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Title: In Brightest Africa

Author: Carl Ethan Akeley

Author of introduction, etc.: Henry Fairfield Osborn

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                Most recently updated: October 18, 2024

Language: English

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IN BRIGHTEST AFRICA


[Illustration: ON A TYPICAL ELEPHANT TRAIL IN THE FOREST]


CARL E. AKELEY

IN BRIGHTEST AFRICA

Memorial Edition


[Illustration: THE STAR SERIES GC PCo]






Garden City, New York
Garden City Publishing Co., Inc

Copyright, 1920, 1921, 1922, 1923, by Doubleday,
Page & Company. All Rights Reserved.
Printed in the United States at the
Country Life Press, Garden City, N. Y.




TO
THE MEMORY
OF
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

"_He that hath drunk of Africa's fountains, will drink again._"
--OLD ARAB PROVERB




FOREWORD


I have written this Foreword, not after reading the manuscript of the
volume thoroughly, but after a quarter of a century acquaintance with
the experiences, thoughts, and ideals of the author himself. This is
the daybook, the diary, the narrative, the incident, and the adventure
of an African sculptor and an African biographer, whose observations
we hope may be preserved in imperishable form, so that when the animal
life of Africa has vanished, future generations may realize in some
degree the beauty and grandeur which the world has lost.

Sculptor and Biographer of the vanishing wild life of Africa--I do not
feel that I can adequately and truthfully characterize Carl E. Akeley
better than in these words. I have always maintained that he was a
sculptor, that sculpture was his real vocation, in which taxidermy was
an incidental element. The sculptor is a biographer and an historian.
Without sculpture we should know far less of the vanished greatness of
Greece than we do. Through sculpture Carl E. Akeley is recording the
vanishing greatness of the natural world of Africa. We palæontologists
alone realize that in Africa the remnants of all the royal families of
the Age of Mammals are making their last stand, that their backs are
up against the pitiless wall of what we call civilization. Human rights
are triumphing over animal rights, and it would be hard to determine
which rights are really superior or most worthy to survive.

Akeley came twenty-seven years ago into the midst of this unequal
contest between the flesh and blood of the animal kingdom and the
steel and lead of the sportsman, of the food and ivory hunter, and his
sympathies were all on the animal side in the fight. If his sympathies
had been on the human side he could not be the biographer of the
African vanishing world who speaks in the pages of this volume, lost in
admiration of the majesty of the elephant, the unchallenged reign of
the lion, the beauty and grace of the antelope, the undaunted courage
of the buffalo, and, last but not least, of certain splendid qualities
in the native African hunter. We know of only one other sculptor who
has 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 African
and Roosevelt Halls of the American Museum, in human bronzes, in a
great group of the elephant, in rhinoceroses and gorillas, each group
representing his unerring portrayal of the character of the animal
and his sympathetic admiration of its finest qualities. It is in
making close observations for these groups that he has lived so long
in Africa and come very close to death on three occasions. We may
find something base in animal nature if we seek it; we may also find
much that is excellent and worthy of emulation. In this respect animal
nature is like human nature--we may take our choice. The decadent
sculptor and the decadent writer may choose the wrong side in human
nature, and the sensational writer may choose the wrong side in animal
nature; Akeley has chosen the ennobling side and does not dwell on the
vices either of the animals or of the natives but on their virtues,
their courage, defence of their young, devotion to the safety of their
families--simple, homely virtues which are so much needed to-day in our
civilization.

Truthfulness is the high note of the enduring biographer of animal
life as well as of human life. "Set down naught in malice, nothing
extenuate" is an essential principle in the portrayal of vanishing
Africa as it is in our portrayal of the contemporary manners and
customs of modern society; to know the elephant, the lion, the
antelope, the gorilla as they really are, not as they have been
pictured by sensational writers who have never seen them at close range
or who have been tempted to exaggerate their danger for commercial
reasons. Akeley's work on the gorilla is the latest and perhaps his
best portrayal of animal life in Africa as it really is. He defends the
reputation of this animal, which has been misrepresented in narrative
and fiction as a ferocious biped that attacks man at every opportunity,
abducts native women as in the sculptures of Fremiet, a monster with
all the vices of man and none of the virtues. For this untruthful
picture Akeley substitutes a real gorilla, chiefly a quadruped in
locomotion, not seeking combat with man, ferocious only when his family
rights are invaded, benign rather than malignant in countenance. Thus
he explodes the age-long gorilla myth and we learn for the first time
the place in nature of this great anthropoid and come to believe
that it should be conserved and protected rather than eliminated. In
other words, the author shows that there are good grounds for the
international movement to conserve the few remaining tribes of the
gorilla.

Akeley has come into closest touch with all these animals in turn,
even at great personal risk, always leaving with increased rather than
diminished admiration for them. This quality of truthfulness, combined
with 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.

HENRY FAIRFIELD OSBORN.

July 27, 1923.
American Museum.




CONTENTS

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




LIST OF LINE DRAWINGS

                                                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




IN BRIGHTEST AFRICA




CHAPTER I

A NEW ART BEGUN


As a boy I lived on a farm near Clarendon, Orleans County, N. Y., and
for some reason, about the time I was thirteen, I got interested in
birds. I was out of place on the farm for I was much more interested
in taxidermy than in farming. As a matter of fact, by the time I was
sixteen I announced to the world that I was a taxidermist. I had
borrowed a book which had originally cost a dollar, and from that book
I learned taxidermy up to a point where I felt justified in having
business cards printed stating that I did artistic taxidermy in all its
branches. I even went so far as to take several lessons in painting
from a lady who taught art in Clarendon, in order that I might paint
realistic backgrounds behind the birds that I mounted. So far as I
know, that was the first experiment of painted backgrounds used for
mounted birds or animals. I believe that my first attempt in this
direction is still in existence in Clarendon but I have been a little
afraid to go to see it.

In the fall of the year in which I was nineteen, after the crops were
in, I set out to get a wider field for my efforts. There was at that
time in the neighbouring town of Brockport an Englishman named David
Bruce, whose hobby was taxidermy. By calling he was a painter and
interior decorator--a very skilful craftsman who did special work far
and wide through the country. As a recreation he mounted birds and
animals for sportsmen. His office was filled with birds in cases and he
was surrounded with other evidences of his hobby.

To me it seemed that he led an ideal life, for he had a successful
business and one that gave him enough spare time to indulge his fancies
in taxidermy. It hadn't entered my head at the time that a man could
make a living at anything as fascinating as taxidermy, so I felt that
the best possible solution of the problem was that which Mr. Bruce had
devised. I went to see if I could get a job with him in his decorating
business in order that I might also be with him in his hobby. He was
most kindly and cordial. I remember that he took me out and bought
me an oyster stew and told me, while we were eating, that if I came
with him he would teach me all his trade secrets in painting and
decorating, which he had kept even from his workmen. It seemed to me
that a glorious future was settled for me then and there. If I was not
in the seventh heaven, I was at least in the fifth or sixth and going
up, and then my prospects became so favourable as to become almost
terrifying. Mr. Bruce, after having made me such alluring offers to
come with him, said that he thought I ought to go to a much better
place than his shop--a place where I might actually make a living at
taxidermy. In Rochester there was a famous institution, Ward's Natural
Science Establishment. At that time, and for years afterward, this
establishment supplied the best museums in this country with nearly all
their mounted specimens and also most of their other natural history
collections. Professor Ward was the greatest authority on taxidermy of
his day. It was to this place that Bruce suggested I should go. The
step which he planned seemed a great venture to me, but I determined
to try it. I went home from Brockport and told the family what Bruce
had said and what I intended to do. I got up early next morning--I
didn't have to wake up for I had hardly slept a wink--and walked three
miles to the station to take the train to Rochester. When I reached
there, I walked all over town before I found Ward's Natural Science
Establishment and the more I walked the lower and lower my courage
sank. The Establishment consisted of Professor Ward's house and
several other buildings, the entrance to the place being an arch made
of the jaws of a sperm whale. An apprentice approaching the studio of
a 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 house
for a while until I finally gathered courage to ring the door-bell.
I was admitted to an elaborately furnished room, and after a little
while Professor Ward came in. It had been a long time since I had had
breakfast, but he hadn't quite finished his, and this contrast seemed
to increase my disadvantages in his presence. Moreover, Professor Ward
was always very busy and very brusque and was a very fierce man. Not
even when a leopard sprang on me in Africa have I had a worse moment
than when this little man snapped out, "What do you want?"

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

The art of taxidermy as practised at Ward's Natural Science
Establishment in those days was very simple. To stuff a deer, for
example, we treated the skin with salt, alum, and arsenical soap. Then
the 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 no
more If then we wished to thin the body at any point, we sewed through
it with a long needle and drew it in. Now to do this, no knowledge of
the animal's anatomy or of anything else about it was necessary. There
was but little attempt to put the animals in natural attitudes; no
attempt at grouping, and no accessories in the shape of trees or other
surroundings. The profession I had chosen as the most satisfying and
stimulating to a man's soul turned out at that time to have very little
science and no art at all.

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

However, many of the prominent museum men of to-day had their early
training at Ward's Natural Science Establishment. Soon after I went
to 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 Museum
of Natural History, George K. Cherrie, the South American explorer;
the late J. William Critchley, who became the chief taxidermist in
the Brooklyn Museum of Arts and Sciences; Henry L. Ward, director of
the Kent Scientific Museum in Grand Rapids; H. C. Denslow, an artist
formerly associated with several of the leading museums as bird
taxidermist; William T. Hornaday, director of the New York Zoölogical
Park, and Frederick S. Webster, who was the first president of the
Society of American Taxidermists, were all among the friends I made in
those early days. A long list of others, not my contemporaries at that
institution, but men with whom I have since been associated in museum
work, might be added. Dr. Frederic A. Lucas had left Ward's shortly
before my arrival to take up his duties at the Smithsonian Institution
but I came to feel that I knew him very well through the stories and
reminiscences of my companions. It was not until my return from my
third expedition in 1911 that my delightful association with him as the
director of the American Museum of Natural History was begun.

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

I remember very well one time when an opportunity came to do something
a little better. A zebra was brought into the Establishment. I had been
studying anatomy and I had learned the names of all the muscles and all
the bones. When I saw the zebra I realized that here was an opportunity
to 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 breakfast
time, 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 and
my casts were thrown on the dump.

I stayed at this leading institution of taxidermy for four years and
while I was there we stuffed animals for most of the museums in the
country, for hunters and sportsmen, and various other kinds of people,
including Barnum's circus. The animal we stuffed for Barnum's circus
was the famous elephant Jumbo. We had to use a slightly different
method for Jumbo, not only because of his size but because he had to be
made rigid and strong enough to stand being carted around the country
with the circus; for this old elephant served dead as well as alive to
amuse 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 is
at Tufts College and his skeleton is at the American Museum of Natural
History.

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 the
taxidermy shop of John Wallace on North William Street in New York. I
roomed in Brooklyn with Doctor Funk, of Funk & Wagnalls, and worked in
the basement shop of Wallace's, and a more dreary six months I never
had spent anywhere. So when Ward came after me to go back, saying that
his having fired me was all a mistake due to erroneous reports that
had been given him, I went, and stayed three years. During this time
I got to know Professor Webster of Rochester University, who later
became president of Union College, and he urged me to study to become
a professor. In spite of the fact that my education had stopped early
on account of a lack of funds, I set to work to prepare myself to go
to the Sheffield Scientific School. But between working in the daytime
and studying at night I broke down, and when examination time came
I wasn't ready. However, my chances of further education, although
delayed, seemed improved. At the time I was studying for the Sheffield
Scientific School my friend, William Morton Wheeler, had left Ward's
and was teaching in the High School in Milwaukee. He wrote and offered
to tutor me if I would go out there. So I went to Milwaukee and got a
job with the museum there, which was to give me food and lodging while
I prepared for college. It did more than that, for it absorbed me so
that I gave up all thought of abandoning taxidermy. I stayed eight
years in Milwaukee, working in the museum and in a shop of my own.

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

In making these groups we had had to abandon the old straw-rag-and-bone
method of stuffing and create modelled manikins over which to stretch
the skins. As soon as this point was reached several problems
presented themselves, the solution of which meant an entirely new era
in taxidermy. If a man was going to model a realistic manikin for an
animal's skin, instead of stuffing the skin with straw, it was evident
he would have to learn to model. Likewise it turned out that, even if
a man knew how to model, he couldn't model an animal body sufficiently
well for the skin to fit it unless he knew animal anatomy. And we found
out also that making a manikin from a model was not as simple as it
sounds, but that on the contrary it is about as difficult as casting in
bronze, the difference being that the art of bronze casting has been
developed through many years, while the art of making manikins had to
be created comparatively quickly and by a very few people. We worked
at these problems step by step in Milwaukee and made a good deal of
progress.

The reindeer and orang-outang work encouraged me to suggest a series
of groups of the fur-bearing animals of Wisconsin, the muskrat group
to be the first of the series. This suggestion was more tolerated than
encouraged when it was first made, but I went as far as I could go
with my dream and before I left there I finished the muskrat group, as
I did most of my early experiments, in spite of the opposition of the
authorities. It was the old, old story of starting a thing and having
to 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 of
the museum and from then on there was full sympathy for the plan. This
was an entering wedge, and since that time group after group has been
added, until now that museum has a magnificent series.

Wheeler, who had encouraged me to go to Milwaukee, also was the cause
of my leaving. One year, while he was director, he went to Europe,
and while abroad had a talk with Sir William Flower of the British
Museum, 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't
immediately get any farther than Chicago. I stopped there and happened
to go into the Field Museum of Natural History. It was then housed
in the old art gallery of the Columbian Exposition. Professor Daniel
G. Eliot was its curator of zoölogy. He offered me some taxidermy
contracts on the spot and I accepted. While I was doing them he
suggested that I go with him on an expedition to Africa. We started in
1896.

When we got back from that trip I continued at the Field Museum as
chief of the Department of Taxidermy. Before leaving Milwaukee I had
been working on an idea of four deer groups, to be called the "Four
Seasons," to show the animals in natural surroundings of spring,
summer, autumn, and winter. I collected a good deal of the necessary
material and put a lot of work on the project in my own shop, and
finally reached a point where it became necessary for me to know
whether the museum was going to want the groups or not. I approached
the curator of zoölogy. He said that he would recommend the purchase of
one of the four. Later I saw the president of the museum. After some
discussion he asked why it was that the museum couldn't have the four
groups. I gave him every assurance that it could. I spent four years on
these four groups. It wouldn't take so long now but at that time we had
not only to make the groups but also to perfect the methods of doing
it at the same time. Four years is a long time to take on four deer
groups, but the number of things in taxidermy we worked out in doing
those groups made it a very full four years' work. In fact, the method
finally used for mounting those deer groups is the method still in use.

Briefly, that method is this: For each animal a rough armature was
made, on which a life-sized clay model was shaped just like a clay
model made for casting in bronze except that to facilitate accuracy the
skull and leg bones of the animal were used. This model was checked by
measurements made of the dead animal in the field, by photographs, and
frequently by anatomical casts made in the field. The final result
was a model not only of the species but of the actual animal whose
skin we were going to use. All this took a lot of time, study, and
money, and it was quite a different thing from stuffing a skin with
rags and straw. For a temporary effect the skin could be mounted on the
clay model, but an animal so mounted would deteriorate. For permanent
work it was necessary to devise some light, durable substance, which
would not be affected by moisture, to take the place of the clay of
the manikin. After a lot of experimentation I came to the conclusion
that a papier-mâché manikin reënforced by wire cloth and coated with
shellac would be tough, strong, durable, and impervious to moisture.
It isn't possible to model papier-mâché with the hands as one moulds
clay, so the problem resolved itself into making a plaster mould of the
clay model and then using that to build the papier-mâché manikin. When
a man wishes to make a bronze in a mould he can pour the melted metal
into the mould and when it has cooled remove the mould. But you can't
pour papier-mâché reënforced with wire cloth and if you put it into a
plaster-of-paris mould it will stick. The solution of this difficulty
struck me suddenly one day when I was riding into town to go to the
museum.

"I've got it!" I exclaimed, to the amusement of my friends and the rest
of the car full of people. As soon as I could get to my shop I tried
it and it worked. It was to take the plaster moulds of the clay model
and coat the inside of them with glue. On this glue I laid a sheet of
muslin and worked it carefully and painstakingly into every undulation
of the mould. On this went thin layers of papier-mâché with the wire
cloth reënforcement likewise worked carefully into every undulation of
the mould. Every layer of the papier-mâché composition was carefully
covered with a coating of shellac so that each layer, as well as the
whole, was entirely impervious to water. For animals the size of a deer
two layers of reënforced composition give strength enough. For animals
the size of an elephant four are sufficient and four layers are only
about an eighth of an inch thick. When the final coat of shellac was
well dried I immersed the whole thing in water. The water affected
nothing but the thin coating of glue between the mould and the muslin.
That melted and my muslin-covered, reënforced papier-mâché sections of
the manikin came out of the plaster mould clean and perfect replicas
of the original clay model. The four sections of the manikin were
assembled with the necessary leg irons and wooden ribs and the whole
was 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 the
clay model, even more accurate than bronze castings for there is no
shrinkage. The manikin of a deer so constructed weighs less than thirty
pounds, but it is strong enough to hold a man's weight. I have sat on
the back of an antelope mounted in this manner and done it no harm.
Moreover, it is entirely made of clean and durable materials. There is
nothing 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 the
skin are used, and the skin is much more carefully cleaned and tanned
than those of women's furs. An animal prepared in this way will last
indefinitely. This was a long step from the methods we used at Ward's
of filling a raw skin with greasy bones of the legs and skull and
stuffing the body out with straw, excelsior, old rags, and the like.

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

I finally got the four deer groups finished and the Field Museum bought
them at the price agreed upon. When I figured it out financially I
found that I had come out even on my expenditures for labour and
materials 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 a
pretty good four years' work.

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

First, he must be a field man who can collect his own specimens, for
other people's measurements are never very satisfactory, and actual
study of the animals in their own environment is necessary in making
natural groups.

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

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

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

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

The proper care of the skins in the field is itself a subject of
infinite ramifications. I remember, for instance, my experience in
skinning the first elephant that I killed. I shot him in the early
afternoon. I immediately set to work photographing and measuring him.
That took about an hour, and then I set to the serious work of getting
off his skin. I worked as rapidly as I could, wherever possible using
the help of the fifty boys of my _safari_, and by strenuous efforts
finished taking the skin off and salting it by breakfast time the next
morning. And that was not quick enough. Before I got all the skin off
the carcass some of it on the under side had begun to decompose and
I lost a little of it. This was a particularly difficult beast to
skin because he had fallen in a little hollow and after skinning the
exposed side of him all the efforts of the fifty black boys to roll him
over, out of the depression, so that we could easily get at the other
side, 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 this
weighs a ton and a quarter and in places is as much as two and a half
inches thick. There is about four days' work in thinning it. I have had
thirty or forty black boys for days cutting at the inside of the skin
in this thinning process or sharpening the knives with which they did
the work.

When it is finally thinned down, thoroughly dried and salted, it
presents another problem. Moisture will ruin it. Salt, the only
available preservative, attracts moisture. It isn't possible to carry
zinc-lined cases into the forests after elephants. I tried building
thatched roofs over the skins but it was not a success. I speculated on
many other plans but none appeared feasible. Finally Nature provided a
solution for the difficulty.

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

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

Similarly the measurement of animals for taxidermy presents many
difficulties. The size of a lion's leg, for instance, measured as it
hangs limp after the animal's death is not accurate data for the leg
with the muscles taut ready for action. Nor is an animal's body the
same size with its lungs deflated in death as when the breath of life
was in its body. All these things must be taken into account in using
measurements or even casts to resurrect an animal true to its living
appearance.

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 arts
have. I began to dream of museums which would have artist-naturalists
who would have the vision to plan groups and the skill to model them
and who would be furnished with skilled assistance in the making of the
manikins and accessories and in the mounting of the animals. And it
seemed as if the dream were about to come true. About this time I had a
conference with Dr. Herman Bumpus, then director of the American Museum
of Natural History in New York. He told me that he had then at the
museum a young man named James Clark who could model but who did not
know the technique of making manikins and mounting animals. The result
of our talk was that Clark came out to my shop in Chicago and together
we went through the whole process, mounting a doe which now stands in
the American Museum. But the old museum trouble broke out again. It
cost a lot to mount animals in the method which Clark brought back. So
there was pressure to reduce the cost and, under this pressure, the
methods, in the words of O. Henry, "were damaged by improvements."
However, in the course of time it was demonstrated that while it often
happens that an honest effort to make a thing better often makes it
cheaper also, an effort merely to cheapen a thing very seldom makes it
better.

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

Again, in 1909, I went, this time for the American Museum of Natural
History. I stayed two years, studying elephants, lions, and lion
spearing. When I got back and set to work mounting the elephant group
in the American Museum in New York, I discovered that with these
hairless skins there was opportunity for a little simplification of
the method used in the deer groups. It was possible actually to model
the skin on the clay manikin, only in this case the clay manikin was
for convenience in three pieces. A layer of plaster of paris was then
laid on outside the skin to hold it firmly in shape. Then the clay
removed from the inside was replaced with a layer of plaster. Thus
every detail of the skin was held firmly in the matrix of plaster
until it was thoroughly dried, when the plaster was removed from the
inside and replaced with succeeding layers of wire cloth and shellaced
papier-mâché, making the skin an integral part of the manikin. In
other words, the skin functioned practically as does the muslin in the
manikins made for haired animals. When this was done the plaster mould
was taken off the outside and the clean, light, durable half-sections
of elephants were put together.

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




CHAPTER II

ELEPHANT FRIENDS AND FOES


I have sat in the top of a tree in the middle of a herd a quarter of
a mile from a native village in Uganda in a last desperate effort to
inspect the two hundred and fifty elephants which had been chevying me
about so fast that I had not had a chance to see whether there were
any desirable specimens among them or not. I have spent a day and a
night in the Budongo Forest in the middle of a herd of seven hundred
elephants. I have stood on an ant-hill awaiting the rush of eleven
elephants which had got my wind and were determined to get me. I have
spent a day following and fighting an old bull which took twenty-five
shots of our elephant rifles before he succumbed. And once also I had
such close contact with an old bull up on the slopes of Mt. Kenia that
I had to save myself from being gored by grabbing his tusks with my
hands 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 watched
them in herds and singly, studied their paths, their feeding grounds,
everything about them I could, and I have come to the conclusion that
of all the wild animals on this earth now, the African elephant is
the most fascinating, and that man, for all the thousands of years he
has known of elephants, knows mighty little about him. I am speaking
only of the African elephant. He has not been domesticated as his
Indian cousin has. The two are different in size and different in shape
and different in habits. The low point of an African elephant's back
line is the highest point of that of the Indian elephant. The African
elephant's ears and tusks are larger, and his tusks usually spread
wider at the points instead of coming together. Unless one studies him
in his native haunts, one cannot get to know him. His disposition is
held to be wilder than that of the Indian elephant, but the infrequency
of his appearance in circuses and in zoölogical parks may be attributed
to the ease with which tamed elephants may be obtained from India
rather than to a difference of temper in the two beasts. An African
elephant at Washington and one in the Bronx zoölogical park are the
only ones I know of in this country, and no animal in captivity can
give one more than a slight idea of his natural habits in his jungle
home.

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

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

One night about dark, after a week or two of hunting, we heard the
squeal of an elephant while we were sitting at dinner. A little later
there were more squeals and occasional trumpeting--more and more,
clearer and clearer--and by the time we had finished dinner the noise
was only a mile or so away. It was a continuous row which suggested a
tremendous herd. We went to bed early with elephants getting closer to
camp all of the time. There is little danger of elephants attacking a
camp, and, as there is no way to study them at night, about the only
thing left to do was to go to bed and get in good shape for the next
day. Along about midnight Mrs. Akeley came over to my tent and said
that she had loaded my guns and that they were all ready. She could
not sleep; so she went out to sit by the fire. The elephants were then
within a hundred yards of our tents and there was a continuous roar
made up of trumpetings, squealing, and the crashing of bushes and trees.

[Illustration: A BIG SPECIMEN IN THE FIELD

To photograph, measure, and skin an animal the size of this one
requires eight or ten hours of work even with the assistance of forty
or fifty negro boys]

[Illustration: MR. AKELEY'S SAFARI LADEN WITH ELEPHANT SKINS]

I got up in the morning and had breakfast before daybreak. The
elephants had moved on down the edge of the forest. What had been a
jungle of high grass and bush the day before was trampled flat. There
were at least seven hundred elephants in the herd--government officials
had counted them on the previous day as they came down. I followed
the trails to the edge of the forest but saw none. I started back to
cross a little _nullah_ (a dry water course), but felt suspicious and
decided to look the situation over a little more closely. I ran up on
a sloping rock and, almost under me on the other side, I saw the back
of a large elephant. Over to one side there was another one, beyond
that another, and then I realized that the little _nullah_ through
which I had planned to pass was very well sprinkled with them. I backed
off and went up to a higher rock to one side. Elephants were drifting
into the forest from all directions. The sun was just coming up over
the hills and was shining upon the forest, which sparkled in the
sunlight--morning greetings to the forest people. The monkeys greeted
one another with barks and coughs. Everything was waking up--it was
a busy day. There was not a breath of air. I had gone back a million
years; the birds were calling back and forth, the monkeys were calling
to one another, a troop of chimpanzees in the open screamed, and their
shouts were answered from another group inside the forest. All the
forest life was awake and moving about as that huge herd of elephants,
singly and in groups, flowed into the forest from the plain. There was
one continuous roar of noise, all the wild life joining, but above it
all were the crashing of trees and the squealing of the elephants as
they moved into the forest on a front at least a mile wide. It was the
biggest 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 sound
ceased, everything was quiet. The monkeys, the birds--all the wild
life--stopped their racket; the elephants stood still, listening
and waiting. For a moment I was dazed. The thought came through my
mind--"What does it all mean? Have I been dreaming?" But soon I heard
the rustling of the trees as though a great storm were coming. There
was no movement of the air, but there was the sound of a wind storm
going through a forest. It gradually died away, and I realized that the
elephants had made it as they moved off. It was the rustling of the dry
leaves on the ground under their feet and the rubbing of their bodies
through the dried foliage of the forest. I never heard a noise like
that made by elephants--before or since. The conditions were unique,
for everything was thoroughly parched, and there had not even been a
dew. Ordinarily, if there is any moisture, elephants when warned can
travel through a forest without the slightest noise. In spite of their
great bulk they are as silent and sometimes as hard to see in their
country as a jack rabbit is in his. I remember on one occasion being so
close to an old cow in the jungle that I could hear the rumbling of her
stomach, and yet when she realized my presence the rumbling ceased,
as it always does when they are suspicious, and she left the clump of
growth she was in without my hearing a sound.

But going back to the big herd. From the time I had seen the first
elephant until the last of them disappeared in the forest it had been
perhaps fifteen minutes--fifteen minutes in which to see the sight of a
lifetime, 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 fifteen
minutes? A little perhaps but not much. It takes a long time and much
patience to get at all intimate with old Tembo, as the Swahilis call
him, on his native soil.

After the herd disappeared in the forest I watched for ten or fifteen
minutes and heard the squeal of the elephants and the noise of the
monkeys again. Their suspicions were over. I followed into the forest
where the trails showed me that they had broken up into small bands. I
followed along on the trail of one of these bands until I got a glimpse
of an elephant about fifty yards ahead of me in the trail. You don't
see a whole elephant in the forest. What you do see is just a glimpse
of hide or tusk or trunk through the trees. And if you want to get this
glimpse without disturbing him you must do your glimpsing from down the
wind.

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 as
they passed through this open space. They were moving along slowly,
feeding. Two or three came out into the opening, then they became
suspicious and wheeled into the forest again. I followed cautiously.
I had gone only a short distance when I saw a very young calf about
twenty yards ahead of me. As I halted, the mother came trotting back
down the trail looking for the baby. I froze to the side of a tree
with my gun ready. She came to the baby and turning, boosted it along
with her trunk after the rest of the herd. I followed along after
them into an opening where I found them rounded up in a patch of
burned-over ground. They were milling around in a rather compact mass
seemingly preparing for defence. I could not see very plainly, for a
cloud of dust rose from the burned ground as they shuffled about. I
stood watching them a little time and suddenly caught sight of a fine
tusk--an old bull and just what I wanted for the group I was working
on for the Museum of Natural History. I ran up behind a bush at the
edge of the clearing and peeked through it. There, not more than twenty
yards from me, was my bull, partially exposed and partially covered
by the other animals. I could not get a shot at his brain as he was
standing, but the foreleg on my side was forward exposing his side so
that 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 and
down--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 kill
him. You can kill him by hitting his heart, or by hitting his brain. If
you hit him anywhere else you are not likely to hurt him much and the
brain and heart shots are the only safe bets. I fired at his heart with
both barrels and then grabbed my other gun from the gun boy, ready for
their rush, but the whole herd, including the old bull, made off in the
other direction, raising a cloud of dust. I ran around and climbed an
ant-hill four or five feet high to keep them in sight.

When I caught sight of them they had gone about fifty yards and had
stopped. And then I _did_ learn something about elephants. My old bull
was down on the ground on his side. Around him were ten or twelve other
elephants trying desperately with their trunks and tusks to get him
on his feet again. They were doing their best to rescue their wounded
comrade. They moved his great bulk fifteen or twenty feet in their
efforts, but were unable to get him up. I don't know of any other big
animals that will do this. I had heard stories that elephants had the
chivalry to stick by their wounded and help them, but I was never sure
myself until I had actually seen this instance. Some time later Major
Harrison, a very experienced elephant hunter and a keen observer,
told me of an even more remarkable instance that he had seen. He was
shooting in the Congo and came upon four big bulls. One he killed and
another he wounded. The wounded one went down but the two survivors
helped him regain his feet, and with one on each side helping him the
three moved off. Although Major Harrison followed the rest of the day
he 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 their
ears out to hear anything of their enemy and with their trunks up
feeling for my wind. They were moving in ever-increasing circles which
threatened to envelop my ant-hill, and I beat a hasty retreat. Not long
after they evidently were convinced that the bull was dead and all
together they moved away. I then went to the body. He was dead, but
as we approached there was a reflex action which twitched his trunk
from time to time. This frightened the gun boys so that I went up and
slapped the elephant's eye, the customary test, and as there was no
reaction the boys were convinced. When I looked the carcass over I
was disappointed to find that only one of his tusks was big and well
developed. 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 largest
elephants I had ever seen, measuring eleven feet four inches to the
top of his shoulders, and the circumference of his front foot was
sixty-seven and a half inches. To the best of my knowledge this is a
record size by about four inches. I did not even skin him but contented
myself with taking his tusks, which I sold for nearly $500 without even
going down to Nairobi.

The phenomenon of elephants helping each other when wounded is not
general by any means. Only a few days after shooting the big bull I
had an instance of elephants abandoning one of their number that was
wounded and not very badly wounded, either.

I had gone into the forest again, and had come upon another bunch in
very thick country. I could only get little glimpses of a patch of hide
or ivory once in a while. After working along with them for a while in
the hope of getting into more open ground I tried the experiment of
beating on the tree trunks with sticks. This was new to them as it was
to me. I felt sure it would make them run but I wasn't sure whether
they would go toward it or away from it. Happily they bolted from
the forest into the high grass, grumbling all the while. I followed
as closely as I dared until finally, in hope of getting a view over
the top of the high grass, I started to climb a tree. Just then they
rushed back into the forest, fortunately to one side of me. I thought
it was time to quit, so we started back to camp. At that moment I heard
another group of elephants. They were coming out of the forest into the
grass. I climbed up an ant-hill where I could see them as they passed
over a ridge. There were eleven of them and not a specimen that I
wanted among them. I stood watching to see what would happen next. They
were about three hundred yards away when they got my wind. Back they
came, rumbling, trumpeting, and squealing. I knew that I had trouble on
my hands. The only thing for me to do was to stick, for if I got down
in the tall grass I couldn't see anything at all. They came up over a
hill, but they were not coming straight toward me and it looked as if
they would pass me at forty or fifty yards; but, unfortunately, the
cow in front saw me standing in full view on my ant-hill pedestal. They
turned straight at me. When the leading cow was as close as I wanted
her to get--about twenty-five yards--I fired. She hesitated but again
surged on with the others. A second shot knocked her down. The rest
surged 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 off
after them.

Elephants have the reputation of having very bad eyesight. I personally
am of the opinion that their sight is pretty good, but on this subject,
as on most others about elephants, information is neither complete nor
accurate. But my experience makes me think that they can see pretty
well. 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 charged
me from 250 yards with the wind from them to me. The behaviour of this
particular herd gave me a clue to their reputation for bad eyesight.
The elephant is not afraid of any animal except man, and consequently
he is not on the alert for moving objects as are animals that are
hunted. Neither does he eat other animals, so he is not interested in
their movements as a hunter. In fact, he isn't normally particularly
interested in moving objects at all. He pays no attention. When we
first came up with this herd on the Uasin Gishu Plateau we could move
around within fifty yards of them without attracting their attention.
However, after they got our wind and recognized us as enemies, they
were 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 with
his smelling ability. An elephant's trunk is probably the best smelling
apparatus in the world, and he depends on his sense of smell more than
on any other sense. When he is at all suspicious he moves his trunk
around in every direction so that he catches the slightest taint in the
air, from whichever way it comes. I have often seen elephants, when
disturbed, with their trunks high in air reaching all around for my
wind. I likewise, on one occasion, had an intimate view of a very quiet
smelling operation by which an old cow escaped me. I was on an elephant
path one day on Mt. Kenia looking for an elephant I had heard, when my
gun-bearer gripped my shoulder and pointed into the forest. I looked
and looked but could see nothing but the trees. Finally I noticed that
one of the trees diminished in size toward the ground and I recognized
an elephant's trunk. My eyes followed it down. At the very tip it was
curled back, and this curled-back part, with the nostrils distended,
was moving slowly from side to side quietly fishing for my wind. She
was 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 up
and moved away, I could not hear her going although it was a dense
forest and she was accompanied by two youngsters. Very often in the
forest where there is very little air stirring it is hard to tell the
direction of the wind. I used to light wax taper matches as tests, for
they could be struck without any noise and the flame would show the
direction of the slightest breath of air.

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

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

He can eat anything that is green or ever has been green, just so long
as there is enough of it. He can get his water from the aloe plants on
the arid plains, or dig a well in the sand of a dry river bed with his
trunk and fore feet, and drink there, or he is equally at home living
half in the swamps of better-watered regions. He is at home on the
low, hot plains of the seacoast at the equator or on the cool slopes
of Kenia and Elgon. So far as I know, he suffers from no contagious
diseases and has no enemies except man. There are elephants on Kenia
that have never lain down for a hundred years. Some of the plains
elephants do rest lying down, but no one ever saw a Kenia elephant
lying down or any evidence that he does lie down to rest. The elephant
is a good traveller. On good ground a good horse can outrun him, but on
bad ground the horse would have no chance, and there are few animals
that can cover more ground in a day than an elephant. And in spite of
his appearance, he can turn with surprising agility and move through
the forest as quietly as a rabbit.

An elephant's foot is almost as remarkable as his trunk. In the first
place, his foot is encased in a baglike skin with a heavy padded
bottom, with some of the characteristics of an anti-skid tire. An
elephant walks on his toes. His toes form the front part of his foot
and the bones of his foot run not only back but up. Underneath these
bones at the back of his foot is a gelatine-like substance, which is
a much more effective shock absorber than rubber heels or any other
device. One of the curious things about this kind of a foot is that it
swells out when the weight is on it and contracts when the weight is
removed. As a consequence an elephant may sink four feet into a swamp
but the minute he begins to lift his legs, his feet will contract and
come out of the hole they have made without suction. The elephant's
leg, being practically a perpendicular shaft, requires less muscular
effort for him to stand than it does for ordinary animals. This is one
of the reasons why he can go for a century without lying down.

[Illustration: 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 the
particular interest of the animals themselves. I believe that before
the white man came to East Africa the elephant was nearly as much a
plains animal as a forest animal, but he now tends to stay in the
forests where the risk is not so great. On the plains there are no
elephant paths now, if there ever were, for in open country elephants
do not go in single file. But in the forests there are elephant paths
everywhere. In fact, if it were not for the elephant paths travel in
the forest would be almost impossible, and above the forests in the
bamboo country this is equally true. One travels practically all the
time on their trails and they go everywhere except in the tree ferns.
Tree fern patches are not very extensive, but I have never seen an
elephant track or an elephant in them. The elephants are constantly
changing the paths for various reasons; among others, because the
natives are in the habit of digging elephant pits in the trails. But
there are some trails that have evidently been used for centuries. One
time we had followed a band of elephants on the Aberdare Plateau and
had devilled them until they began to travel away. We followed until
the trail led through a pass in the mountains and we realized that they
were going into a different region altogether. That trail in the pass
was a little wider than an elephant's foot and worn six inches deep in
the solid rock. It must have taken hundreds of years for the shuffling
of elephants to wear that rock away.

At another place on Kenia I found an elephant passage of a stream
where the trail was twenty feet wide. Single paths came in from
many directions on one side of the stream and joined in this great
boulevard, which crossed the stream and broke up again on the other
side into the single paths radiating again in every direction. In
many places where the topography of the ground is such that there is
only one place for a trail there will be unmistakable evidence that
the trails have stayed in the same place many years--such as trees
rubbed half in two by the constant passing of the animals or damp rocks
polished by the caress of their trunks. And along all the trails, old
and new, are elephant signs, footprints, dung, and gobs of chewed wood
and bark from which they have extracted the juices before spitting them
out.

But finding the elephants is not so frequent or easy as the
multiplicity of the signs would indicate. One reason is that the signs
of elephants--tracks, rubbed trees, and so forth--are more or less
enduring, many of them being very plain in places where the elephants
have not been for months or even years. If, however, you come on fresh
elephant tracks, not more than a day old, you can usually catch up
with the elephants, for as they feed along through the country they
do not go fast. Only if they are making a _trek_ from one region to
another it may take much longer to catch them.

Once up with an elephant, if you are shooting, you are pretty sure
that, 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 him
in a vital spot. Moreover, if you stop the leader of a bunch that is
charging you, the bunch will stop. I never heard of a case in which
the 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 does
happen there won't be any one to tell about it. It is unusual for an
elephant to keep on after being hit even if the hit does not knock him
down. The old cow that charged me at the head of ten others was rather
the exception to this rule, for after my first shot stopped her she
came on again until my second shot knocked her down. But I had one
experience that was entirely at variance with this rule. One old bull
took thirteen shots from my rifle and about as many from Mrs. Akeley's
before he was content either to die or run away.

In Uganda, after six months in the up-country after elephants, we
decided to go down to the Uasin Gishu Plateau for lion spearing, for
the rainy season was beginning and the vegetation growing so thick
that elephant hunting was getting very difficult. On the way down we
came one morning upon the fresh trail of a herd of elephants. We
followed for about two hours in a high bush country over which were
scattered clumps of trees. Finally we came upon the elephants at the
time of their mid-day siesta. The middle of the day is the quietest
time of the twenty-four hours with elephants. If they are in a herd,
they will bunch together in the shade. They do not stand absolutely
still, but mill about very slowly, changing positions in the bunch but
not leaving. They are neither feeding nor travelling but, as nearly as
they ever do, resting. I even saw a young bull once rest his tusks in
the crotch of a tree during this resting period. We got up to within
twenty-five yards of them behind some bushes down the wind. We finally
decided upon one of the bulls as the target. Mrs. Akeley studied
carefully and shot. The bull went down, apparently dead. Ordinarily, we
should rush in for a finishing shot, but in this case the rest of the
herd did not make off promptly, so we stood still. When they did go off
we started toward the apparently dead animal. As we did so, he got upon
his feet and, in spite of a volley from us, kept on after the herd. We
followed, 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 out
to one side and get abreast to fire a finishing shot at him. He was
moving slowly and groggily. It was hard to move anywhere except in his
trail without making a noise, and I suddenly discovered that the trail
was turning so that the wind was from us to him.

Immediately we swung off to one side, but it was too late. I didn't
see him when he got our wind but I knew perfectly he had it for
there 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 is
terrifying, too--at least to any one who knows elephants--for it means
an angry animal and usually a charge. Then came a series of grunts and
rumblings. A second or two later he came in sight, his ears spread out
twelve feet from tip to tip, his trunk up and jerking fiercely from
side to side. There is no way of describing how big an elephant looks
under these conditions, or the speed at which he comes. At about thirty
yards 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 thirty
feet behind me. The boy ran up with it and I emptied both barrels into
the elephant's head, and still he took it like a sand hill. In the
meanwhile, Mrs. Akeley had been firing, too. And then he turned and
went off again. I went back to Mrs. Akeley. Everything that I knew
about elephant shooting had failed to apply in this case. I had stopped
him with one shot. That was normal enough. But then I had put three
carefully aimed shots into his head at short range, any one of which
should have killed him. And he had taken them with only a slight flinch
and 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 wait
for developments."

She said: "No, we started it; so let's finish it."

I agreed as we reloaded, and we were about to start following when his
screaming, grunting, roaring attack began again. Exactly the same thing
happened 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 with
the first shot and took all the others standing, finally turning and
retreating again. Apparently our shots had no effect except to make
him stop and think. I was sick of it, for maybe next time he wouldn't
stop and evidently we couldn't knock him down. We had about finished
reloading when we heard him once more. There was nothing to do but
stand the charge, for to run was fatal. So we waited. There was an
appreciable 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 was
charging at a point thirty yards to one side of us and thrashing back
and forth a great branch of tree in his trunk. Why his charge was so
misdirected I didn't know, but I was profoundly grateful. As he ran I
had 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 I
stood by the carcass I felt very small indeed. Mrs. Akeley sat down and
drew a long breath before she spoke.

"I want to go home," she said at last, "and keep house for the rest of
my life."

Then I heard a commotion in the bush in front of the dead elephant and
as I looked up a black boy carrying a cringing monkey appeared. Only
the boy wasn't black. He was scared to an ashen colour and he was
still 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. They
had followed to see the sport without our knowledge, and they had drawn
the elephant's last charge.

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

I couldn't measure his height, but I measured his ear as one indication
of his size. It was the biggest I ever heard of. And his tusks
were good sized--80 pounds. He was a very big animal, but his foot
measurement 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 tusks
for legs. With the wooden border it was eight feet long and seated
eight people very comfortably.

Most wild animals, if they smell man and have an opportunity to get
away, make the most of it. Even a mother with young will usually try to
escape trouble rather than bring it on, although, of course, they are
quickest to fight. But elephants are not always in this category. In
the open it has been my experience that they would rather leave than
provoke a fight; if you hunt elephants in the forest, you are quite
likely to find that two can play the hunting game, and find yourself
pretty actively hunted by the elephants. If the elephants after you are
making a noise, it gives you a good chance. When they silently wait for
you, the game is much more dangerous.

The old bull, who is in the centre of the elephant group in the Museum
of Natural History now, tried to get me by this silent method. I was
out on a trail and I saw that a big bunch of animals were near. I
wasn't following any particular trail for they had moved about so that
signs were everywhere and much confused. Finally I came to a gully. It
wasn't very broad or very deep, but the trail I was on turned up it to
where a crossing could be made on the level. The forest here was high
and very thick, and consequently it was quite dark. As I looked up the
trail I saw a group of big shapes through the branches. I thought they
were elephants and peered carefully at them, but they turned out to be
boulders. A minute later I saw across the gully another similar group
of boulders, but as I peered at them I saw through a little opening
in the leaves, plain and unmistakable, an elephant's tusk. I watched
it carefully. It moved a little, and behind it I caught a glimpse of
the other tusk. They were big, and I decided that he would do for my
group. 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 place
where his tusk entered his head, and fired. Then there was the riot of
an elephant herd suddenly starting. A few seconds later there was a
crash. "He's down," I thought, and Bill, the gun boy, and I ran over to
the place where the animals had been. We followed their tracks a little
way and found where one of the elephants had been down, but he had
recovered and gone on. However, he had evidently gone off by himself
when he got up, for while the others had gone down an old trail he had
gone straight through the jungle, breaking a new way as he went. With
Bill 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 by
compass. One hour went by and then another. We had settled down for a
long _trek_. The going wasn't very good and the forest was so thick
that we could not see in any direction. We were pushing along in this
fashion when, with a crash and a squeal, an elephant burst across our
path within fifteen feet of us. It was absolutely without warning, and
had the charge been straight on us we could hardly have escaped. As
it was, I fired two hurried shots as he disappeared in the growth on
the opposite side of the trail. The old devil had grown tired of being
hunted and had doubled back on his own trail to wait for us. He had
been 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 on
scent or sound without being able to see us. I heard him go through the
forest a way and then stop. I followed until I found a place a little
more open than the rest, and with this between me and the trees he was
in I waited. 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 it
while I listened and watched. I had just finished and had a puff or two
on my pipe when he let out another squeal and charged. He evidently had
moved 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 heard
the breaking of the bushes as he collapsed. His last effort had been
too much for him.

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

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

There was perfectly good elephant country around our camp but I wanted
to go back up where the forests stop and the bamboo flourishes, because
it was a bamboo setting that I had selected for the group of elephants
I was then working on for the African Hall in the American Museum of
Natural History. I started out with four days' rations, gun boys,
porters, camera men, and so forth--fifteen men in all. The second day
out brought me to about nine thousand feet above sea level where the
bamboo began. Following a well-worn elephant trail in search of this
photographic material, I ran on to a trail of three old bulls. The
tracks were old--probably as much as four days--but the size was so
unusual that I decided to postpone the photography and follow them. I
did not expect to have to catch up their four days' travel, for I hoped
that they would be feeding in the neighbourhood and that the trail I
was on would cross a fresher trail made in their wanderings around for
food. I had run upon their tracks first about noon. I followed until
dark without finding any fresher signs. The next morning we started out
at daybreak and finally entered an opening such as elephants use as a
feeding ground. It is their custom to mill around in these openings,
eating the vegetation and trampling it down until it offers little
more, and then move on. In six months or so it will be grown up again
eight or ten feet high and they are very apt to revisit it and go
through the same process again. Soon after we entered this opening I
came suddenly upon fresh tracks of the elephants I had been following.
Not only were the tracks fresh but the droppings were still steaming
and I knew that the animals were not far away; certainly they had been
there not more than an hour before. I followed the trail amongst
the low bush in the opening but it merely wandered about repeatedly
bringing me back to the place where I had first seen the fresh tracks,
and I realized that I might do this indefinitely without getting closer
to the elephants. I decided to go outside the opening and circle around
it to see if I could find the trail of my bulls as they entered the
forest. This opening was at the point on the mountain where the forest
proper and the bamboos merged. I followed an elephant path out of
the opening on the bamboo side and had gone but a little way when I
discovered fresh signs of my three bulls, who had evidently left the
opening by the same path that I was following, and at about the same
time I heard the crackling of bamboo ahead, probably about two hundred
yards 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 to
a point where it turned at right angles in the direction of the sounds
I had heard. There he stopped at rest, having indicated to me by signs
that 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 a
clump of large trees that would afford some protection in case of a
stampede in their direction. The gun boys came forward presenting the
guns for inspection. I took the gun from the second boy, sending him
back with the porters. After examining this gun I gave it to the first
boy and took his. When I had examined this I leaned it against my
body while I chafed my hands which were numb from the cold mists of
the morning, knowing that I might soon need a supple trigger finger.
During this time the first gun boy was taking the cartridges, one by
one, from his bandoleer and holding them up for my inspection--the
ordinary precaution to insure that all the ammunition was the right
kind, and an important insurance, because only a full steel-jacketed
bullet will penetrate an elephant's head. While still warming my hands,
inspecting the cartridges, and standing with the gun leaning against my
stomach, I was suddenly conscious that an elephant was almost on top
of me. I have no knowledge of how the warning came. I have no mental
record of hearing him, seeing him, or of any warning from the gun boy
who faced me and who must have seen the elephant as he came down on me
from behind. There must have been some definite signal, but it was not
recorded in my mind. I only know that as I picked up my gun and wheeled
about I tried to shove the safety catch forward. It refused to budge,
and I remember the thought that perhaps I had left the catch forward
when I inspected the gun and that if not I must pull the triggers hard
enough to fire the gun anyway. This is an impossibility, but I remember
distinctly the determination to do it, for the all-powerful impulse in
my mind was that I must shoot instantly. Then something happened that
dazed me. I don't know whether I shot or not. My next mental record
is of a tusk right at my chest. I grabbed it with my left hand, the
other one with my right hand, and swinging in between them went to
the ground on my back. This swinging in between the tusks was purely
automatic. It was the result of many a time on the trails imagining
myself caught by an elephant's rush and planning what I would do, and
a very profitable planning, too; for I am convinced that if a man
imagines such a crisis and plans what he would do, he will, when the
occasion occurs, automatically do what he planned. Anyway, I firmly
believe that my imaginings along the trail saved my life.

He drove his tusks into the ground on either side of me, his curled-up
trunk 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 could
expect no mercy from it. This thought was perfectly clear and
definite in my mind. I heard a wheezy grunt as he plunged down and
then--oblivion.

The thing that dazed me was a blow from the elephant's trunk as he
swung it down to curl it back out of harm's way. It broke my nose and
tore my cheek open to the teeth. Had it been an intentional blow it
would have killed me instantly. The part of the trunk that scraped off
most of my face was the heavy bristles on the knuckle-like corrugations
of the skin of the under side.

When he surged down on me, his big tusks evidently struck something in
the ground that stopped them. Of course my body offered practically
no resistance to his weight, and I should have been crushed as thin
as a wafer if his tusks hadn't met that resistance--stone, root, or
something--underground. He seems to have thought me dead for he left
me--by some good fortune not stepping on me--and charged off after
the boys. I never got much information out of the boys as to what
did happen, for they were not proud of their part in the adventure.
However, there were plenty of signs that the elephant had run out into
the open space again and charged all over it; so it is reasonable to
assume that they had scattered through it like a covey of quail and
that he had trampled it down trying to find the men whose tracks and
wind filled the neighbourhood.

Usually, when an elephant kills a man, it will return to its victim
and gore him again, or trample him, or pull his legs or arms off with
its trunk. I knew of one case where a man's porters brought in his arm
which the elephant that had killed him had pulled off his body and left
lying on the ground. In my case, happily, the elephant for some reason
did not come back. I lay unconscious for four or five hours. In the
meanwhile, when they found the coast was clear, the porters and gun
boys returned and made camp, intending, no doubt, to keep guard over
my 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 dead
man. So they built a fire and huddled around it and I lay unconscious
in the cold mountain rain at a little distance, with my body crushed
and my face torn open. About five o'clock I came to in a dazed way
and was vaguely conscious of seeing a fire. I shouted, and a little
later I felt myself being carried by the shoulders and legs. Later
again I had a lucid spell and realized that I was lying in one of the
porter's tents, and I got clarity of mind enough to ask where my wife
was. The boys answered that she was back in camp. That brought the
events back to me, how I had left her at camp, found the trail of the
three old bulls, followed them and, finally, how I was knocked out.
I was entirely helpless. I could move neither my arms nor legs and I
reached the conclusion that my back was broken. I could not move, but
I felt no pain whatever. However, my coldness and numbness brought to
my mind a bottle of cocktails, and I ordered one of the boys to bring
it to me. My powers of resistance must have been very low, for he
poured all there was in the bottle down my throat. In the intervals of
consciousness, also, I got them to give me hot bovril--a British beef
tea--and quinine. The result of all this was that the cold and numbness
left me. I moved my arms. The movement brought pain, but I evidently
wasn'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!" So
before I dropped off again for the night I knew that I had some chance
of 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 her
sitting by me on the ground.

When the elephant got me, the boys had sent two runners to tell Mrs.
Akeley. They arrived about six in the evening. It was our custom when
separated to send notes to each other, or at least messages. When these
boys came on to say that an elephant had got me, and when she found
that there was no word from me, it looked bad. Mrs. Akeley sent word to
the nearest government post for a doctor and started her preparations
to come to me that night. She had to go after her guides, even into
the 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 all
speed until about daybreak, when the guides confessed that they were
lost. At this juncture she was sitting on a log, trying to think what
to do next. And then she heard my gun. She answered, but it was more
than 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 noticed
a peculiar expression on her face. If I had had a looking glass, I
should probably have understood it better. One eye was closed and the
forehead over it skinned. My nose was broken and my cheek cut so that
it hung down, exposing my teeth. I was dirty all over, and from time
to time spit blood from the hemorrhages inside. Altogether, I was an
unlovely subject and looked hardly worth saving. But I did get entirely
over it all, although it took me three months in bed. The thing that
was serious was that the elephant had crushed several of my ribs into
my lungs, and these internal injuries took a long time to heal. As a
matter of fact, I don't suppose I would have pulled through even with
Mrs. Akeley's care if it hadn't been for a Scotch medical missionary
who nearly ran himself to death coming to my rescue. He had been in the
country only a little while and perhaps this explains his coming so
fast when news reached him of a man who had been mauled by an elephant.
The chief medical officer at Fort Hall, knowing better what elephant
mauling usually meant, came, but he didn't hurry. I saw him later and
he 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 hotel
at Nairobi with three other men, who like myself had been caught by
elephants and had lived to tell the tale. An elephant caught Black in
his trunk, and threw him into a bush that broke his fall. The elephant
followed him and stepped on him, the bush this time forming a cushion
that saved him, and although the elephant returned two or three times
to give him a final punch, he was not killed. However, he was badly
broken up.

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

Hutchinson's story I have forgotten a little now, but I remember that
he said the elephant caught him, brushed the ground with him, and then
threw him. The elephant followed him and Hutchinson put off fate a few
seconds by somehow getting amongst the elephant's legs. The respite
was enough, for the gun boy, by this time, began firing and drove the
elephant off.

In all of these cases, unlike mine, the elephants had used their trunks
to pick up their victims and to throw them, and they had intended
finishing them by trampling on them. This use of the trunk seems more
common than the charge with the tusks that had so nearly finished
me. Up in Somaliland Dudo Muhammud, my gun boy, showed me the spot
where he had seen an elephant kill an Italian prince. The elephant
picked the prince up in his trunk and beat him against his tusks, the
prince, meanwhile, futilely beating the elephant's head with his fists.
Then the elephant threw him upon the ground, walked on him, and then
squatted on him, rubbing back and forth until he had rubbed his body
into 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 were
across Lake Albert in the Belgian Congo. One day Longdon shot a bull
elephant and stood watching the herd disappear, when a cow came down
from 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. Longdon
lived four days.

But although the elephant is a terrible fighter in his own defence
when attacked by man, that is not his chief characteristic. The things
that stick in my mind are his sagacity, his versatility, and a certain
comradeship which I have never noticed to the same degree in other
animals. I like to think of the picture of the two old bulls helping
along their comrade wounded by Major Harrison's gun; to think of
several instances I have seen of a phenomenon, which I am sure is not
accidental, when the young and husky elephants formed the outer ring
of a group protecting the older ones from the scented danger. I like
to think back to the day I saw the group of baby elephants playing
with 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 the
playfulness with which this same group teased the babies of a herd of
buffalo until the cow buffaloes chased them off. I think, too, of the
extraordinary fact that I have never heard or seen African elephants
fighting each other. They have no enemy but man and are at peace
amongst themselves.

It is my friend the elephant that I hope to perpetuate in the central
group in the Roosevelt African Hall as it is now planned for the
American Museum of Natural History--a hall with groups of African
animal skins mounted on sculptured bodies, with backgrounds painted
from the country itself. In this, which we hope will be an everlasting
monument to the Africa that was, the Africa that is now fast
disappearing, I hope to place the elephant group on a pedestal in the
centre 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 only
remaining records of my jungle friends. As civilization advances in
Africa, the extinction of the elephant is being accomplished slowly but
quite as surely as that of the American buffalo two generations ago. It
is 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 elephants
is not a sound proposition economically. Elephant farming is a prince's
game, and Africa has no princes to play it. An elephant requires
hundreds of acres of land, infinitely more than cattle and sheep and
the 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 the
process. Wherever the elephants refuse to be confined to their
bailiwicks and annoy the natives by raiding their farms, the Government
has appointed official elephant killers. The South African elephant
in the Addoo bush was condemned to be exterminated several years ago.
Here, however, the hunters sent into the bush to kill them off found
the elephant too much for them and finally gave up the attempt. Now
they 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 limited
numbers. Uganda also has official elephant killers wherever the
elephants make trouble in the natives' gardens. In British East Africa
and in Tanganyika a similar situation exists. The game must eventually
disappear as the country is settled, and with it will be wiped out the
charm of Africa.

We had heard much of Ruindi Plains in the Belgian Congo as the
wonderful game country that it no doubt used to be. To me it seems
avast graveyard. There, too, commercialism has played its part in
exterminating the animals and, while we found two or three species
of antelope and many lions, other large game is very rare. I suppose
that the Ruindi Valley was discovered among the last of the great game
pockets and that ivory poachers are responsible for the disappearance
of much of the other game as well as of the elephant. The forested
valley, which I went through for perhaps ten miles, carried every
evidence of having been a wonderful game country in the past, but
only a pitiful remnant of the splendid animals who once made it their
home remains. Along great elephant boulevards, all overgrown, weaving
through the forest, one may occasionally track a single elephant or a
small band. A small herd of buffalo grazes where a few years ago there
were great numbers.

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




CHAPTER III

MY ACQUAINTANCE WITH LIONS


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

The lion's savagery is very much the same as man's--that is, he kills
other animals for food and not having developed any specialized
industries like the packers, each lion kills for himself. His day's
work, instead of getting money to buy food, consists chiefly in getting
food, and he goes about it something in this manner. About dusk he
comes out from his resting place, yawns, stretches, and looks about
for something to eat. In East Africa his favourite diet is zebra, but
he likes any of the game animals, and he prefers the larger animals
to the smaller antelope because the larger ones are easier to catch.
His intention is to get his food the easiest and quickest way. He goes
out on the plains and by scent, sight, and hearing locates a herd of
zebra, for example. He then gets down wind from what he hopes will be
his next meal and stalks to within rushing distance. He can outrun
a zebra for a short distance, and when within striking distance he
makes a sudden dash. I think that the zebra is thrown by the lion's
spring and then killed by a bite in the back of the neck, but this
impression is from deduction and not from observation. I have seen a
lot of animals that lions had killed but I never saw a lion in the act
of killing. In fact, the methods which lions use in hunting are not
known in detail from observation, for not enough instances have ever
been witnessed and recorded to make the basis for any general statement
which could be considered scientifically accurate.

When he has captured his animal the lion will eat and then lie near it
perhaps all night, perhaps all the next day, if he is not disturbed,
eating as he desires. If he leaves his kill the jackals, hyenas, and
vultures will clean it up immediately, and as the lion kills for food
and not for sport or the pleasure of killing, he is content with one
kill 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 have
come at dawn to drink, while, at a distance on the plains, the vultures
and jackals are approaching the kill the lions have just left.

Lion hunters are not agreed about how much lions depend on sight, on
sound, and on smell. It is not altogether easy to tell how soon they
know the presence of man or of other animals, for they do not always
show what they know. For instance, I once had the startling experience
of getting within three feet of a lioness before she moved. She, of
course, knew I was there long before I got that close, and yet until I
almost stepped on her she made no sign. There is, however, no question
but that the lion has a sharp, far sight in the daytime, and from the
size of the pupil and his nocturnal habits of hunting I think he has
unusually keen sight at night. I have never seen any indication that a
lion has the keen smell of a dog or any animal that hunts by scent, nor
have I ever seen anything to make me believe that he has any abnormal
sense of hearing.

While many things about lions' habits are controversial, I think that
practically everyone who has had experience with them will agree that
they are not savage in the sense of killing for the mere sake of
killing. There are a few isolated cases which seem to conflict with
this statement, but the great mass of testimony confirms it. There was
a seeming exception to this rule which happened to an English traveller
and 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 the
lions while they hid in a thorn _boma_ which they built near by. There
was only a small hole in the _boma_ through which to watch and shoot.
They stationed a black boy at this hole to watch while they slept. They
awoke to find that a lion had stuck his head into the hole and killed
the 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, of
the three possible witnesses, two were asleep and the third dead.

It is possible, of course, that the lion deliberately attacked the
_boma_ without provocation, but it seems unlikely, for lions are driven
to these extremities chiefly by hunger; and in this case the lion could
have 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 scattered
game finds it impossible with his failing strength and speed to catch
animals for food. To keep from starving he attacks the native flocks
and herds, or the natives themselves. The most famous man-eaters, the
lions of Tsavo, which spread such terror as almost to stop construction
on a part of the Uganda railway, were, indeed, an exception to the
rule. Colonel Patterson, whose classic account of them is one of the
great animal stories of the world, accounted for these young, vigorous
animals becoming man-eaters because some of the coolie workers who
died were put in the bush unburied and the lions had acquired a taste
for human flesh by eating these bodies. After this taste was acquired
these lions hunted men just as the ordinary lion hunted zebras. They
made a regular business of it. It was their daily fare, and they took
a terrible toll before they were finally killed. But these lions were
killing for food just as if they were killing zebras.

Even when forced to fight, the lion is not vindictive. If an elephant
gets a man he is likely to trample on his victim and mutilate him
even after he is dead. I have never known of lions doing this. On the
other hand, as soon as their adversary is dead, often as soon as he is
quiet, they will let him alone. The game animals on which the lions
are accustomed to feed corroborate this characteristic. They know
that the lion kills for food at night and they likewise know that he
kills only for food, so in the daytime they do not bother about lions
particularly. I have seen lions trot through a herd of game within
easy striking distance of many of the animals without causing any
disturbance.

So far as I know, except for the comparatively few man-eaters, lions
are never the aggressors. More than that, they prefer to get out of the
way of man rather than fight him, and they will put up with a good deal
of disturbance and inconvenience and even pain before they will fight.
But once decided to fight they will fight with an amazing courage even
if 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 the
others were armed with guns. One day the natives rounded up a lioness
in a patch of uncommonly tall, thick grass. The beaters hesitated to go
in after her, so I took a gun and McCutcheon and I joined the porters,
leaving Stephenson and Mrs. Akeley outside. The grass was so thick
that we had to take our rifles in both hands and push the grass down
in front of us and then walk on it. We had made some progress in this
manner when suddenly, as we were pushing down the grass, it was thrown
violently back, jerking our rifles up and almost throwing us over. It
was the lioness. We had pressed the grass down right on her back. Yet
despite this intrusion she made off and did not attack us.

As she went out of the grass into the open, Stephenson shot at her and
missed. Some of the boys rode after her on horseback and rounded her
up in another patch of cover. By this time, however, her patience had
run out. She could have run some more had she wanted to, but she didn't
want to. When Stephenson approached the cover with his gun boys she
took 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 his
kill, but finally, when he declared war, although he was badly wounded,
he preferred to charge two white men and thirty natives rather than try
to escape.

I had gone up on the Mau Plateau to shoot _topi_. The plateau is about
8,000 feet above sea level there and I didn't expect to find any lions.
One day I discovered two _topi_ in a little valley between two gentle
rises. I was crawling up to the top of one of the rises overlooking
the valley to get a shot when I noticed some movement in the grass
on the slope opposite. I thought it was another _topi_. As I raised
myself a little to shoot I noticed that the original pair that I was
hunting were gazing with fixed attention toward some movement on the
far hillside. I looked again and saw an old lion get up and walk to
the top of the hill, turn round facing me, and lie down to watch the
valley from his side as I was watching it from mine. We were about 400
yards from each other. In the valley between were the _topi_, and also
I noticed a dead zebra. Evidently I had disturbed him at his previous
night's kill. My pony and gun boys were some distance behind and I had
only one cartridge left in my double-barrelled cordite rifle. Under
these conditions I reluctantly decided to go back for proper equipment.
My reluctance was not merely at losing a lion but at losing that
particular lion, for he had a great black mane and no one had killed a
black-maned lion in that part of Africa.

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

Before going, however, I planned a campaign. Not far from where the
lion had been a ravine began, which ran some distance and ended in a
thick piece of forest. The sides of the ravine were covered with clumps
of 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 to
enter the ravine the next day at the forest end so that he could not
escape to safety among the trees, and drive up the ravine to force him
out into the open.

When we got to the edge of the forest the next morning Kennedy and I
drew lots for the choice of position. He won and chose the upper end
of the ravine toward which we were to drive, while I was to follow up
behind the beaters to get him if he broke back. Of course we were not
sure that our quarry was even in the neighbourhood, but I had great
hope of everything except getting this first black-maned specimen
myself, for Kennedy's position made it almost certain that he would get
the animal if any one did. The first patch of bush that the beaters
tackled was about 100 yards long and 50 yards wide. As they set up
their usual racket before entering I thought I heard a lion's grunt,
but as nothing more developed I concluded it had been merely some of
the boys. This patch of bush was a mass of nettles, briers, and thorns,
and made exceedingly disagreeable going. The porters were making very
slow progress, so I went in to encourage them. However, by the time we
were halfway through I was so scratched and torn that I quit and went
out toward the bottom of the ravine. The briers had somewhat cooled
my faith in the theory that the lion was in the ravine. I sat down
on an ant-hill where I had a fair view. Kennedy fired and I looked
quickly. The lion which had come out in front of Kennedy had turned
and was running down across the ravine and up the other side. I had a
good shot at him and the bullet knocked him over. However, he got up
and went into a clump of bush. This clump just filled a kind of pot
hole about fifty yards in diameter. Kennedy watched one side and I the
other so that we had every avenue of escape covered. The beaters then
began 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 no
one wanted to know sufficiently to crawl in and see. Finally Dudo, my
gun-bearer, suggested that we light a fire and make some firebrands.
We busied ourselves with this. In the meanwhile, there was no response
from the lion. When the firebrands were ready Dudo asked leave to
throw the first one for he maintained that he knew where the lion was.
Dudo threw, and as his firebrand disappeared in the brush there was
a roar and a shaking of the bushes that told exactly where the beast
was hidden. A shower of firebrands followed but with no effect. Then
the boys threw rocks. But nothing resulted. By this time Kennedy had
joined the crowd. All the beaters and both of us were grouped on one
side of the pot hole. Dudo now took a small-bore rifle and fired, not
in an effort to kill the lion but to move him. It succeeded, and he
moved, not away from us but toward us. The way of retreat was open but
he didn't take it. Dudo fired again, and again the bushes moved toward
us. Finally the old fellow was so close to the edge of the brush that
while we couldn't see him he undoubtedly could see us. He stood looking
out on thirty black men and two white men in front of a great fire--a
crowd 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 own
volition, with a great roar, he charged out of the brush and up from
the pot hole. Halfway up the slope the fatal bullet hit him. He was
killed charging his enemies and without thought of retreat--the first
black-maned lion ever shot in British East Africa.

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

These two instances are fair examples of the usual method of hunting
lions in British East Africa. Riding after them on horseback might be
considered a different method than the beating, but as a matter of
fact, the two merge into each other. When beating, the lion hunter
usually rides until he actually reaches the lion's cover, and if he
runs on to a lion in the open he rides after it until the superior
speed of the horse over any fair distance forces the lion to stop and
lie down at bay. And, likewise, if one is riding after lions and the
lion gets into cover, the game is up unless there are beaters to get
him out.

Paul Rainey introduced an added element to the horseback method of lion
hunting when he imported his lion hounds. I call them lion hounds
for they chased lions--that is the only thing the pack had in common.
It included curs, collies, airedales, bear hounds from the South, and
almost every other kind of canine. When Rainey and the hounds appeared,
the Governor of East Africa remarked that the lions were going to get
some good dog meat. But within a couple of years "hounding lions"
was stopped because the lions fell too easy a prey to the hounds and
hunters. When Rainey took his hounds there no one was certain how
the lions would act, and it was a sporting thing to try. But it soon
developed--and Rainey, who is a thorough sportsman, was one of the
first to see it--that the hounds kept the lion so busy once he was
brought to bay that the hunter could approach and take as many shots as
necessary with almost perfect immunity from a charge. It is not quite
accurate to say that Rainey introduced the practice of hunting lions
with dogs. Foa, the French traveller, speaks of the practice ten years
before Rainey went to Africa. He even tried to organize a pack. His
pack failed. But the principle of having dogs keep the lions so busy
that they would not charge, he described completely.

Besides these daylight methods of hunting it was a common practice to
hunt lions at night by baiting--that is, to kill an animal and hide
near it in the hope that a lion would come to eat, and then shoot him.
There is not much danger in this, for the thorn _bomas_, or hiding
places, are a good protection, and the lion would not be likely to
attack any one unless he was shot at or molested. There is, of course,
the instance of the black man killed in the _boma_ in Somaliland, but
that 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 has
produced by far the best lion pictures ever made in Africa--especially
those of Schilling and A. Radclyffe Dugmore. Rainey and Buffalo Jones
got some remarkable moving pictures of hunting lions with dogs, but
the total number of all pictures of live lions ever taken is still in
keeping with the small amount of detailed and accurate knowledge of
lions' habits which we have. To my mind the finest lion-hunting picture
ever taken was brought back by Lady Grace McKenzie. Her operator got
a moving picture of a wounded lion charging. It shows the lion's rush
from the bush at Lady McKenzie and her companion--a white man. It shows
the man turn and run and the lion rush right by Lady McKenzie after
him. There the picture ends. On his recent trip Martin Johnson got a
motion picture of five lions crossing the plains, one of which was shot
by Mr. Johnson.

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

One time in Uganda, after I had been under a considerable strain while
elephant hunting, I decided that I needed a rest and a change. I set
out for the Uasin Gishu Plateau where I got together one hundred Nandi
spearmen. We had no difficulty in getting volunteers, for they were
to be paid and fed for playing the game they loved. During the first
half day out from the government station, where we gathered our force
together, the alarm of lion was sounded. We were approaching a patch
of bush. The spearmen entered the bush from all sides. I placed my
motion-picture camera at a point of vantage. The idea was to drive the
lion out in front of the camera and have the spearmen at that point
spear him. Above the din of the spearmen in the bush I finally heard
the angry growl of a leopard. There was great excitement in the bush
for a few seconds. Then three of the boys came out of the bush. The
middle boy of the three was being carried and his scalp was hanging
down over his face. Behind this trio came a group carrying the dead
leopard. Later, when his skin was stretched, it showed sixty spear
holes.

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 other
wounds. He showed little interest in the proceedings beyond asking a
question of the other black boys about what I was doing. Seemingly the
whole operation was over before he recovered from the shock of his
mauling. 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 why
he had to be sent home. His wounds did not seem to trouble him or to
dampen the ardour of the others in the slightest.

We went on for a week. One day, just as we were making camp near a
waterfall, an alarm was sounded near the forest. One of the boys had
seen a lion. His whereabouts was discovered after much beating back and
forth. I got my camera ready as before at the place the boys thought
the fight would take place, but the lion did not do his part. He broke
in a different direction and another bunch of spearmen got him two
hundred yards away. It was so exasperating to have something prevent
this most exciting of all movie photography from succeeding that I
almost failed to appreciate the courage and skill of the spearmen.

A few days later, soon after our start in the morning, Mrs. Akeley and
I were riding ahead of the procession when we met several lions coming
out of the grass and bush near a small stream. The spearmen immediately
surrounded the bush into which the lions plunged. The lions tried to
escape, but in whatever direction any lion tried to go a spearman
bobbed 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 a
spear and shield as protection is a thing not to be taken lightly. As
the lions sought one escape after another, and found each closed, they
fought it out. There was about ten minutes of pandemonium. Then we took
stock. Three dead lions gathered together in a pile; pretty authentic
reports that two others escaped--and not a picture.

At the next spearing, however, I did get two pictures. We were riding
along early in the morning through a rough bush country. All at once
I heard a lion grunt. The gun boy held up his hand as a signal to
stop. The camera was rushed forward to the bank of a little ravine,
but before it was assembled ready for the operation a lioness came
up within ten feet of the camera, turned to the left, and then ran
back by the same route. The boys waved to me to come down twenty-five
yards. There, from a little knoll, we got the first movie record of
lion spearing. A young, full-grown lion was at bay in tall grass at
the bottom of the ravine. The camera trained on the place caught the
first 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 was
all over quicker than it takes to tell it. In the film not only do the
falling spears show but also the movement of the lion in the grass, but
the cover and a dark day made any part of the film impossible to use as
a still picture. Hardly had I finished turning the handle on this scene
when I was called off twenty-five yards to another lion at bay. He was
held for the camera and a similar record of this one was made. In the
meantime, a lone spearman making desperate effort to get into the show
stumbled on an old lioness. They fought it out, man and beast together.
When we discovered him he was on his back protecting himself with his
shield, a single bite in his leg and the lioness dying beside him. He
had killed a lioness practically alone, which entitled him to wear a
lion's skin headdress.

On this trip of twenty days we had three occasions in which the
spearmen rounded up five lions in a bunch and each time they got three
of the five. Altogether, we got ten lions and five leopards. One boy
was mauled by a leopard, another was bitten on the leg by the lion.
These were the only injuries to the men. Not a shot was fired during
the twenty days. Our last encounter involved five old lions, three of
which were speared, and three cubs captured alive--but no pictures. It
happened 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 beyond
to a dry stream bed. With the heavy camera I ran down the foot of the
hill when I was called back and had to run back to the top of the hill
where the lion was at bay. He might have been held indefinitely there
in the open sunlight--a wonderful chance for a picture. But in spite of
long teaching, of threats, promises, and urging, the boys' excitement
overcame them. The spears began to fly before the camera was ready. As
I was adjusting the camera the lion was speared in full view in the
open sunlight. A camera man never had such a chance before, but it was
lost because the camera was slow. After the planning, the care, the
work--the luck to have it go like this was too much, and my instinct
was to grab my gun and shoot the man who threw the first spear. I think
it was the most heartbreaking failure I ever had. I intended never to
have another, and from that minute I began working on a camera that
takes no time to adjust. I got it finally, but that one moment of
poignant 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 a
retort of clay in which he smelts the iron ore. With a hunk of granite
for an anvil and another for a hammer he rough forges the spear. With
soft iron hammers forged in a similar way he finishes the spear which
is finally sharpened on native stones. With this equipment he starts
out to kill the lion that has been preying on his flocks or herds. He
takes a great pride in the achievement, for he will make from the mane
a headdress which his exploit entitles him to wear. Of course this does
not happen just this way now, but the Nandi's spearmen speared lions
with the arms they made before the white men came. It is a fair contest
between man and beast. And the courage and skill of these men are
wonderful.

Paul Rainey had a ranch on the west shore of Lake Naivasha. One morning
his boys reported to him that a lion had invaded the _kraal_ the night
before. He set out on horseback with a few of his dogs and two Masai
herd boys with their spears. The dogs soon took up the spoor of the
lion 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, the
lion underneath in full sunlight. Rainey jumped off his horse, threw
the reins over a bush, and grabbed his rifle from its boot. He then saw
the 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, and
he could not shoot. The boys stood stock still till the lion was in
mid-air in his final spring when the one with the spear stepped to one
side and thrust his spear into the lion's neck killing him instantly.
He fell at their feet. As the boy withdrew the spear and carefully
wiped the blood off on the corner of his breechcloth he remarked to
Rainey:

"You see, Master, it is work for a child."

That is how the Masai figured it. But I never have felt so. The first
wild lion I ever saw scared me almost to death, and a good many of them
have 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 our
ponies when one of the black boys pointed. There were three lions
walking quietly across a patch of hard, dry sand. They were perhaps
a hundred yards away. They looked as big as oxen to me. I had never
before seen a lion outside of a cage. We turned our ponies over to
the Somali gun boys who galloped after them to round them up. My next
view of the lions was when the beaters had gone in to drive them out
of a bit of jungle. A roar came from immediately in front of me and I
saw 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 facing
me. As I fired, a lion jumped over her back, which so disconcerted me
that my shot only wounded her. This lion disconcerted her, too, for
she followed him. Two more shots at her and she disappeared in another
clump of cover with the lions. In our efforts to drive them out of this
cover we finally set it on fire. The two lions rushed out and escaped
us. The lioness, more seriously wounded than I thought, never came. I
had failed to get a lion, but I felt satisfied none the less, because
the 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 realized
that death was but an instant away.

From that time until now I have seen a great many lions, shot some, and
handled nearly fifty specimens, so that I have made a fairly extended
study of the measurements and anatomy of the king of beasts. I have
tried also to study his living characteristics and habits, but that is
much more difficult. After all, perhaps the most impressive thing about
a lion is his foreleg. The more you know of elephants the more you
regard the elephant's trunk. The more you know of lions, the more you
respect the lion's foreleg and the great padded and clawed weapon at
the 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 weight
as the arm of a man. He can kill a man with one blow of his paw. His
other weapon, his jaw, is strong enough to break a zebra's neck at one
bite. These are a rather rough measure of an animal's strength, but
they give some idea of it.

There is a record which says that a lion has dragged an African buffalo
fifty yards. A buffalo weighs at least three times as much as a lion. I
have never had evidence of this much "pulling power" but I have known
of many instances of lions dragging zebras that far, and the zebras
weigh 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 .577
Express rifle through his shoulder, and only finally succumb to the
eighth bullet in his head.

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

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

My nearest approach to being mauled by a lion came from this same
capacity of a lion to carry lead, and from my own carelessness. I had
seen a lion standing some little distance away from me clearly in
view, 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 about
forty yards away he gave me another clear shot. So without reloading
the first barrel of my double-barrelled rifle I fired the second. I
hit him again, but not with the desired result. He charged. There I
was with an empty gun to meet the charge of a wounded lion, and with
no one else, not even a gun boy, near. All the rules of lion hunting
say that you must meet a charge without moving. But all the promptings
of instinct were to move, and I moved. I slipped to one side behind
a clump of high grass as fast as I could, endeavouring meanwhile to
reload. A few seconds after I had left the spot where I should have
stood the lion's spring landed him directly on it. He had had to come
through a little depression, and this and the long grass had obscured
his sight so he had not seen me move. Not landing on me as he expected
so disconcerted him that, even though he saw me, he dived into the
thick bushes right ahead of him instead of coming at me. There he
stopped, threatening for a time to repeat his charge. Finally, changing
his mind, he headed deeper into the brush and, as it was too thick
to follow him, I let him go. In the mix-up my _syce_ had become so
completely frightened that he had jumped into the river, so he was
quite unable to tell whether the lion had got my pony or the pony had
run away. After a certain amount of fruitless searching I walked the
ten miles back to camp.

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

Lions do not usually have any habitation; but occasionally they live
in caves. When I say live, I do not mean that they inhabit them
continuously. They roam about, following the movements of the game. If
they happen to be working in a country where there is a cave, they will
use it while in the neighbourhood. But a given band of lions usually
stays in one place only a short time. The phrase "band of lions" is
perhaps not very accurate. Lions go in all kinds of combinations of
numbers. There is a cave on the MacMillan ranch near Nairobi from which
sixteen lions have been seen to come. Personally I have never seen more
than eight lions together, but I have seen almost all combinations of
numbers, ages, and sexes below that number. Lions are more often in
twos, threes, or fours than in other combinations.

But although I know that lions are accustomed to roam after game, one
of the most interesting lion encounters I ever had came from acting on
exactly 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 two
lions. We stopped the buffalo hunt momentarily to locate the lions.
We started at the river bank to drive up the small stream toward the
higher land and the open. The beaters began their work with their
usual noises, which I checked as soon as possible for fear that the
lions would go out too far ahead of us to get a shot. I instructed
the beaters to go up the little stream with the cover along its banks
throwing stones in ahead of them. But my precautions were too late.
They had hardly started to work when I noticed on the hills a lion and
a lioness--one going to the left and the other to the right. They were
in the open. The lion disappeared over the crest of the first hill. I
had a theory that he would lie down on the top of that crest and watch
us. I accordingly left part of the men in sight while I, with a few
others, approached the hill under cover. I finally succeeded in getting
to a point behind a pile of rocks. Motioning the men to stay quiet and
keep back, I carefully poked my head up and saw the old fellow as he
lay looking toward me about seventy-five yards away. I drew back, and
then to my disgust one of my companions rose up in full view of the
lion, who made off unscathed by the hurried shots I fired at him. This
lion 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 from
the Tana to the Theba I told the crowd that I was going by the spot
where I had lost the big lion three years before. I had a "hunch" that
he would still be there--or perhaps be revisiting the spot as I was.
Anyway, the feeling was strong enough to make me go. Stephenson went
off on an independent hunt. The others with the _safari_ came with me.
We loitered along photographing rhinoceroses until we came in sight
of my spot--the place where the little stream emptied into the Theba.
I noticed that Stephenson was coming toward us and about to cross the
little stream. I remarked, "Fred is going to drive our lions out and
never know it." I then felt a little foolish but nevertheless watched
him go through my pet lion bed. Only a few minutes later McCutcheon
pointed toward the upper end of the stream and said:

"What is that?"

"My pair of lions," I answered.

They were going up the hill exactly as they had three years before
except this time they did not separate. We watched them to the top of
the hill. We started out to head them off. As we reached the top of the
hill to one side of where they had gone, we heard a lion grunt behind
us. There, about a hundred and twenty-five yards away, were the lion
and 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:

"Shoot whenever you are ready."

I was pretty nervous, for a couple of mad lions in the grass make a
very 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 the
meantime, bolted and got away. I have handled nearly fifty lions, but
this one that Mrs. Akeley killed was the largest of all and he had a
good yellow mane. I can't prove that it was the same pair I had seen
three years before. What we know of lions is against it, but I still
like to think it was. This was Mrs. Akeley's first lion--a splendid
trophy, cleanly killed.




CHAPTER IV

HUNTING THE AFRICAN BUFFALO


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

Nevertheless, despite all these qualities, which are almost universally
attributed to the African buffalo, I am confident that the buffalo,
like the elephant and other wild animals, has no instinctive enmity
to man. That enmity, I am sure, is acquired by experience. I had an
experience on the Aberdare Plateau with a band of elephants that had
seen little or nothing of man, and until they learned about men from me
they paid no more attention to me than if I had been an antelope. But
after I had shot one or two as specimens, they acquired the traditional
elephant 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 get
buffalo specimens for a group for the Field Museum at Chicago.

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

From the swamp down the Theba to its junction with the Tana occupied
three days in which we saw no fresh signs of buffalo. On the second
march up the Tana, as I was travelling ahead of the _safari_ at about
midday, looking out through an opening in a strip of thorn bush that
bordered the river, I saw in the distance a great black mass on the
open plain which, on further investigation with the field glasses, I
was reasonably certain was a herd of buffaloes. Sending a note back to
Cuninghame, who was in charge of the _safari_, suggesting that he make
camp at a hill on the banks of the Tana about two miles ahead of my
position and await me there, I started off over the plain with my two
gun boys. Coming up out of a dry stream-bed that I had used to conceal
my approach, I came on to a large herd of eland, and my first fear was
that I had mistaken eland for buffaloes.

Going farther on, however, we saw a herd of about five hundred
buffaloes lying up in a few scattered thorn trees four or five hundred
yards away. At first it seemed an almost impossible situation. There
was practically no cover and no means of escape in case the herd
detected us and saw fit to charge, and at that time my respect for the
buffaloes led me to be extremely cautious. We worked around the herd
trying 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 bank
of a ravine which offered splendid protection, we stalked them but,
unfortunately, not one in the band was desirable as a specimen. Since
this was so, I tried them out, giving them my wind, then going up where
they could see me better. I found that they were quite indifferent
either to the scent or the sight of man. They finally moved off
quietly without alarm. I then knew that this herd, like the Aberdare
elephants, had had little or no experience with men, and that there
was perhaps less to fear from them than from the traditional buffalo
of the sportsman. So going back to the main herd, I crept up boldly
to within a hundred yards of them. They saw me, faced about, closely
inspecting me, but with no sign of alarm. It was approaching dusk, and
in this great black mass it was difficult to pick out a good pair of
horns except with the aid of glasses. I carefully located a fine bull
and then shot, 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 a
hundred yards to the right wheeled about again and stood watching me,
the bulls in the front, lined up like soldiers, the calves and cows in
the background. On coming up to the dead animal, I found, much to my
regret, that I had shot a cow and not the bull I had picked out through
the glasses.

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

During those seven days of continual hunting, that herd which had been
indifferent and unsuspecting at the beginning, like the elephants,
became cautious, vigilant, and aggressive. For instance, on one
occasion near the close of the week, after having spent the day trying
to locate the herd, I suddenly came face to face with them just at the
edge of the bush at night on my way back to camp. They were tearing
along at a good pace, apparently having been alarmed. I stepped to one
side and crouched in the low grass while they passed me in a cloud
of dust at twenty-five or thirty yards. Even had I been able to pick
out desirable specimens at this time I should have been afraid to
shoot for fear of getting into difficulties when they had located my
position. I turned and followed them rapidly as they sped away over
the hard ground until the noise of their stampede suddenly stopped. I
then decided that it was best to get to some point of vantage and await
further developments. I climbed an acacia tree that enabled me to look
over the top of the bush. Fifty yards ahead I could see about fifty
buffaloes lined up in a little open patch looking back on their trail.
As I was perched in the tree endeavouring to pick out a desirable
animal, I suddenly discovered a lone old bull buffalo coming from the
bush almost directly underneath me, sniffing and snuffing this way and
that. Very slowly, very cautiously he passed around the tree, then back
to the waiting herd, when they all resumed their stampede and made good
their escape for the day.

One morning I came in sight of the herd just as it was entering the
thorn bush and followed hurriedly on the trail, until just at the edge
of the jungle I happened to catch sight of the two black hoofs of an
old 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 I
halted to await developments. Stooping down I could see the buffalo's
nose and black, beady eyes as she stood motionless. The rest of the
herd had gone on out of hearing and I think she was quite alone in her
proposed attack. After a few moments, apparently realizing that her
plan had failed, she turned about and followed the herd, moving very
quietly at first, then breaking into a gallop.

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

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

This completed the series, much to our great joy, for by this time we
were thoroughly tired of buffalo-hunting. It had been a long, hard
hunt, and our _safari_ as well as ourselves were considerably the worse
for wear. To shoot a half-dozen buffaloes is a very simple matter
and ought to be accomplished almost any day in British East Africa
or Uganda, but to select a series of a half dozen that will have the
greatest possible scientific value by illustrating the development from
babyhood to old age is quite a different matter.

These buffaloes of the Tana country that we found on the plains and
in the bush apparently rarely or never go into the swamps, a fact not
only confirmed by observation but also indicated by the condition of
the hoofs. These are horny, round, and smooth as a result of travelling
on the hard and more or less stony ground of the region. But the
_tinga-tinga_ buffaloes have lived in the swamp for years and spend
practically 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. All
this despite the fact that these two herds may actually come in contact
at the edge of the swamp. Other herds live in forest country but come
out into the grasslands to feed at night, always going back into the
forest at daybreak.

In Uganda, where buffaloes are recognized as a menace to life and are
of no particular value except for food, they are officially treated
as vermin and one may shoot as many as he will. Here the herds had
increased to an enormous extent and, because of the dense jungles and
general inaccessibility of the country, it was rather difficult to hunt
them. While elephant-hunting in Uganda we found the buffaloes a decided
nuisance, frequently coming on to them unexpectedly while hot on an
elephant trail, sometimes having difficulty in getting rid of them, not
wishing to shoot or stampede them because of the danger of frightening
away the elephants, to say nothing of the constant menace of running
into a truculent old bull at very close quarters in dense jungle. The
buffaloes actually mingle with the elephants, each quite indifferent
to the other excepting that on one occasion we found elephant calves
charging into a herd of buffaloes, evidently only in play. They
chased about squealing and stampeding the buffaloes, who kept at a
safe distance but did not actually take alarm. Occasionally an old cow
whose calf was being hard-pressed by the young elephants would turn,
apparently with the intention of having it out, but would always bolt
before the elephant could actually reach her. Despite the fact that the
record head, fifty-four inches in spread, was shot by Mr. Knowles in
Uganda, from our general observation the heads in Uganda run smaller
than those of British East Africa while the animals are perhaps heavier.

Although in our buffalo-hunting we have never had any actually serious
encounters, I fully appreciate that the buffalo deserves his reputation
as 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 is
usually satisfied with giving his victim a knock-out blow or bite, the
buffalo, when once on the trail of man, will not only persist in his
efforts to find him but, when he has once come up with him, will not
leave while there is a vestige of life remaining in the victim. In some
cases he will not leave while there is a fragment of the man remaining
large 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 buffalo
which shows in rather a terrible way these characteristics of the
animal. He and a companion wounded a buffalo and followed it into
the long grass. It was lurking where they did not expect it and with
a 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 rushed
after his companion. The first victim managed to climb a tree although
without his gun. By that time the other man was dead. But the buffalo
was not satisfied. For two hours he stamped and tossed the remains
while the wounded man in the tree sat helplessly watching. When the
buffalo left, my informant told me, the only evidence of his friend was
the 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 a
buffalo for meat. The bullet did not kill the animal and it retreated
into the thick bush where there were even some good-sized trees. The
old hunter followed along a path. Suddenly the buffalo caught him
and tossed him. As he went into the air he grasped some branches
overhanging the trail. There he hung unable to get up and afraid to
drop down while the wild bull beneath him charged back and forth with
his long horns ripping at the hunter's legs. Happily the gun boy came
up in time to save his master by killing the beast. This hunter was an
extraordinary character. He was very successful and yet he was almost
stone deaf. How he dared hunt elephants or any other big game without
the aid of his hearing I have never been able to conceive, yet he did
it and did it well.

One morning Cuninghame, having gone out with some boys to shoot meat
for camp, came upon three old buffaloes. He sent a runner back to
camp 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 an
old rhino and calf, but soon caught up with Cuninghame. He reported,
however, that the buffaloes had passed on into some dense bush. We
started to follow but suddenly came upon two rhinos. We quickly turned
to leeward in order not to disturb them by giving them our wind, for
we were not anxious to bring on a general stampede of the game in the
neighbourhood. This turn brought us to the windward of the old cow
and calf that we had first avoided, with the result that she came
charging up, followed by the calf close at her heels, snorting like
a locomotive. Cuninghame helped Mrs. Akeley up a convenient tree. He
stood at the base of the tree and I at the foot of another where we
waited with our guns ready, watching the old cow go tearing past within
twenty feet of us.

We continued on the buffalo trail, but the stampede of the rhino had
resulted in alarming the buffaloes so that instead of finding them near
by, we were forced to follow them for an hour or more before again
coming in sight of them; and again twice more they were stampeded
by rhinos that happened to get in our path. At last the buffaloes
evidently became tired of being chased from place to place, and came
to rest on a sloping hillside which we could approach only by crawling
on our hands and knees in the grass for a considerable distance. In
this manœuvring it happened that Mrs. Akeley was able to stalk the best
bull, and a few minutes later he was finished off and we were busy
photographing, measuring, and preparing the skin.

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

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

We made several attempts to approach them in the marsh, but found
that while it was quite possible to get up to them it was out of the
question to choose our specimens. Also it would have been impossible
to beat a retreat in case of a charge or stampede; so we adopted a
campaign of watchful waiting. From the camp at daybreak we would scan
the marsh for the snowy cow herons that were always with the buffaloes
during the daytime. These would fly about above the reeds from one
part 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 of
its movements, we would go to a point at the edge of the marsh where it
seemed likely that the animals would come out, or at least come near
enough to be visible in the shorter reeds. It was in this way that
we secured the specimen that makes the young bull of the group--and
two weeks spent there resulted in securing no other specimen. On this
one occasion the buffaloes, accompanied by the white herons, had come
to within about a hundred yards of our position on the shores of the
swamp. They were in reeds that practically concealed them, but the
young buffalo in question, in the act of throwing up his head to
dislodge a bird that had irritated him, disclosed a pair of horns that
indicated a young bull of the type I wanted. A heron standing on his
withers gave me his position, and aiming about two feet below the bird,
I succeeded in killing the bull with a heart shot.




CHAPTER V

LEOPARDS AND RHINOS


There is a general belief firmly fixed in the popular mind by constant
repetition that the ostrich is a very stupid bird. A man might well
expect easy hunting of a bird that tried to hide by the traditional
method of sticking its head in the sand. But I found that the ostrich,
like other African animals, did not always realize its obligation to
tradition or abide by the rules set down for its behaviour. I went a
long way into the waterless desert of Somaliland after ostriches. We
were just across the Haud and were camped in a "tug" or dry stream
bed where by digging we could get water for our sixty men and the
camels. During two days of hunting in the dry bush of this desert I
had seen many ostriches, but none of them had put its head into the
ground 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 them
exceedingly wary. They kept their bodies hidden behind the bush. Only
their heads were exposed, each head only about large enough to carry
a pair of very keen eyes and much too small to serve as a target at
the distance that they maintained. As a result of being continually
outwitted by them for two days I began to think ill of the man who
originally started the story about their stupidity.

With the difficulties of the chase firmly in mind I set out early on
the third day to see if I could get a specimen. Concluding that the
smaller the party the better the opportunity, I took only a mule and my
pony boy. When only a half mile from camp I met an old hyena who was
loafing along after a night out. He looked like a good specimen, but
after I shot him, one look at his dead carcass was enough to satisfy
me that he was not as desirable as I had thought, for his skin was
badly diseased. I had very good reason to think of this very hard later
in the day. A little farther along I shot a good wart hog for our
scientific collection. Leaving the specimen where it lay, I marked the
spot and continued in search of the plume-bearers.

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

When I had given up tracking them and was about to start farther
afield I came into an opening in the bush that was about thirty yards
wide and two hundred yards long. Near the centre of the opening was a
dense green bush a dozen feet in diameter. A beautiful cock ostrich
broke into the clearing at full speed just below the bush and as I
raised my rifle he disappeared behind the bush. I held ready to catch
him as he passed out from behind it on the other side, where there was
fifteen or twenty yards of clear ground before he would reach cover
again. I stood there ready with my gun up until I felt foolish. Then I
ran 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 come
into the open he had seen me and when behind the bush he had stopped
short, as indicated by a great hole and swirl of sand where he had
caught himself by one foot, had turned at right angles and run straight
away the length of the clearing, keeping the bush between himself and
his enemy. I have not known many animals to do a more clever thing than
this. I got one shot at him later--putting my sights at three hundred
yards--but the bullet struck in the sand between his legs.

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

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

Advancing a few steps, a slight sound attracted my attention, and
glancing to one side I got a glimpse of a shadowy form going behind
a bush. I then did a very foolish thing. Without a sight of what I
was shooting at, I shot hastily into the bush. The snarl of a leopard
told me what kind of a customer I was taking chances with. A leopard
is 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 his
tail. Added to that, a leopard, unlike a lion, is vindictive. A wounded
leopard will fight to a finish practically every time, no matter how
many chances it has to escape. Once aroused, its determination is
fixed on fight, and if a leopard ever gets hold, it claws and bites
until its victim is in shreds. All this was in my mind, and I began
looking about for the best way out of it, for I had no desire to try
conclusions with a possibly wounded leopard when it was so late in the
day that I could not see the sights of my rifle. My intention was to
leave it until morning and if it had been wounded, there might then be
a chance of finding it. I turned to the left to cross to the opposite
bank of a deep, narrow _tug_ and when there I found that I was on an
island where the _tug_ forked, and by going along a short distance to
the point of the island I would be in position to see behind the bush
where the leopard had stopped. But what I had started the leopard was
intent on finishing. While peering about I detected the beast crossing
the _tug_ about twenty yards above me. I again began shooting, although
I could not see to aim. However, I could see where the bullets struck
as the sand spurted up beyond the leopard. The first two shots went
above her, but the third scored. The leopard stopped and I thought
she was killed. The pony boy broke into a song of triumph which was
promptly cut short by another song such as only a thoroughly angry
leopard is capable of making as it charges. For just a flash I was
paralyzed with fear, then came power for action. I worked the bolt of
my rifle and became conscious that the magazine was empty. At the same
instant I realized that a solid point cartridge rested in the palm of
my 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 I
could get the cartridge into the chamber!

[Illustration: The dotted line indicates Mr. Akeley's movement during
his encounter with the leopard. The dashes show the route taken by the
leopard. At position (1), Mr. Akeley fired into the bush. Of the three
shots fired at position (2), two went above the leopard and the third
inflicted only a skin wound. The hand-to-hand combat took place at
position (3).]

As she came up the bank on one side of the point of the island, I
dropped down the other side and ran about to the point from which
she had charged, by which time the cartridge was in place, and I
wheeled--to face the leopard in mid-air. The rifle was knocked flying
and in its place was eighty pounds of frantic cat. Her intention was
to sink her teeth into my throat and with this grip and her forepaws
hang to me while with her hind claws she dug out my stomach, for this
pleasant practice is the way of leopards. However, happily for me, she
missed her aim. Instead of getting my throat she was to one side. She
struck me high in the chest and caught my upper right arm with her
mouth. This not only saved my throat but left her hind legs hanging
clear where they could not reach my stomach. With my left hand I caught
her throat and tried to wrench my right arm free, but I couldn't do
it except little by little. When I got grip enough on her throat to
loosen her hold just a little she would catch my arm again an inch or
two lower down. In this way I drew the full length of the arm through
her mouth inch by inch. I was conscious of no pain, only of the sound
of the crushing of tense muscles and the choking, snarling grunts of
the 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 leopard
underneath me, my right hand in her mouth, my left hand clutching her
throat, my knees on her lungs, my elbows in her armpits spreading her
front legs apart so that the frantic clawing did nothing more than tear
my shirt. Her body was twisted in an effort to get hold of the ground
to turn herself, but the loose sand offered no hold. For a moment there
was no change in our positions, and then for the first time I began to
think and hope I had a chance to win this curious fight. Up to that
time it had been simply a good fight in which I expected to lose, but
now if I could keep my advantage perhaps the pony boy would come with
a knife. I called, but to no effect. I still held her and continued to
shove the hand down her throat so hard she could not close her mouth
and with the other I gripped her throat in a strangle hold. Then I
surged down on her with my knees. To my surprise I felt a rib go. I
did it again. I felt her relax, a sort of letting go, although she was
still struggling. At the same time I felt myself weakening similarly,
and then it became a question as to which would give up first. Little
by little her struggling ceased. My strength had outlasted hers.

After what seemed an interminable passage of time I let go and tried to
stand, calling to the pony boy that it was finished. He now screwed up
his 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. He
had thrown it away in his fear, but quickly found it, and I at last
made certain that the beast was dead. As I looked at her later I came
to the conclusion that what had saved me was the first shot I had fired
when she went into the bush. It had hit her right hind foot. I think
it was this broken foot which threw out the aim of her spring and made
her get my arm instead of my throat. With the excitement of the battle
still on me I did not realize how badly used up I was. I tried to
shoulder the leopard to carry it to camp, but was very soon satisfied
to confine my efforts to getting myself to camp.

When I came inside the _zareba_, my companions were at dinner before
one of the tents. They had heard the shots and had speculated on the
probabilities. They had decided that I was in a mix-up with a lion
or with natives, but that I would have the enemy or the enemy would
have me before they could get to me; so they had continued their
dinner. The fatalistic spirit of the country had prevailed. When I
came within their range of vision, however, my appearance was quite
sufficient to arrest attention, for my clothes were all ripped, my arm
was chewed into an unpleasant sight, and there was blood and dirt all
over me. Moreover, my demands for all the antiseptics in camp gave
them something to do, for nothing was keener in my mind than that the
leopard had been feeding on the diseased hyena that I had shot in the
morning. To the practical certainty of blood poisoning from any leopard
bite not quickly treated was added the certainty that this leopard's
mouth was particularly foul with disease. While my companions were
getting the surgical appliances ready, my boys were stripping me and
dousing me with cold water. That done, the antiseptic was pumped into
every one of the innumerable tooth wounds until my arm was so full of
the liquid that an injection in one drove it out of another. During the
process I nearly regretted that the leopard had not won. But it was
applied so quickly and so thoroughly that it was a complete case.

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

[Illustration: MR. AKELEY AND THE LEOPARD HE KILLED BARE HANDED]

[Illustration: A LEOPARD SPEARED BY THE NATIVES]

This encounter took place fairly soon after our arrival on my first
trip to Africa. I have seen a lot of leopards since and occasionally
killed one, but I have taken pains never to attempt it at such close
quarters again. In spite of their fighting qualities I have never
got to like or respect leopards very much. This is not because of my
misadventure; I was hurt much worse by an elephant, but I have great
respect and admiration for elephants. I think it is because the leopard
has always seemed to me a sneaking kind of animal, and also perhaps
because he will eat carrion even down to a dead and diseased hyena. A
day or two before my experience with the leopard someone else had shot
a hyena near our camp and had left him over night. The next morning
the dead hyena was lodged fifteen feet from the ground in the crotch
of a tree at some distance from where he was killed. A leopard, very
possibly my enemy, had dragged him along the ground and up the tree and
placed him there for future use. While such activities cannot increase
one's respect for the taste of leopards, they do give convincing
evidence of the leopard's strength, for the hyena weighed at least as
much as the leopard.

The leopard, like the elephant, is at home in every kind of country in
East Africa--on the plains, among the rocky hills, among the bamboo,
and in the forest all the way up to timber line on the equatorial
mountains. Unlike the lion, the leopard is a solitary beast. Except
for a mother with young, I have never seen as many as two leopards
together. It is my belief that like the lion they do their hunting
at night almost exclusively, and I am quite sure that this is their
general habit despite the fact that the only unmistakable evidence
of day hunting I ever saw myself in Africa was done by a leopard. I
was out one day in some tall grass and came upon the body of a small
antelope. As I came up I heard an animal retreat and I thought I
recognized a leopard's snarl. The antelope was still warm. It had
evidently just been killed and the tracks around it were those of a
leopard.

One of the leopard's chief sources of food supply consists of monkeys
and baboons. I remember a certain camp we had near the bottom of a
cliff. Out of this cliff grew a number of fig trees in which the
baboons were accustomed to sleep fairly well out of reach of the
leopards. They were, however, not completely immune, and we could hear
the leopards at the top of the cliff almost every night, and once
in a while the remnants of a baboon testified to the success of the
leopard's night prowling. Besides monkeys and baboons, leopards seem
inordinately fond of dogs. A pack of dogs like Paul Rainey's can make
short work of a leopard, but on the other hand a leopard can make short
work 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, a
leopard slipped in through the open door. Confusion reigned supreme for
a moment and then the men found themselves on the table. The leopard
was under the table killing the dog and somehow in the excitement
the door had been closed. One after the other the men fled out of the
window, leaving the dog to his fate. A traveller had a similar but more
painful experience with a leopard at the Dak Bungalow at Voi. Voi is a
station 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, hearing
a commotion outside, he started out to see what it was. As he passed
through the open doorway on to the porch he was attacked by the leopard
that had evidently come stalking his dogs.

Leopards are not particularly afraid of man. I never knew one to attack
a man unprovoked except when caught at such close quarters as the case
at Voi, but they prowl around man's habitation without compunction. I
had a camp in Somaliland once where the tents were surrounded by two
thorn thickets--the inner and outer _zareba_. A leopard came in one
night, killed a sheep, dragged it under the very fly of my tent on the
way out, jumped the _zareba_, and got away. Fifteen years ago, when
Nairobi was a very small place, the daughter of one of the government
officers went into her room one evening to dress. As she opened the
door she heard a noise and looking she noticed the end of a leopard's
tail sticking out from under the bed with the tip gently moving from
side to side. With great presence of mind the young lady quietly went
out and closed the door. Nairobi had many possibilities of thrills in
those days. It was about the same time that a gentleman hurrying from
town up to the Government House one evening met a lion in the middle of
the street to the embarrassment of both parties.


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

"Theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die."

But it is stupidity, not duty, that keeps the rhino from reasoning. He
is the stupidest old fellow in Africa. I know that many experienced
hunters likewise consider him one of the most dangerous animals in
Africa. I can't quite agree with this. Of course, if he runs over you
not only is it dangerous, but it is also likely to be fatal. It is
also true that as soon as he smells man he is likely to start charging
around in a most terrifying manner, but the rhino is never cunning
like the elephant, nor is his charge accurate like that of a lion, nor
is the rhino vindictive like the buffalo or the leopard. Most men's
estimates of the relative dangers of African animals are based upon
their own experiences. The animals that have mauled them worst or
scared them worst they hold most dangerous. I have been mauled by an
elephant, chewed by a leopard, and scared half to death a dozen times
by lions, so that I have the very firmest convictions about the dangers
of these animals. On the other hand, I have twice been caught by rhinos
in positions where an elephant, a lion, or a leopard would have had me
in no time, and both times the rhinos left me unmolested.

When I first went to Africa I had the same experience as everyone
else. Rhinos getting wind of me would charge me and to save myself I'd
shoot. I suppose I had stood off twenty of these charges with my rifle
before I discovered that if I did not shoot it would not necessarily be
fatal. I discovered the fact, of course, quite by accident. I was going
along the bank of the Tana River one day with my camera. My gun boys
were some distance behind so as not to disturb any animal that might
afford a picture. Suddenly I was set all a-quiver by the threshings
and snortings of a rhino coming through the bushes in my direction. I
very hastily took stock of the situation. There was nothing to climb.
Between me and the thicket from which the rhino was coming was about
twenty-five feet of open space. Behind me was a 30-foot drop to the
crocodile-infested waters of the Tana. The only hope I saw was a bush
overhanging the brink which looked as if it might or might not hold
me if I swung out on it. I decided to try the bush and let the rhino
land in the river, trusting to luck that I wouldn't join him there. The
bushes were thrust aside and he came full tilt into the opening where
he could see me. Everything was set for the final act. He suddenly
stopped with a snort. His head drooped. His eyes almost closed. He
looked as if he were going to sleep. The terrible beast had become
absolutely ludicrous. While this was going on I felt a poke in my back.
I reached behind and took my rifle from the gun boy who had come
up with equal celerity and bravery. I drew a bead on the old fellow
but I could not shoot. A stupider or more ludicrous looking object I
never saw. I began talking to him, but it did not rouse him from his
lethargy. There he stood, half asleep and totally oblivious, while
I, with the gun half aimed, talked to him about his ugly self. About
this time my porters came into hearing on a path behind the rhino. He
pricked up his ears and blundered off in that direction. I heard the
loads dropping as the porters made for the trees. The rhino charged
through the _safari_ and off into the bush.

At another time, somewhat later, three of them charged me when I was
sitting down and unarmed. I couldn't rise in time to get away or
reach a gun, so I merely continued to sit. This time they didn't stop
and 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 as
satisfactory to them as one in which they were successful in their
attack. These experiences have led me to think that in his blundering
charges the rhino has no clear objective, as a lion has, for instance.
Even his blundering charge is dangerous, of course, if you are in the
way, but I firmly believe that the rhino is too stupid to be either
accurate in his objective, fixed in his purpose, or vindictive in his
intentions.

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 animals
the danger of the rhino is generally exaggerated. When he smells
something he comes toward the scent until he sees what it is. As he
can't see very far, no man with a gun is likely to let him come within
seeing distance without shooting. So the stupid old beast goes charging
around hoping to see the source of what he smells and in addition to
getting himself shot has made a reputation for savagery. In fact, he
has blundered around and been shot so much that old rhinos with big
horns are growing scarce.

I remember coming up over the top of a little rise one day and seeing
across the plain an old rhino standing motionless in the shade of a
solitary acacia about two hundred yards away. The usual tick birds sat
on his back. It was a typical rhino pose. As I stood looking for more
entertainment, a second rhino came mouching along between me and number
one. Number one evidently heard him. The birds flew off his back, he
pricked up his ears, and broke into a charge toward number two. Number
two reciprocated. Their direction was good and they had attained full
speed. I longed for a camera to photograph the collision. But the
camera would have done me no good. The collision did not happen. When
about twenty feet from each other they stopped dead, snorted, and
turned around, number one returning to doze under his tree and number
two continuing the journey which had been interrupted. I suppose that
rhinos have acquired the habit of charging whenever they smell anything
because until the white man came along they could investigate in this
peculiar manner with impunity. Everything but an elephant or another
rhino 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 the
rhino's poor eyes to see before he gets into trouble.

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




CHAPTER VI

ALONG THE TRAIL


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

So Theodore Roosevelt, in that vivid word picture of jungle sights
and sounds, the foreword of "African Game Trails," suggests the vast
variety of animal acquaintances the hunter may make in Africa. I have
sought 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 a
nightmare" is the hippopotamus. The small dugout in which the native
makes his way up and down the Tana River is just a nice mouthful for
him. He can splinter one between his great jaws in no time if he is
sufficiently stirred up, but fortunately for the natives he is not
easily enraged. He is more or less like the rhinoceros except that,
while he is equally stupid, he rarely gets mad and so is not often
dangerous.

Along the Tana River in 1906 the hippos were still very abundant, and I
presume that a hunter passing along that stream to-day might shoot all
he could possibly want. Although I saw probably only a small proportion
of all I actually passed, I counted more than two hundred in a ten-mile
march along the Tana. Sheltered by the rather high and precipitous
banks of the river, the hippopotami if undisturbed bask quietly on the
sand-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, so
that if he remains motionless one usually has to spend some time to
determine whether the object protruding from the water is a hippo's
head or a slate-coloured rock. If really frightened, he submerges
entirely, exposing only his nostrils and those just long enough to blow
and take in a fresh supply of air. Then down he goes, not to appear
again for several minutes, frequently in quite a different place.

Cuninghame and I had a good opportunity to test his disposition one
day as we were crossing Lake Naivasha. I was sitting at the tiller in
the stern of the boat about half asleep in the hot sun of midday when
there was a sudden explosion and our boat was lifted well out of the
water. The keel had struck the back of a submerged hippopotamus. He
came up thirty yards away with his mouth open, but he made no attempt
to attack. We had the good luck to come down right side up, shipping
only 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 hippo
alone. However, most of the African tribes consider hippopotamus meat
good eating and he is frequently killed by the natives for food. The
fact is that in times of famine this animal is a valuable source of
supply. In 1906, when we were on the Tana River, I found a bone yard
with the bones of a great number of hippopotami along with various
human bones. In a famine some fifteen or twenty years earlier, so the
story goes, the natives had gravitated toward the Tana River to kill
hippopotami to keep from starving and there had fought over this last
source of food.

Double rows of tracks with grass growing between them, like those made
by a wagon, trail along the Tana and are cut deep into the river's
banks, where through long years the hippos have come up at night to
graze and browse. His is a double track, because in travelling he does
not place one foot before the other. He finds no food in the water, but
he is at home there, and sometimes travels long distances overland
from one pool or stream to another. How far he treks in this way I do
not know, and the question is much disputed. I am certain that it is
sometimes 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 conditions
I have always felt that the animal had sufficient chance in the game to
make it something like a sporting proposition. On the other hand, much
of the shooting that I have had to do in order to obtain specimens for
museum collections has had none of this aspect at all and has made me
feel a great deal like a murderer. One of the worst of my experiences
was with the wild ass of Somaliland on my first trip to Africa. These
animals are rare, and as they are the only members of the horse family
in that part of Africa, the Field Museum of Natural History was anxious
to get specimens of them.

After several heart-breaking days' work my companion, Dodson, and I had
secured but one specimen and several were needed for a group. One day
under guidance of natives who promised to take us to a country where
they abounded, we started out at three o'clock in the morning, with
a couple of camels to bring back the skins if we got them. At about
eight, as we were crossing a sandy plain where here and there a dwarfed
shrub or tuft of grass had managed to find sustenance, one of the
gun-bearers pointed out in the distance an object which he declared
to be an ass. We advanced slowly. As there was no cover, there was no
possibility of a stalk, and the chance of a shot at reasonable range
seemed remote, for we had found in our previous experience that the
wild ass is extremely shy and when once alarmed travels rapidly and for
long distances. We approached to within two hundred yards and had begun
to think that it was a native's tame donkey and expected to see its
owner appear in the neighbourhood, when it became uneasy and started to
bolt; but its curiosity brought it about for a last look and we took
advantage of the opportunity and fired. It was hard hit, apparently,
but recovered and stood facing us. We approached closer, and thinking
it best to take no chances fired again--and then he merely walked
about a little, making no apparent effort to go away. We approached
carefully. He showed no signs of fear, and although "hard hit" stood
stolidly 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 never
be a sportsman.

We now discovered that our scant supply of water was exhausted and
although we wished to continue the hunt we realized that to get farther
from camp without water would be risky indeed. The guide had assured us
that there would be plenty of opportunity to get water on our route but
we knew that it was five hours back to water, the way we had come, and
five hours without water in the middle of the day would mean torture.
It is said that in that region thirty hours without water means death
to the native and twelve hours is the white man's limit. The guide
assured us that if we would continue on an hour longer we would find
water. After four hours of hard, hot marching we arrived at a hole
in the ground where some time there had been water but not a drop
remained. After a little digging at the bottom of the hole the natives
declared there was no hope. Our trail for the last hour had been under
a pitiless noonday sun along a narrow valley shut in on either side by
steep, rocky hills, while we faced a veritable sand storm, a strong,
hot wind that drove the burning sand into our faces and hands. The dry
well was the last straw.

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

At four o'clock the boys returned--no water. Dodson and I received the
report, looked at one another, and returned to our pillows beneath
the saddle blankets. A little later a continued prodding in the ribs
from my gun-bearer brought me to attention again as he pointed out
an approaching caravan consisting of several camels and a couple of
natives. Each of the natives carried a well-filled goatskin from his
shoulders, and realizing that these goatskins probably contained milk,
I knew that our troubles were nearly over. I instructed the gun-bearer
to make a bargain for part of the milk and covered my head again to
escape the pelting of the sand and waited.

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

When I had come to a realization of the situation, there seemed
to be only one solution to the affair--a perfectly natural
solution--precisely the same as if they had stood over us with their
spears poised at our hearts. I grabbed my rifle and drew a bead on
one of the departing men and called to Dodson to get up and cover the
other. I waited while Dodson was getting to an understanding of the
game and then when he was ready and I was about to give the word the
natives stopped, gesticulating wildly. The gun-bearer who had been
shouting to them told us not to shoot, that the milk would come, and it
did. Milk! Originally milked into a dung-lined smoked _chattie_, soured
and carried in a filthy old goatskin for hours in the hot sun. But it
was 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 path
fifty yards away and we heard a bullet strike as we took a snap at
them. One began to lag behind as the others ran wildly away. The
one soon stopped and we approached, keeping him covered in case he
attempted 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 to
wonder why we had harmed him.

The only wound was from a small bullet high in the neck, merely a
flesh wound which would have caused him no serious trouble had he
continued with the herd. We walked around him within six feet and I
almost believe we could have put a halter on him. Certainly it would
have been child's play to have thrown a rope over his head. We reached
camp about midnight and I announced that if any more wild asses
were wanted, someone else would have to shoot them. I had had quite
enough. Normally, the ass is one of the wildest of creatures and it is
difficult to explain the actions of these two. They appeared not to
realize that we were the cause of their injuries but rather seemed to
expect relief as we approached--and yet one English "sportsman" boasted
of having killed twenty-eight.

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


There is no fun in shooting zebras and wild asses. It makes one
uncomfortable. Probably we are particularly thin-skinned when it comes
to shooting the members of the horse family because we are used to
them, or at least to their kindred, as domesticated friends, but as a
matter of fact that is quite as reasonable as to think of killing deer
or antelope as a sport. With most deer there is no danger. The only
problem is to get close enough for a shot. While an approach may be
difficult in some parts of the world--and this is true with certain
species of antelope in Africa--most of the plains antelope cannot be
shot 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 the
koodoo. He is a beautiful, high-bred animal with clean-cut head and
long spiral horns. While almost as large as an elk, he is gracefully
built and stylish in action. His coat is gray, delicately marked with
white stripes. As the animal matures, the hair becomes short and thin
and the stripes fade. All in all, the koodoo is one of the finest big
antelope. On that score he has no competitors except the sable and the
roan.

A group of greater koodoos was a particular desideratum of the Field
Museum and therefore one of the special objectives of my first African
trip. As a matter of fact, we succeeded in collecting the material
necessary and the group is on exhibition in the Field Museum in Chicago
now. The old bull standing with lifted head on top of the rock in the
present group was the second koodoo that I ever saw. The first one
was his mate whom I was about to shoot, totally unconscious of the
presence of the old bull. He stood beside her, his outline broken up by
surrounding rocks and bushes, and I overlooked him entirely until he
began to move. As he started to run I fired a shot. He bounded into the
air, and as he struck the ground I fired again. The first shot had gone
through his heart and the second broke his back.

When talking to people about shooting, I like to recall my koodoo
experiences, because, while I am not a good shot as shooting goes in
Africa, my two experiences with koodoos compare pretty favourably with
the best. On the first occasion, one of my two shots landed in the
heart 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 came
in sight of this second koodoo when he was too far away to shoot at
and he rapidly ran out of sight through a country of little hills and
ravines and scrub growth. I tracked him until I lost his trail. Then I
decided to try to follow him by instinct and, constituting myself an
escaping koodoo, I went where I thought such an animal should. I knew
I was not exactly on his route because I could see no tracks. Then,
too, something cord-like, weaving together the bushes on either side
of 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
around my watch chain where I wore it for several years. Had my koodoo
passed between those bushes, the web would, I knew, have been his
necklace instead of my watch charm.

After following instinctively for two or three miles, I came to the
top of a ridge which looked down across a ravine 500 to 600 yards
wide. I crawled to the edge and looked over carefully, hoping to see
my prey, but as I saw nothing I decided to get up and either scare
him or give up the chase. As I stood up I saw him halfway across the
ravine a little more than 300 yards away. When I rose, he began to
run in the opposite direction. I had little chance of hitting him and
so I fired at the rocks on the other side of the ravine. The wind was
blowing from him to me and I did not know how distinctly he could hear
the rifle, but there was no doubt about his hearing the rocks clatter
down where the bullets struck. He stopped abruptly, listening, and as
he did so I lay down and rested my rifle on the rocks. He was pausing
behind a candelabra euphorbia so that I could see nothing but his
head. I took careful aim and fired. A fraction of a second after the
shot, when I had recovered from the kick of the rifle and had focussed
my eyes on the spot, the koodoo was nowhere in sight. When I reached
the euphorbia, he lay there dead. I looked him over to find where the
bullet had hit him but found no sign of it. I turned him over and
looked at his other side with no better results except that I found a
few drops of blood. On further search I discovered that the bullet had
gone in behind his ear. As he listened to the falling rocks, the ear
had been thrown forward; as he fell, the ear had swung back to normal
position 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 was
closed, so that the point of exit had been concealed also.

One day as I approached the hills, while I was still hunting koodoo for
my 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 there
were no horns visible, I assumed that they were cows and calves. I
required one of each to complete my group. I made a careful stalk along
the same ravine from which I had approached my first koodoo and, when
I thought that I was at about the right point, I peered out and found
the animals standing where I had seen them first, apparently about 200
yards away. I fired, and one dropped in his tracks. They were startled
but had not located my direction and ran about confusedly. My second
shot dropped another and the third shot wounded one which ran almost
directly toward us. He covered the distance in an amazingly short time
and went down beneath the bush only a little way from me. It was then
that I came to a realization of what was happening. Instead of being
koodoo 200 yards away, these were antelope pygmies less than 50 yards
away and not more than twenty-three inches high at the shoulder. I had
been 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 what
he was. Never had I heard of such an antelope. He had sharp straight
horns four inches long and was a beautiful French gray in colour.
Before I could observe anything else, he sprang to his feet and darted
away on three legs faster, it seemed to me, than anything I had ever
seen travel. I shot several times but never touched him. I followed for
hours but did not overtake him. Later I learned that he was one of the
little beira antelope. The species had been described some time before
from fragments of skin obtained from natives. As far as records show,
these specimens, an adult female and a half-grown one, were the first
specimens taken by a white man.

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

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

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

The lesser koodoo, which is to be found in Somaliland in the aloe
country at the base of the Golis range, is likewise a truly sporting
animal, keen of sight and scent and fleet of foot. My first lesser
koodoo stood looking at me through a bush no more than twenty-five
yards away. My gun boy tried to point him out to me but I saw nothing
until something bit the koodoo's ear and he flicked it. Realizing
that he had given himself away, he jumped before I could shoot and I
tracked him for an hour before I again came upon him. Then I saw him
first. There is no finer sight in Africa than a lesser koodoo bull
bounding over the spiny aloes with all of the grace of a porpoise in
the water.

One of the most interesting antelope of Somaliland is the dibitag or
Clark's gazelle. The dibitag live in the waterless bush country of the
Haud and are shy and difficult to stalk. With their long legs and long
necks they resemble and are closely related to the gerenuks (Waller's
gazelle), but are less well known as they are confined to a limited
range. In following an old male who had been travelling at full speed I
found that its stride averaged twenty-eight feet, but at the same time
he kept so close to the ground that midway of the stride, when one foot
was carried forward, it scraped the sand. The animal weighs no more
than seventy-five pounds. It is the most beautifully developed antelope
I have ever handled, with muscles and loins rounded out like those
of a prize fighter. These gazelle never have any fat and never drink
any water. In fact, there is no water to be had except that in the
vegetation, which is very little in a country where it has not rained
for two years.

Unlike these sporting animals, the gazelle of the plains remind one
of great herds of sheep, so gentle where they have not been hunted
that one may come close enough to throw stones at them. On the other
hand, where they have been shot, they grow wild and very difficult to
approach. Here again is evidence that the thing that makes animals
wild is man. In the antarctics and other places where man has not
previously come and where the animals know no fear, the explorer can
fairly tickle the seals under the chin. Animals in their natural state
are not instinctively afraid of man, but they have learned from sad
experience that man is bad medicine.


In direct contrast to the camp in Somaliland where we had been forced
to quench our thirst with soured goat's milk taken from a passing
caravan at the point of a rifle, was our camp on Lake Hannington, the
home of the flamingos. The caravan route from Nakuru on the Uganda
Railway to Lake Baringo swings in close to the Laikipia Escarpment
at the east side of the Rift Valley and just at the north end of
Hannington. Therefore, travellers usually get their first view of the
lake at this northern point where few flamingos are to be seen except
in breeding season and where the water is shallow, bordered by low mud
flats crusted with a deposit of salts mingled with feathers, bones, and
the droppings of the great colony. If the unattractiveness of the place
were not sufficient to discourage a disposition to explore the lake,
the sickening stench from the green waters must dishearten any one who
has not a definite object in further investigation. Being unfamiliar
with the region, we ignored the trail which would have given us this
forbidding northern approach. As we neared the escarpment from the
south, we found a small stream of crystal-clear water, and although it
was too warm to be palatable, we were delighted with the discovery
since the porters and horses were sadly in need of water. We decided
to make camp here, and while selecting a place for the tents, the cook
discovered a spring of boiling water which he appropriated for his
uses. A little farther on a spring of ice-cold water was located so
that we had all modern improvements as far at least as water supply was
concerned.

After making camp, an hour's walk brought us to the top of a rocky
hill from which we had an excellent view of nearly the entire length
of the lake, an irregular sheet of water eight or ten miles long by
perhaps two miles at the widest point. It lay before us, a shimmering
blue-green mirror with occasional strips of snow-white beach. At the
south end, that part nearest us, the water was much darker in colour
owing to its greater depth, and the steep slopes of the escarpment
were mirrored in its surface. Here and there along the shores jets and
clouds of steam spurted forth from the numerous boiling springs and
miniature geysers. Far away toward the centre of the lake what seemed
great peninsulas and islands of rosy pink broke the placid surface of
the lake--these were the flamingos that we had come to see.

A two hours' journey up the tortuous rock-strewn western shore brought
us to the region which seems to be their favourite haunt. On our
approach, the great flocks rose from the water and flew across toward
the opposite shore, many alighting in mid-lake. As the birds arose,
the splashing of water made by their running over the surface to get
a start, the beating of wings, and the "kronk-kronk" of their calls
created an indescribable din, while the charm of the marvellously
beautiful sight was tempered by the odours that arose from the putrid
waters churned by the activity of the birds.

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


One soon forgets about snakes in Africa although there are many
poisonous species. In my experience of more than five years in the
jungles, wandering about with from one hundred to two hundred and fifty
semi-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 I
have never had as many mosquitoes to contend with as I have had in a
single night in my apartment on Central Park West. However, one avoids
a single African mosquito as one would avoid the pest, because that is
just what he may turn out to be. For six months at a time my mosquito
nets have remained in the duffle bags.

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

There are other pests besides insects, snakes, and drouth to be guarded
against in Africa. One of these is fire. In making a camp, it is always
wise 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 took
place in Uganda the day that I killed the big bull elephant now in the
Milwaukee Public Museum. We had been working hard from eleven o'clock
in the morning until early evening. Meanwhile, camp had been made
close to our work in a country of bush and high grass. Immediately
surrounding our camp the grass was five feet high and very dense and
dry. To the east of us was a great jungle of elephant grass, a sort
of cane growing to a height of ten or fifteen feet. For two or three
hours I was conscious of a great fire to the east, but there was little
wind and it travelled slowly. Whenever it came to one of the fields of
elephant grass the roaring and crackling was quite appalling, and when
it finally reached the clump of grass nearest our camp we realized that
we would probably have to make a fight. There was no time to backfire
and so we tried the next best thing. About twenty-five yards from the
tents we started to make a trail stretching for a hundred yards across
the path of the fire. This was done by bending the grass down on both
sides, leaving a path along which we could move freely. Then the job
was to stop the fire at the parting of the grass. A hundred men, each
provided with an armful of green branches, scattered along this thin
line to beat the fire out as it reached the division. We had a terrific
fight. In several places the fire jumped across the trail, but each
time enough men concentrated at that point to kill it before it got an
overpowering foothold. It was hot, smoky, desperate work. When it was
ended, the tents were safe although the men were thoroughly done up.

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




CHAPTER VII

BILL


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

Bill came up--a little, naked, thirteen-year-old "Kuke" with great
black eyes. The eyes did it. Mrs. Akeley decided that Bill should go
with us. He was given a khaki suit two sizes too big for him which
made 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 of
time always at his disposal to mix up with almost everything going
on in camp. I think of him now, after three expeditions in which he
has been with me, as the best tent boy, the best gun-bearer, the best
tracker, and the best headman that it has ever been my lot to know--a
man who, I know, would go into practically certain death to serve me.
If I were starting out on an expedition among unknown people in Africa
I would rather have Bill as a headman and as a counselor in dealing
with the savages, even though they were people of whom Bill knew
nothing, than any one I know of.

During that first six months' apprenticeship Bill was always busy. When
there was nothing to do about camp he would borrow some of Heller's
traps and set them for jackals, or he would be poking about the bush
looking for lizards or snakes that we might want for the collections.
Months passed, and Bill was an inconspicuous member of our little army
of followers. We were camped on the top of the Aberdare; Cuninghame
and I were returning from a fruitless four days on elephant trails. As
we 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 hundred
yards from camp and she had come out to the road in the hope of getting
a 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 and
near to Bill's native village. He sent for his "mamma," to whom he
wanted to give some of his earnings. So his mother came to camp and
Bill introduced her. He led me out to where she was leaning against
a rock, and pointing to her said, "mamma." She was a young _shenzie_
woman of the usual type, dressed in a leather skirt and bead and brass
ornaments.

One day Bill had the sulks and was scolded for not doing something that
he had been told to do. He said he knew his work and didn't have to be
told what to do. It made him perfectly furious to be continually told
to do things which he knew to be a part of his duties. Nor would he
shirk his duties. If he failed to do things at the proper time, in nine
cases out of ten it was because someone had been telling him to do the
things and it had made him ugly. This characteristic is as pronounced
now 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 our
departure from Africa. As soon as we arrived Bill demanded his pay. We
wanted him to stay until we were ready to leave Nairobi, but no, he
wanted to be free to spend his money; so he left us in spite of the
fact that in doing so he sacrificed his _backsheesh_. He promptly spent
all his money for clothes, having them made to order by the Indian
traders, 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 before
we reached there Bill had disgraced himself, and had been turned out
and black-listed. But knowing something of the probable conditions
which had contributed to his downfall, we were glad to get him and
he was glad to come. There were four of our party, and most of the
other tent boys and the kitchen contingent were Swahilis, so we rather
expected that Bill would have trouble. But his first real trouble
came of an exaggerated sense of loyalty to me, or at least that was
his excuse. During my absence from camp one of my companions asked
Bill for some supplies from a box to which Bill had the keys, but he
refused to get them, saying that he must have an order from his own
_Bwana_. It was cheek, and he had to be punished; the punishment was
not severe, but coming from me it went hard with him and I had to give
him a fatherly talk to prevent his running away. Whenever we reached a
_boma_, or Nairobi, we expected Bill to have a grouch. His irresistible
impulse 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 and
discharged; but the next day he would turn up and continue to do his
work with a long face until he would manage to screw up courage to ask
if the _Bwana_ would take him on the next trip, and then he would be
all grins and the troubles were over.

Sometimes in hunting dangerous game I would take him along as extra
gun-bearer and usually on these occasions his marvellous keenness of
eye and ability to track would result in the regular gun-bearers being
relegated to the rear. One time while hunting elephants in Uganda I
let him go with me. We had finished inspecting a small herd, decided
there was nothing in it that I wanted, and were going back to take up
the trail of another lot in a section where the country was all trodden
down by the going and coming of numerous herds. As we went along Bill
detected the spoor of two big bulls and I told him to follow it, not
thinking for a moment that he would be able to hold it in the maze
of herd tracks. On our last visit to town he had invested in a stiff
brim straw hat and a cane, and he looked like anything but an elephant
tracker as he walked jauntily along with his straw hat on the back of
his head and swinging his cane like a dandy. For five hours he followed
that trail with the utmost nonchalance, in places where it would have
given the professional tracker the greatest trouble and where nine out
of 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; as
I drew up to him there were two old bulls not twenty feet from us. When
one of them was dead and the other gone I felt much more comfortable
than when I first realized the situation into which we had blundered.

But the time that Bill earned our everlasting gratitude and immunity
from punishment for present misdeeds was when I was smashed up by
the elephant on Mt. Kenia. He was with Mrs. Akeley at the base camp
when the news reached her at dusk, and it was past midnight when she
was ready to come to me through that awful twenty miles of forest
and jungle in the blackness of a drenching rain. While headman and
_askaris_ were helpless, stupidly sharing the fear and dread of the
forest at night which paralyzed the porters and guides, it was Bill
with a big stick who put them in motion and literally drove them ahead
of Mrs. Akeley to me. And then it was he who directed the cutting of
the road out of the forest for the passage of my stretcher, enlisting
the services of a chief with his people to cut a road in from the
_shambas_ to meet our porters who were working outward.

One day when I was convalescing, Bill called on a porter to perform
some service about my tent. The porter refused to come. Bill went out
to "interview" him. The porter was twice as large as Bill--there was
a 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 where
he had left the porter. It took the doctor a half hour to bring the
porter to. Then the other porters came up in a body and said that Bill
must go or they would all go. I told them that the first of their
number who complained of Bill or refused to do his bidding would get
"twenty-five." The average black boy would have taken advantage of the
situation created by these victories--not so with Bill. After that,
whenever he had occasion to pass an order to a porter, he always did it
through the headman.

Perhaps I should explain at this point just what the normal personnel
of a _safari_ in British East Africa is. First, there is the headman,
who is supposed to be in charge of the whole show, excepting the
gun-bearers and tent boys, who are the personal servants and under
the immediate direction of their masters. The _askaris_ are soldiers
who are armed and whose duties consist of the guarding of the camp
at night and looking after the porters on the march. There is one
_askari_ to from ten to twenty porters. The cook and his assistant or
assistants, the number of whom is determined by the size of the party,
are important members of the _safari_. Then there are tent boys, one
to each member of the party, whose duty is to look after the tents
and clothing, and to serve their masters or mistresses at table. The
_syces_ are pony boys, whose duties are to look after the horses and
equipment. In addition to those already named come the rank and file
of porters whose duties are manifold, carrying loads on the march,
gathering wood under the direction of the _askaris_ and the cook,
bringing in game, beating for lions, setting up the tents under the
direction of the tent boys, and so forth.

I do not know of any case where Bill's character was better
demonstrated than at the time when I was convalescent after the
elephant smashed me up. I was able to walk about, but had to have
someone carry a chair along so that I could sit down to rest. A little
distance away from camp, at the edge of the Kenia forest, there was a
great swampy place surrounded on three sides by a high ridge and on the
fourth side by the forest. One day the natives came in and reported
that an old bull elephant had come out into this swampy place, and
they 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, where
they are not likely to be disturbed by their companions, and for a time
simply loaf around and feed and then go away again. We started out
one 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 it
was joined by the fresh trail of a second elephant. I started to walk
down the trail, but found that I was not in physical condition to go
on, so I sent the boys up and around the ridge of this crater-like
depression, instructing them to throw stones into the bush as they went
along. They had not gone far when one of the elephants was beaten out
and started to go across the bottom of the crater, over open ground.
He was probably three hundred yards away from me, and as he approached
the forest on the other side it occurred to me that I might get him
rattled by shooting into the trees ahead of him. So I shot--the bullets
crashed through the trees in front and frightened him, and he wheeled
around and started back. I had hoped that he would come my way, but he
did not. In the intense excitement I shot at him three or four times. A
little puff of dust from his dry hide told me the story of my aim, and
while 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 was
absolutely essential that I finish the job. The elephant turned again
and went on across to the opposite side, and now I had to get on
his trail and follow him. From a hundred yards away he got our wind
momentarily, and threatened to charge. Another shot turned him, and he
disappeared into the bush. An hour later I had a good view of him at
about seventy-five yards and under conditions where I normally could
have made an approach to within a distance from which I might have
dropped him in his tracks. But at this point I was so exhausted that I
took 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. The
boys helped me back into camp. I felt perfectly certain that we would
find him dead in the morning. The whole thing had been stupid and
unsportsmanlike.

The next morning, with a few of the boys, I went back and took up
his trail; but much to my disappointment and surprise I found that
he and his companion had kept right on into the forest and were
apparently going strong. I knew that he was mortally wounded, and it
was necessary that he should be followed and finished off. It was too
big a job for me in my condition, so it was up to Bill. I gave Bill one
of my gun-bearers and each of them a heavy .470 cordite rifle, with
instructions to stick to the trail until they found the elephant. They
were not to shoot except in emergency. When the elephant was found, one
of 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 with
them and I had no idea but that they would be back in camp before
night, but it was not until midnight of the second day that Bill came
to my tent, awakened me, and told his story. They had followed the
elephant without ever coming up with him except that at one time they
heard him ahead of them; and they had finally decided it was best to
come back to get food and instructions. Bill 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 one
black 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 with
nothing but his knife with which to protect himself. I felt, however,
that there was little danger to the gun boy except from exposure, and
against that he no doubt had built a fire. I could think of nothing to
do until daylight. A half hour later some commotion in camp caused me
to send for the headman, but Bill came instead. I asked him what was
doing, and he said that he had had trouble in getting some of the boys
to go with him. "Go where?" I asked. He replied that he was going back
to the gun boy with food. Then I came to. I sent for the headman and
_askaris_, told Bill to describe to them the gun boy's location, and
told them they were to go to his relief, and Bill that he was to go to
bed. This he finally did, after using up what remaining strength he had
in 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 the
wounded 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 an
Indian trader; but the second was still in his possession. According
to the laws of the land he should have turned in the two tusks to the
government officials, who would have paid him a nominal price for the
ivory, and I, having filed a claim with the Government, would have come
into possession of the tusks; but the native had evidently thought
that he could get more out of them by selling them one at a time, and
had taken a chance. But he made a mistake in leaving Bill out of his
calculations. Bill followed up the case with the final result that the
remaining tusk was taken and sent to me, and the Government confiscated
a certain number of cattle belonging to the native as penalty for the
one he had sold. Thus, to both Bill and me, the final results from that
particular elephant hunt were satisfactory.

One time in Uganda I was using Bill as a gun-bearer in preference to
the regular gun-bearers, because I had by that time realized that
Bill 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 band
of elephants into some dense forest, and for a long time had been
crouching beneath some undergrowth where we could get an occasional
glimpse of the elephants' legs, but nothing more. They had been
quietly feeding during this time, but at last they moved away and
crossed 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 trail
quickly and quietly to the point where they had crossed, and there we
stopped, listening intently in an attempt to locate them. At first
I thought they had gone out of hearing, when I suddenly discovered
the rear elevation of a bull not more than twenty feet from us. He
was 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. I
craned my neck in an effort to get a glimpse of his tusks, and in doing
this I became conscious of a cow standing beside the bull and looking
straight at us. Bill was about five feet back and to one side of me. I
stood motionless, without swinging my gun in the cow's direction, but
waited 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, moved
a pace more or less in my direction. I was perfectly certain that she
was going to follow the bull, and to Bill there was no indication that
I had seen her. Bill thought she was coming at me, raised his gun, and
fired point blank into the cow's face. The elephants bolted. I wheeled
and 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 his
master is down and at the mercy of a beast. Of course it did not take
long for me to come to a realization that Bill's shooting was done in
perfectly 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 heart
was broken and my apologies were forthcoming and were as humble as the
dignity of a white man would permit.

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

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

Bill never was and never will be completely tamed. His loyalty to
the master in whom he believes and for whom he has an affection is
unbounded, and I firmly believe that Bill would go into certain death
for such a master. He has an independence that frequently gets him
into trouble. He does not like to take orders from any one of his own
colour. The Somalis and the Swahilis, associated with Bill, were
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 is
no doubt in my mind that Bill's disgrace with the Roosevelt Expedition
was due entirely to the connivance of the Swahilis and the Somalis.

When we had finished with our lion-spearing expedition on the Uasin
Gishu Plateau, numerous things had been stolen, and the Somalis
insisted that Bill was the guilty party. A white man whom I had
employed to take charge of the Nandi spearmen was not fond of Bill, and
one 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 was
so rebellious that we found it necessary to take him in hand for mild
punishment. He ran from camp and I sent an _askari_ after him. The
_askari_ overtook him, but he did not bring him back, because Bill had
a long knife and he was prepared to use it to a finish. I realized that
I would have to see it through, although my sympathies were all with
Bill. We were near a government _boma_, and I turned my case over to
the officials. Bill was arrested, put in jail, and we went on without
him.

Some weeks later we were making the ascent of Mt. Kenia, back in Bill's
old country, where Bill's services had been almost invaluable; and I
continually felt the need and frequently an actual longing for Bill. We
were up about ten thousand feet on Kenia, following an elephant trail.
We came to an elephant pit in which some animal had been trapped and
made 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 and
feet at the sides of his prison until he had raised the bottom to a
point which enabled him to scramble out and make his escape. I had been
longing for Bill all morning because of certain troubles we were having
with our boys. Just as we were about to leave the pit to continue our
march up the mountain side I heard a voice behind me:

"_Jambo, Bwana._" ["Good morning, Master."]

I recognized Bill's voice. I turned and saw the most disreputable Bill
that I had ever seen. His clothing was worn to shreds, his shoes were
practically all gone, and the only thing about him that was perfectly
all right was his grin. I wanted to hug him. I never knew just what
happened at the _boma_ except that after two weeks Bill got out, took
up our trail, and followed us in all of our meanderings, and finally
came up with us at the elephant pit in the gloomy bamboo forest. He had
probably travelled a couple of hundred miles in overtaking us.

Bill's training as a tent boy, as I have said, was under Alli. Alli
was a Swahili, and he was not only one of the most efficient tent boys
and all-around men that we ever had in Africa, but he was especially
valuable on _safari_ because of his ability to entertain and amuse his
fellow men around the campfire at night. Alli's sense of the dramatic
was extremely keen. Night after night he would stand in the centre of
a circle of admirers, telling them stories. We would often sit and
watch him, and we had no difficulty in following his story, though
we understood, at that time, no Swahili at all. He might perhaps be
describing to his fellows some white man. He would describe his dress
in detail--his tie, his shirt, his cuffs--and we were usually able to
recognize the individual from the pantomime of his description. These
stories were sometimes made up from the day's experience. For instance,
it might be that during the day I had had some interesting experience
or adventure the story of which Alli had gathered from the gun boys on
their return, and when the work was finished in the evening Alli would
give it to his audience in full detail--probably with some additions
that furnished intense interest--often eliciting loud applause.

One time we had been on an elephant trail a day and a half. I lay
beneath a tree, "all in" with spirillum fever, and felt that I could
go no farther that day; so I ordered Bill to make camp. I was awakened
from a doze by Bill, and when I asked him if my tent was ready he
replied that it was not but that the hammock was. He had improvised a
hammock which he ordered me to get into. He had doubled up the loads of
the few porters so that four were released to carry me. Bill made the
porters trot the ten miles to camp. It was nearly a month before Bill
and 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 over the Divide" the night before, but
somehow missed connections. I opened my eyes with my face to a window
overlooking the porch, and there, looking over the rail, was Bill,
like a faithful dog. It seemed to me that he stood there for hours
with tears in his eyes staring at his master. A few days later he was
allowed to come into my room. He approached the foot of the bed with a
low "_Jambo, Bwana._"

I said, "It is all right, Bill; I'll soon be well."

With a great gulping sob, he burst into tears and bolted from the room.

At an African Big Game Dinner in New York almost ten years after I left
Bill, one of my friends who had just returned from British East Africa
came to me and announced that he knew all about me now, that he had had
Bill in his _safari_, and Bill never lost an opportunity to tell him
stories about _Bwana Akeley_. So I know that Bill is still loyal, and
there is no one in all Africa whom I am more keen to see. I missed him
constantly on my trip into the gorilla country, but because I entered
Africa from the south when I headed for Kivu, I was forced to make up
my _safari_ without him.




CHAPTER VIII

SAFARI HUNTERS


In 1905 Nairobi was a town of tin houses, many black people, a few
Hindus, and fewer white men. Before my departure for the Athi Plains,
where I planned to begin my collections, I wished to find a place in
Nairobi where I might store material as I sent it in from time to
time from the field. Around and around I wandered without finding
any one who was able to offer a helpful suggestion. Then one day,
as I was passing the open door of an unpromising galvanized iron
building, I heard the encouraging clatter of a typewriter and lost
no time in investigating. At the rear of a bare room about thirty
feet wide and forty feet long was a door on the other side of which
someone was plying the typewriter furiously. Finally there came forth
from behind that closed door a blue-eyed, red-haired chap, apparently
extraordinarily busy and much annoyed at being interrupted. However,
his annoyance vanished when I told him what I was looking for and he
suggested that I use a third of the front part of his building at a
rental of five rupees--about a dollar and a half--per month. This
arrangement was eminently satisfactory to me and we closed the bargain
at once.

The red-haired man was Leslie J. Tarlton. No description of British
East Africa is complete without some reference to Tarlton, the Boer War
veteran now known to hunters the world over because of the flourishing
business he has built up in Nairobi--a part of which is equipping
_safari_ hunters with everything from food to niggers.

Tarlton and his partner, Newland, were Australians who had served
in the Boer War. At its close they set out to make their fortunes
somewhere in Africa. Coming to Nairobi with none too much of this
world's goods but plenty of ambition and enthusiasm, they were casting
about for an objective when on that morning in 1905 I stumbled upon
Tarlton's iron house. The _safari_ business into which they fell that
day helped to make them prosperous men until the opening of the World
War in 1914 put an end to African hunting for a time.

Tarlton afterward confessed to me that the typewriter that first
attracted my attention would not write at all. Its only use was to
make a noise when a prospective client came in sight. It was perhaps
the first propounder in Nairobi of the modern business principle that
nothing succeeds like success and it propounded no less diligently
because Tarlton had not yet discovered what his post-war profession
was to be. Two or three weeks after our first meeting, when I came in
from the plains, my _safari_ laden with collections to be packed in
brine, Tarlton was much on the job, observing the process and assisting
whenever he saw an opportunity. Finally he asked why he could not
learn to do such work for me. His proposal was that he act as my
agent, sending food and other supplies to us in the field as they were
required and thus obviating the necessity of my coming in whenever a
consignment of skins was made. As time is precious in the field and one
does not often happen upon a helper of such ingenuity and diligence, we
soon came to terms. Newland, Tarlton, and Company had acquired their
first _safari_ client. Later on we provided poison tanks and the other
paraphernalia necessary in caring for trophies before they can be
shipped. Since that time, Newland and Tarlton have prepared skins and
packed and shipped them for innumerable _safaris_.

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

But the story I recall with the keenest relish recounts the adventures
of three Boer War veterans. They had reached the bottom of their
luck after the war, and making a pot, went into the Congo to poach
elephants. They had good shooting at first, then no luck at all. Their
supplies were nearly exhausted. But they took heart one evening when
they came upon elephant signs and carefully laid their plans for the
next day's hunt. A last pot of jam remained in their commissariat, and
a last pot of jam is treasured by a man in that country as one saves
a last bottle of champagne. The hunter must have fruit, and since no
wild fruit grows there, in the old days his supplies included large
quantities of preserved fruit and marmalade. The three adventurers
had saved that last pot of jam to be used to celebrate and they
agreed that the time for celebration had come provided they brought
home ivory on the morrow. Their plan was that each man should take a
different direction. On his return that night the first hunter's trail
crossed that of one of his companions. Both had their ivory and they
went into camp together ravenously hungry, their appetites whetted by
anticipation, to find that the third fellow had stayed in camp all day
and had eaten the jam alone and unabetted. His companions saw red. The
normal thing in a frontier country when a man fails to play his part is
to kill him. That was their intention, but they made up their minds not
to be rash about it. They decided to take the man into the woods some
morning and come back alone. But they thought better--or worse--of it
the next day.

The story ends in Tarlton's own words:

"Well, ladies and gentlemen, my next book will be entitled 'Murdered
from Marmalade,' or 'The Jam that Jerked him to Jesus'."

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

"Let me try my new Rigby on Tommie," Tarlton said, as he drew a bead
on the centre of the gazelle's chest. When we reached the antelope and
found the bullet one inch below where he expected it, he remarked that
he had suspected that his rifle was not accurately sighted. This was no
conceit on his part. He expected to place his bullet exactly where he
wished and if his gun was accurately sighted he rarely missed.

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

In the conduct of his business in Nairobi, Tarlton must have come in
contact with all sorts of men, for there are sportsmen and so-called
sportsmen of all shades and degrees. There is the man who goes over
keen to get a representative head of every species of game animal. No
one can take exception to him while there is plenty of game left. On
the other hand, there is the man who hunts for record heads and with
him I have little patience. One man came into camp in Somaliland who,
although he never shot unless he believed his prey to be unusual, had
killed seventy-five aoul or Soemmerring's gazelle before he got the
record. Another class of sportsmen is made up of men who seem to think
that the end to be attained is to kill all the law will allow them. I
have seen a great many of this type. Having paid for a license which
allows them to kill a given number of animals of each species, they
are never content until they have killed the full number regardless of
their needs, the size of the horns, or anything else. In the same class
with the man who kills to his limit is the man who has made careful
preparation for a hunt in Africa and who goes there determined to kill
every available species within three months. One I know told his agents
that he would pay them for the full time if they would so arrange it
that he could get his game in three weeks. His idea is to kill and get
out of Africa. He has none of that appreciation of Africa's charm and
of that real interest in its animals which create in the true sportsman
the desire to remain as long as possible.

There are many professional hunters in British East Africa, but perhaps
R. J. Cuninghame is the most notable of the type. I met him first in
1906. I wanted elephants, and everyone at Nairobi agreed that he was
the best elephant hunter. So I went to him and asked him to teach
me to hunt elephants. We had some trouble in arranging the terms
because he did not want any remuneration for helping an expedition
bent on scientific collection. I couldn't accept his time gratis but
have always appreciated this offer. Coming from a Scotchman it was
quite unexpected, but it was typical of Cuninghame's generosity and
indicative of his interest in scientific work.

He taught me as much as one man can learn from another about the game
of hunting elephants. There are some things which one can learn only
through experience, and in elephant hunting most of the essentials
must be learned in that way. It is easy and natural to assume that
these huge beasts will always be too obvious for the unexpected to
happen. 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 and
on occasion quite as silent. In a forest or rock environment one may
almost literally run on to an elephant before being aware of its
presence. The fact that Cuninghame spent so many years hunting the
great game of Africa without ever being mauled is evidence of his skill.

We went together to the Aberdare and killed one elephant--the single
tusker now in the group in the Field Museum in Chicago. Then we went
down to the government station at Fort Hall and got permission to go up
on Mt. Kenia for further elephant shooting. We spent six weeks on the
slopes of the mountain, I as an amateur under Cuninghame's tutelage.
And he was a real elephant hunter. He had killed many elephants, and
his long experience had given him a great deal of that knowledge about
elephants which would enable him to kill them without himself being
killed. On the other hand, Cuninghame hunted elephants for ivory, and
when a man approaches a herd looking for ivory, he is not likely to see
much excepting tusks. It is natural, therefore, that from the ivory
hunters we learn comparatively little of the more intimate things that
we should like to know about the every-day life of the elephant. The
world has no record of the knowledge of wild life that their experience
should have given the ivory hunters.

It is for this reason that the camera hunters appeal to me as being
so much more useful than the gun hunters. They have their pictures to
show--still pictures and moving pictures--and when their game is over
the animals are still alive to play another day. Moreover, according to
any true conception of sport--the use of skill, daring, and endurance
in overcoming difficulties--camera hunting takes twice the man that gun
hunting takes. It is fortunate for the animals that camera hunting is
becoming popular.

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

Then came the first of the moving-picture hunters. The first success
was the film called "The Water Hole" taken by Mr. Lydford, who was
temporarily the photographer of Paul Rainey's expedition. Although it
is not photographically as good as some of the later ones, it was a
remarkable achievement, as all who saw it will testify, especially when
they realize that this was Mr. Lydford's first experience in making
motion pictures and that his equipment was not as good as equipment
is now. The film had a deservedly popular run. Like all such films it
was arranged for public exhibition by piecing together parts taken on
different occasions, so that the audience gets in one crowded hour the
fruits of weeks and months of painstaking effort.

The next successful moving picture that I know of was taken on the
expedition of Lady Grace McKenzie. It has in it the very remarkable
piece of film showing a charging lion. The lion almost got the operator
and ended the picture but fortunately both escaped. This reel has never
been extensively shown.

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

While most of us who are interested in true nature photography were
feeling somewhat blue about Mr. Snow's pictures, Martin Johnson came
back to New York. He came in to see me and I asked him what he was
going to do about his titles. He was prompt and positive. He was quite
willing 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 of
titles 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 he
had in the world and more besides was invested in it. But he stuck to
his decision when the pressure came and his film goes forth, the first
ever endorsed by the American Museum of Natural History, a credit to
him and to the company distributing it. I feel that this is a great
step. With this precedent I believe we have begun a new era in
disseminating natural history through motion pictures--a step in which
we can count on the assistance of Mr. Will H. Hays, the president of
the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America.

But I must return to the gun hunters, for I have not mentioned the
truest 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 I
had finished the deer groups for the Field Museum of Natural History,
he called at the Museum and was so interested in the groups that he
asked to see me, but unfortunately I was not there. From that time on
he was interested in my endeavours and, learning that I was on my way
out of Africa, had asked Congressman Mann to bring me to Washington.
Congressman Mann's invitation was waiting for me when I reached New
York.

At a dinner at the White House during that visit the Roosevelt African
expedition was inaugurated. Among the other guests was a gentleman from
Alaska who had been describing the hunting in that region and, as we
were entering the dining room, the President remarked:

"As soon as I am through with this job, I am going to Alaska for a good
hunt."

I shall never forget that dinner at the White House. I sat through
course after course and did not eat a bite, for the President kept
me busy telling stories of Africa. There was no time to exhaust my
supply, but I believe I said quite enough, for as we were leaving the
dining room, the President turned to me and said:

"As soon as I am through with this job, I am going to Africa."

"But," interposed the hunter from the north, "what is to become of
Alaska?"

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

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

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

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

"B--but, Mr. President, aren't--aren't you afraid the lions might make
a mistake?"

"Not if they stayed long enough," was Roosevelt's rejoinder.

So he really invented the idea which they turned on him later. When
his administration was over and he finally started for Africa, the cry
of the Senate crowd was, "America expects every lion to do his duty."
A cartoon of the day that I particularly remember showed a contented
lion 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 group
in behalf of the American Museum of Natural History about the time that
Roosevelt was arranging for his African hunt, and it was a fancy of
mine 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 his
_safari_ and mine met on the Uasin Gishu Plateau.

One day while on the march I sighted a _safari_. I was aware that the
Roosevelt outfit had gone into that region, but I assumed that he had
already left there for Uganda. Nevertheless, while we made camp on the
banks of the river, I sent a runner to see if it could be the Roosevelt
_safari_. My runner met a runner from the other outfit and returned
with a message from Roosevelt himself which said that if we were
Akeley's party he would go into camp at a near-by swamp. I mounted my
pony and went to meet him as he approached on horseback accompanied by
his son, Kermit, Edmund Heller, and their guide, Tarlton. We all went
back to our camp for luncheon, where I gave Roosevelt a bottle of very
choice brandy, a present from Mr. Oscar Strauss. Mr. Strauss had been
one of our steamer companions across the Atlantic and, learning that I
was likely to meet Roosevelt, he asked me to take this choice brandy
to him in the jungles. Roosevelt accepted it with much interest in the
accompanying message but apparently with mighty little interest in the
brandy. He passed the bottle on to Cuninghame and I felt certain it
would eventually meet with just appreciation.

We went over to Roosevelt's camp for the night, thoroughly pleased
that the hunt we had looked forward to together, but had been forced
to abandon, was to take place after all. We intended to get an early
start the next morning, for Roosevelt had seen one herd of elephants
that day. We started with Tarlton leading. Suddenly he slipped off
his horse and directed that we swing down side to get off wind. In a
clearing just ahead of us were our elephants, a band of eight cows and
calves, 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 thought
would do for my group and pointed her out to Roosevelt. Of course, I
assumed that he would shoot her from behind the ant-hill, well out
of sight and protected. Instead he went around the hill and started
straight toward the elephants, Kermit and I following one on either
side and in back of him. I had an impulse to climb on Roosevelt's
shoulder and whisper that I wanted him to shoot her, not to take her
alive. But Roosevelt's theory of meeting trouble was to meet it halfway
and he got just about halfway when the old cow started across the
open space. Then the other seven headed toward us. Roosevelt shot.
The elephant I had selected went part way down and got up again. On
they came. He shot again and got her. However, there were three dead
elephants instead of one when we stopped them, for Kermit and I had to
shoot, too, to head off the others. The rule in elephant hunting is to
get as close as you can before shooting, and in whatever Roosevelt was
doing 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 to
shoot him, and he did so.

While Tarlton and Kermit returned for the camp equipment and the
supplies required in caring for the elephants, Colonel Roosevelt and I
sat together resting in the shade of an acacia. We were alone in the
heart 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 members
of his own party, for a good many months, while I was fresh from the
States, fresh from Oyster Bay. In those three hours I got a new vision
and a new view of Theodore Roosevelt. It was then that I learned to
love 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, his
integrity, and the bigness of the man. Since his death those qualities
that I caught a glimpse of in Africa under the acacia tree--those
qualities that made Theodore Roosevelt what he was--I have seen more
fully and completely as they are reflected in his children and his
children's children.

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

A day or two later Roosevelt went on to Uganda and down the Nile.




CHAPTER IX

INVENTIONS AND WARFARE


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

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

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

As I am no longer financially interested in the cement gun, I may say
with pride that there are now approximately 1,250 machines in use, not
only in the United States, but also in the principal foreign countries.
In addition to the use for which it was originally designed, that
of restoring masonry and concrete structures, many other important
purposes are now served by this mechanism. In coal mines it is being
used to keep slate roofs from falling and to fireproof the timbers.
Irrigation ditches and reservoirs are being lined and dams are being
faced and protected against the destructive action of water and frost
by this method. In tunnel construction, a lining put in with the cement
gun prevents falls and insures an absolute sealing. It protects steel,
protects piles against teredo and fire, protects structures against
acid, restores boiler settings and preserves them from further action
of the heat, rebuilds baffle walls, makes economical floor and roof
slabs, and is being used extensively in putting up walls of buildings
that are permanent and fireproof.

My next trip to Africa in 1909 also served to develop another activity
besides taxidermy. One of the principal objects of this trip was to
get moving pictures of the Nandi spearing lions. However, I found that
you can't stage a native lion hunt with any certainty, for neither the
lion nor the native, once the action begins, pays any attention to the
movie director. In order to have even a fair chance of following the
action with a camera you need one that you can aim up, down, or in any
direction with about the same ease that you can point a pistol. There
were no movie cameras like this, and after failing to get pictures of
several 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 much
experimentation completed a working model that bore no likeness to
the conventional motion-picture apparatus. To one familiar with the
old types of camera the Akeley resembled a machine gun quite as much
as it resembled a camera. During the war I used to say that the boys
who operated it would be well protected and _Photoplay_ in January,
1919, related a story of the American advance in France which bore
out my opinion. While setting up the machine to make some shots in
a still-burning and newly occupied village, a young lieutenant was
confronted suddenly by seven Germans. Mistaking his formidable film
apparatus for a new type of Yankee machine gun, they threw up their
hands and surrendered. The story is probably all the better because its
truth is doubtful.

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

While I had little idea at first that this camera would fill any
other needs than my own, as it has been perfected it has proved its
practicability for general use. The fundamental difference between the
Akeley motion-picture camera and the others is a panoramic device which
enables one to swing it all about, much as one would swing a swivel
gun, following the natural line of vision. Thus instead of having to
manipulate two cranks with the left hand, one to tilt the camera and
the other to move it horizontally, the operator by means of a single
control secures a steady movement which may be vertical, horizontal, or
diagonal, and which enables him to keep a moving object always in the
centre of the field. This flexibility especially adapts the camera not
only for wild animal photography, but also for studio work, where an
erratic 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 object
into the foreground on the screen--which made possible a successful
picture of the Man-o'-War race and the Dempsey-Carpentier prize fight.
Anthropologists have found the telephoto lens useful in making motion
pictures 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 perfected
the shutter admits thirty per cent. more light than the usual camera
shutter. This characteristic also has commended the camera to general
use. 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, its
advantage is obvious. Tom Mix and Douglas Fairbanks are both making
extensive use of the camera now and a recent feature directed by
Lawrence Trimble was made with it.

I was working on the camera, modelling a little and mounting the
elephant group, when the war came on us. That meant a call for every
man's energy and brains. I was keen to do something, but there popped
into my head an old unfortunate phrase that had long held lodgment
there. "Nothing but a taxidermist." That was the sentiment of an
editorial published in the _Youth's Companion_, a magazine which was
almost my Bible, some fifty years ago. As a youngster I always had to
combat the feeling that taxidermy was of no importance, both on my
own part, when I was not completely lost in the joy of my work, and
also on the part of those about me. But, inasmuch as it had been the
advertisements of books on taxidermy in the _Companion_ that had given
me my first encouragement, I felt a particular resentment toward a
magazine which would so betray its advertisers and its readers.

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

With the war came the cessation of all normal life. An occupation
popularly considered as unessential as mine ought to stop among the
first. Anyway, I had to get into it. The only way to be happy was to
get into it, but there was something rather ridiculous about the idea
that an African naturalist and a "good-for-nothing taxidermist" could
be of much service in wartime. At first it did not strike me--or any
one else, for that matter--that the principles I had worked out for
taxidermy, for the cement gun, and for the camera might be applied to
the mechanical devices of warfare.

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

Soon after I became a Specialist on Mechanical Devices and Optical
Equipment in the Division of Investigation, Research, and Development
of the Engineer Corps. My chief was Major O. B. Zimmerman, who thirty
years before had been my student in Milwaukee. He had wanted to become
a taxidermist, but in those days taxidermy seemed a mighty poor game
and I did my best to dissuade him from any such mad career. His
wisdom in following my advice is proved by the fact that when the war
broke out he was in Belgium as one of the leading engineers for the
International Harvester Company. I had a desk in Major Zimmerman's
office, but my actual work was done in the camera shop in New York, in
the American Museum of Natural History, and in various laboratories.
At least once each week I rode back and forth from Washington to New
York. My duties were those of a consulting engineer, but they were much
varied, for we had several things under way all the time. Wherever a
problem, mechanical or otherwise, arose, I went to look things over,
and if I had any suggestions to make, I was assigned to that job. I
spent several weeks at Brunswick, Georgia, where concrete ships were
under construction and where my experiments with the cement gun served
me in good stead. The fact that the concrete ships were not successful
was not the fault of the concrete gun. It did its part.

After devoting a good deal of thought to searchlights and searchlight
mirrors, I helped in lightening the apparatus materially and developed
a device for searchlight control. This control, which involves the same
rotary principle as my motion-picture camera, enables the operator
standing at the end of an arm to direct the rays of the light toward
any object in the sky and to keep it in view by following up its
movements with the light. It is one of several devices developed at
that time which have since been patented by the Government in my name.

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

Roosevelt laughed heartily.

"You are quite right," he replied. "Stick to it!"

As a civilian I went about wherever work was going on, talked freely
with the workmen, heard them discuss their mechanical difficulties, and
got from them their ideas for improvements. As a civilian I was also
free to carry those ideas wherever they could do the most good. If I
had had to comply with the red tape of army officialdom, not only would
my own work have been handicapped, but also the ideas and troubles of
the private actually handling the machine might never have gone past
his sergeant. When the armistice was signed, I was planning to go
overseas to observe the difficulties that the men were having at the
front, so that I narrowly escaped the khaki.

Whatever my services may or may not have contributed to the defeat of
the Germans, at least I have escaped the accusation directed toward
many a dollar-a-year man of being overpaid. The usual dollar-a-year
man, though the dollar was never paid him, received his expenses,
while my contract called for a salary of ten dollars per day without
expense money. My original agreement was to include expenses, but
some slip was made which always seemed too difficult to correct. This
arrangement made my loss even greater than that of those men who
received the fabulous amount prescribed by law, for needless to say my
weekly 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 the
cost. Inasmuch as the Akeley camera also lost heavily on war contracts,
I have had the additional satisfaction of escaping governmental
investigation on the score of excess profits. After it was all over, I
ungrudgingly paid the normal tax on the money I had lost, and I would
not swap those months with the Government for anything else in my
experience.

Since the war, with the intermission of my trip to Africa for gorillas
in 1921, I have stuck to my sculpture and taxidermy except for various
lecture trips.

A man who is fortunate enough to have witnessed the beauties of the
African forests and who has come to know the forest's inhabitants
and their ways, is almost sure to be called upon to share his good
fortune with others, and I have done a good deal of lecturing. My first
lectures were to be given at Fullerton Hall in Chicago for the Field
Museum shortly after my return from Africa in 1906. Fortunately, I had
occasion to deliver a lecture in South Chicago a few days before my
first museum lecture was scheduled. Otherwise, I probably would have
dropped dead when I faced the Fullerton Hall audience. I think the
thing that saved me from running then was the fact that I had a small
audience behind a screen at the rear of the platform and knew that it
blocked my escape.

I had tried to prepare a lecture, had realized that that was
impossible, and had finally decided to show my audience the pictures
and make whatever comments they brought to mind. Then, when I got
on the platform without the vaguest idea of what I was going to say
first, it suddenly occurred to me that I was no worse frightened
than I had been one day on the banks of the Tana when I suddenly
found myself, with nothing but a camera in my hand, charged by a
rhinoceros. Apparently I had no escape except a thirty-foot drop into
the crocodile-infested waters of the Tana below. But the rhino stopped
ten or fifteen feet from me, gazed at me stupidly, and settled down
with the apparent intention of going to sleep. I took hope when the
thought crossed my mind that this new terror might settle down with the
same intention as the old rhino, leaving me to my own resources quite
unharmed. So I told my audience the story of the rhino, the ice was
broken, and I fear I nearly talked them to death before the lecture
ended.

Since that time I have talked far and wide. I hope I have given some
pleasure and entertainment to the good people who have listened. I hope
also that I have created in the minds of my hearers a background that
will help the art of taxidermy and its practitioners in the future.
More especially I hope that I have contributed something to the study
of natural history and that I have stimulated a decent attitude toward
wild life.




CHAPTER X

A TAXIDERMIST AS A SCULPTOR


After I had got over my first youthful enthusiasm about taxidermy and
had seen how it was practiced, I recognized that, as it then was, it
was not an art--that it was in fact little better than a trade. I had
moments when I felt like abandoning the whole thing. I used to study
sculpture, particularly animal sculpture, in relation to taxidermy. I
remember that when I was twenty-eight years old I came to New York and
spent hours at the Metropolitan Museum of Art with the itch in my hands
and brain to become a sculptor. But one thing restrained me. I had
enough common sense to know that while I might become a sculptor and
even a fairly successful one I could never contribute to that art what
I could contribute to taxidermy. I believed then that I could start
taxidermy on the road from a trade to an art. So I turned away from
sculpture. Nevertheless, the idea of being a sculptor kept running in
my mind. And whenever it did, it depressed me. Finally, I gave up going
near the Art Museum altogether.

But the discipline that I inflicted on myself I could not inflict on
other people. I had to make little clay groups as studies and models
for the animal groups that I was mounting. Many people who saw these
clay models would suggest that I have them cast in bronze. If I had not
still had the fever of sculpturing in my blood, these remarks would
not have stuck in my mind, but as it was they did. So this idea became
familiar to me.

However, it was a good many years after it first became a regular
inhabitant of my mind that I put it in practice, for along with it
had grown up the notion that I should not merely turn models into
bronzes but that I would wait until I had a real contribution. Real
contributions did not seem abundant and so year after year went by with
no bronzes made.

Then in 1912 a situation arose which I thought forced sculpture upon
me. I had a dream of a great African Hall of forty groups of animals
with all the ingenuity, all the technique, and all the art the country
could boast of. By that time I had come to feel that taxidermy could
be a great art. I felt that a beautifully modelled animal required
at least as much knowledge, taste, skill, and technique as a bronze
or stone animal. But I knew that this conception was not common.
A taxidermist couldn't talk art. Especially he couldn't talk art
convincingly to the kind of men who supported great museum ventures. It
was 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 that
whether or not taxidermy was an art at least a taxidermist could be an
artist.

It was my desire to make an appeal to those men who support art
financially that stimulated my first work in bronze. I felt that we
might expect the aid of these men in such undertakings as the African
Hall if I could once get them to see the artistic possibilities of
taxidermy. The American Museum of Natural History already had friends
who were interested in art, but it had not occurred to them that the
Museum's animal groups had any relation to sculpture because these
groups had not been presented in the accepted materials of sculpture
such as stone and bronze. Through the medium of bronze I hoped to lead
them to see in the taxidermist's productions something worthy of their
support as patrons of art.

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

Mr. J. P. Morgan came to the Museum to talk over African Hall. I
explained the whole plan, showed him the model of the hall and
incidentally The Wounded Comrade. He liked the scheme. As he left he
said that he was convinced. "And," he added, "I don't mind saying,"
pointing to the little bronze of The Wounded Comrade, "that it is what
did it." I shall always be indebted to Mr. Morgan for that sentence. It
gave 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 never
hesitated to express admiration when in his opinion the work had merit.
I felt that much depended on his praise or blame. And when he finally
spoke, his enthusiasm was keen. I did not realize how keen until an
order came for a bronze of The Wounded Comrade from Mr. George Pratt,
a friend of Mr. Proctor, whose only impression of the piece was gained
from Mr. Proctor's description. Throughout my career as a sculptor
nothing has meant so much to me as the encouragement and appreciation
of the man who first declared The Wounded Comrade a success.

In recognition of this first bronze, I was made a member of the
American Sculpture Society. Inasmuch as such a cordial reception was
accorded to The Wounded Comrade by artists as well as by the general
public, I felt justified in devoting more attention to sculpture. I
felt that I had many stories to tell about elephants and that I could
tell these stories more effectively by the work of my hands than in any
other way. One chapter is told in the group of mounted elephants now
in the American Museum of Natural History. Many others can be told in
small bronzes. I want to tell these stories, and in the time I have on
earth I could not record many elephant stories in taxidermy, for one
group really done well takes years--but I can tell these stories in
bronze.

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

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

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

In my second piece I have pictured a scene that will always remain very
vivid in my memory--a charging herd. I had been following a large herd
of 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 was
following had got near the edge of the forest. Nevertheless, I was
having a hard time to get a look at them. Finally, I had recourse to
the somewhat hazardous experiment of beating on the tree trunks with
sticks 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 they
came rolling along, grunting and squealing, back to the forest. They
passed me within twenty-five yards. They were irritated sufficiently
to convince me that it was time to let them alone and go to camp. I
started along the edge of the forest. As I was pushing along through
the high grass a few minutes later I heard another band coming out of
the forest. As I couldn't see over the grass I ran to an ant-hill. This
ant-hill was six or seven feet high. As I got on top it I saw, about
one hundred yards away, eleven great animals pass one by one over a
little rise. I had as good a view of this majestic march as a man will
ever get. When they had gone two or three hundred yards, they suddenly
stopped. They had got down wind and had smelt me. Then they began to
talk. There was grumbling and rumbling. Conversation of this kind
meant trouble. It was an old story to me. And trouble came. They came
back squealing and roaring. I had to wait the first two hundred yards
of the charge without shooting for they were behind the ridge. Then
they loomed up over it, led by an old cow with her trunk up and her
great ears cocked. As the leader lost the scent and slowed a little,
they jammed into a solid mass. Then the old cow saw me perched on my
ant-hill. Changing course, they came toward me, falling apart as they
came.

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

The next elephant story that I told in bronze grew out of another
experience of mine. I was following a herd of elephants in bush
country. I was some distance behind them and they knew nothing of me.
Suddenly I heard a great commotion, squealing and beating of bushes. A
few minutes later the herd moved on. When I came to the spot where the
commotion had been I found the bushes all trampled down and, at one
side of the area of destruction in the sand, the remains of a big green
tree snake that had been stamped into the ground. I followed after the
herd but was soon deflected from the main body by noises in a little
glade off at one side of the main trail. I went to the edge of this
glade and saw a young bull elephant smashing about in the forest alone,
breaking down trees, squealing, and in general acting like a small boy
who had been stung on the nose by a hornet. After a while he quieted
down and went along after the others, grumbling and protesting. I came
to the conclusion that while feeding in the bushes he had thrust his
trunk too close to a poisonous tree snake and had been stung; that he
had beaten the snake on to the ground with his trunk and stamped it to
death. In the bronze I pictured the snake alive on the ground and the
elephant in the act of trampling it to death.

In addition to these elephant bronzes I have done one other bronze of
a combat between a lion and a buffalo, and I have two other elephant
subjects started in clay. I have never seen a lion and a buffalo
fight nor do I know of any one else who has. But I know at least
two authentic records of the dead bodies of a lion and a buffalo
together--mute evidence of a fight to a finish and death to both. And I
have seen dead buffalo carcasses from which one could tell pretty well
how the lion had killed his prey. The lion tries to throw the buffalo
in much the same manner as a cowboy "bulldogs" a steer--that is, he
throws him by jerking the buffalo's head down. In the bronze I have
represented the lion as having "bulldogged" the buffalo by catching his
nose with a front paw and bending his head to the ground in his effort
to throw him. The buffalo has saved himself from a fall by bracing
himself with one front foot and the scene is set for a battle royal
unless the lion bolts.

One of the bronzes that will soon be published records a scene that
will always be a pleasant memory to me. I was watching an elephant herd
on the march through an open grass country. The elders moved along
sedately enough, but at one side of the herd several babies were
squealing and pushing each other--having a fine time at play. Sometimes
they were ahead of the herd and sometimes behind it, but all the time
in a very gay mood. There seemed to be something that they were playing
with, but the grass was too high and I was too far off to make out
what it was. However, where the trail of the herd finally went into
the forest, I discovered the babies' plaything. It was a big dirt ball
about 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 when
baked by the African sun gets almost as hard as brick. A steel-jacketed
bullet will be cut all to pieces before penetrating the surface of an
ant-hill at all. In some way the baby elephants had got a fragment of
an old ant-hill that was nearly round and this they had used as a ball
to roll along in their play. It is not so surprising, therefore, that
an elephant can be made to do tricks with a ball in the circus!

I am putting the youngsters and their ball into bronze for one group.

The other is called At Bay and represents an elephant with trunk up
standing 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 an
elephant path, cover the pit over with a "basket"--a kind of trap--put
a noose on top of the "basket," and camouflage the whole with grass
and leaves. When the trap is set there is no evidence of anything but
a plain and safe path. The noose is one end of a twisted rawhide
cable, the other end of which is fastened to a heavy log. If the trap
works, the elephant steps on the "basket" and his leg goes through. The
"basket" sticks to his leg and holds the noose until the elephant moves
enough to draw it tight. Then he begins to drag the heavy log through
the forest. He cannot go far or fast and he leaves an unmistakable
trail. He is a high-strung, nervous creature and when after a few days
of trekking about with his tormenting log the natives come up with
him, 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 comparatively
simple for his enemies to finish him off with poisoned spears and
arrows.

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-spearing
will be finished by the time this book is out and will ultimately take
its place in Roosevelt African Hall. In 1911 I got together a band of
Nandi spearmen on the Uasin Gishu Plateau to hunt lions. I wanted a
motion picture of native lion-spearing, the most dramatic thing Africa
has to offer. In twenty days the Nandi had speared ten lions and five
leopards. My moving pictures were not very satisfactory but I did get
two other very diverse results from the trip--the determination to
invent a better camera for wild-animal photography, and the idea for
these lion-spearing groups.

The first two groups represent three native spearmen in the act of
facing the charge of a lion and lioness, the lioness characteristically
leading the charge. The third group, a sequel to the other two, shows
the three hunters chanting a requiem over the dead lion.

I have done another lion--one that interests me more than all the
others. And this piece of sculpture came about in this way. When I met
President Roosevelt at the White House on my return from Africa in
1906, I was impressed with the power and humanity of the man as all
were who knew him. One of the great experiences of my life was that
quiet talk with Theodore Roosevelt in the shade of the acacia tree on
the 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 my
unwritten African book and saying that he wanted to write a foreword
and a chapter for that book. But I had no such hankering to write as I
had 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 a
letter 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.

"Ake," he said, "I have bad news for you. Colonel Roosevelt died this
morning."

For me the bottom dropped out of everything. From that time until I
got back from the funeral I did nothing. When I returned from the
funeral I was terribly depressed. I had to find expression. I found it
most naturally in modelling. I set to work on a lion. I meant to make
it symbolic of Roosevelt, of his strength, courage, fearlessness--of
his kingly qualities in the old-fashioned sense. And this modelling
afforded me great comfort and relief. I worked on it day after day.
Taxidermy, groups and bronzes, were all forgotten. While I was so
engaged 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 and
design a pedestal for the lion. He came up not only that day but many
others. Neither of us knew just what we were going to do with it when
it was finished. I had a vague idea of casting it, making one bronze
for Mrs. Roosevelt, and destroying the model.

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

"None of us want to see statues of Father," he said. "They can't make
Father," and as he put his arms about the pedestal of the lion, "but
this is Father. Of course, you do not know it, but among ourselves we
boys always called him the 'Old Lion' and when he died I cabled the
others 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 one
day when Mr. Brite and I were in the studio a man came in whom we had
never seen before. After some desultory conversation he asked how large
the lion was to be. We said we didn't know. "How big ought it to be?"
we asked. "It ought to be as big as possible and it ought to be placed
in Washington," was his reply.

Brite pointed out that so large a lion would necessitate a pedestal
that would nearly cut him off from view from the ground. And then
developed 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 a
Roosevelt Memorial.

All this was originated without thought of the Roosevelt Memorial
Society which had raised a million and a half dollars among other
things to erect a monument to Roosevelt. The natural thing to do was
to 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 it
should be chosen it will be because no other competitor, though they
all be better sculptors, can possibly have the same deep desire as I to
perpetuate the spirit of Theodore Roosevelt and to do him all honour.




CHAPTER XI

HUNTING GORILLAS IN CENTRAL AFRICA


In 1910 I was in British East Africa collecting specimens for the group
of elephants recently completed in the American Museum of Natural
History in New York. My plan at that time was to leave the region of
snow-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 to
get specimens for a group of gorillas to be mounted for the Museum. I
had obtained the proper papers from the German authorities, and I had
funds for the purpose. Nevertheless, I had to abandon the plan at that
time because an elephant caught me unawares and mauled me sufficiently
to prevent my carrying out my project.

But the gorilla group remained as an interesting prospect ahead, and
I read eagerly any reports which came to my knowledge of hunters or
scientists who had seen or killed any of these animals. Most gorillas
reported since their original discovery had been reported from nearer
the west coast of Africa than the region which I had intended to
explore for them, but I had heard of one instance of a gorilla in
German East Africa. The story was of a German who had tried to catch a
grown gorilla in a net. He had succeeded in getting the net over the
animal and then the animal had succeeded in tearing his way out of the
net and killing the man. Whether this story was true or not I do not
know. Before I left Africa, in 1911, I heard that a man named Grauer
had gone into the country where I had intended going and that he had
come out through Nairobi with eight gorilla skins. Altogether there
came to me considerable corroboration of my belief that there were
gorillas in the Lake Kivu country of Central Africa, and my intention
to go there and collect the material for a group remained constant
although, through the period of the war, inactive.

It came to life in 1920. One night I was expounding the beauties of
Africa to my friend Mr. H. E. Bradley when he turned to Mrs. Bradley
and 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 to
Central Africa was entirely safe and practicable for women and
children, and so an expedition was agreed upon. Years before, when she
was a child, I had promised the niece of a friend of mine, Miss Martha
Miller, to take her to Africa. I had never been allowed to forget the
promise. Now the time for fulfillment had come. So the party was formed
of these two ladies, Bradley, the five-year-old child, Miss Priscilla
Hall, and me. Miss Hall had agreed to look after the youngster while
the others hunted. Not long afterward it was definitely decided that
the expedition was to be a gorilla expedition. I received a letter
from an Englishman, Mr. C. D. Foster, who had shot a male and female
gorilla and caught a baby in the country I had in mind. That led us
to base our plans on gorillas alone, and it was a gorilla expedition,
although Miss Miller killed an elephant the first time she shot at
anything 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 still
comparatively little known. Not many people have shot gorillas and
almost none have studied them in their native habitat. The gorilla is
one 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 any
other member of the animal kingdom, a gorilla expedition acquires a
tremendous fascination.

An Englishman named Battell--a captive of the Portuguese of Angola--in
1590 described an animal which in all probability was the gorilla.
Vague stories from other sources appeared in travellers' accounts, but
no real description of the gorilla came to Europe or America until
December, 1847, when Dr. Thomas S. Savage, a missionary, published a
paper in the Boston _Journal of Natural History_. Doctor Savage was
detained in April of that year at a mission on the Gaboon River in West
Africa and there made his discovery. He did not see a live gorilla
himself, but from skulls and information brought him by natives, made
a rather remarkable description of the animals, part of which is as
follows:


     Its height is above five feet, it is disproportionately broad
     across the shoulders, thickly covered with coarse black hair,
     which is said to be similar in its arrangement to that of the
     Engé-eco (the chimpanzee). With age it becomes gray, which fact
     has given rise to the report that both animals are seen of
     different colors....

     Their gait is shuffling, the motion of the body, which is never
     upright as in man, but bent forward, is somewhat rolling, or from
     side to side. The arms being longer than those of the chimpanzee
     it does not stoop as much in walking; like that animal it makes
     progression by thrusting its arms forward, resting the hands on
     the ground and then giving the body a half jumping, half swinging
     motion between them. In this act it is said not to flex the
     fingers as does the chimpanzee, resting on the knuckles, but to
     extend them, thus making a fulcrum of the hand. When it assumes
     the walking posture to which it is said to be much inclined, it
     balances its huge body by flexing the arms upward. They live in
     bands, but are not so numerous as the chimpanzees; the females
     generally exceed the other sex in number. My informants all agree
     in the assertion that but one adult male is seen in a band; that
     when the young males grow up a contest takes place for mastery,
     and the strongest, by killing and driving out the others,
     establishes himself as the head of the community. The silly
     stories about their carrying off women from the native towns, and
     vanquishing the elephants, related by voyagers and widely copied
     into books, are unhesitatingly denied. They have been averred of
     the chimpanzee, but this is still more preposterous. They probably
     had their origin in the marvelous accounts given by the natives,
     of the Engé-ena, to credulous traders.

     Their dwellings, if they may be so called, are similar to those
     of the chimpanzee, consisting simply of a few sticks and leafy
     branches supported by the crotches and limbs of trees; they afford
     no shelter, and are occupied only at night.

     They are exceedingly ferocious, and always offensive in their
     habits, never running from man as does the chimpanzee. They are
     objects of terror to the natives, and are never encountered by
     them except on the defensive. The few that have been captured
     were killed by elephant hunters and native traders as they came
     suddenly upon them while passing through the forests.

     It is said that when the male is first seen he gives a terrific
     yell that resounds far and wide through the forest, something like
     kh-ah! kh-ah! prolonged and shrill. His enormous jaws are widely
     opened at each expiration, his under lip hangs over the chin, and
     the hairy ridge and scalp is contracted upon the brow, presenting
     an aspect of indescribable ferocity. The females and young at the
     first cry quickly disappear; he then approaches the enemy in great
     fury, pouring out his horrid cries in quick succession. The hunter
     awaits his approach with his gun extended: if his aim is not sure
     he permits the animal to grasp the barrel and as he carries it to
     his mouth (which is his habit) he fires; should the gun fail to
     go off, the barrel (that of an ordinary musket, which is thin) is
     crushed between his teeth, and the encounter soon proves fatal to
     the hunter.

     The killing of an Engé-ena (gorilla) is considered an act of great
     skill and courage, and brings the victor signal honor. A slave to
     an Mpongwe man, from an interior tribe, killed the male and female
     whose bones are the origin of this article. On one occasion he had
     succeeded in killing an elephant, and returning home met a male
     Engé-ena, and being a good marksman he soon brought him to the
     ground. He had not proceeded far before the female was observed,
     which he also killed. This act, unheard of before, was considered
     almost superhuman. The man's freedom was immediately granted to
     him, and his name proclaimed abroad as the prince of hunters.


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

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


     When the snake was eaten, and I, the only empty-stomached
     individual of the company, had sufficiently reflected on the
     disadvantages of being bred in a Christian country, we began
     to look about the ruins of the village near which we sat. A
     degenerate kind of sugar-cane was growing on the very spot where
     the houses had formerly stood, and I made haste to pluck some of
     this and chew it for the little sweetness it had. But, as we were
     plucking, my men perceived what instantly threw us all into the
     greatest excitement. Here and there the cane was beaten down, torn
     up by the roots, and lying about in fragments which had evidently
     been chewed.

     I knew that these were fresh tracks of the gorilla, and joy filled
     my heart. My men looked at each other in silence, and muttered
     _Nguyla_, which is as much as to say in Mpongwe, _Ngina_, or, as
     we say, gorilla.

     We followed these traces, and presently came to the footprints of
     the so-long-desired animal. It was the first time I had ever seen
     these footprints, and my sensations were indescribable. Here was I
     now, it seemed, on the point of meeting face to face that monster
     of whose ferocity, strength, and cunning the natives had told me
     so much; an animal scarce known to the civilized world, and which
     no white man before had hunted. My heart beat till I feared its
     loud pulsations would alarm the gorilla, and my feelings were
     really excited to a painful degree.

     By the tracks it was easy to know that there must have been
     several gorillas in company. We prepared at once to follow them.

     The women were terrified, poor things, and we left them a good
     escort of two or three men to take care of them and reassure them.
     Then the rest of us looked once more carefully at our guns--for
     the gorilla gives you no time to reload, and woe to him whom
     he attacks! We were armed to the teeth. My men were remarkably
     silent, for they were going on an expedition of more than usual
     risk; for the male gorilla is literally the king of the African
     forest. He and the crested lion of Mount Atlas are the two
     fiercest and strongest beasts of this continent. The lion of South
     Africa cannot compare with either for strength or courage.

     As we left the camp, the men and women left behind crowded
     together, with fear written on their faces. Miengai, Makinda, and
     Ngolai set out in one party, and myself and Yeava formed another,
     for the hunt. We determined to keep near each other, that in
     emergency we might be at hand to help each other. And for the
     rest, silence and a sure aim were the only cautions to be given.

     As we followed the tracks we could easily see that there were four
     or five of them; though none appeared very large. We saw where
     they had run along on all fours, the usual mode of progression
     of these animals, and where from time to time they had seated
     themselves to chew the canes they had borne off. The chase began
     to be very exciting.

     We had agreed to return to the women and their guards, and
     consult upon final operations, when we should have discovered
     their probable course; and this was now done. To make sure of not
     alarming our prey, we moved the whole party forward a little way
     to where some leafy huts, built by passing traders, served for
     shelter and concealment. And having here bestowed the women--who
     have a lively fear of the terrible gorilla, in consequence of
     various stories current among the tribes, of women having been
     carried off into the woods by the fierce animal--we prepared once
     more to set out in chase, this time hopeful to catch a shot.

     Looking once more to our guns, we started off. I confess that I
     never was more excited in my life. For years I had heard of the
     terrible roar of the gorilla, of its vast strength, its fierce
     courage if, unhappily, only wounded by a shot. I knew that we were
     about to pit ourselves against an animal which even the tiger of
     these mountains fears and which, perhaps, has driven the lion out
     of this territory; for the king of beasts, so numerous elsewhere
     in Africa, is never met in the land of the gorilla. Thus it was
     with no little emotion that I now turned again toward the prize at
     which I had been hoping for years to get a shot.

     We descended a hill, crossed a stream on a fallen log, and
     presently approached some huge boulders of granite. Alongside of
     this granite block lay an immense dead tree, and about this we saw
     many evidences of the very recent presence of the gorillas.

     Our approach was very cautious. We were divided into two parties.
     Makinda led one and I the other. We were to surround the granite
     block behind which Makinda supposed the gorillas to be hiding.
     Guns cocked and in hand, we advanced through the dense wood, which
     cast a gloom even in midday over the whole scene. I looked at my
     men, and saw plainly that they were in even greater excitement
     than myself.

     Slowly we pressed on through the dense brush, fearing almost to
     breathe for fear of alarming the beasts. Makinda was to go to
     the right of the rock, while I took the left. Unfortunately, he
     circled it at too great a distance. The watchful animal saw him.
     Suddenly I was startled by a strange, discordant, half human,
     devilish cry, and beheld four young gorillas running toward
     the deep forests. We fired, but hit nothing. Then we rushed
     on in pursuit; but they knew the woods better than we. Once I
     caught a glimpse of one of the animals again, but an intervening
     tree spoiled my mark, and I did not fire. We ran till we were
     exhausted, but in vain. The alert beasts made good their escape.
     When we could pursue no more, we returned slowly to our camp,
     where the women were anxiously expecting us.

     I protest I felt almost like a murderer when I saw the gorillas
     this first time. As they ran--on their hind legs--they looked
     fearfully like hairy men; their heads down, their bodies inclined
     forward, their whole appearance like men running for their lives.
     Take with this their awful cry, which, fierce and animal as it is,
     has yet something human in its discordance, and you will cease to
     wonder that the natives have the wildest superstitions about these
     "wild men of the woods."


Both Savage and Du Chaillu and all succeeding authorities, including
the standard works on natural history, speak of the gorillas as among
the most powerful and ferocious animals on earth. And this reputation
is so firmly established in the popular mind that our plan of taking
ladies with no previous hunting experience of any kind into a gorilla
country in Central Africa was looked upon as madness. But to the
general theory of the ferocity of wild animals I have never been a
convert. And the more I have seen of wild animals in Africa the less
I have believed in their ferocity. Consequently, I explained my creed
concerning the gorillas in this fashion:


     I believe that the gorilla is normally a perfectly amiable and
     decent creature. I believe that if he attacks man it is because he
     is being attacked or thinks that he is being attacked. I believe
     that he will fight in self-defense and probably in defense of his
     family; that he will keep away from a fight until he is frightened
     or driven into it. I believe that, although the old male advances
     when a hunter is approaching a family of gorillas, he will not
     close in, if the man involved has the courage to stand firm. In
     other words, his advance will turn out to be what is usually
     called a bluff.

     I believe, however, that the white man who will allow a gorilla to
     get within ten feet of him without shooting is a plain darn fool,
     for certainly the average man would have little show in the clutch
     of a three or four hundred pound gorilla.

     My faith in the general amiability and decency of the gorilla
     is not based on experience or actual knowledge of any sort, but
     on deductions from the observation of wild animals in general
     and more particularly of monkeys. There are few animals that
     deliberately go into fight with an unknown antagonist or with a
     known antagonist, for that matter, without what seems to them a
     good reason. In other words, they are not looking for trouble.

     The lion will fight when the maintenance of his dignity demands
     it. Most animals will fight only when driven to it through fear,
     either for themselves or their young.

     The first living gorilla that I ever observed was in the
     Zoölogical Park in London many years ago. It was very young and
     its chief aim in life seemed a desire to be loved. This has
     seemed to be the chief characteristic of the few live gorillas
     that I have seen in captivity. They appear to have an extremely
     affectionate disposition and to be passionately fond of the
     person most closely associated with them; and I think there is
     no doubt that John Daniel, who died in the Ringling Brothers
     Circus in Madison Square Garden in the spring of 1921, died of a
     broken heart because he was separated from his mistress. I did
     not have the pleasure of seeing John Daniel alive; but in death
     he certainly had the appearance of anything but a savage beast.
     The above notes are here set down for the purpose of recording
     the frame of mind with which I am going into the Kivu country to
     study, photograph, and collect gorillas.

     Going as I am, equipped with motion-picture cameras with which
     one can get motion pictures under most adverse conditions, I
     am led to hope for something in the way of photographs of live
     wild gorillas. I hope that I shall have the courage to allow an
     apparently charging gorilla to come within reasonable distance
     before shooting. I hesitate to say just what I consider a
     reasonable distance at the present moment. I shall feel very
     gratified if I can get a photograph at twenty feet. I should be
     proud of my nerve if I were able to show a photograph of him at
     ten feet, but I do not expect to do this unless I am at the moment
     a victim of suicidal mania.


The rest of the party had the courage of my convictions and with these
tenets 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 fortune
to be able to check up with accuracy the location of the gorilla
country. I had lunch with Sir Northrop Macmillan from Nairobi, Kenia
Colony, Sir Charles Ross, and Mr. Grogan, who twenty-four years before
had walked alone from the Cape to Cairo--the first man who ever made
that trip. Sir Charles Ross had directions from Mr. T. Alexander Barnes
for getting to the Kivu region where Barnes had the year before killed
a gorilla. Mr. Grogan supplemented these directions, for in this very
region on his famous walk he had found a gorilla skull. He knew the
region well, for he had been stationed in it during the war. With this
very valuable corroboration we set sail for Cape Town.

To the Kivu gorilla country from Cape Town is a varied and interesting
journey. It took us about six weeks of constant travelling. The
journey from Cape Town to Bukama, where we left the railroad, occupied
seventeen days including stops which are quite a feature of South
African travel. At one place we waited six days for a train. It is
worth notice that on this entire railroad journey we did not see a
single head of game--so rapidly has African wild life disappeared in
the south. From Bukama we travelled on a steel barge towed by a river
boat for a five-day run down the Lualaba which is really the upper
waters of the Congo. The boat ran along during the day and tied up at
night so that we missed nothing of the beauty and interest of that part
of the river's course. The bird life was in great profusion. Great
trees hung over the river and were reflected from its placid surface
with almost perfect outline and detail. There were a few crocodiles in
sight. We saw one hippopotamus and once on this trip we saw elephants
some distance from the bank.

[Illustration: A map showing Mr. Akeley's route to the gorilla country
north of Lake Kivu and its location in Africa]

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

I was not entirely clear about the veracity of this tale nor whether
it confirmed my theory about the gorilla or the more usual "ferocious"
theory. If the natives were willing to go out to chase the gorilla
away armed only with sticks, its reputation for ferocity could not be
great. On the other hand, the confidence in the animal's harmlessness
seemed to have been misplaced. But one fact did stand out. We were
getting into the real gorilla country. That quickened the blood. The
next day we went to the head of the lake.

A Belgian administrator and his wife who were on the boat with us left
us at Kissenyi at the northern end of Lake Kivu. They had a three
weeks' _trek_ before them, over the mountains to their own home and the
district over which the administrator had supervision. They had told
us many stories of gorillas in their section of the country, of the
gorillas becoming so aggressive that they had entered several villages
and driven out the natives, and they had urged us to go with them, but
we 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 received
from Sir Charles Ross. Barnes himself was in the interior hunting
gorillas for the British Museum. We sent a note to him because we did
not want to interfere with his hunting, and in the meanwhile set to
work to get our porters and guides ready. We decided it would be best
for the women to stay at Kissenyi for the time being and for me to push
on for the gorilla country. There were two reasons for this decision.
Mrs. Bradley had a little touch of fever and it was not advisable
for her to leave, and secondly, while I did not believe much in the
danger to us from the gorillas, I was greatly afraid that with a large
hunting party there might be equally little danger to them. So it was
determined that I should try to insure the Museum some specimens and if
possible get the first moving pictures of live wild gorillas ever taken.

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

The latter mood prevailed the next morning, for although I was ready to
start for the bamboos by daylight my guides, who were supposed to be in
camp, were nowhere to be found. I had to send for them, but we did not
get started before eight.

We trailed up through the forest into the bamboos, seeing signs
of elephant and buffalo--some of the signs being made the night
before--and I had to pinch myself occasionally to bring about the
realization 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. There
were no great forest trees like those of Kenia, no bamboos seventy-five
feet high with five-inch stems. There was just little stuff, but still
it was all reminiscent of Kenia. One thing, the slopes were just as
steep and just as slippery, and the mud in the level places just as
deep and sticky as Kenia's.

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

I had more thrill from the sight of this first track than from anything
that happened later. I forgot all about Kenia as the guide took up the
trail. Half an hour later we came upon other tracks, tracks made by
the feet of the beast, enormous human-looking tracks showing the marks
of a heel which no other living thing in the world but the gorilla and
man has. I gave the boy back the Springfield and took the big .475
elephant 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 was
spent 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 guides
a king's ransom (in their eyes) if they would show me the old boy
before dark. They were lackadaisical about the whole affair. I had
to give it up, and as I started for camp I realized that I was very
tired. Then we spent an hour going straight up the steepest possible
slope and down again following sounds that turned out to be made by
a troop of monkeys. When we reached camp at three o'clock in the
inevitable 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 to
the conclusion that they were entirely useless. They did not want to
go on at all. I broke camp immediately and started a two-and-a-half
hour march to the Mission not knowing just what my next move would
be--probably to hunt up some "bushmen" as guides. I reached the Mission
before sundown, in the usual rain, and went to bed.

The next morning I came around to the southwest of Mikeno, about three
hours from the Mission, to the village of the Sultan of Burunga who
came out to meet me. I explained my mission, and he immediately brought
forward from the group of natives who accompanied him two splendid
fellows who he said would guide me. There was a gleam of real hope in
the situation. We would camp at Burunga for the night and start up
the mountain in the morning. As I turned to go toward the indicated
camping 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 the
coming of the light and had hoped for so much from the new gun-bearer
and guides. They had a cozy nest some distance from camp; they had
seemed so enthusiastic the day before and had promised an early start.
I waited and waited till my patience was exhausted. I feared another
farce so finally sent for them. They came smiling, confident, and keen
to be off. They insisted that no porters could go--it would not be
possible to carry cameras or any of the scientific kit where they were
going. It was up to them. I had put myself in their hands. I wanted to
at least _see_ a gorilla. I still doubted that there could be such a
thing in this part of the world--even though I _had_ seen its tracks.

We started down into that deep chasm to the west which the camp
overhung, then up to the other side--up and up--crawling and
scrambling, the guides cutting a way through the dense growth of
greenery, 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 along
the western slope. I earnestly hoped they would go no higher; it was
grilling work. We were overlooking another chasm with a still higher
ridge on the far side. We stopped occasionally to scan the opposite
side. It was deathly still--there was rarely the slightest breeze.
Someone heard a sound across the _nullah_--very slight--but the guides
were suspicious. We went on, stopping now and then to look and listen.
The youngest guide, a boy of fourteen, perhaps, pointed to a spot
where he had seen a movement of the vegetation. We watched closely
for five minutes, then a great black head slowly appeared above the
green--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 everlasting
impression, for it was so totally different from anything I had
expected. In a solid wall of vivid green a great scraggly black head
rose slowly into view where it remained motionless for perhaps a half
minute, giving me time to view it with field glasses so that I was able
to 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 I
sought. I took the gun with slight intention of chancing a shot at
that distance unless there should be opportunity for very careful and
deliberate aim. The shaggy head was withdrawn--then a glimpse of the
great silvery back and we saw no more. We went into the beastly chasm
and up again to where he had been.

[Illustration: THE LONE MALE OF KARISIMBI

Shot by Mr. Bradley]

[Illustration: THE HEAD OF MR. AKELEY'S FIRST GORILLA]

The guides were too eager; I had constantly to hold them back while I
stopped to breathe. We took up his trail. He led us on to the crest
of _that_ ridge and then along the "hogback" till we were about one
thousand feet above camp. Then as the trail swung along the other slope
at the level we heard one short roar ahead of us. The thrill of it! I
had actually heard the roar of a bull gorilla! It seemed perhaps two
hundred yards ahead. I thought it indicated alarm and that he would
lead us a merry chase. We continued along the trail slowly, for it led
along a slope so steep that without the rank vegetation we could not
have stuck on.

We had gone not more than one hundred and fifty yards from the time we
heard the roar, with the gun-bearer just ahead and the second gun and
guides behind. The gun-bearer stopped, looking up into the dense tangle
above 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 just
beside him. Behind there was a four-inch tree between me and a straight
drop of twenty feet, then a slide of fifty feet to the edge of a chasm
more than 200 feet deep. I leaned my back against this tree that I
might straighten up for a better look. The gun-bearer turned slowly and
passed me the .475. As I took it I heard that roar again--thirty feet
away, almost directly above. One plunge and down we would all go three
hundred feet to the bottom. Without the support of the sapling at my
back it would not be humanly possible to fire the big gun upward from
that trail. There was a deal of comfort in the feel of that old gun
even though theoretically I did not fear gorillas; it had stood by me
in more than one close place. After the roar there was silence for an
instant--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. I
had seen nothing but a swaying of the mass of vegetation right down to
our feet. He stopped where he had been at first. Silence. Through the
green against the sky I seemed to make out a denser mass--the outline
of his head. I aimed just below and his fourth roar was broken by the
roar of the .475. A terrific crashing plunge of three or four hundred
pounds of beast, he struck the trail eight feet from me. The gun was on
him. There was a soft nose in the left barrel ready for him, but it was
unnecessary. The slight ledge of trail did not stop him in the least.
He crashed on down over and over, almost straight downward toward the
edge of the chasm.

My heart sank for I realized that if he went to the bottom I would
stand little chance of being able to recover him and my first gorilla
would have been killed in vain. Overhanging the edge of the chasm there
was a lone tree, two feet in diameter, and the gorilla in his plunge
struck this tree, rolled up on its leaning trunk, and back again to
its base, where he came to rest with his head hanging over on one side
of the tree and his feet on the other. Had there been a single movement
in him he must have gone on. The solid from the right barrel had done
its work well--in just above the heart through the æorta, through the
spine, and out through the right shoulder blade. As he came crashing
down I somehow felt confident that all was well. I have never had a
more thrilling experience, but I've been much more frightened many
times. The gun-bearer was a trump. He was the worst scared black man
I ever saw. If I looked as frightened as he, I am thankful no movie
camera was on the job. You see, he was between me and the beast when he
struck the trail eight feet away.

I had left the cameras and tools in camp to be sent for if they were
needed. As the beast lay, a camera could not be used. I could do
nothing in sketches worth while, so I sent for nothing. I set to work
with my jack-knife and one of the boys had a native iron knife and with
these two tools we skinned and skeletonized the gorilla. As we turned
him over it kept all hands busy to avoid losing the balance of the
beast and ourselves. It took more than a half hour to get the skin and
skeleton back to where I had shot from--a human rope stunt. The boys
all worked beautifully. Then we had the long, hard _trek_ back to camp.

All hands in camp (forty odd) got a present--enough so that they
were all happy, although that did not take much. I was busy all the
following day with skin and skeleton, making such studies as were
possible. Everything was set for a real hunt on the next day, but I
could not hope for a more thrilling and dramatic episode than the
taking of my first gorilla.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] Reprinted through the courtesy of Harper & Bros., publishers of Du
Chaillu's book, "Equatorial Africa."]




CHAPTER XII

ADVENTURES ON MT. MIKENO


The day after I shot my first gorilla on the slopes of Mikeno I spent
in camp. I should have preferred to spend it resting, for the day
before had been a strenuous one, especially for a man suffering from
blood poisoning, as I was. I had had it for some time and had lost
about twenty pounds during the preceding three weeks. This left me in
a weakened condition and a rest would have been welcome. Had I been
hunting merely to kill I should have laid off a day. But science is
a jealous mistress and takes little account of a man's feelings. I
had skinned the old gorilla roughly in the field the day before. If I
wanted 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 them
as I worked at other things to see that they did not lose any of the
bones. I had personally to take care of the feet, hands, and head. This
latter 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 whole
business was a full hard day's work. One of the chief difficulties with
scientific collecting is the necessity for doing all the skinning,
cleaning, measuring, and preserving at once. For one man one gorilla
properly attended to is a full day's work. If a man gets two or three
specimens, he has to keep working night and day until he gets them done.

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

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

We set out in the same direction as on the previous hunt. In the woods
on these mountain sides the ground growth is extremely thick, and
as high up as we went there were no elephant or other paths. It was
necessary to go through the woods. The natives' method of travelling
is to cut a trail as they proceed. They used a hooked knife of great
effectiveness with which to cut the undergrowth. The stuff is thick
enough to impede one's progress, but far worse than that it is filled
with nettles, so that unless it is cut out in this way one is
constantly and unmercifully stung. That is bad enough for a white man
who is clothed, but is even worse for the blacks who wear nothing to
protect them. Nevertheless, cutting as they go, the natives make pretty
good time, perhaps two miles an hour up hill and down. Anyway, I found
that I had all I could do to keep up with them; weak as I was, I had
frequently to slow them down.

In this way we had passed over several ridges when we came on the trail
of a band of gorillas. The trail they make is plain enough, for the
undergrowth is so thick that each of the animals leaves a kind of swath
of bent and broken greenery. Their trail led us along the side of a
steep slope, so steep that every move had to be made with caution. If
the gorilla was in the habit of travelling either far or fast, catching
up with him in this country would be a heart-breaking if not an
impossible task. But I believe the gorilla normally travels only from
three to five miles a day. He loafs along through the forest, eating
as he goes. As the trail we found was fresh it was likely that the
gorillas were not far away. And so it turned out. We had followed for
perhaps an hour when a dislodged rock thundering down into the chasm
about 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 a
bit of a bay formed by a curve of the ridge. There I saw a big female
and very foolishly tried a shot with the Springfield. I suppose in
justification of my lack of faith in the thing it missed fire twice and
by the time I got the big gun in hand the female had disappeared and a
big silver-backed male was in sight.

He was about 150 yards away. He was just disappearing when I got the
big 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. We
scrambled on for an hour more--the hillside becoming higher and more
precipitous every minute. At last a slight movement of the bush above
made us aware of their presence.

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

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

There was not the straight drop of the other day but a steep slope
which could be done on all fours--for twenty feet--and then straight
down two hundred feet. I got a fair sight of an old black female and it
looked as though the bushes she was in would hold her if I killed her
instantly. She was fifty feet away. I fired and she came exactly as the
other one had--the slope was so steep it was practically a fall--and
straight at me. I tried to dodge but could not as the recoil of the gun
had 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 softened
things that I merely felt her--there was no perceptible shock, but when
I 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. There
was a big ball of black fur, squealing madly, rolling past--actually
touching me--in the wake of the old one. I took a shot at it as it went
over, and, by the time I had recovered and reloaded, two others that
had been close by had disappeared.

I believe that to be the fastest charge ever made by a gorilla against
man. I think it was pushed home with more abandon than any other on
record. I am almost certain of these two statements, the particular
reason for my certainty being that the gorilla, when she charged or
more correctly speaking fell down the hill, was dead and she couldn't
have any of the hesitations which I believe prevent such charges
by live gorillas. The others followed her not in anger but in fear
and because they accepted her lead without realizing that it was
involuntary. If their charge had been aimed at me they had plenty of
time to knock me off the mountain side before I could get up and shoot
again, and the Negroes, being armed only with spears and hanging on a
precipitous slope, were almost as defenceless.

I began to feel a good deal of confidence in my theory that the gorilla
is not a ferocious beast, although I was gaining the utmost respect
for his size and power. If being molested by man would make gorillas
ferocious and aggressive, these animals should have been excessively
dangerous, for within a very short time the Prince of Sweden had shot
fourteen of them, and Barnes had killed several more. The very animals
that I followed had probably heard the guns of these other men. Yet I
could see no signs of ferocity. When I came up with the old male that
I had killed first, he had run back and forth on the hillside barking
in protest or surprise at my intrusion just as I have seen little
monkeys run back and forth on a limb and bark; but of his having savage
intentions against me I saw no sign. Of the two I was the savage and
the aggressor. In the case of the female I had just shot, the same
was true, even though she was accompanied by her baby. She evidently
preferred to get away if possible. Cornered, I think and hope she would
fight for her young.

What became of the last two animals I do not know. The black fur ball
that I had fired at was, I believe, the four-year-old son of the old
female. He apparently caught on somewhere, for a half hour later when
we were trying to find a way down we came across him and, as he ran
about, 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 not
move with safety. Another half hour and the fog was cleared by a heavy
cold rain and hail and we continued to search for a way down to the
dead gorilla. The Negroes had worked earnestly, but they gave up and
said it could not be done. Poor devils, they were stark naked in that
icy rain; God knows how they lived through it. When they gave up they
gave up for good apparently, stood shaking with cold, making no effort
to find shelter from the rain. I took off my Burberry raincoat and got
seven of them under it with me.

In such proximity to seven naked natives almost all of my senses were
considerably oppressed and I was grateful when the rain lessened
so that I might put them at a more respectful as well as a more
comfortable distance. The others had huddled under an old tree root.
All came out and we looked over the situation. We were on the side
of a ridge of Mikeno. Where we were there was vegetation and a fair
foothold. Below and above us were stretches of sheer rock. Not far from
us a little stream fell off the shelf where we were, in a clear fall
of 200 feet. 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 a
chance to work along sideways in a patch of vegetation until we could
get down to a lower level. By working back and forth on the face of the
mountain side in this way I hoped to reach the dead gorilla. However,
I soon realized that if I wanted to try this somewhat hazardous
experiment I should have to lead the way, for the blacks had nothing
greater than a few days' wages at stake while I had one of the prizes
of a long and expensive expedition. So I swung down on the overhanging
roots of a tree and began the descent with the natives following. It
took a surprisingly long time for us to get down the 200 feet, and it
finally turned out that the route that I took led off to one side where
I could not reach the gorilla when I had descended to her level. Twenty
or thirty feet farther down I managed to cross to the stream-bed and
then went up the stream to the bottom of the falls and from there to
where the body lay. Where the stream-bed was steepest, we literally had
the 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 was
turned over with anything but the utmost care she was likely to roll
off down into the chasm below. Nor could I get much assistance from
the boys, for there was only room enough for a man or two to help.
However, in some manner we managed a satisfactory job in everything
but one particular. The camera boy had come down but the tripod carrier
never appeared. If it had been an ordinary camera the loss of the
tripod would have made little difference, but it was the moving-picture
camera, and a moving-picture camera without a tripod is useless.

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

As I worked I had kept wondering how we were ever to get up out of the
chasm, especially with the added burdens we had acquired. I am still
wondering how we did get out. The "human fly" was no more remarkable
than those black boys. My heart was in my mouth for an hour watching
them work their way up the almost perpendicular wall of that chasm with
the skin and skeleton. We got to camp just before dark in a pouring
rain, and I am free to confess that during the last hour I several
times doubted if I should get in. It was beyond doubt the toughest day
I ever spent. Never again--not for all the gorillas and museums in the
world. I spent the next day in camp working on the two specimens--the
female and the baby that had been speared--and finally had three
beautiful gorilla skins all safe under the fly of my tent. They were so
well assorted that they would make a very satisfactory group if I got
no 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 infinite
care and preserved the entire carcass with formalin and salt--a
precious anatomical record for sculptural and taxidermic use.

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

However, I did not start again. Although I had worked one whole day on
the last two gorillas I had some things still to do and I felt that
with enough material on hand for a good group even if I got no more I
could go a bit easier. So I stayed in camp another day and planned a
gorilla hunt for the moving-picture camera. On the side hills where we
had been hunting there was no possible hope of using a camera so I told
the boys if they took me in any such places again I would annihilate
them. Not only would it be useless for the camera but I felt that I
couldn't stand another such trip myself. So they promised me an easier
route, and equipped with photographic outfit we started off in the
direction of the Saddle between Mikeno and Karisimbi. It seemed a very
stiff climb to me in the beginning, but I have learned since that it
was chiefly because of my extreme weakness. Before I had been out an
hour I was sorely tempted to return to camp and give it up; but we came
upon a fresh trail of a band of gorillas which for some reason or other
the guides followed only a short distance, continuing on in the same
general direction in which we had started, without any 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 a
southerly 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 I
was practically "done."

Ten minutes later the guides ducked, and crouching, came back and fell
in behind me. I took the gun from the bearer, and looking over the tops
of the greenery of a little rise in front of us I saw a spot of black
fur perhaps fifty yards ahead. As I crouched, waiting for a better
view, the animal I was watching climbed up on a nearly horizontal
branch of a tree looking back in my direction. In the meantime,
the motion-picture camera had been brought to my side. I raised it
carefully, put it in position, and all this time another larger gorilla
was making the ascent of the horizontal branch of the tree. It was
apparently an old mother and her two-year-old baby. Almost before I
knew it I was turning the crank of the camera on two gorillas in full
view with a beautiful setting behind them. I do not think at the time
that I appreciated the fact that I was doing a thing that had never
been done before. As I ground away, a second baby came scrambling up a
near-by tree. The baby seemed very much interested in the operation.
The mother professed indifference and a certain amount of boredom and
after a bit pretended to lie down on one arm and go to sleep. The
babies, one of them at least, seemed to be amused. He would stand
up, fold his arms and slap them against his breast, which suggested
uproarious laughter on his part.

When I had turned off about one hundred feet with my heart in my mouth
for fear the thing would come to an end too soon, I realized that I had
as much of that particular subject as I wanted, there being no great
amount of movement. So I changed the two-inch lens for the six-inch
lens in order to make a "closeup." When I had taken about three hundred
feet I felt that I would like a change of scene; so with my hand on the
camera 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 had
on me physically. I forgot my weariness and took up the trail. For
the next hour we followed them, getting glimpses of them frequently.
There were probably ten or twelve in the band; but never again did I
get the opportunity to photograph them--just little glimpses of black
fur dodging about through the greenery. At one time with my glasses I
watched them across a ravine for a considerable time. The old female
was lying down on her back yawning and stretching, but she was too
far away for a photograph. So finally, feeling that I had about all I
could expect from that band, I picked out one that I thought to be an
immature male. I shot and killed it and found, much to my regret, that
it was a female. As it turned out, however, she was such a splendid
large specimen that the feeling of regret was 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 the
group to one old male, two females, and a young male of about four
years of age.

That night as I came into camp my mind went back to a certain day
eleven years before when I was hunting lions on the Uasin Gishu
Plateau with a moving-picture camera. A most wonderful opportunity
had then been given me. Full in front of me the native hunters had
drawn a lion's charge and killed the lion with their spears. But the
opportunity had been as short-lived as it was magnificent, and the
kind of camera I had then could not be handled that quickly. As I
walked back to camp that night, I was determined to make a naturalist's
moving-picture camera that would prevent my missing such a chance if
ever such a one came my way again. From 1910 to 1916 I worked on this
camera whenever I had a minute to spare. By 1917 I had the pleasure
of knowing that it was used on observation planes destined for the
battlefields of France. I had myself never had a chance to try my
invention, except experimentally, until this trip to Africa. On this
expedition I had brought two--a large one for panorama work and a
smaller one nicknamed "the Gorilla" for animal work. "The Gorilla" had
taken 300 feet of film of the animal that had heretofore never been
taken alive in its native wilds by any camera, still or moving. Few
things have given me greater satisfaction than the realization that
the failure of 1910 had led directly to the success of 1921.

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




CHAPTER XIII

THE LONE MALE OF KARISIMBI


By November 14th, I felt about as happy and about as unhappy as I
ever have in my life. I felt exceedingly well about the success of my
gorilla hunts. I had four fine specimens for the group which I intended
to mount for the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and
I had several hundred feet of moving-picture film of live gorillas in
their native forests--the first photographs of live wild gorillas ever
taken. I also had the fever and that was what I was unhappy about.
It was not only uncomfortable but it also threatened to interfere
seriously with my plans and to put me in an embarrassing position with
the rest of the party. Mr. and Mrs. Bradley and Miss Miller were camped
at Kissenyi two days' march away. It had been agreed that I should
investigate the gorillas alone first, but it was not contemplated that
I get sick during the investigation and not be ready to provide hunting
for them. They had come all the way to Central Africa to hunt gorillas
and 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 mountains
quickly, I might not be in shape to fulfil this obligation and
pleasure. So I sent a rather urgent message that they come up to my
camp. Solicitation for my health and keenness for the hunt led Bradley
and the two ladies to make the two days' march in one.

This taking ladies to hunt gorillas had caused a certain amount of
adverse comment of two kinds. The uninitiated in African hunting
censored me for leading the ladies into such terrible dangers. The
initiated, or rather some of them, were a little irritated with me
because if I showed that ladies with no previous hunting experience
could hunt gorillas, elephants, and lions, much of the heroics which
have attached to African big-game hunting would begin to wane. As a
naturalist interested in preserving African wild life, I was glad to do
anything that might make killing animals less attractive.

I had never been in gorilla country before this trip, but I had started
in with the firm conviction that hunting gorillas was not dangerous,
or, of course, I should not have taken the two ladies to hunt them. My
experiences proved my theory even more thoroughly than I had expected.
Consequently, when the ladies arrived I was prepared to take them after
gorillas without the slightest misgivings. After a day of rest at the
camp from which I had hunted, we moved our base a thousand feet higher
up (to about 10,000 feet above sea level) to the Saddle between the
two mountains, Mikeno and Karisimbi. We had two good-sized tents, one
for Mrs. Bradley and Miss Miller and the other for Bradley and me.
We had a fly also for a dining tent. These arrangements were quite
comfortable except for the cold. It was about 45 degrees Fahrenheit
at night at the Saddle Camp. There was an old five-gallon metal cask
with holes in it which when filled with coals made a fair stove for the
women's tent, but the men's tent and the mess tent gave one very little
feeling of the tropics, in spite of the fact that we were very near the
equator. But if we were cold our plight was not to be compared to the
condition of the porters, gun-bearers, and guides. They had little or
no clothing and they spent the night in hovels which they constructed
in various places around camp, the chief characteristic of which was a
limited space which insured crowding and a roof which would keep off
the rain.

[Illustration: 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 of
the gorilla may be made]

The first day after we reached the Saddle Camp we went on a fruitless
hunt up and down the slopes of Karisimbi. With the guides cutting a
path as they go, a party does not cover a great deal of distance in a
day. Nor is there any need for fast going, for the gorilla does not
range far, nor even when pursued does he go fast. On the other hand,
even after the guides have cut a "path" the going is sufficiently
difficult underfoot and so precipitous in these mountains that a march
of 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 run
on to a buffalo trail, but we did not come up to the animals, probably
because of the fact that I was not very keen about it as it was very
dense country and not at all the sort of place in which to hunt buffalo
with ladies.

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

If the gorilla were as aggressive an animal as he has been credited
with being, this old fellow should have charged that twenty-five yards
in a few seconds and given us a chance to defend the ladies heroically
from threatened death. However, he didn't know his part, for it was
evident that his one idea was to go away. His departure was interrupted
by 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 for
the prize, one of the guides suddenly called our attention to the
fact that the gorilla was moving off. He disappeared from view. We
followed, scrambling along as rapidly as possible but not making very
fast progress. But our time was as good as the gorilla's, for we had
glimpses of him as he went down and up the other side of a gully to
the crest of a ridge beyond. As he reached the top of this ridge he
came into full view perhaps fifty yards from where we were. Bradley
fired 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, a
huge creature weighing three hundred and sixty pounds. I believe that
he was the big lone male of Karisimbi of which we had been told. He
had unquestionably met white men before because at one time he had
been badly wounded in the pelvis, leaving a permanent deformation of
the pelvic region and a crook in his spine. Like all of the others he
displayed no signs of aggressiveness. He was intent only on getting
away. 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 ardour
to keep from feeling like a murderer. He was a magnificent creature
with the face of an amiable giant who would do no harm except perhaps
in self-defence or in defense of his friends.

From twenty feet above him on the slope where we settled down with
our kit to make pictures, notes, and studies, we had a view of
Mikeno and the surrounding country which I then thought, and still
remember, as the most beautiful view I have ever seen; and I believe
my companions, one and all, quite agree with me. The motion-picture
camera 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 dead
gorilla. Mikeno was at her best; she had thrown aside her veil of
cloud; her whole summit was sharply outlined against the blue of the
tropical sky. The warm greens and browns of the moss-covered cliffs
suggested a drapery of lovely oriental weave. From the summit well
down the wonderful line of the western slope the eye was arrested by
old Nyamlagira smouldering lazily and sending her column of smoke and
steam to join the hovering cloudbank above--then on again the eye
swept over a scene of marvellous opalescent colour in which were dimly
seen distant mountain ranges; suggestions of shimmering lakes, and
mysterious forests--then around to Chaninagongo, looming dark and
massive in the middle ground, smouldering, too, but less demonstrative
than her sister, Nyamlagira. Lying almost at the foot of Chaninagongo
and to the south, glistened in the tropical sun the loveliest of
African inland waters--Lake Kivu. Behind us, upward toward the summit
of Karisimbi and adown the slopes in front, there stretched a primeval
forest of marvellous beauty--in character unlike anything else I
know--a veritable fairyland--and at our feet lay dead one of its great
giants.

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

I felt then, and even more so now, that that morning represented the
high spot in my African experiences. In the midst of a forest, a land
of beauty, we overlooked a scene incomparable, a scene of a world in
the making, while our great primitive cousin, whose sanctuary we had
invaded, lay dead at our feet. That was the sad note. To me the source
of greatest joy was the fact that here, at the culmination of a dream
of thirty years, I was not alone. There were three friends who keenly
appreciated all that it meant.

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

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

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

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


                     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.


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

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

Mrs. Bradley and Miss Miller went to the Mission Camp, but Bradley and
I remained for two days of photographing and the cleaning up and the
packing of the gorilla material. The third and last day we made the
descent of the mountain, sending the porters ahead with their loads to
Burunga, but retaining our guides for another hunt in the bamboos.

We had descended well down toward the lower level of the bamboo when
the guide led us along a cattle trail up a ridge of Mikeno. We came to
a track of a single old male gorilla on this trail, which, after we
had followed it for a half hour, had been joined by others. Ultimately
we were on a perfectly fresh trail of a whole band. The purpose of
the hunt was to get more pictures and to add to our series one more
specimen, a young male if possible. At this time I had not seen more
than one male with a gorilla band and I felt that a group of two old
males, 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 an
intruder in the family group. I had to explain to my gun-bearer that we
must go slowly because I did not want to come up with the gorillas in
jungle so dense that I could not photograph them; and that we must try
to manage not to disturb them until they had come to more open country
where the chance for observation would be better. We were near the
edge of a ravine the opposite slope of which was cleared of bamboo and
bush. I suggested to him that if we could possibly see them in a place
like 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 through
the bush we saw the entire band on that opposite slope, all of them
in full view. There were at least three old males, I think four, and
perhaps a dozen females and youngsters. They, of course, had seen us.
They were making off toward the crest of the opposite slope as fast as
possible.

My first thought was along these lines:

"Here is a perfectly peaceful family group including three or four
males. I could use my two males without apologies. There is really no
necessity for killing another animal."

So the guns were put behind and the camera pushed forward and we had
the extreme satisfaction of seeing that band of gorillas disappear
over the crest of the opposite ridge none the worse for having met
with white men that morning. It was a wonderful finish to a wonderful
gorilla hunt. We went on to Burunga for the night and the next day we
were at the Mission by noon where we found Thanksgiving dinner waiting
for us. The chief mission of the expedition had been successfully
culminated, and all of us were together again just in time for a real
Thanksgiving.




CHAPTER XIV

IS THE GORILLA ALMOST A MAN?


When Herbert Bradley and I started down from Mt. Mikeno to join the
ladies of our party at the Mission of the White Friars we had the
skeletons, skins, and measurements of four adult gorillas and the
mummified carcass and skin of a baby. I had made death masks of them
all and likewise some plaster casts of their feet and hands. I also
had 300 or 400 feet of film showing wild gorillas in action, and some
general observations of the gorilla's habits in the mountains of the
Lake Kivu region on the eastern border of the Belgian Congo in Central
Africa. I had the material for which I had come to Africa--material
sufficient to make a correct group of gorillas for the proposed
Roosevelt African Hall of the Museum of Natural History in New
York--but I also had a great deal more, a vision of how to study this
animal which is man's nearest relative.

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

I have taken some pains in describing my adventures with the gorillas
of Mikeno to show that they were not ferocious. I do not believe that
they ever are ferocious, nor do I believe that they will ever attack
man except when hard pressed and in self-defence. I think I can also
explain why the gorilla has his aggressive reputation. I am going to
quote one of Paul du Chaillu's adventures[2] with gorillas and in the
quotation put in brackets what Du Chaillu felt, leaving outside the
brackets what the gorilla did. If you read the tale as Du Chaillu wrote
it, it gives an impression that the gorilla is a terrible animal. If
you read merely what the gorilla did, you will see that he did nothing
that a domestic dog might not have done under the same circumstances.


     Then the underbrush swayed rapidly just ahead, and presently
     before us stood an immense male gorilla. He had gone through the
     jungle on his all-fours; but when he saw our party he erected
     himself and looked us [boldly] in the face. He stood about a dozen
     yards from us [and was a sight I think never to forget]. Nearly
     six feet high (he proved _two inches shorter_), with immense body,
     huge chest, and great muscular arms, with [fiercely glaring] large
     deep gray eyes [and a hellish expression of face, which seemed to
     me like some nightmare vision]: thus stood before us this king of
     the African forests.

     He was not afraid of us. He stood there, and beat his breast with
     his huge fists till it resounded like an immense bass-drum [which
     is their mode of offering defiance]; meantime giving vent to roar
     after roar....

     [His eyes began to flash fiercer fire as] we stood motionless on
     the defensive, and the crest of short hair which stands on his
     forehead began to twitch rapidly up and down, while his powerful
     teeth (fangs) were shown as he again sent forth a thunderous roar.
     [And now truly he reminded me of nothing but some hellish dream
     creature--a being of that hideous order, half man, half beast,
     which we find pictured by old artists in some representations
     of the infernal regions.] He advanced a few steps--then stopped
     to utter that [hideous] roar again--advanced again, and finally
     stopped when at a distance of about six yards from us. And here,
     as he began another of his roars and beating his breast [in rage],
     we fired, and killed him.

     With a groan [which had something terribly human in it, and yet
     was full of brutishness], it fell forward on its face. The body
     shook convulsively for a few minutes, the limbs moved about in a
     struggling way, and then all was quiet--death had done its work,
     and I had leisure to examine the huge body. It proved to be _five
     feet eight inches high_, and the muscular development of the arms
     and breast showed what immense strength it had possessed.


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

I don't blame Du Chaillu for feeling the way he did, for, under the
circumstances in which he hunted the gorilla, most people would have
had even much worse feelings than he had. Then, too, when Du Chaillu
wrote, tales of African exploration were under an unwholesome pressure
comparable to that to which African motion pictures are being subjected
to-day. I have it on reliable authority that Du Chaillu was twice
requested to revise his manuscript before his publishers considered
it exciting enough to be of general interest. All I want to point out
is that the gorilla should be judged by what he does, not by how the
people that hunt him feel.

And it is of more importance to judge the gorilla correctly than any
other animal for he is unquestionably the nearest akin to man. Most
scientists agree that man and the gorilla had common or at any rate
similar ancestors. Since that time man has passed through the dawn of
intelligence and developed the power to reason and to speak. But how he
developed 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 how
near he is to the dawn of intelligence.

In the whole doctrine of evolution there is no one subject more
interesting or likely to be more fruitful to study than the gorilla. He
presents most important opportunities to the students of comparative
anatomy, to the psychologists, to the many kinds of specialists in
medicine, 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." Unquestionably
this is true of the chimpanzee but I do not think it true of the
gorilla. I believe that he has nearly passed out of the arboreal
phase of life and is perhaps entering the upright phase and that he
is the only animal except man that has achieved this distinction. To
stand erect and balanced, an animal needs heels. The plaster cast of
the gorilla's foot shown in the accompanying illustration is ocular
evidence of what science has long known--that the gorilla has developed
a 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 of
foot muscles which enables man to walk upright. The gorillas I saw
in Africa always touched both their feet and hands to the ground in
running 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 degrees
forward. They do not, however, put their hands down flat and rest their
full weight on them. They seem to be evolving toward a two-legged
animal. And if they spent most of their time in trees they would not
have developed heels and leg muscles for walking upright on the ground.

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

But the gorilla has not lost all his arboreal characteristics by any
means. The length, size, and strength of his arms are evidence of the
tree-climbing habits of his ancestors. I know that a gorilla can now
climb with more ease than the average man. But I only once saw gorillas
in trees and that was when I was taking the moving picture of a mother
and two youngsters, and an active man could have walked up the inclined
trees these gorillas were on about as easily as they did. Nor did I
see any evidences of their having been in trees. The German, Eduard
Reichenow, who observed gorillas in this same area, agrees that the
gorilla is seldom in trees:


     While travelling, both kinds of apes (the gorilla and the
     chimpanzee) move on the ground; yet the gorilla is much more a
     stranger to tree living than the chimpanzee.... If the gorilla
     climbs a tree in search of food, he again climbs down the same
     trunk. Also at the approach of danger he is not capable of
     swinging himself from tree to tree as the chimpanzee does.


The hand of the gorilla is as interesting to me as his foot. If you
look at the illustration of the plaster cast you will see that it looks
much like a man's, fingernails and all. You will see that the fingers
are bent over. When running he puts his knuckles on the ground. It
is a peculiarity of the gorilla that when his arms are extended his
fingers are always bent over. He can't straighten them out except when
his wrist is bent. I can take the hand of the mummified baby gorilla
when its wrist is bent and put it over a stick and then straighten his
wrist and his fingers will close over the stick so that I can lift him
off the ground and hang him up in this fashion. I suppose that this
peculiar characteristic is a legacy of his arboreal life which has not
left 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 practically
abandoned arboreal habits. Whether the gorillas of the lower country
of the west coast have done so likewise I do not know from personal
observation. Du Chaillu reported that they did not climb for food nor
did they make their nests in trees in that region.

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

I cannot help believing that this report arises from a confusion with
the chimpanzee habits. The chimpanzee is not strong enough to fight
a 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-eating
animal in his territory is large enough to harm him. The gorilla is a
vegetarian, so he kills no animals for food, and he has not progressed
sufficiently along the paths of man to enjoy killing as a sport. He
lives in amity with the elephants, buffalo, and all the wild creatures
of his neighbourhood, and in the Mikeno region the natives drive their
cattle into the gorilla's mountains in the dry season of the year
without molestation.

Altogether, then, as the gorilla has no enemies, he has no need to
fashion himself a bed out of harm's way. All the gorilla beds I saw
were on the ground. They consisted of a pile of leaves, about what the
long arms of a gorilla could pull together without moving. I saw no
signs of their occupying these hastily constructed sleeping places more
than once.

The gorilla makes no abode, has no clothes, uses no tools, unless
grasping a stick may indicate the beginnings of such an idea. It is
still before the dawn of intelligence with him. Yet scientists tell
me that he has the palate and muscles that enable man to talk. In
spite of Mr. Garner the gorilla cannot talk, but no one knows how near
to 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 speak
of, so that his talking is of no significance. But recent studies of
the brain of John Daniel seem to place his brain about on a par with
that of a two-year-old child. Now a two-year-old child can both talk
and think. If the gorilla with his child's brain could learn to use
his voice even like a parrot, we should have come very near to having
a contemporaneous "missing link." This, of course, is very unlikely
to happen and it is not necessary, for science can make deductions
from the gorilla's brain, muscle, habits, etc., which will enable
us to understand more of the gorilla's significance for evolution
without such a spectacular event as his acquiring speech. I mention
such a thing merely as an unscientific way of trying to dramatize the
importance of the study of the gorilla.

Of course it does not follow that because the gorilla's palate and
muscles are like man's that he will be able to talk or pass out of the
barking or roaring phase. The gorilla has what might be called "roaring
pouches" that extend down the side of his neck. It is an interesting
fact that there is evidence of these same pouches in man, although they
are nearly atrophied from long disuse. It seems, therefore, that even
if the gorilla does not learn man's speech, man at one time used the
gorilla's roar or one of his own.

Man differs from most animals in the amount of variation in the
different members of the species. The skull measurements of
half-a-dozen lions, for example, will be much more nearly uniform
than the skulls of half-a-dozen men. In this particular the gorilla
is like man. Their skulls show great variation. The gorilla skulls I
brought back will exemplify this. The death masks of these gorillas
show another interesting thing which I never noticed until I put the
masks of the animals shot on Mt. Mikeno in one group and those shot on
Mt. Karisimbi in another. The male and female of Mikeno resemble each
other more nearly than either of them do any of the Karisimbi gorillas.
Likewise the three Karisimbi gorillas have features more alike than
any of them are like either of the Mikeno faces. Whether these are
family resemblances or whether they arise from geography, which seems
doubtful, as the mountains merge in a saddle at between 10,000 and
11,000 feet, or whether it is accidental I do not know. But the fact
suggests a line of study.

I did not see a gorilla in infancy, but there are two interesting
accounts of travellers in this region who have seen them. Reichenow
says:


     I was successful on the hunt to capture an animal only a few days
     old. It weighed only 2 kg., therefore considerably less than a
     newborn human child, while an old gorilla considerably exceeds
     an outgrown man in weight. The whole body of the little gorilla
     was sparsely covered with hair so that it almost appeared naked;
     only on the crown of its head there arose straight up a tuft of
     long brown hairs. This manner of hair growth gave the little ape a
     particularly human appearance.

     When one saw the little being, which flourished beautifully at the
     breast of a Negro nurse, in its helplessness, one had to become
     convinced that the gorilla nursling needs the greatest care and
     attention on the part of its mother. On the soft high bed the
     mother can well cover with her body the tiny young one which is
     in great need of warmth, without its running a chance of being
     crushed by her heavy body.


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


     I noticed that the nearest gorilla was holding a very small one
     in her arms. I shot and wounded her and she came toward me still
     holding the young one. I shot again and she dropped. The rest,
     by this time, were just disappearing, and having shot two good
     specimens I did not try to follow them.

     I approached the female gorilla and found her lying stomach down
     resting on her elbows and still clasping the young one. She was
     evidently nearly dead and I took a photo of her in this position.
     I then waited for her to die which she did within a few minutes,
     so I went up to her and took away the baby gorilla which was quite
     uninjured and apparently was not more than 24 hours old.... The
     baby gorilla (a female) is now two months old and in the best of
     health and weighs nine pounds. She has cut six teeth and the only
     ailment she has had was a cold which she evidently caught from
     me and which she recovered from very quickly. She does not show
     any signs of walking yet and up till now I have fed her entirely
     on cow's and goat's milk and occasionally, when fresh milk was
     unobtainable, on canned milk.

     P. S. Since writing the above, which has been unavoidably delayed
     in mailing, the young one which I mentioned has died; at the time
     of her death she was just over three months old.


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

Reichenow also has made some deductions about the family life of
gorillas in the Mikeno region which are interesting. "The sleeping
plans of the members of a gorilla company," he says, "do not lie
irregularly near each other but we find them joined in groups of
two, three, or four, which lets us clearly recognize that within the
herd there exists a division according to families. The nests of a
family lie close to each other and are from eight to fifteen meters
away from the neighbouring group, so that the various groups seemed
closed off from each other by the thick riot of plants, like various
dwellings. From the size of the nests we see that always only two of
them belong to adult animals; if there are more nests present, these
are always smaller and therefore belong to the half-grown young. From
this observation we get the noteworthy fact that the gorilla lives in
monogamy."

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

As I travelled down from Mikeno toward the White Friars' Mission
the fascinating possibilities of the study of the gorilla and its
immense scientific importance filled my mind along with the fear
that his extinction would come before adequate study was made. These
considerations materially led my mind to the idea of a gorilla
sanctuary; and I realized that a better place than the one I had just
left could hardly be hoped for. The three mountains, Mikeno, Karisimbi,
and Visoke stand up in a triangle by themselves. Their peaks are about
four miles apart. On the slopes of these mountains, in the bamboos
and in the dense forest, there are several bands of gorillas. I judge
that there are between fifty and one hundred animals altogether.
In all probability the animals in this region stay on these three
mountains. Such is the belief of the natives, and it is a reasonable
belief because if they left these peaks they would have to travel very
considerable distances to find similar security and food supplies
elsewhere. This being true the three peaks can become a gorilla
sanctuary by the simple expedient of preventing hunters from invading
them.

It has been proved over and over again that animals very quickly learn
to remain in places where they are safe from hunting. Likewise in
those places animals soon learn to accept man without fear just as they
do other animals. The case of the bears in the Yellowstone Park is
known to everyone. At Banff, in the Canadian Rockies, protection has
led even so shy an animal as the mountain sheep to accept man enough
to be photographed at short distances. Were the gorillas on the three
peaks protected I am certain that in a very short time they would
become so accustomed to man that they could be studied in their native
surroundings in a way that would rapidly produce most interesting and
important scientific results.

This sanctuary would not interfere with any other activity in the
country. The gorilla range is not fit for agriculture. The natives use
it 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 would
be concerned. Elephants, buffaloes, and other animals might flock into
the sanctuary so as to become something of a problem, but their numbers
could 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 by
a road. I do not think it would be necessary to fence the sanctuary
for I believe the gorillas would stay inside its limits. The road
would be chiefly for police purposes to make it easier to be sure that
hunters stayed outside. The policing of the road could be done by the
natives. As the pay of such a policeman is about five cents a day, the
maintenance of the force is not a great matter.

Besides the road and the police the sanctuary would need a few trails
and a station to consist of a residence for a white director of the
sanctuary, living quarters for the scientists, enough servants to keep
the station going, and a simple field laboratory. Neither the building
nor maintenance for such an institution would be expensive in Central
Africa. I know of no other effort of so moderate a size likely to lead
to such immediate and valuable scientific results. Moreover, if the
study of the gorilla is not made in some such way as this now, it is
not likely that it will ever be made at all. If three more gentlemen
like the Prince of Sweden go into the Mikeno region there will be no
gorillas left there. Gorillas were originally discovered on the west
coast and they have been reported at various places across Central
Africa from the west coast to the Mikeno region, but in no region are
they numerous; and if they should succeed the lion and the elephant as
the "correct" thing to shoot, their extinction would be but a matter of
a very few years.

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

FOOTNOTE:

[2] Reprinted through courtesy of Harper & Bros., publishers of Du
Chaillu's book, "Equatorial Africa."]




CHAPTER XV

ROOSEVELT AFRICAN HALL--A RECORD FOR THE FUTURE


I have dreamt many dreams. Some of them have been forgotten. Others
have taken concrete shape and become pleasing or hateful to me in
varying degree. But one especially has dwelt with me through the
years, gradually shaping itself into a commanding plan. It has become
the inspiration and the unifying purpose of my work; all my efforts
during recent years have bent toward the accomplishment of this single
objective--the creation of a great African Hall which shall be called
Roosevelt African Hall.

I have always been convinced that the new methods of taxidermy are not
being used to the full; that, although the taxidermic process has been
raised to an artistic plane, a great opportunity still remains for
its more significant and comprehensive use in the creation of a great
masterpiece of museum exhibition. Then, too, I have been constantly
aware of the rapid and disconcerting disappearance of African wild
life. And I suppose that those two considerations gave rise to the
vision of the culmination of my work in a great museum exhibit,
artistically conceived, which should perpetuate the animal life, the
native customs, and the scenic beauties of Africa.

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

The Trustees approved my plan for immediate execution; the undertaking
was to go forward as rapidly as funds were available. One of the old
North 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 made
a model of the African Hall. This model represents a great unobstructed
hall, in the centre of which stands a statuesque group of four African
elephants with a group of rhinos at either end. Both on the ground
floor and in the gallery, with windows seeming to open upon them, are
arranged habitat groups of the African fauna with typical accessories
and panoramic backgrounds. The long and arduous task of mounting the
central elephant group, the first unit for the exhibit which the model
sketched in miniature, was interrupted by the war.

Many of the undertakings that were making long strides toward
completion in 1914, to-day stand arrested due to conditions following
the war. Only one by one can they fall back to their natural places
in the march of progress, and the most urgent must be given place
first. African Hall is one of those projects which cannot be delayed.
Now or never must it become a reality. Twenty-five years ago, with
innumerable specimens at hand, its development would have been an
impossibility. Even if a man had had all the animals he wanted from
Africa, he could not have made an exhibit of them that would have been
either scientific, natural, artistic, or satisfying, for twenty-five
years ago the art of taxidermy and of museum exposition of animal life
hardly existed. Likewise, in those days much of the information that we
had about animals through the tales of explorers, collectors, and other
would-be heroes was ninety-five per cent. inaccurate.

Twenty-five years hence the development of such a hall will be equally
impossible for the African animals are so rapidly becoming extinct
that the proper specimens will not then be available. Even to-day the
heads that are reaching London from British East Africa are not up to
the old standards. If an African Hall is to be done at all, it must
be done now. And even if it is done now, we must have men to do it who
have known Africa for at least a quarter of a century. Africa to-day is
a modern Africa, the Africa of the Age of Man. Africa then was still
the Africa of the Age of Mammals, a country sufficiently untouched
by civilization to give a vivid impression of Africa a hundred years
ago. By the time the groups are in place in African Hall, some of the
species represented will have disappeared. Naturalists and scientists
two hundred years from now will find there the only existent record of
some of the animals which to-day we are able to photograph and to study
in the forest environment. African Hall will tell the story of jungle
peace, a story that is sincere and faithful to the African beasts as I
have known them, and it will, I hope, tell that story so convincingly
that the traditions of jungle horrors and impenetrable forests may be
obliterated.

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

[Illustration: Plan of the main floor and gallery of Roosevelt African
Hall]

The structure itself will be of imposing dimensions. A spacious
open hall will occupy the central portion of the building. As I have
planned it, the floor measurement of this great open space is sixty
by one hundred and fifty-two feet; the height to the gallery at the
sides is seventeen feet and that over the centre to the ceiling,
thirty feet. Its floor space will be encroached upon only at the
corners by the elevators; that is, the actual open floor space without
columns or any obstruction whatever will be sixty by one hundred and
sixteen feet. In the centre of this large hall will stand the group
of four African elephants treated in statuesque fashion, mounted on a
four-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, the
white rhinoceros. As a result of late developments in the technique of
taxidermy, we are able to treat these pachyderms so that they will not
suffer because of lack of protection under glass. Changing atmospheric
conditions will have no effect upon them and they can receive
essentially the care given to bronzes.

Since the elephant is the largest land mammal in the world to-day
and 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 the
elephant should dominate this hall. Except for bronzes at either end
facing the main entrances, there will be nothing in the central open
space to detract from the majesty of the elephants and the lumbering
bulk of the rhinos. Visitors, pausing to study the elephants, may look
out on either side as though through open windows into an African
out-of-doors, for the other great animals of the continent in their
natural environment of forest, plain, river, or mountain, will surround
the central hall. The position of these habitat groups in a kind of
annex has a double advantage: it permits them to be carefully protected
against atmospheric conditions and prevents any infringement upon the
measurements of the hall proper. There will be forty of these realistic
groups--twenty viewed from the main floor and twenty more, similarly
executed, but displaying the smaller animals, viewed from the gallery.

The forty canvases used as backgrounds will be painted by the
best artists available. Each will be an accurate portrayal of a
definite type of African scenery, usually showing some feature
of importance--Mt. Kenia on the equator, the waterless plains of
Somaliland, or the gorilla forests of the Kivu country. Together they
will give a comprehensive idea of the geographical aspect of Africa
from the Mediterranean on the north to Table Mountain at Cape Town, and
from the east coast to the west coast.

The mounted specimens in the foreground will combine to represent in
the most comprehensive way the animal life of the continent. These
groups will be composite--that is, as many species will be associated
in each of them as is consistent with scientific fact. For example, one
of the large corner groups will represent a scene on the equatorial
river Tana, showing perhaps all told a dozen species in their natural
surroundings with stories of the animals and a correct representation
of the flora. In the foreground on a sandbar in the river will be
a group of hippos; across the stream and merging into the painted
background, a group of impalla come down to water; in the trees and on
the sandbars of the farther bank two species of monkeys common to the
region; a crocodile and turtles basking in the sun near the hippos, and
a few characteristic birds in the trees.

Another of these large corner groups will be a scene of the plains,
a rock _kopje_ with characteristic animals such as the klipspringer,
hyrax, Chanler's reedbuck, and baboons on the rocks, the background
leading off across the plain showing a herd of plains animals--and the
adjoining group continuing the story by showing more of the species of
the plains. The third of the large corner groups will represent a Congo
forest scene with the okapi and chimpanzee perhaps, and such animals as
may be associated legitimately with the okapi. The fourth group will be
a desert scene, a water hole with a giraffe drinking and other animals
standing by, awaiting their turn.

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

[Illustration: A SECTION OF THE "ANNEX" CONTAINING THE HABITAT GROUPS

(A) Floor of group space, sunk four feet below the level of hall floor
to permit of various elevations of foregroup in group. (B) Floor of
gallery group case. (E) Glass roof of gallery group case. (F) Glass
roof 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) Plane
of painted background.]

Lack of care in museum exhibition has come about in part at least
because of the lack of permanence in the specimens exhibited. Now that
we have reached a point in the development of taxidermy technique
where we can say without reservation that our preparations are
permanent, permanent to a degree only dreamed of within the last
twenty years, we feel justified in taking extreme measures to insure
the future care and preservation of these preparations. The elephants
and rhinos can be made as permanent as bronze for endurance under all
conditions, but the other animal groups with their backgrounds and with
accessories necessarily made largely of wax cannot be thus exposed.
That they shall not suffer from excessive light and from changing
atmospheric conditions, they will be placed in two great alleyways on
either side of, but practically outside, the hall, hermetically sealed
off from the hall proper and also from the outside atmosphere. Thus
each group will be absolutely protected from changes in temperature and
humidity. Each group will be in fact within an individual compartment,
and allowed to "breathe" only the air of the alleyway, which is
filtered and dried and kept at a uniform temperature throughout the
year. Artificial light will be used for these groups.

The amount of light required on them will be relatively small because
of the fact that they are to be viewed from a relatively dark central
hall. We shall be looking from the hall into the source of light rather
than from the source of light outward. Also, reflections can be reduced
to a minimum and practically eliminated, owing to the fact that the
groups are the source of illumination, by having the glass in the front
of the case inclined at such an angle that it reflects only the dark
floor.

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

For instance, one panel will show a Dorobo family, the man skinning
a dead antelope brought in from the forest to his hut, where are his
wife and babies and two hunting dogs, their only domestic animals. A
further interest in animal life will be revealed in the presence of the
dead antelope as it is a source of food and clothing, for these people
live entirely by hunting. Another panel may show a group in Somaliland
with camels, sheep, goats, cattle, and ponies at a water hole, domestic
beasts furnishing the interest in animal life. Still another panel
completing the Somali story will represent a group of Midgans in some
characteristic hunting scene. While each of these panels should be
a careful and scientifically accurate study of the people and their
customs, accurate in detail as to clothing, ornaments, and weapons, the
theme running through the whole series should be the relationship of
the people to animal life.

If an exhibition hall is to approach the ideal, its plan must be
that of a master mind, while in actuality it is the product of the
correlation of many minds and hands. In all the museums of the world
to-day there are few halls that reveal a mastering idea and an
interdependence of arts and crafts. Administrations change. One man's
aim is replaced by an aim entirely different when another undertakes
his work. The institution's inheritance of exhibits must usually be
housed along with the new. Recently acquired specimens, satisfactorily
mounted, are crowded in inadequate space and completely subordinate
those specimens which, although they are of equal importance for the
understanding of the spectator, give no illusion of life and have
no appeal. Even when the architectural arrangement is good and the
taxidermy acceptable, a heterogenous collection of exhibition cases or
an inadequate lighting system may mar the harmony of the whole. Thus,
there are plentiful opportunities in the meandering process, of which
an exhibition hall is frequently the result, for the original plan to
become fogged.

But no such conditions shall spoil the symmetry of Roosevelt African
Hall. Every animal killed has been carefully selected with this great
exhibit in mind. Each group mounted is being constructed as an integral
part of the whole. A building has been especially designed to give the
exhibit the most effective and appropriate setting. And the future
is being insured by the training of men who shall carry forward the
technique so far developed. Each man is carefully chosen. Each must
have energy, common sense, a special ability, and a great love for
the duties at hand. And although each may be a specialist in his own
line, all are forming the habit of working together as day by day they
assemble the carefully tanned skins, the clean, well-shaped manikins,
the silk and wax leaves and grasses, and the painted canvases for the
backgrounds. For the first time we have the opportunity to train a
group of men not only to practise the various arts which are combined
in making modern zoölogical exhibits, but also to further develop the
methods that make this sort of museum exhibition worth while from the
scientific and artistic standpoint. In this considerable corps of men I
am resting my hope that the technique of my studio shall be carried on
to higher perfection instead of scattering or being carried underground
when my part shall be done. This is important not only for Africa, but
for all other continents as well, inasmuch as we are making records of
rapidly disappearing animal life. From my point of view, this school of
workers is perhaps the most important of all the results of the work on
Roosevelt African Hall.

Every group in Roosevelt African Hall must be made by the men who
make the studies in Africa so that the selection of environment, the
background, and the story to be told shall be typical and so that every
detail of accessory or background shall be scientifically accurate.
It was formerly the custom, and is still in many museums, to send
hunters into the field to kill animals and to send the skins back to
the museum where a taxidermist mounts them. The taxidermist does not
know the animals. He has no proper measurements for them. Usually the
hunter does not supply them and, even if he does, they are of little
value; for one man's measurements are not often reliable guides for
another 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 back
at the museum to mount. The men who study the animal and who shoot him
must come back and mount him, and the men who make the accessories and
who 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 the
expense of a group, is not five per cent.

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

Not satisfied with such a method, I went to Africa to get acquainted
with the gorilla in his home. I found him in a country of marvellous
beauty, spending much of his time in the open forests or in the
sunshine of the hillsides. I found, too, that he was neither ferocious
nor in the habit of living in trees. He can climb a tree just as a man
can climb a tree, but a group of human beings up a tree would be as
natural as a gorilla group in the same position.

The setting of the group of five gorillas is to be an exact
reproduction of the spot where the big male of Karisimbi died. In
mounting them I have my personal observation, my data and material to
work from. My own measurements are significant and helpful. I have
photographs of the scenery, the setting, and the gorillas themselves.
I have photographs of their faces--not distorted to make them hideous
but as they naturally were--and death masks which make a record that
enables me to make the face of each gorilla mounted a portrait of an
individual. All this makes these unlike any other mounted gorillas in
the world. After all the work that I had put on them I was glad to get
the corroboration of one who knows gorillas as well as T. Alexander
Barnes. He had followed gorillas in the Kivu country where I got my
specimens. As he looked at the first of the group standing in my
studio, he exclaimed, "Well, thank God! At last one has been mounted
that 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 as
great an artist as we can get and he must go to Karisimbi to make his
studies. And the preparators who make the accessories--the artificial
leaves, trees, and grasses--they, too, must go to examine the spot
and collect their data, for every leaf and every tree and every blade
of grass must be a true and faithful copy of nature. Otherwise, the
exhibit is a lie and it would be nothing short of a crime to place it
in one of the leading educational institutions of the country.

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

Well, I am mounting animals. The elephant group, the white
rhinoceroses, and one of the okapi are completed and are now on
exhibition. Work on the gorilla group is advancing rapidly. There are
already collected and awaiting their turn to be mounted materials for
a black rhino group and a lion group. I have estimated that it will
require at least ten years and the expenditure of one million dollars
to complete the work. And there is good reason to hope that the money
needed will be provided. President Henry Fairfield Osborn in his Annual
Report of the American Museum of Natural History for 1922 has called
for a gift or a special endowment of one million dollars to finance
and develop Roosevelt African Hall in addition to other funds now
available, stressing this as the most pressing need of the Museum in
the year 1923. The income from such a special endowment will enable us
to complete the African Hall during the next decade and leave a million
dollars of the new special endowment for the development of the new
building to house the hall.

I am hopeful, too, that the Roosevelt Memorial Hall, out of which
Roosevelt African Hall will open, is about to become a reality. The New
York State Legislature will soon have before it a bill to appropriate
two and one half million dollars for a memorial to New York's great
citizen. Such a building is one of two plans for this memorial now
under consideration by the State Roosevelt Memorial Commission and
there is much reason to hope that it may be favourably received by the
people of the state.

I ought not properly to be writing autobiographical matter. That is
usually a sign that a man is through and the truth is that I am just
ready 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 doing
to train men to continue my work so that the museums of this country
can portray whatever of animal life they desire in a way that will
have the greatest attraction and instruction for the public, both lay
and scientific. It is chiefly in the hope of furthering that great
project which must be undertaken now--a project to put into permanent
and artistic form a complete record of the fast-disappearing animal
life of the last stronghold of the Age of Mammals--that I write these
things. Enough has been said to indicate that this is not one man's
task. It may not even be accomplished by several men in the span of one
man's life. But the future will show concrete results, for the slowest
and most laborious stages of preparation are now in the past. Years
of experimentation have perfected taxidermy, years of observation in
the field have made a true conception possible, the American Museum of
Natural History has committed itself to the plan--in a word, I am about
to realize my dream.



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