, cutting as they go, the natives make prettygood time, perhaps two miles an hour up hill and down. Anyway, I foundthat I had all I could do to keep up with them; weak as I was, I hadfrequently to slow them down.

In this way we had passed over several ridges when we came on the trailof a band of gorillas. The trail they make is plain enough, for theundergrowth is so thick that each of the animals leaves a kind of swathof bent and broken greenery. Their trail led us along the side of asteep slope, so steep that every move had to be made with caution. Ifthe gorilla was in the habit of travelling either far or fast, catchingup with him in this country would be a heart-breaking if not animpossible task. But I believe the gorilla normally travels only fromthree to five miles a day. He loafs along through the forest, eatingas he goes. As the trail we found was fresh it was likely that thegorillas were not far away. And so it turned out. We had followed forperhaps an hour when a dislodged rock thundering down into the chasmabout two hundred yards ahead of us gave a clue to their whereabouts,and so we sat tight and soon located them by moving bushes, across abit of a bay formed by a curve of the ridge. There I saw a big femaleand very foolishly tried a shot with the Springfield. I suppose injustification of my lack of faith in the thing it missed fire twice andby the[Pg 214] time I got the big gun in hand the female had disappeared and abig silver-backed male was in sight.

He was about 150 yards away. He was just disappearing when I got thebig gun to my shoulder and I had to shoot quickly. I fired and missed.They disappeared, and I fully appreciated what an ass I had been. Wescrambled on for an hour more—the hillside becoming higher and moreprecipitous every minute. At last a slight movement of the bush abovemade us aware of their presence.

The fact that we came up with them again after my shooting was prettygood evidence that even when disturbed the gorilla does not traveleither far or fast. The experience I had had with my first gorilla twodays before corroborated this. He had, in fact, run only about 300yards after first seeing us before stopping. As a matter of fact, I donot believe that the gorilla can run fast. Unlike animals that catchothers for food, the gorilla, who eats vegetation, does not have to runfor his dinner. Neither does he have to run to escape serving as dinnerfor some other animals. His legs, compared to his weight, are smalland, in relation to man's, very short. On fair footing I think theaverage man could outrun a gorilla.

Where we came in sight of this band there was no friendly tree tolean against as there had been in the case of the first gorilla. Thehillside was so steep that it was difficult to find footing from whichto shoot. For a slight sense of security I entangled myself in a bushand stood ready to shoot.

There was not the straight drop of the other day but a steep slopewhich could be done on all fours—for twenty feet—and then straightdown two hundred feet. I got a fair sight of an old black female and itlooked as though the bushes she was in would hold her if I killed herinstantly. She was fifty feet away. I fired and she came exactly as theother one had—the slope was so steep it was practically a fall—andstraight at me. I tried to dodge but could not as the recoil of the gunhad caused me to lose my balance a bit and I could not recover in time.I threw myself flat, face down, just in time and she passed over me.It was so steep and the mass of green stuff going with her so softenedthings that I merely felt her—there was no perceptible shock, but whenI got up I had a great welt on the top of my head which she had caused.As I partially rose there seemed to be an avalanche of gorillas. Therewas a big ball of black fur, squealing madly, rolling past—actuallytouching me—in the wake of the old one. I took a shot at it as it wentover, and, by the time I had recovered and reloaded, two others thathad been close by had disappeared.

I believe that to be the fastest charge ever made by a gorilla againstman. I think it was pushed home with more abandon than any other onrecord. I am almost certain of these two statements, the particularreason for my certainty being that the gorilla, when she charged ormore correctly speaking fell down the hill, was dead and she couldn'thave any of the hesitations which I believe prevent such chargesby[Pg 216] live gorillas. The others followed her not in anger but in fearand because they accepted her lead without realizing that it wasinvoluntary. If their charge had been aimed at me they had plenty oftime to knock me off the mountain side before I could get up and shootagain, and the Negroes, being armed only with spears and hanging on aprecipitous slope, were almost as defenceless.

I began to feel a good deal of confidence in my theory that the gorillais not a ferocious beast, although I was gaining the utmost respectfor his size and power. If being molested by man would make gorillasferocious and aggressive, these animals should have been excessivelydangerous, for within a very short time the Prince of Sweden had shotfourteen of them, and Barnes had killed several more. The very animalsthat I followed had probably heard the guns of these other men. Yet Icould see no signs of ferocity. When I came up with the old male thatI had killed first, he had run back and forth on the hillside barkingin protest or surprise at my intrusion just as I have seen littlemonkeys run back and forth on a limb and bark; but of his having savageintentions against me I saw no sign. Of the two I was the savage andthe aggressor. In the case of the female I had just shot, the samewas true, even though she was accompanied by her baby. She evidentlypreferred to get away if possible. Cornered, I think and hope she wouldfight for her young.

What became of the last two animals I do not know. The black fur ballthat I had fired at was,[Pg 217] I believe, the four-year-old son of the oldfemale. He apparently caught on somewhere, for a half hour later whenwe were trying to find a way down we came across him and, as he ranabout, one of the guides speared him. I came up before he was dead.There was a heartbreaking expression of piteous pleading on his face.He would have come to my arms for comfort.

About this time the chasm filled with a fog so dense that we could notmove with safety. Another half hour and the fog was cleared by a heavycold rain and hail and we continued to search for a way down to thedead gorilla. The Negroes had worked earnestly, but they gave up andsaid it could not be done. Poor devils, they were stark naked in thaticy rain; God knows how they lived through it. When they gave up theygave up for good apparently, stood shaking with cold, making no effortto find shelter from the rain. I took off my Burberry raincoat and gotseven of them under it with me.

In such proximity to seven naked natives almost all of my senses wereconsiderably oppressed and I was grateful when the rain lessenedso that I might put them at a more respectful as well as a morecomfortable distance. The others had huddled under an old tree root.All came out and we looked over the situation. We were on the sideof a ridge of Mikeno. Where we were there was vegetation and a fairfoothold. Below and above us were stretches of sheer rock. Not far fromus a little stream fell off the shelf where we were, in a clear fallof 200 feet.[Pg 218] The gorilla was somewhere near the bottom of that fall.The natives insisted that it was impossible to get to the dead animal.To go straight down was impossible. But I felt that there might be achance to work along sideways in a patch of vegetation until we couldget down to a lower level. By working back and forth on the face of themountain side in this way I hoped to reach the dead gorilla. However,I soon realized that if I wanted to try this somewhat hazardousexperiment I should have to lead the way, for the blacks had nothinggreater than a few days' wages at stake while I had one of the prizesof a long and expensive expedition. So I swung down on the overhangingroots of a tree and began the descent with the natives following. Ittook a surprisingly long time for us to get down the 200 feet, and itfinally turned out that the route that I took led off to one side whereI could not reach the gorilla when I had descended to her level. Twentyor thirty feet farther down I managed to cross to the stream-bed andthen went up the stream to the bottom of the falls and from there towhere the body lay. Where the stream-bed was steepest, we literally hadthe water falling on our heads as we scrambled up.

It was a tough job skinning and skeletonizing her. In the first place,I was tired and she was heavy, and in the second place if she wasturned over with anything but the utmost care she was likely to rolloff down into the chasm below. Nor could I get much assistance fromthe boys, for there was only room enough for a man or two to help.However, in some[Pg 219] manner we managed a satisfactory job in everythingbut one particular. The camera boy had come down but the tripod carriernever appeared. If it had been an ordinary camera the loss of thetripod would have made little difference, but it was the moving-picturecamera, and a moving-picture camera without a tripod is useless.

It was well past mid-afternoon when the skin and bones were ready tomove to camp.

As I worked I had kept wondering how we were ever to get up out of thechasm, especially with the added burdens we had acquired. I am stillwondering how we did get out. The "human fly" was no more remarkablethan those black boys. My heart was in my mouth for an hour watchingthem work their way up the almost perpendicular wall of that chasm withthe skin and skeleton. We got to camp just before dark in a pouringrain, and I am free to confess that during the last hour I severaltimes doubted if I should get in. It was beyond doubt the toughest dayI ever spent. Never again—not for all the gorillas and museums in theworld. I spent the next day in camp working on the two specimens—thefemale and the baby that had been speared—and finally had threebeautiful gorilla skins all safe under the fly of my tent. They were sowell assorted that they would make a very satisfactory group if I gotno more. I had death masks of each and skeletons of the two old ones;but the four-year-old, a vigorous young male, I skinned with infinitecare and preserved the entire carcass with formalin and salt—a[Pg 220]precious anatomical record for sculptural and taxidermic use.

The gun boys and guides came the following morning and said they weregoing home. It took an hour, money, and many promises to make themchange their minds. Heaven knows I did not blame them. I would not dowhat they had done for money.

However, I did not start again. Although I had worked one whole day onthe last two gorillas I had some things still to do and I felt thatwith enough material on hand for a good group even if I got no more Icould go a bit easier. So I stayed in camp another day and planned agorilla hunt for the moving-picture camera. On the side hills where wehad been hunting there was no possible hope of using a camera so I toldthe boys if they took me in any such places again I would annihilatethem. Not only would it be useless for the camera but I felt that Icouldn't stand another such trip myself. So they promised me an easierroute, and equipped with photographic outfit we started off in thedirection of the Saddle between Mikeno and Karisimbi. It seemed a verystiff climb to me in the beginning, but I have learned since that itwas chiefly because of my extreme weakness. Before I had been out anhour I was sorely tempted to return to camp and give it up; but we cameupon a fresh trail of a band of gorillas which for some reason or otherthe guides followed only a short distance, continuing on in the samegeneral direction in which we had started, without any[Pg 221]encouragement,until it seemed that we had gone to the crest of the Saddle. There,as the result of a conference between the guides, we started in asoutherly direction intending to work in a roundabout way back to camp.Camp was the only thing that I was interested in, for at this time Iwas practically "done."

Ten minutes later the guides ducked, and crouching, came back and fellin behind me. I took the gun from the bearer, and looking over the topsof the greenery of a little rise in front of us I saw a spot of blackfur perhaps fifty yards ahead. As I crouched, waiting for a betterview, the animal I was watching climbed up on a nearly horizontalbranch of a tree looking back in my direction. In the meantime,the motion-picture camera had been brought to my side. I raised itcarefully, put it in position, and all this time another larger gorillawas making the ascent of the horizontal branch of the tree. It wasapparently an old mother and her two-year-old baby. Almost before Iknew it I was turning the crank of the camera on two gorillas in fullview with a beautiful setting behind them. I do not think at the timethat I appreciated the fact that I was doing a thing that had neverbeen done before. As I ground away, a second baby came scrambling up anear-by tree. The baby seemed very much interested in the operation.The mother professed indifference and a certain amount of boredom andafter a bit pretended to lie down on one arm and go to sleep. Thebabies, one of them at least, seemed to be amused. He would[Pg 222] standup, fold his arms and slap them against his breast, which suggesteduproarious laughter on his part.

When I had turned off about one hundred feet with my heart in my mouthfor fear the thing would come to an end too soon, I realized that I hadas much of that particular subject as I wanted, there being no greatamount of movement. So I changed the two-inch lens for the six-inchlens in order to make a "closeup." When I had taken about three hundredfeet I felt that I would like a change of scene; so with my hand on thecamera I stood up straight and tried to start a conversation with them.They all bolted.

It was amazing what an effect that minute or two of experience hadon me physically. I forgot my weariness and took up the trail. Forthe next hour we followed them, getting glimpses of them frequently.There were probably ten or twelve in the band; but never again did Iget the opportunity to photograph them—just little glimpses of blackfur dodging about through the greenery. At one time with my glasses Iwatched them across a ravine for a considerable time. The old femalewas lying down on her back yawning and stretching, but she was toofar away for a photograph. So finally, feeling that I had about all Icould expect from that band, I picked out one that I thought to be animmature male. I shot and killed it and found, much to my regret, thatit was a female. As it turned out, however, she was such a splendidlarge specimen that the feeling of regret was[Pg 223] considerably lessened.This female had a baby which was hustled off by the rest of the band.The baby was crying piteously as it went.

This, added to the specimens on hand, brought the material for thegroup to one old male, two females, and a young male of about fouryears of age.

That night as I came into camp my mind went back to a certain dayeleven years before when I was hunting lions on the Uasin GishuPlateau with a moving-picture camera. A most wonderful opportunityhad then been given me. Full in front of me the native hunters haddrawn a lion's charge and killed the lion with their spears. But theopportunity had been as short-lived as it was magnificent, and thekind of camera I had then could not be handled that quickly. As Iwalked back to camp that night, I was determined to make a naturalist'smoving-picture camera that would prevent my missing such a chance ifever such a one came my way again. From 1910 to 1916 I worked on thiscamera whenever I had a minute to spare. By 1917 I had the pleasureof knowing that it was used on observation planes destined for thebattlefields of France. I had myself never had a chance to try myinvention, except experimentally, until this trip to Africa. On thisexpedition I had brought two—a large one for panorama work and asmaller one nicknamed "the Gorilla" for animal work. "The Gorilla" hadtaken 300 feet of film of the animal that had heretofore never beentaken alive in its native wilds by any camera, still or moving. Fewthings have given me greater[Pg 224]satisfaction than the realization thatthe failure of 1910 had led directly to the success of 1921.

To make assurance doubly sure, as night came on I had a fire madein the door of my tent and comforted by its warmth I took a littlepiece of the end of the film and developed it. It was all right. Itook another sample from the middle. It, too, came out strong. I wassatisfied—more satisfied than a man ever should be—but I revelled inthe feeling.

CHAPTER XIIITHE LONE MALE OF KARISIMBI

By November 14th, I felt about as happy and about as unhappy as Iever have in my life. I felt exceedingly well about the success of mygorilla hunts. I had four fine specimens for the group which I intendedto mount for the American Museum of Natural History in New York, andI had several hundred feet of moving-picture film of live gorillas intheir native forests—the first photographs of live wild gorillas evertaken. I also had the fever and that was what I was unhappy about.It was not only uncomfortable but it also threatened to interfereseriously with my plans and to put me in an embarrassing position withthe rest of the party. Mr. and Mrs. Bradley and Miss Miller were campedat Kissenyi two days' march away. It had been agreed that I shouldinvestigate the gorillas alone first, but it was not contemplated thatI get sick during the investigation and not be ready to provide huntingfor them. They had come all the way to Central Africa to hunt gorillasand the obligation rested on me to see that they had that experience.I was afraid that if I did not get them up into the gorilla mountainsquickly, I might not be in shape to fulfil this obligation andpleasure. So I sent a rather[Pg 226] urgent message that they come up to mycamp. Solicitation for my health and keenness for the hunt led Bradleyand the two ladies to make the two days' march in one.

This taking ladies to hunt gorillas had caused a certain amount ofadverse comment of two kinds. The uninitiated in African huntingcensored me for leading the ladies into such terrible dangers. Theinitiated, or rather some of them, were a little irritated with mebecause if I showed that ladies with no previous hunting experiencecould hunt gorillas, elephants, and lions, much of the heroics whichhave attached to African big-game hunting would begin to wane. As anaturalist interested in preserving African wild life, I was glad to doanything that might make killing animals less attractive.

I had never been in gorilla country before this trip, but I had startedin with the firm conviction that hunting gorillas was not dangerous,or, of course, I should not have taken the two ladies to hunt them. Myexperiences proved my theory even more thoroughly than I had expected.Consequently, when the ladies arrived I was prepared to take them aftergorillas without the slightest misgivings. After a day of rest at thecamp from which I had hunted, we moved our base a thousand feet higherup (to about 10,000 feet above sea level) to the Saddle between thetwo mountains, Mikeno and Karisimbi. We had two good-sized tents, onefor Mrs. Bradley and Miss Miller and the other for Bradley and me.We had a fly also for a dining tent. These[Pg 227]arrangements were quitecomfortable except for the cold. It was about 45 degrees Fahrenheitat night at the Saddle Camp. There was an old five-gallon metal caskwith holes in it which when filled with coals made a fair stove for thewomen's tent, but the men's tent and the mess tent gave one very littlefeeling of the tropics, in spite of the fact that we were very near theequator. But if we were cold our plight was not to be compared to thecondition of the porters, gun-bearers, and guides. They had little orno clothing[Pg 228] and they spent the night in hovels which they constructedin various places around camp, the chief characteristic of which was alimited space which insured crowding and a roof which would keep offthe rain.

A map showing the location of the three mountains,Mikeno,
Karisimbi, and Visoke, on whose slopes the gorillas live. These
three peaks are to be reserved as a sanctuary where further
studies ofthe gorilla may be made

The first day after we reached the Saddle Camp we went on a fruitlesshunt up and down the slopes of Karisimbi. With the guides cutting apath as they go, a party does not cover a great deal of distance in aday. Nor is there any need for fast going, for the gorilla does notrange far, nor even when pursued does he go fast. On the other hand,even after the guides have cut a "path" the going is sufficientlydifficult underfoot and so precipitous in these mountains that a marchof five or six miles is a fair day's work, especially for a sick man.We saw no fresh signs of gorilla on this first ladies' hunt. We did runon to a buffalo trail, but we did not come up to the animals, probablybecause of the fact that I was not very keen about it as it was verydense country and not at all the sort of place in which to hunt buffalowith ladies.

The next day we went up the slopes of Karisimbi farther to the west. Wehad not been out of camp more than an hour and a half when I stoppedto make a panoramic motion picture of the wonderfully beautiful viewof the surrounding country. Just as I was about to begin cranking, asignal from the guides who had gone on ahead resulted in our goingquickly to them where they pointed out moving bushes a little distancedown the slope. We followed the guides rapidly for a short distance,down on our hands and[Pg 229] knees and under a mass of dense vegetation, andas we got to our feet on the other side we saw a huge old silver backmoving along in plain sight about twenty-five yards away.

If the gorilla were as aggressive an animal as he has been creditedwith being, this old fellow should have charged that twenty-five yardsin a few seconds and given us a chance to defend the ladies heroicallyfrom threatened death. However, he didn't know his part, for it wasevident that his one idea was to go away. His departure was interruptedby a shot from Bradley which hit him in the neck. He fell like a log.While we were congratulating Bradley and before we had started forthe prize, one of the guides suddenly called our attention to thefact that the gorilla was moving off. He disappeared from view. Wefollowed, scrambling along as rapidly as possible but not making veryfast progress. But our time was as good as the gorilla's, for we hadglimpses of him as he went down and up the other side of a gully tothe crest of a ridge beyond. As he reached the top of this ridge hecame into full view perhaps fifty yards from where we were. Bradleyfired again. This shot sent him rolling down the slope, stone dead.He lodged against the base of an old tree. He was a fine specimen, ahuge creature weighing three hundred and sixty pounds. I believe thathe was the big lone male of Karisimbi of which we had been told. Hehad unquestionably met white men before because at one time he hadbeen badly wounded in the pelvis, leaving a permanent deformation ofthe pelvic region and a crook in his[Pg 230] spine. Like all of the others hedisplayed no signs of aggressiveness. He was intent only on gettingaway. He had not made a single sound at any time.

As he lay at the base of the tree, it took all one's scientific ardourto keep from feeling like a murderer. He was a magnificent creaturewith the face of an amiable giant who would do no harm except perhapsin self-defence or in defense of his friends.

From twenty feet above him on the slope where we settled down withour kit to make pictures, notes, and studies, we had a view ofMikeno and the surrounding country which I then thought, and stillremember, as the most beautiful view I have ever seen; and I believemy companions, one and all, quite agree with me. The motion-picturecamera was directly behind us up the slope where we had deserted it.It was sent for and a panorama was made from over the body of the deadgorilla. Mikeno was at her best; she had thrown aside her veil ofcloud; her whole summit was sharply outlined against the blue of thetropical sky. The warm greens and browns of the moss-covered cliffssuggested a drapery of lovely oriental weave. From the summit welldown the wonderful line of the western slope the eye was arrested byold Nyamlagira smouldering lazily and sending her column of smoke andsteam to join the hovering cloudbank above—then on again the eyeswept over a scene of marvellous opalescent colour in which were dimlyseen distant mountain ranges; suggestions of shimmering lakes, andmysterious forests—then around to Chaninagongo, looming dark[Pg 231] andmassive in the middle ground, smouldering, too, but less demonstrativethan her sister, Nyamlagira. Lying almost at the foot of Chaninagongoand to the south, glistened in the tropical sun the loveliest ofAfrican inland waters—Lake Kivu. Behind us, upward toward the summitof Karisimbi and adown the slopes in front, there stretched a primevalforest of marvellous beauty—in character unlike anything else Iknow—a veritable fairyland—and at our feet lay dead one of its greatgiants.

I realized that the search for a background and a setting for thegorilla group was ended. We will reproduce this scene on canvas as abackground for the gorillas when they are mounted in the Museum. Theforeground will be a reproduction of the old dead tree with its wealthof vegetation in the midst of which the old gorilla died. Of course, itis regrettable that we had no painter with us at the time. To get onethere means another long journey from New York to Central Africa, yetit will be worth it if the thousands who visit the Museum get even afaint degree of the satisfaction from the setting of the group that wegot from this view in the gorilla country.

I felt then, and even more so now, that that morning represented thehigh spot in my African experiences. In the midst of a forest, a landof beauty, we overlooked a scene incomparable, a scene of a world inthe making, while our great primitive cousin, whose sanctuary we hadinvaded, lay dead at our feet. That was the sad note. To me the sourceof greatest joy was the fact that here, at the culmination of a[Pg 232] dreamof thirty years, I was not alone. There were three friends who keenlyappreciated all that it meant.

We had made good in our boasted undertaking of taking ladies on a realgorilla hunt, presumably the last word of danger and adventure in thepopular mind. Another popular illusion gone to smash! It was adventurefull of beauty and charm and hard work, but absolutely without danger.

The gorilla is not dangerous, but he is impressive. I have taken a tapeand measured around the chests of two good-sized men standing backto back. The two together measured three inches less than Bradley'sgorilla alone. His chest unexpanded was 62 inches. He weighed about asmuch as two men, 360 pounds.

Although not so tall as Dempsey, the gorilla weighs nearly twice asmuch, and his arms are longer and more powerful. But his legs, on theother hand, are much shorter. Unquestionably a well-developed man cantravel both faster and farther than a gorilla.

One can visualize something of his size by a comparison of hismeasurements with those of Jack Dempsey.

The next morning we decided to return to our base camp on Mikeno, athousand feet lower down. I think we all wished to stay at the SaddleCamp longer because of the marvellous beauty of the place, but ourguides and porters complained so bitterly, and I think so justly,against the cold that a decision was made on their account rather thanour own. The guides, however, were not content with their return to theMikeno Camp, but insisted on quitting their jobs entirely. While thiswas a disarrangement of our plans, my appreciation for all they haddone and sympathy with their just complaints caused me to pay them offand let them go. The following day they returned, a very dejected andpenitent lot, and their explanation for their return was interesting,to say the least. When they reached home their sultan had asked them ifmy work was finished and if they had stayed until I no longer requiredthem. They had admitted that I had given my consent unwillingly. He hadtold them that they must come back to me and stay until the work wasfinished and that they must bring to him a report from me of completesatisfaction.

Bradley and I remained two days longer, and these guides were on thejob every minute. It was a demonstration of honour and manliness on thepart of the sultan that I have rarely seen equalled in a savage.

Mrs. Bradley and Miss Miller went to the Mission Camp, but Bradley andI remained for two days of photographing and the cleaning up and thepacking of the gorilla material. The third and last day we made thedescent of the mountain, sending the[Pg 234]porters ahead with their loads toBurunga, but retaining our guides for another hunt in the bamboos.

We had descended well down toward the lower level of the bamboo whenthe guide led us along a cattle trail up a ridge of Mikeno. We came toa track of a single old male gorilla on this trail, which, after wehad followed it for a half hour, had been joined by others. Ultimatelywe were on a perfectly fresh trail of a whole band. The purpose ofthe hunt was to get more pictures and to add to our series one morespecimen, a young male if possible. At this time I had not seen morethan one male with a gorilla band and I felt that a group of two oldmales, two females, and a youngster of four years would be misleading;that if I used them I would have to use one of the old males as anintruder in the family group. I had to explain to my gun-bearer that wemust go slowly because I did not want to come up with the gorillas injungle so dense that I could not photograph them; and that we must tryto manage not to disturb them until they had come to more open countrywhere the chance for observation would be better. We were near theedge of a ravine the opposite slope of which was cleared of bamboo andbush. I suggested to him that if we could possibly see them in a placelike that, it would enable us to do the things that we wanted to do.Not that I actually hoped for any such luck; but as a matter of fact,fifteen minutes later we heard the bark of a gorilla. Peeping throughthe bush we saw the entire band on that opposite slope, all of themin full[Pg 235] view. There were at least three old males, I think four, andperhaps a dozen females and youngsters. They, of course, had seen us.They were making off toward the crest of the opposite slope as fast aspossible.

"Here is a perfectly peaceful family group including three or fourmales. I could use my two males without apologies. There is really nonecessity for killing another animal."

So the guns were put behind and the camera pushed forward and we hadthe extreme satisfaction of seeing that band of gorillas disappearover the crest of the opposite ridge none the worse for having metwith white men that morning. It was a wonderful finish to a wonderfulgorilla hunt. We went on to Burunga for the night and the next day wewere at the Mission by noon where we found Thanksgiving dinner waitingfor us. The chief mission of the expedition had been successfullyculminated, and all of us were together again just in time for a realThanksgiving.

CHAPTER XIVIS THE GORILLA ALMOST A MAN?

When Herbert Bradley and I started down from Mt. Mikeno to join theladies of our party at the Mission of the White Friars we had theskeletons, skins, and measurements of four adult gorillas and themummified carcass and skin of a baby. I had made death masks of themall and likewise some plaster casts of their feet and hands. I alsohad 300 or 400 feet of film showing wild gorillas in action, and somegeneral observations of the gorilla's habits in the mountains of theLake Kivu region on the eastern border of the Belgian Congo in CentralAfrica. I had the material for which I had come to Africa—materialsufficient to make a correct group of gorillas for the proposedRoosevelt African Hall of the Museum of Natural History in NewYork—but I also had a great deal more, a vision of how to study thisanimal which is man's nearest relative.

As soon as you have anything to do with the gorilla the fascination ofstudying him begins to grow on you and you instinctively begin to speakof the gorilla as "he" in a human sense, for he is obviously as well asscientifically akin to man.

I have taken some pains in describing my adventures with the gorillasof Mikeno to show that they[Pg 237] were not ferocious. I do not believe thatthey ever are ferocious, nor do I believe that they will ever attackman except when hard pressed and in self-defence. I think I can alsoexplain why the gorilla has his aggressive reputation. I am going toquote one of Paul du Chaillu's adventures [2] with gorillas and in thequotation put in brackets what Du Chaillu felt, leaving outside thebrackets what the gorilla did. If you read the tale as Du Chaillu wroteit, it gives an impression that the gorilla is a terrible animal. Ifyou read merely what the gorilla did, you will see that he did nothingthat a domestic dog might not have done under the same circumstances.

These facts are no doubt accurate. Du Chaillu and his men pursued agorilla in the forest. When they came too close he roared at them. Ihave seen little monkeys scold an intruder in similar fashion. His facetwitched and he beat his breast. My motion picture shows a gorillabeating her breast when not at all mad. The gorilla advanced on themnot in a ferocious rush but hesitatingly a few steps at a time. Theyshot it.

I don't blame Du Chaillu for feeling the way he did, for, under thecircumstances in which he hunted the gorilla, most people would havehad even much worse feelings than he had. Then, too, when Du Chailluwrote, tales of African exploration were under an unwholesome pressurecomparable to that to which African motion pictures are being subjectedto-day. I have it on reliable authority that Du Chaillu was twicerequested to revise his[Pg 239]manuscript before his publishers consideredit exciting enough to be of general interest. All I want to point outis that the gorilla should be judged by what he does, not by how thepeople that hunt him feel.

And it is of more importance to judge the gorilla correctly than anyother animal for he is unquestionably the nearest akin to man. Mostscientists agree that man and the gorilla had common or at any ratesimilar ancestors. Since that time man has passed through the dawn ofintelligence and developed the power to reason and to speak. But how hedeveloped these powers no one knows. The gorilla has not these powers,but he has so many other likenesses to man that there is no telling hownear he is to the dawn of intelligence.

In the whole doctrine of evolution there is no one subject moreinteresting or likely to be more fruitful to study than the gorilla. Hepresents most important opportunities to the students of comparativeanatomy, to the psychologists, to the many kinds of specialists inmedicine, not to mention the students of natural history.

It is very commonly stated, in the Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia,for example, that the gorilla "lives mostly in trees." Unquestionablythis is true of the chimpanzee but I do not think it true of thegorilla. I believe that he has nearly passed out of the arborealphase of life and is perhaps entering the upright phase and that heis the only animal except man that has achieved this distinction. Tostand erect and balanced, an animal needs heels. The plaster[Pg 240] cast ofthe gorilla's foot shown in the accompanying illustration is ocularevidence of what science has long known—that the gorilla has developeda heel. Moreover, the scientists who studied the body of John Daniel,the young captive gorilla that died in New York, discovered that,unlike any other animal, the gorilla has the same full complement offoot muscles which enables man to walk upright. The gorillas I sawin Africa always touched both their feet and hands to the ground inrunning but most of the weight was on their feet. Their legs are short,their arms long, and they carry the body at an angle of 45 degreesforward. They do not, however, put their hands down flat and rest theirfull weight on them. They seem to be evolving toward a two-leggedanimal. And if they spent most of their time in trees they would nothave developed heels and leg muscles for walking upright on the ground.

Not only has the gorilla developed a heel, but his big toe is muchnearer like man's than that of any other animal. This may seem a smallmatter, but a big toe that turns out from the foot as a thumb doesfrom the hand can grasp branches and is useful in climbing. A big toethat is parallel with the other toes is useful for walking but not forclimbing.

But the gorilla has not lost all his arboreal characteristics by anymeans. The length, size, and strength of his arms are evidence of thetree-climbing habits of his ancestors. I know that a gorilla can nowclimb with more ease than the average man. But I only once saw gorillasin trees and that was[Pg 241] when I was taking the moving picture of a motherand two youngsters, and an active man could have walked up the inclinedtrees these gorillas were on about as easily as they did. Nor did Isee any evidences of their having been in trees. The German, EduardReichenow, who observed gorillas in this same area, agrees that thegorilla is seldom in trees:

The hand of the gorilla is as interesting to me as his foot. If youlook at the illustration of the plaster cast you will see that it looksmuch like a man's, fingernails and all. You will see that the fingersare bent over. When running he puts his knuckles on the ground. Itis a peculiarity of the gorilla that when his arms are extended hisfingers are always bent over. He can't straighten them out except whenhis wrist is bent. I can take the hand of the mummified baby gorillawhen its wrist is bent and put it over a stick and then straighten hiswrist and his fingers will close over the stick so that I can lift himoff the ground and hang him up in this fashion. I suppose that thispeculiar characteristic is a legacy of his arboreal life which has notleft him even in all the years he has been developing heels, muscles,and toes which are good for ground work only.

I am certain that these Central African gorillas have practicallyabandoned arboreal habits. Whether the gorillas of the lower countryof the west coast have done so likewise I do not know from personalobservation. Du Chaillu reported that they did not climb for food nordid they make their nests in trees in that region.

It has been so commonly reported, however, that the Century Dictionarystates that "gorillas make a sleeping place like a hammock connectingthe thickly leafed part of a tree by means of the long, tough, slenderstems of parasitic plants, and line it with the broad dried fronds ofpalms or with long grass. This hammock-like abode is constructed atdifferent heights from ten to forty feet from the ground."

I cannot help believing that this report arises from a confusion withthe chimpanzee habits. The chimpanzee is not strong enough to fighta leopard. Consequently, he has to sleep out of reach of this foe.The gorilla, on the other hand, has no foe but man. No flesh-eatinganimal in his territory is large enough to harm him. The gorilla is avegetarian, so he kills no animals for food, and he has not progressedsufficiently along the paths of man to enjoy killing as a sport. Helives in amity with the elephants, buffalo, and all the wild creaturesof his neighbourhood, and in the Mikeno region the natives drive theircattle into the gorilla's mountains in the dry season of the yearwithout molestation.

Altogether, then, as the gorilla has no enemies, he has no need tofashion himself a bed out of harm's[Pg 243] way. All the gorilla beds I sawwere on the ground. They consisted of a pile of leaves, about what thelong arms of a gorilla could pull together without moving. I saw nosigns of their occupying these hastily constructed sleeping places morethan once.

The gorilla makes no abode, has no clothes, uses no tools, unlessgrasping a stick may indicate the beginnings of such an idea. It isstill before the dawn of intelligence with him. Yet scientists tellme that he has the palate and muscles that enable man to talk. Inspite of Mr. Garner the gorilla cannot talk, but no one knows how nearto it he is. Probably he is a very long way from speech. Of course,a parrot can be taught to talk, but a parrot has no brains to speakof, so that his talking is of no significance. But recent studies ofthe brain of John Daniel seem to place his brain about on a par withthat of a two-year-old child. Now a two-year-old child can both talkand think. If the gorilla with his child's brain could learn to usehis voice even like a parrot, we should have come very near to havinga contemporaneous "missing link." This, of course, is very unlikelyto happen and it is not necessary, for science can make deductionsfrom the gorilla's brain, muscle, habits, etc., which will enableus to understand more of the gorilla's significance for evolutionwithout such a spectacular event as his acquiring speech. I mentionsuch a thing merely as an unscientific way of trying to dramatize theimportance of the study of the gorilla.

Of course it does not follow that because the[Pg 244] gorilla's palate andmuscles are like man's that he will be able to talk or pass out of thebarking or roaring phase. The gorilla has what might be called "roaringpouches" that extend down the side of his neck. It is an interestingfact that there is evidence of these same pouches in man, although theyare nearly atrophied from long disuse. It seems, therefore, that evenif the gorilla does not learn man's speech, man at one time used thegorilla's roar or one of his own.

Man differs from most animals in the amount of variation in thedifferent members of the species. The skull measurements ofhalf-a-dozen lions, for example, will be much more nearly uniformthan the skulls of half-a-dozen men. In this particular the gorillais like man. Their skulls show great variation. The gorilla skulls Ibrought back will exemplify this. The death masks of these gorillasshow another interesting thing which I never noticed until I put themasks of the animals shot on Mt. Mikeno in one group and those shot onMt. Karisimbi in another. The male and female of Mikeno resemble eachother more nearly than either of them do any of the Karisimbi gorillas.Likewise the three Karisimbi gorillas have features more alike thanany of them are like either of the Mikeno faces. Whether these arefamily resemblances or whether they arise from geography, which seemsdoubtful, as the mountains merge in a saddle at between 10,000 and11,000 feet, or whether it is accidental I do not know. But the factsuggests a line of study.

I did not see a gorilla in infancy, but there are two interestingaccounts of travellers in this region who have seen them. Reichenowsays:

Late in 1919 I received a letter from an English hunter, Mr. C. D.Foster, which contained the following paragraphs concerning a gorillahunt on Mt. Mikeno:

One of the most interesting facts in this account of Foster's is thefact that the baby gorilla caught cold from him. Animals usually donot catch man's diseases. Seemingly the gorilla is near enough man tocontract at least some of them. Probably he is not immunized againstany contagious diseases. This free-of-disease state, if it exists,will make him a unique pathological study. And certainly the gorilladiffers from other animals in his freedom from parasitical disease. Idid not have an opportunity to study him with a microscope, but he isthe only wild animal in Africa that I have ever skinned and cut up forscientific purposes that had no visible signs of parasites on him or inhim.

Reichenow also has made some deductions about the family life ofgorillas in the Mikeno region which are interesting. "The sleepingplans of the members of a gorilla company," he says, "do not lieirregularly near each other but we find them joined in groups oftwo, three, or four, which lets us clearly recognize that within theherd there exists a division according to families. The nests of afamily lie close to each other[Pg 247] and are from eight to fifteen metersaway from the neighbouring group, so that the various groups seemedclosed off from each other by the thick riot of plants, like variousdwellings. From the size of the nests we see that always only two ofthem belong to adult animals; if there are more nests present, theseare always smaller and therefore belong to the half-grown young. Fromthis observation we get the noteworthy fact that the gorilla lives inmonogamy."

I cannot say that my observations corroborate this deduction. In oneof the bands I saw there were three adult males. They might underhis theory have been heads of three families. But in the other bandthere was but one male and several females. The extra females may havebeen spinster aunts of the family, but on the other hand, it mightjust as well have been a case of polygamy. The truth is that peopleknow little about the habits of the gorilla. Really to know about ananimal requires long and intimate study. Comparatively few people haveeven shot gorillas. Gorilla skeletons, even, have not been common forstudy like those of other animals. The avidity with which the doctorsof the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York seized uponthe body of John Daniel shows both how rare and how important theopportunity to study the gorilla is to the science of medicine as wellas to that of comparative anatomy. And even less of study has beengiven the gorilla's living habits than has been devoted to his deadbody and bones. Most of the information which man can get of and fromthis nearest relative[Pg 248] in the animal kingdom is still to be had. Butunless some measures are quickly taken to get this information, theopportunity will be lost. The gorilla is on his way to extinction. Heis not particularly numerous. He is neither wary nor dangerous. He isan easy and highly prized prey to the "sporting" instinct.

As I travelled down from Mikeno toward the White Friars' Missionthe fascinating possibilities of the study of the gorilla and itsimmense scientific importance filled my mind along with the fearthat his extinction would come before adequate study was made. Theseconsiderations materially led my mind to the idea of a gorillasanctuary; and I realized that a better place than the one I had justleft could hardly be hoped for. The three mountains, Mikeno, Karisimbi,and Visoke stand up in a triangle by themselves. Their peaks are aboutfour miles apart. On the slopes of these mountains, in the bamboosand in the dense forest, there are several bands of gorillas. I judgethat there are between fifty and one hundred animals altogether.In all probability the animals in this region stay on these threemountains. Such is the belief of the natives, and it is a reasonablebelief because if they left these peaks they would have to travel veryconsiderable distances to find similar security and food supplieselsewhere. This being true the three peaks can become a gorillasanctuary by the simple expedient of preventing hunters from invadingthem.

It has been proved over and over again that animals very quickly learnto remain in places where they are[Pg 249] safe from hunting. Likewise inthose places animals soon learn to accept man without fear just as theydo other animals. The case of the bears in the Yellowstone Park isknown to everyone. At Banff, in the Canadian Rockies, protection hasled even so shy an animal as the mountain sheep to accept man enoughto be photographed at short distances. Were the gorillas on the threepeaks protected I am certain that in a very short time they wouldbecome so accustomed to man that they could be studied in their nativesurroundings in a way that would rapidly produce most interesting andimportant scientific results.

This sanctuary would not interfere with any other activity in thecountry. The gorilla range is not fit for agriculture. The natives useit now as a source for firewood and a grazing ground for their cattle.It could continue to be put to these uses as far as the gorillas wouldbe concerned. Elephants, buffaloes, and other animals might flock intothe sanctuary so as to become something of a problem, but their numberscould be kept down without disturbing the gorillas' sense of security.

To create this sanctuary would be comparatively easy and inexpensive.I think it would require first of all that the sanctuary be bounded bya road. I do not think it would be necessary to fence the sanctuaryfor I believe the gorillas would stay inside its limits. The roadwould be chiefly for police purposes to make it easier to be sure thathunters stayed outside. The policing of the road could be done by[Pg 250] thenatives. As the pay of such a policeman is about five cents a day, themaintenance of the force is not a great matter.

Besides the road and the police the sanctuary would need a few trailsand a station to consist of a residence for a white director of thesanctuary, living quarters for the scientists, enough servants to keepthe station going, and a simple field laboratory. Neither the buildingnor maintenance for such an institution would be expensive in CentralAfrica. I know of no other effort of so moderate a size likely to leadto such immediate and valuable scientific results. Moreover, if thestudy of the gorilla is not made in some such way as this now, it isnot likely that it will ever be made at all. If three more gentlemenlike the Prince of Sweden go into the Mikeno region there will be nogorillas left there. Gorillas were originally discovered on the westcoast and they have been reported at various places across CentralAfrica from the west coast to the Mikeno region, but in no region arethey numerous; and if they should succeed the lion and the elephant asthe "correct" thing to shoot, their extinction would be but a matter ofa very few years.

On the other hand, a very few years of study by a succession ofscientific men from the best institutions would unquestionably producefar-reaching results.

CHAPTER XVROOSEVELT AFRICAN HALL—A RECORD FOR THE FUTURE

I have dreamt many dreams. Some of them have been forgotten. Othershave taken concrete shape and become pleasing or hateful to me invarying degree. But one especially has dwelt with me through theyears, gradually shaping itself into a commanding plan. It has becomethe inspiration and the unifying purpose of my work; all my effortsduring recent years have bent toward the accomplishment of this singleobjective—the creation of a great African Hall which shall be calledRoosevelt African Hall.

I have always been convinced that the new methods of taxidermy are notbeing used to the full; that, although the taxidermic process has beenraised to an artistic plane, a great opportunity still remains forits more significant and comprehensive use in the creation of a greatmasterpiece of museum exhibition. Then, too, I have been constantlyaware of the rapid and disconcerting disappearance of African wildlife. And I suppose that those two considerations gave rise to thevision of the culmination of my work in a great museum exhibit,artistically conceived, which should perpetuate the animal life, thenative customs, and the scenic beauties of Africa.

When I returned to America in 1911, my mind saturated with the beautyand the wonder of the continent I had left, I was dreaming of AfricanHall. One year later my ideas were sufficiently defined to be laidbefore Professor Henry Fairfield Osborn, President of the AmericanMuseum of Natural History, who approved my plans and asked that theybe presented to the Trustees of the Museum. The plan that I proposedto the Trustees provided for a great hall devoted entirely to Africa,which should put in permanent and artistic form a satisfying record offast-disappearing fauna and give a comprehensive view of the topographyof the continent by means of a series of groups constructed in the bestmuseum technique. Neither in this nor in any other country has suchan exhibit been attempted. Not only would the proposed hall preservea unique record of African wild life, but it would also establish astandard for museum exhibition in the future.

The Trustees approved my plan for immediate execution; the undertakingwas to go forward as rapidly as funds were available. One of the oldNorth American mammal halls, rechristened the "elephant studio,"because there the mounting of the elephant group was already under way,was retained for my use and there, to crystallize my conception, I madea model of the African Hall. This model represents a great unobstructedhall, in the centre of which stands a statuesque group of four Africanelephants with a group of rhinos at either end. Both on the groundfloor and in the gallery, with windows seeming[Pg 253] to open upon them, arearranged habitat groups of the African fauna with typical accessoriesand panoramic backgrounds. The long and arduous task of mounting thecentral elephant group, the first unit for the exhibit which the modelsketched in miniature, was interrupted by the war.

Many of the undertakings that were making long strides towardcompletion in 1914, to-day stand arrested due to conditions followingthe war. Only one by one can they fall back to their natural placesin the march of progress, and the most urgent must be given placefirst. African Hall is one of those projects which cannot be delayed.Now or never must it become a reality. Twenty-five years ago, withinnumerable specimens at hand, its development would have been animpossibility. Even if a man had had all the animals he wanted fromAfrica, he could not have made an exhibit of them that would have beeneither scientific, natural, artistic, or satisfying, for twenty-fiveyears ago the art of taxidermy and of museum exposition of animal lifehardly existed. Likewise, in those days much of the information that wehad about animals through the tales of explorers, collectors, and otherwould-be heroes was ninety-five per cent. inaccurate.

Twenty-five years hence the development of such a hall will be equallyimpossible for the African animals are so rapidly becoming extinctthat the proper specimens will not then be available. Even to-day theheads that are reaching London from British East Africa are not up tothe old standards. If an[Pg 254] African Hall is to be done at all, it mustbe done now. And even if it is done now, we must have men to do it whohave known Africa for at least a quarter of a century. Africa to-day isa modern Africa, the Africa of the Age of Man. Africa then was stillthe Africa of the Age of Mammals, a country sufficiently untouchedby civilization to give a vivid impression of Africa a hundred yearsago. By the time the groups are in place in African Hall, some of thespecies represented will have disappeared. Naturalists and scientiststwo hundred years from now will find there the only existent record ofsome of the animals which to-day we are able to photograph and to studyin the forest environment. African Hall will tell the story of junglepeace, a story that is sincere and faithful to the African beasts as Ihave known them, and it will, I hope, tell that story so convincinglythat the traditions of jungle horrors and impenetrable forests may beobliterated.

With all haste, when the war was over, I turned again to AfricanHall—to Roosevelt African Hall, for naturally after the death of thatgreat American who so deeply desired to bring to the world a knowledgeof beautiful Africa and who had himself shot the old cow for theelephant group, we gave the proposed hall his name. The thought that mygreatest undertaking was to stand as a memorial to Theodore Rooseveltdoubled my incentive. I am giving the best there is in me to makeRoosevelt African Hall worthy of the name it bears.

The structure itself will be of imposing dimensions.[Pg 256] A spaciousopen hall will occupy the central portion of the building. As I haveplanned it, the floor measurement of this great open space is sixtyby one hundred and fifty-two feet; the height to the gallery at thesides is seventeen feet and that over the centre to the ceiling,thirty feet. Its floor space will be encroached upon only at thecorners by the elevators; that is, the actual open floor space withoutcolumns or any obstruction whatever will be sixty by one hundred andsixteen feet. In the centre of this large hall will stand the groupof four African elephants treated in statuesque fashion, mounted on afour-foot base with no covering of glass. At one end of the elephants,the group of black rhinoceros will be placed; at the other end, thewhite rhinoceros. As a result of late developments in the technique oftaxidermy, we are able to treat these pachyderms so that they will notsuffer because of lack of protection under glass. Changing atmosphericconditions will have no effect upon them and they can receiveessentially the care given to bronzes.

Since the elephant is the largest land mammal in the world to-dayand one of the most splendid of all animals of the past or present,and especially since it is typical of Africa, it is fitting that theelephant should dominate this hall. Except for bronzes at either endfacing the main entrances, there will be nothing in the central openspace to detract from the majesty of the elephants and the lumberingbulk of the rhinos. Visitors, pausing to study the elephants, may lookout on either side as though through[Pg 257] open windows into an Africanout-of-doors, for the other great animals of the continent in theirnatural environment of forest, plain, river, or mountain, will surroundthe central hall. The position of these habitat groups in a kind ofannex has a double advantage: it permits them to be carefully protectedagainst atmospheric conditions and prevents any infringement upon themeasurements of the hall proper. There will be forty of these realisticgroups—twenty viewed from the main floor and twenty more, similarlyexecuted, but displaying the smaller animals, viewed from the gallery.

The forty canvases used as backgrounds will be painted by thebest artists available. Each will be an accurate portrayal of adefinite type of African scenery, usually showing some featureof importance—Mt. Kenia on the equator, the waterless plains ofSomaliland, or the gorilla forests of the Kivu country. Together theywill give a comprehensive idea of the geographical aspect of Africafrom the Mediterranean on the north to Table Mountain at Cape Town, andfrom the east coast to the west coast.

The mounted specimens in the foreground will combine to represent inthe most comprehensive way the animal life of the continent. Thesegroups will be composite—that is, as many species will be associatedin each of them as is consistent with scientific fact. For example, oneof the large corner groups will represent a scene on the equatorialriver Tana, showing perhaps all told a dozen species in their naturalsurroundings with stories of the[Pg 258]animals and a correct representationof the flora. In the foreground on a sandbar in the river will bea group of hippos; across the stream and merging into the paintedbackground, a group of impalla come down to water; in the trees and onthe sandbars of the farther bank two species of monkeys common to theregion; a crocodile and turtles basking in the sun near the hippos, anda few characteristic birds in the trees.

Another of these large corner groups will be a scene of the plains,a rockkopje with characteristic animals such as the klipspringer,hyrax, Chanler's reedbuck, and baboons on the rocks, the backgroundleading off across the plain showing a herd of plains animals—and theadjoining group continuing the story by showing more of the species ofthe plains. The third of the large corner groups will represent a Congoforest scene with the okapi and chimpanzee perhaps, and such animals asmay be associated legitimately with the okapi. The fourth group will bea desert scene, a water hole with a giraffe drinking and other animalsstanding by, awaiting their turn.

In these four corner groups we can present the four important physicalfeatures of African game country, and they can be supplemented, ofcourse, by the scenes in the thirty-six other groups. The large groups,however, give opportunity for particularly striking scenic effects.

(A) Floor of group space, sunk four feet below the level of hall floorto permit of various elevations of foregroup in group. (B) Floor ofgallery group case. (E) Glass roof of gallery group case. (F) Glassroof of main floor group case.

(G) Glass in front of gallery case set at angle to cut reflections.(H) Glass in main floor case. (I) Space occupied by bronze panels. (J)Space above gallery groups for artificial lighting purposes. (L) Planeof painted background.

Lack of care in museum exhibition has come about in part at leastbecause of the lack of permanence in the specimens exhibited. Now thatwe have reached a point in the development of taxidermy technique[Pg 260]where we can say without reservation that our preparations arepermanent, permanent to a degree only dreamed of within the lasttwenty years, we feel justified in taking extreme measures to insurethe future care and preservation of these preparations. The elephantsand rhinos can be made as permanent as bronze for endurance under allconditions, but the other animal groups with their backgrounds and withaccessories necessarily made largely of wax cannot be thus exposed.That they shall not suffer from excessive light and from changingatmospheric conditions, they will be placed in two great alleyways oneither side of, but practically outside, the hall, hermetically sealedoff from the hall proper and also from the outside atmosphere. Thuseach group will be absolutely protected from changes in temperature andhumidity. Each group will be in fact within an individual compartment,and allowed to "breathe" only the air of the alleyway, which isfiltered and dried and kept at a uniform temperature throughout theyear. Artificial light will be used for these groups.

The amount of light required on them will be relatively small becauseof the fact that they are to be viewed from a relatively dark centralhall. We shall be looking from the hall into the source of light ratherthan from the source of light outward. Also, reflections can be reducedto a minimum and practically eliminated, owing to the fact that thegroups are the source of illumination, by having the glass in the frontof the case inclined at such an angle that it reflects only the darkfloor.

In addition to the forty groups, twenty-four bas-relief panels inbronze (six by eleven feet each) are planned as a frieze just above thefloor groups and along the balcony to form a series around the entirelower floor, becoming a part of the architectural decoration of thehall. The sculpture of each panel will tell the story of some nativetribe and its relations to the animal life of Africa.

For instance, one panel will show a Dorobo family, the man skinninga dead antelope brought in from the forest to his hut, where are hiswife and babies and two hunting dogs, their only domestic animals. Afurther interest in animal life will be revealed in the presence of thedead antelope as it is a source of food and clothing, for these peoplelive entirely by hunting. Another panel may show a group in Somalilandwith camels, sheep, goats, cattle, and ponies at a water hole, domesticbeasts furnishing the interest in animal life. Still another panelcompleting the Somali story will represent a group of Midgans in somecharacteristic hunting scene. While each of these panels should bea careful and scientifically accurate study of the people and theircustoms, accurate in detail as to clothing, ornaments, and weapons, thetheme running through the whole series should be the relationship ofthe people to animal life.

If an exhibition hall is to approach the ideal, its plan must bethat of a master mind, while in actuality it is the product of thecorrelation of many minds and hands. In all the museums of the worldto-day[Pg 262] there are few halls that reveal a mastering idea and aninterdependence of arts and crafts. Administrations change. One man'saim is replaced by an aim entirely different when another undertakeshis work. The institution's inheritance of exhibits must usually behoused along with the new. Recently acquired specimens, satisfactorilymounted, are crowded in inadequate space and completely subordinatethose specimens which, although they are of equal importance for theunderstanding of the spectator, give no illusion of life and haveno appeal. Even when the architectural arrangement is good and thetaxidermy acceptable, a heterogenous collection of exhibition cases oran inadequate lighting system may mar the harmony of the whole. Thus,there are plentiful opportunities in the meandering process, of whichan exhibition hall is frequently the result, for the original plan tobecome fogged.

But no such conditions shall spoil the symmetry of Roosevelt AfricanHall. Every animal killed has been carefully selected with this greatexhibit in mind. Each group mounted is being constructed as an integralpart of the whole. A building has been especially designed to give theexhibit the most effective and appropriate setting. And the futureis being insured by the training of men who shall carry forward thetechnique so far developed. Each man is carefully chosen. Each musthave energy, common sense, a special ability, and a great love forthe duties at hand. And although each may be a specialist in his ownline, all are forming the habit[Pg 263] of working together as day by day theyassemble the carefully tanned skins, the clean, well-shaped manikins,the silk and wax leaves and grasses, and the painted canvases for thebackgrounds. For the first time we have the opportunity to train agroup of men not only to practise the various arts which are combinedin making modern zoölogical exhibits, but also to further develop themethods that make this sort of museum exhibition worth while from thescientific and artistic standpoint. In this considerable corps of men Iam resting my hope that the technique of my studio shall be carried onto higher perfection instead of scattering or being carried undergroundwhen my part shall be done. This is important not only for Africa, butfor all other continents as well, inasmuch as we are making records ofrapidly disappearing animal life. From my point of view, this school ofworkers is perhaps the most important of all the results of the work onRoosevelt African Hall.

Every group in Roosevelt African Hall must be made by the men whomake the studies in Africa so that the selection of environment, thebackground, and the story to be told shall be typical and so that everydetail of accessory or background shall be scientifically accurate.It was formerly the custom, and is still in many museums, to sendhunters into the field to kill animals and to send the skins back tothe museum where a taxidermist mounts them. The taxidermist does notknow the animals. He has no proper measurements for them. Usually thehunter does not supply them and, even if he does, they are[Pg 264] of littlevalue; for one man's measurements are not often reliable guides foranother man to work by. In making a group as it really should be done,we cannot rely on one man out in the field to shoot and another backat the museum to mount. The men who study the animal and who shoot himmust come back and mount him, and the men who make the accessories andwho paint the background must go and make their studies on the spot.When all this is done the cost of the skins, instead of being half theexpense of a group, is not five per cent.

I shall make the gorilla group, on which I am now at work, a realexample of the proper method. A gorilla group undertaken three yearsago in the average museum would have been done in the following manner.Skins would have been purchased from hunters in Africa. The men whowere going to mount them would have studied the available writings ongorillas. They would have found out that the gorilla was a ferociousanimal who inhabited the dense forests and, like as not, that he livedin trees most of the time. And that is the kind of animal the groupwould have shown.

Not satisfied with such a method, I went to Africa to get acquaintedwith the gorilla in his home. I found him in a country of marvellousbeauty, spending much of his time in the open forests or in thesunshine of the hillsides. I found, too, that he was neither ferociousnor in the habit of living in trees. He can climb a tree just as a mancan climb a tree, but a group of human beings up a tree would be[Pg 265] asnatural as a gorilla group in the same position.

The setting of the group of five gorillas is to be an exactreproduction of the spot where the big male of Karisimbi died. Inmounting them I have my personal observation, my data and material towork from. My own measurements are significant and helpful. I havephotographs of the scenery, the setting, and the gorillas themselves.I have photographs of their faces—not distorted to make them hideousbut as they naturally were—and death masks which make a record thatenables me to make the face of each gorilla mounted a portrait of anindividual. All this makes these unlike any other mounted gorillas inthe world. After all the work that I had put on them I was glad to getthe corroboration of one who knows gorillas as well as T. AlexanderBarnes. He had followed gorillas in the Kivu country where I got myspecimens. As he looked at the first of the group standing in mystudio, he exclaimed, "Well, thank God! At last one has been mountedthat looks like a gorilla."

Still with all our work we are only well started on the gorilla group.The background—and it is a beautiful scene—must be painted by asgreat an artist as we can get and he must go to Karisimbi to make hisstudies. And the preparators who make the accessories—the artificialleaves, trees, and grasses—they, too, must go to examine the spotand collect their data, for every leaf and every tree and every bladeof grass must be a true and faithful copy of nature. Otherwise, theexhibit is a lie and it would[Pg 266] be nothing short of a crime to place itin one of the leading educational institutions of the country.

But, someone will say, this is all in the future. What has already beenaccomplished? What definitely is the status of Roosevelt African Hall?

Well, I am mounting animals. The elephant group, the whiterhinoceroses, and one of the okapi are completed and are now onexhibition. Work on the gorilla group is advancing rapidly. There arealready collected and awaiting their turn to be mounted materials fora black rhino group and a lion group. I have estimated that it willrequire at least ten years and the expenditure of one million dollarsto complete the work. And there is good reason to hope that the moneyneeded will be provided. President Henry Fairfield Osborn in his AnnualReport of the American Museum of Natural History for 1922 has calledfor a gift or a special endowment of one million dollars to financeand develop Roosevelt African Hall in addition to other funds nowavailable, stressing this as the most pressing need of the Museum inthe year 1923. The income from such a special endowment will enable usto complete the African Hall during the next decade and leave a milliondollars of the new special endowment for the development of the newbuilding to house the hall.

I am hopeful, too, that the Roosevelt Memorial Hall, out of whichRoosevelt African Hall will open, is about to become a reality. The NewYork State Legislature will soon have before it a bill to appropriatetwo and one half million dollars for a memorial[Pg 267] to New York's greatcitizen. Such a building is one of two plans for this memorial nowunder consideration by the State Roosevelt Memorial Commission andthere is much reason to hope that it may be favourably received by thepeople of the state.

I ought not properly to be writing autobiographical matter. That isusually a sign that a man is through and the truth is that I am justready to begin my work. So far I have been studying my profession.Now I am prepared to practise it on one great example and in so doingto train men to continue my work so that the museums of this countrycan portray whatever of animal life they desire in a way that willhave the greatest attraction and instruction for the public, both layand scientific. It is chiefly in the hope of furthering that greatproject which must be undertaken now—a project to put into permanentand artistic form a complete record of the fast-disappearing animallife of the last stronghold of the Age of Mammals—that I write thesethings. Enough has been said to indicate that this is not one man'stask. It may not even be accomplished by several men in the span of oneman's life. But the future will show concrete results, for the slowestand most laborious stages of preparation are now in the past. Yearsof experimentation have perfected taxidermy, years of observation inthe field have made a true conception possible, the American Museum ofNatural History has committed itself to the plan—in a word, I am aboutto realize my dream.

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CHAPTER		PAGE
I.	A New Art Begun	1
II.	Elephant Friends and Foes	20
III.	My Acquaintance with Lions	58
IV.	Hunting the African Buffalo	82
V.	Leopards and Rhinos	94
VI.	Along the Trail	111
VII.	Bill	131
VIII.	Safari Hunters	148
IX.	Inventions and Warfare	164
X.	A Taxidermist as a Sculptor	175
XI.	Hunting Gorillas in Central Africa	188
XII.	Adventures on Mt. Mikeno	211
XIII.	The Lone Male of Karisimbi	225
XIV.	Is the Gorilla Almost a Man?	236
XV.	Roosevelt African Hall—A Record for the Future	251

	PAGE
Map of the Elephant Country	34
Sketch Indicating Mr. Akeley's Movements During Encounter with Leopard	98
Map Showing Mr. Akeley's Route to Gorilla Country	199
Map Showing Location of Three Mountains, Mikeno, Karisimbi, and Visoke	227
Plan of the Main Floor and Gallery of Roosevelt African Hall	255
A Section of the "Annex" Containing Habitat Groups	259

	GORILLA	DEMPSEY
Height	5 ft. 7½ in.	6 ft. 1 in.
Weight	360 lbs.	188 lbs.
Chest	62 in.	42 in.
Upper arm	18 in.	16¼ in.
Reach	97 in.	74 in.
Calf	15¾ in.	15¼ in.

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The Project Gutenberg eBook ofIn Brightest Africa

IN BRIGHTEST AFRICA

FOREWORD

CONTENTS

LIST OF LINE DRAWINGS

IN BRIGHTEST AFRICA

CHAPTER IA NEW ART BEGUN

CHAPTER IIELEPHANT FRIENDS AND FOES

CHAPTER IIIMY ACQUAINTANCE WITH LIONS

CHAPTER IVHUNTING THE AFRICAN BUFFALO

CHAPTER VLEOPARDS AND RHINOS

CHAPTER VIALONG THE TRAIL

CHAPTER VIIBILL

CHAPTER VIIISAFARI HUNTERS

CHAPTER IXINVENTIONS AND WARFARE

CHAPTER XA TAXIDERMIST AS A SCULPTOR

CHAPTER XIHUNTING GORILLAS IN CENTRAL AFRICA

FOOTNOTE:

CHAPTER XIIADVENTURES ON MT. MIKENO

CHAPTER XIIITHE LONE MALE OF KARISIMBI

CHAPTER XIVIS THE GORILLA ALMOST A MAN?

FOOTNOTE:

CHAPTER XVROOSEVELT AFRICAN HALL—A RECORD FOR THE FUTURE

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