Last of all come the porters, of whom we had eighty. There were Swahilis, Wakambas, Kikuyus, Masai, Minyamwezis, Lumbwas, Bagandas, Kavirondos, and doubtless members of various other tribes. It was their duty to carry the camp from place to place, each porter carrying sixty pounds on his head. When they arrive at the spot selected for camp they put up the tents, get in firewood, and carry in what game may later be shot by the white men.

Then, lowest in the social scale, are the saises, or grooms. There is one for each mule or horse, of which we had four. The sais is always at hand to hold the mount and is supposed to take care of it after hours.

The foregoing members of our personally conducted party, therefore, included:

Head-man 1 Gunbearers 4 Askaris 4 Cook 1 Tent Boys 4 Porters 80 Saises 4 "Totos" 20

The head-man and the four gunbearers get seventy-five rupees a month, the askaris fifteen rupees, the cook forty rupees, the tent boys twenty and twenty-five rupees, depending upon experience, the porters ten rupees, and the saises twelve rupees. The totos get nothing except food and lodging, as well as experience, which may be valuable when they grow up to be porters at ten rupees a month. A rupee is about thirty-three cents American. We were also required by law to provide a water bottle, blanket, and sweater for each porter, as well as uniforms and water bottles, shoes and blankets for all the other members of the party. We also supplied twenty tents for them.

For the first day or two on safari there may be little hitches and delays, but after a short time the work is reduced to a beautiful system, and camp is broken or pitched in a remarkably short time. The porters get into the habit of carrying a certain load and so there is usually little confusion in distributing the packs.

[Photograph: At the Edge of the Athi River]

[Photograph: The Totos Are Not Fastidious]

Life and activity begin early in camp. You go to bed early and before dawn you are awakened by the singing of countless birds of many kinds. The air is fresh and cool, and you draw your woolen blankets a little closer around you. The tent is closed, but through the little cracks you can see that all is still dark. In a few moments a faint grayness steals into the air, and off in the half darkness you hear the Somali gunbearers chanting their morning prayers—soft, musical, and soothing. Then there are more voices murmuring in the air and the camp slowly awakens to life. Some one is heard chopping wood, and by that time day breaks with a crash. All is life, and the birds are singing as though mad with the joy of life and sunshine. A little later a shadowy figure appears by your cot and says, "Chai, bwana" which means, "Tea, master."

You turn over and slowly sip the hot tea, while outside in the clear morning air the sound of voices grows and grows until you know that eighty or a hundred men are busy getting their breakfasts. The crackling of many fires greets your ears and the pungent smell of wood fires salutes your nostrils. You look at your watch and it is perhaps five or half past. The air is still cold and you hasten to slip out of your cot. It is never considered wise to bathe in the morning here.

Your shoes or boots are by your bed, all oiled and cleaned, and your puttees are neatly rolled, ready to be wound around you from the tops of the shoes to the knee. Your clean flannels (one always wears heavy flannel underclothes and heavy woolen socks in this climate) are laid out and your clothes for the day's march are ready for you. You get into your clothes and boots, go out of your tent, and find there a basin of hot water and your toilet equipment. The basin is supported on a three-pronged stick thrust into the ground and makes a thoroughly satisfactory washstand. The fire in front of the cook's tent is burning merrily and he and his assistants are busily at work on the morning breakfast. Twenty other camp-fires are burning around the twenty small white tents that the porters and others occupy, and scores of half-clad natives are cooking their breakfasts. The ration that we were required to give them was a pound and a half of ground-corn a day for each man, but in good hunting country we got them a good deal of meat to eat. They are very fond of hartebeest, zebra, rhino, and especially hippo. In fact, they are eager to eat any kind of meat, so that anything we killed was certain to be of practical use as food for the porters. This fact greatly relieves the conscience of the man who shoots an animal for its fine horns. Six porters sleep in each of the little shelter tents which we were required to supply them, and this number sleeping so closely packed served to keep them warm through the cold African highland nights.

By six o'clock our folding table in the mess tent is laid with white linen and white enamel dishes for breakfast. So we take our places. If we are in a fruit country we have some oranges and bananas or papayas, a sort of pawpaw that is most delicious; it is a cross between a cantaloupe and a mango. Then we have oatmeal with evaporated cream and sugar; then we have choice cuts from some animal that was killed the day before—usually the liver or the tenderloin. Then we have eggs and finish up on jam or marmalade and honey. We have coffee for breakfast and tea for the other meals.

While we are eating the tent boys have packed our tin trunks, our folding tent table, our cots and our pillows, cork mattresses and blankets. The gunbearer gets our two favorite rifles and cameras, field-glasses and water bottles. Then down comes the double-roofed green tents, all is wrapped into closely-packed bags, and before we are through with breakfast all the tented village has disappeared and only the mess tent and the two little outlying canvas shelters remain. It is a scene of great activity. Porters are busily making up their packs and the head-man with the askaris are busy directing them. In a half-hour all that remains is a scattered assortment of bundles, all neatly bound up in stout cords.

One man may carry a tent-bag and poles, another a tin uniform case with a shot-gun strapped on top; another may have a bedding roll and a chair or table, and so on until the whole outfit is reduced to eighty compact bundles which include the food for the porters, the ant-proof food boxes with our own food, and the horns and skins of our trophies. The work of breaking camp is reduced to a science.

Our gunbearers are waiting and the saises with the mules are in readiness. So we start off, usually walking the first hour or two, with gunbearers and saises and mules trailing along behind. Soon afterward we look back to see the long procession of porters following along in single file. Our tent boys carry our third rifle, and behind them all comes the head-man, ready to spur on any lagging porters.

[Drawing: Our Safari on the March]

The early morning hours are bright and cool, but along about nine o'clock the equatorial sun begins to beat down upon our heavy sun helmets and our red-lined and padded spine protectors. But it is seldom hot for long. A cloud passes across the sun and instantly everything is cooled. A wave of wind sweeps across the hill and cools the moist brow like a camphor compress. An instant later the sun is out again and the land lies swimming in the shimmer of heat waves. Distant hills swim on miragic lakes, and if we are in plains country the mirages appear upon all sides.

We rarely shot while on a march from camp to camp. We walked or rode along, watching the swarms of game that slowly moved away as we approached. The scenery was beautiful. Sometimes we wound along on game trails or native trails through vast park-like stretches of rolling hills; at other times we climbed across low hills studded with thorn scrub, while off in the distance rose the blue hills and mountains. To the northward, always with us, was the great Mount Kenia, eighteen thousand feet high and nearly always veiled with masses of clouds. On her slopes are great droves of elephants, and we could pick out the spot where three years before Mrs. Akeley had killed her elephant with the record pair of tusks.

Our marches were seldom long. At noon or even earlier we arrived at our new camping place, ten or twelve miles from our starting of the morning. Frequently we loitered along so that the porters might get there first and the camp be fully established when we arrived. At other times we arrived early and picked out a spot, where ticks and malaria were not likely to be bothersome.

We usually camped near a river. Our first camp was on the Athi Plains, near Nairobi; our second at Nairobi Falls, where the river plunges down a sixty-foot drop in a spot of great beauty. Our third camp was on the Induruga River, in a beautiful but malarious spot; our fifth was on the Thika Thika River, where it was so cold in the morning that the vapor of our breathing was visible; and our sixth on a wind-blown hill where a whirlwind blew down our mess tent and scattered the cook's fire until the whole grass veldt was in furious flames. It took a hundred men an hour to put out the flames.

Our next camp was at Fort Hall, where a poisonous snake came into my tent while I was working. It crawled under my chair and was by my feet when I saw it. It was chased out and killed in the grass near my tent, and a porter cut out the fangs to show me. For a day or two I looked before putting on my shoes, but after that I ceased to think of it.

After that time our camps were along the Tana River, in a beautiful country thronged with game, but, unhappily, a district into which comparatively few hunters come on account of the fever that is said to prevail there. We were obliged to leave our mules at Fort Hall because it was considered certain death to them if we took them into this fly belt.

When the porters arrive at a camping place a good spot is picked out for our four tents and mess tent, the cook tent is located, and in a short time the camp is ready. In my tent the cot is spread, with blankets airing; the mosquito net is up, the table is ready, with toilet articles, books and cigars laid out. The three tin uniform cases are in their places, my cameras are in their places, as are also the guns and lanterns. A floor cloth covers the ground and a long easy chair is ready for occupancy. Towels and water are ready, and pajamas and cholera belt are on the pillow of the cot. Everything is done that should be done, and I am immediately in a well established house with all my favorite articles in their accustomed places.

[Drawing: The Safari in Camp]

A luncheon, with fruit, meat, curry and a pastry is ready by the time we are, and then we smoke or sleep through the broiling midday hours. Mr. Stephenson—or "Fred," as he is with us—and I go out on a scouting expedition and look for good specimens to add to our collection of horns or to get food for the porters. Sometimes the whole party went out, either photographing charging rhinos or shooting, but this part of the daily program was usually too varied to generalize as part of the daily doings. Several porters went with each of us to bring in the game, which there is rarely any uncertainty of securing.

In the evening we return and find our baths of hot water ready. We take off our heavy hunting boots and slip into the soft mosquito boots. After which dinner is ready and our menu is strangely varied. Sometimes we have kongoni steaks, at other times we have the heart of waterbuck or the liver of bushbuck or impalla. Twice we had rhino tongue and once rhino tail soup. We eat, and at six o'clock the darkness of night suddenly spreads over the land. We talk over our several adventures of the afternoon, some of which may be quite thrilling, and then, with camp chairs drawn around the great camp-fire, and with the sentinel askari pacing back and forth, we spend a drowsy hour in talking. Gradually the sounds of night come on. Off there a hyena is howling or a zebra is barking, and we know that through all those shadowy masses of trees the beasts of prey are creeping forth for their night's hunting. The porters' tents are ranged in a wide semicircle, and their camp-fires show little groups of men squatting about them. Somewhere one is playing a tin flute, another is playing a French harp, and some are singing. It is a picture never to be forgotten, and rich with a charm that will surely always send forth its call to the restless soul of the man who goes back to the city.

Sometimes the evening program is different. When one of us brings in some exceptional trophy there is a great celebration, with singing and native dances, and cheers for the Bwana who did the heroic deed. The first lion in a camp is a signal for great rejoicing and celebrating—however, that is another story—the story of my first lion.

At nine o'clock the tents are closed and all the camp is quiet in sleep. Outside in the darkness the askari paces to and fro, and the thick masses of foliage stand out in inky blackness against the brilliant tropic night. We are far from civilization, but one has as great a feeling of security as though he were surrounded by chimneys and electric lights. And no sleep is sweeter than that which has come after a day's marching over sun-swept hills or through the tangled reed beds where every sense must always be on the alert for hidden dangers.



CHAPTER VI

A LION DRIVE. WITH A RHINO IN RANGE SOME ONE SHOUTS "SIMBA" AND I GET MY FIRST GLIMPSE OF A WILD LION. THREE SHOTS AND OUT

Like every one who goes to Africa with a gun and a return ticket, I had two absorbing ambitions. One was to kill a lion and the other to live to tell about it. In my estimation all the other animals compared to a lion as latitude eighty-seven and a half compares to the north pole. I wanted to climb out of the Tartarin of Tarascon class of near lion hunters into the ranks of those who are entitled to remark, "Once, when I was in Africa shooting lions," etc. A dead lion is bogey in the big game sport—the score that every hunter dreams of achieving—and I was extremely eager to make the dream a reality.

When speaking with English sportsmen in London my first question was, "Did you get any lions?" If they had, they at once rose in my estimation; if not, no matter how many elephants or rhinos or buffaloes they may have shot, they still remained in the amateur class.

On the steamer going down to Mombasa the hunting talk was four-fifths lion and one-fifth about other game. The cripple who had been badly mauled by a lion was a person of much distinction, even more so than the ivory hunter who had killed three hundred elephants.

[Photograph: By courtesy of W.D. Boyce. Mr. Stephenson's Lion]

[Photograph: A Post Mortem Inquiry]

On the railway to Nairobi every eye was on the lookout for lions and every one gazed with intense interest at the station of Tsavo and remembered the famous pair of man-eaters that had terrorized that place some years before.

In Nairobi the men who had killed lions, and those who had been mauled by them (and there are many of the latter), were objects of vast concern, and the little cemetery with its many headstones marked "Killed by lion" added still greater fire to my interest.

[Drawing: The Jolly Little Cemetery]

Consequently, when we marched out of Nairobi on the evening of September twenty-third, with tents and guns and a hundred and twenty men, the dominating thought was of lions. If ever any one had greater hope and less expectation of killing a lion I was the one.

We had planned a short trip of from three to five weeks northeast of Nairobi in what is called the Tana River country. While there are some lions in that section, as there are in most parts of British East Africa, it is not considered a good lion country. Buffaloes, rhinos, hippos, giraffes, and many varieties of smaller game are abundant, largely because the Tana River is in a bad fever belt and hunting parties generally prefer to go elsewhere. This preliminary trip was intended to perfect our shooting, so that later, when in real lion country, we might be better equipped to take on the king of beasts with some promise of hitting him.

[Drawing: Peering for Lions]

The tree-tops and corrugated iron roofs of Nairobi had hardly dropped behind a long, sun-soaked hump of the Athi Plains when I began to peel my eyes inquiringly for lions. All the lion stories that I had heard for the preceding few months paraded back and forth in my memory, and if ever a horizon was thoroughly scanned for lion, that horizon just out of Nairobi was the one. Hartebeests in droves loped awkwardly away from the trail and then turned and looked with wondering interest at us. Zebras, too fat to run, trotted off, and also turned to observe the invaders. Gazelles did the same, and away off in the distance a few wildebeests went galloping slowly to a safe distance. They were probably safe at any distance had they only known it, for up to the hour when I cantered forth from Nairobi in quest of lions and rhinos I had not shot at anything for three years, nor hit anything for ten.

Night came on—the black, sudden night of Africa—and we went into camp four miles from Nairobi without ever having heard the welcome roar of a lion. It was a distinct disappointment. I remembered the story about the lions that stampeded the zebras through the peaceful gardens of Nairobi only a few nights before—also the report that some man-eaters had been recently partaking of nourishment along the very road upon which we were now camping. I also remembered hearing that lions had been seen prowling around the edge of the town and that the Athi Plains are a time-honored habitat of the lion family. On the other hand, I thought of Mr. Roosevelt, who had recently been reducing the supply. I also remembered how many hunters had spent years in Africa without ever seeing a lion, and how Doctor Rainsford had made two different hunting trips to Africa, always looking for lions, but without success.

During our first three days of marching, we looked industriously for lions. On broad, grassy plain, in low scrub, on the slopes of low hills—everywhere we looked for them. If a flock of vultures circled above a distant spot we went over at once in the hope of surprising a lion at his kill. Every reed bed was promptly investigated, every dry nullah was explored. McMillan's farm, which is a farm only in name, was scoured without ever a sign or a hint that a lion lurked thereabouts. Mr. McMillan has four lions in a cage, but they snarled so savagely that we hastened away to look for lions elsewhere. The second day we crossed the Nairobi River, the third day we crossed the Induruga River, and the fourth day we camped down on the Athi River. Here we struck a clue. Two English settlers came over and told us that lions had been heard the night before near their ranch house, on the slopes of Donyo Sabuk, a high solitary round top mountain rising from the Athi Plains, and we determined to organize our first lion hunt. It was here that Mr. Lucas was killed by a lion a short time before.

A lion hunt, or a lion drive, is quite a ceremony. You take thirty or forty natives, go to the place where the lion was heard, and then beat every bit of cover in the hope of scaring out the beasts. Lions are fond of lying up during the day in dry reed beds, and when you go out looking for them, you are most likely to find them in such places.

[Photograph: Mr. Stephenson's Splendid Buffalo]

[Photograph: "Lion Camp"]

[Photograph: The Lion and Lioness in Camp]

We started, three of us, with forty porters, at about daybreak. At seven o'clock we had climbed up the side of the mountain to the spot where the lions were supposed to be lurking—a long, reed-filled cleft in the side of the slope. The porters were sent up to one end of the reed bed, twenty on each side, while we went below to where the lion would probably be driven out by their shouting and noise. The porters bombarded the reeds with stones while we waited with rifles ready for the angry creature to dash out in our vicinity. It was an interesting wait, with plenty of food for thought. I wondered why the Englishmen had not come out to get the lions themselves, and then remembered that one of them had been mauled by a lion and had henceforth remained neutral in all lion fights. I wondered many other things which I have now forgotten. I was quite busy wondering for some time as I waited. In the meantime the lions failed to appear.

Bushbuck, waterbuck, and lots of other herbivora appeared, but no carnivora. We raked the reed bed fore and aft, and combed the long grass in every direction. A young rhino was startled in his morning nap, ran around excitedly for a while, and then trotted off. Birds of many varieties fluttered up and wondered what the racket was about. At ten o'clock we decided that the lions had failed to do their part of the program, and that no further developments were to be expected. So we marched back homeward, got mixed up with another rhino, and finally gained camp, seven miles away, just as our hunger had reached an advanced stage.

The next day we marched to the Thika Thika River, then to Punda Milia, and then to Fort Hall. Some one claimed to have heard a lion out from Fort Hall early in the morning, but I more than half suspect it was one of our porters who reverberates when he sleeps. From Fort Hall we crossed the Tana and made three marches down the river. Rhinos were everywhere jumping out from behind bushes when least expected and in many ways behaving in a most diverting way. For a time we forgot lions while dodging rhinos. There were dozens of them in the thick, low scrub, with now and then a bunch of eland, or a herd of waterbuck, or a few hundred of the ubiquitous kongoni.

We camped in a beautiful spot down on the Tana. The country looked like a park, with graceful trees scattered about on the rolling lawn-like hills. On all sides was game in great profusion. Hippos played about in the river, baboons scampered about on the edge of the water, monkeys chattered in the trees, and it seemed as though nearly all of the eight hundred varieties of East African birds gave us a morning serenade. A five-minutes' walk from camp would show you a rhino, while from the top of any knoll one could look across a vast sweep of hills upon which almost countless numbers of zebras, kongoni, and other animals might be seen.

But never a lion. It certainly looked discouraging.

As a form of pleasant excitement, we began to photograph rhinos, Mr. Akeley took out his moving-picture machine, advanced it cautiously to within a few yards of the unsuspecting rhino, and then we tried to provoke a charge. We took a dozen or more rhinos in this way, often approaching to within a few yards, and if there is any more exciting diversion I don't know what it is. I've looped the loop and there is no comparison. It is more like being ambushed by Filipino insurgents—that is, it's the same kind of excitement, with more danger.

One day it was necessary to shoot a big bull rhino. He staggered and fell, but at once got up and trotted over a hill. Having wounded him, it was then necessary for me to follow him, which I did for three blazing hours. From nine o'clock till twelve I followed, with the sun beating down on the dry, grass-covered hills as though it meant to burn up everything beneath it. If any one had asked me, "Is it hot enough for you?" I should have answered "Yes" without a moment's hesitation. The horizon shimmered in waves of heat. From the top of one hill I could see my rhino half a mile away on the slope of another. When I reached the slope he was a mile farther on. I began to think he was a mirage. For a wounded animal, with two five-hundred-grain shells in his shoulder, he was the most astonishing example of vitality I have ever seen. He would have been safe against a Gatling gun. There were more low trees a mile farther on, and I plodded doggedly on in the hope of getting a little relief from the sun. As I drew near I noticed a rhino standing under the trees, but he was not the wounded one. I decided that the shade was insufficient for both of us and moved swiftly on. Across the valley on the slope of another blistered hill stood the one I was looking for. He didn't seem to be in the chastened mood of one who is about to die. He seemed vexed about something, probably the two cordite shells he was carrying. I at last came up within a hundred yards of him. He had got my wind and was facing me with tail nervously erect. The tail of a rhino is an infallible barometer of his state of mind. With his short sight, I knew that he could not see me at that distance, but I knew that he had detected the direction in which the danger lay. By slowly moving ahead, the distance was cut to about seventy yards, which was not too far away in an open country with a wounded rhino in the foreground. I resolved to shoot before he charged or before he ran away, and so I prepared to end the long chase with an unerring shot.

Suddenly a sound struck my ear that acted upon me like an electric shock:

"Simba!"

It was the one word that I had been hoping to hear ever since leaving Nairobi, for the word means "lion." My Somali gunbearer was eagerly pointing toward a lone tree that stood a hundred yards off to the left. A huge, hulking animal was slowly moving away from it. It was my first glimpse of a wild lion. He was half concealed in the tall, dry grass and in a few seconds had entirely disappeared from view. We rushed after him. The rhino was completely forgotten and was left to charge or run away as he saw fit. When we reached the spot where the lion was last seen there was no trace of him. He apparently was not "as brave as a lion." We followed the course that he presumably took and presently reached the crest of a ridge. Then the second gunbearer, a keen-eyed Kikuyu, discovered the lion three hundred yards off to the right. After reaching the top of the hill the animal had swung directly off at right angles with the idea of reaching cover in a dry creek bed some distance away. I started to shoot at three hundred yards, but before I could take a careful aim the lion had disappeared in the grass. For an hour we thrashed the high reeds in the dry creek bed with never a sign of the king of beasts. He had apparently abdicated. He had vanished so completely that I thought he had escaped toward some low hills a mile farther on. The disappointment of seeing a lion and not getting it, or at least shooting at it, was keen to a degree that actually hurt.

[Drawing: Game Was Plenty for a Minute or Two]

There was nothing left but to resume our chase after the wounded rhino. It was like going back to work after a pleasant two weeks' vacation. We presently found him on a far distant hill, and after an hour's tramp in the sun we came up to him in the middle of the rolling prairie. There was not a tree for a mile, nor a single avenue of escape in case he charged. Horticulture had never interested me especially, but just at this moment I think a tree, even a thorn tree, would have been a pleasant subject for intimate study. However, to make a long story longer, I shot him at a hundred yards and felt certain that both shells struck. Yet he wheeled around and, stumbling occasionally, was off like a railway train. Again we followed, two miles of desperate tramping in that merciless sun, up hills and down hills, until finally we entirely lost all trace of him. It was now two o'clock. I had eaten nothing since five o'clock in the morning, my water bottle was so nearly empty that I dared take only a swallow at a time, my knees were sore from climbing hills and wading through the tall, dry prairie grass, and I decided to give up this endless pursuit of a rhino who wouldn't die after being hit with four cordite shells.

The dry creek bed lay in the course of our homeward march, and we resolved to take a final look at it. There seemed no likelihood that the lion was there, and I walked into the place with the supreme courage of one who doesn't expect to find anything hostile. My head gunbearer and I had crossed and were walking down in the grass at one side. My second gunbearer was on the opposite side, and the stillness of death hung over the burning plain.

There was not a sign of life in any direction. The second gunbearer was instructed to set fire to the grass in the hope of awakening some protest from the lion in case he was still in the vicinity. There was a dry crackling of flames, and before we could count ten a deep growl came from somewhere in front of me, evidently on one of the edges of the creek bed. The second gunbearer was the first to locate him, and he signaled for me to come over on his side of the creek. In a moment I had dashed down and had climbed out on the other side and was eagerly gazing at a clump of bushes indicated by the Kikuyu. At first I could distinguish nothing, but soon I saw the tawny flanks and the lashing tail of the lion. His head was hidden by the bushes. At that time we were about a hundred yards from him and it was necessary to circle off to a point where the rest of his body could be seen. A little side ravine intervened, and I had to cross it and come directly down through the clump of bushes. The grass was high, and it was not until I had come within forty yards of the lion that I could get a clear view of him. He was glaring at me, with tail waving angrily, and his mouth was opened in a savage snarl. I could see that he didn't like me.

I raised the little .256 Mannlicher, aimed carefully at his open mouth and fired. The lion turned a back somersault and a great thrill of exultation suffused me. Already I saw the handsomely mounted lion-skin rug ornamenting my den at home. We approached cautiously, always remembering that the real danger of lion hunting comes after the lion has been shot. We threw stones in the grass where he had lain, but no answering growl was heard. I thought he was dead, but when we finally reached the spot where he had been there was no sign of him. He had vanished again. I searched the ravine and then crossed to the high grass on the other side. Then we saw him for an instant, half-concealed, just in front of us. His head was hanging, and he looked as though he had been hard hit. Again he disappeared and we searched high and low for him. For several hundred feet we beat the grass without result.

Then the grass was again fired and again the hoarse growl came in angry protest. Walking slowly, with guns ready for instant use, we advanced until we could see him under a tree seventy yards ahead on my side of the ravine. He was growling angrily. This time I used the double-barreled cordite rifle and the first shot struck him in the forehead without knocking him down. He sprang up and the second shot stretched him out. He was still alive when I came up to him, and a small bullet was fired into the base of his brain to reduce the danger of a final charge.

Old hunters always caution one about approaching a dying lion, for often the beast musters up unexpected vitality, makes a final charge, kills somebody, and then dies happy. So we waited a few feet away until the last quiver of his sides had passed. One of the boys pulled his tail and shook him, but there was no sign of life. He was extinct.

A new danger now threatened. The grass fire that the second gunbearer had started was sweeping the prairie, fanned by a strong wind, and there seemed to be not only the danger of abandoning the lion, but of being forced to flee before the flames. So we fell to work beating out the nearest fires, and trusted that a shifting of the wind would send the course of the flames in another direction.

It was now four o'clock. We were nine miles from camp and food, and we knew that at six o'clock darkness would suddenly descend, leaving us out in a rhino-infested country, far from camp. The water was nearly gone and the general outlook was far from pleasing.

The gunbearers skinned the lion. My first shot had struck one of his back teeth, breaking it squarely off, and then passed through the fleshy part of the neck. It was a wound that would startle, but not kill. The second shot had hit him between the eyes, but had glanced off the skull, merely ripping open the skin on the forehead for five inches. The third shell had killed him, except for the convulsive heaving that was finally stilled by the small bullet in the base of the brain.

[Drawing: As I Planned to Look in the Photograph of "My First Lion"]

The skinning was interesting. All the fat in certain parts of the body was saved, for East Indians bid high for it and use it as a lubricant for rheumatic pains. The two shoulder blades are always saved and are considered a valuable trophy. They are little bones three inches long, unattached and floating, and have long since ceased to perform any function in the working of the body. The broken tooth was found and saved, and, of course, a photograph was taken. My gunbearer took the picture, and when it was developed there was only a part of the lion and part of the lion slayer visible. It was a good picture of the tree, however.

[Drawing: As I Looked—From Photograph by Gunbearer]

At four-thirty the homeward march was begun. At five-thirty two rhinos blocked the path and one of them had to be shot. At six we were still several miles from camp, with the country wrapped in darkness. The water was gone and only one shell remained for the big gun. Somewhere ahead were miles of thorn scrub in which there might be rhinos or buffaloes. Two days before I had killed two large buffaloes in the district through which we must pass, and there was every likelihood of others still being there. At seven we were hopelessly lost in a wide stretch of hippo grass, and I had to fire a shot in the hope of getting an answering shot from camp. In a couple of moments we heard the distant shot, and then pressed on toward camp. The lion had been carried on ahead while we stopped with the rhino, and so the news reached the camp before us. A long line of porters came out to greet us and a great reception committee was waiting at the camp. It was the first lion of the expedition, and as such was the signal for great celebration. That night there were native dances and songs around the big central camp-fire and a wonderful display of pagan hilarity.

It had been a hard day. Fourteen hours without food, several hours without water, and miles of hard tramping through thorn scrub in the darkness and of long, broiling stretches in the blazing sunlight. It seemed a good price to pay even for a lion, but that night, as I finally stretched out on my cot, I was conscious from time to time of a glow of pleasure that swept over me. It seemed that of all human gratifications there was none equal to that experienced by the man who has killed his first lion.

My second lion experience came three days later. With a couple of tents and about forty porters our party of four had marched across to a point a couple of miles from where I had killed the lion. We hoped to put in a day or two looking for lions, some of which had been reported in that district. The porters went on ahead with the camp equipment, while we came along more slowly. Mr. Akeley had taken some close-range photographs of rhinos, and we were just on the point of starting direct for the new camp when we ran across two enormous rhinos standing in the open plain. One was extremely large, with an excellent pair of horns, and it was arranged that I should try to secure this one as a trophy, while Mr. Akeley secured a photograph of the event. At thirty-five yards I shot the larger one of the two, and it dropped in its tracks. The other started to charge, but was finally driven away by shouting and by shots fired in the air. The photograph was excellent and quite dramatic.

For an hour the gunbearers worked on the dead rhino and finally secured the head and feet and certain desirable parts of the skin. At noon we resumed our march for camp, two or three miles away. We had hardly gone half the distance when one of the tent boys was seen far ahead, riding the one mule that we had dared to bring down the Tana River. It was evident that something important had occurred and we hurried on to meet him.

"Simba!" he shouted, as soon as he could be heard. In a moment we had the details. One of the saises had seen two lions, a large male and female, quite near the camp. Porters were instructed to watch the beasts until we should arrive, and now were supposed to be in touch with them. We omitted luncheon and struck off at once in the direction indicated by the tent boy. We soon came up to the porters and an instant later saw the lions. It was a beautiful sight. The two animals were majestically walking up the rocky slope of a low, fire-scorched hill a few hundred yards away. The male was a splendid beast, with all the splendid dignity of one who fears nothing in the whole wide world. From time to time the two lions stopped and looked back at us, but with no sign of fear. Several times they lay down, but soon would resume their stately course up among the rocks.

I shall never forget the picture that lay before me. It was as though some famous lion painting of Gerome or Landseer had come to life, sometimes the animals being outlined clearly against the blue sky and at other times standing, with splendid heads erect, upon the rocks of the low ridge that rose ahead of us.

We stalked them easily. Several porters were left where the lions could constantly see them, while we three, Akeley, Stephenson and I, with our six gunbearers, worked around the base of the hill until we were able to climb up on the crest of it, being thus constantly screened from view of the lions. At the crest was an abrupt outcropping of blackened rocks, where we stopped to locate the two animals. They were nowhere to be seen. Twenty-five yards farther along on the crest was another little ledge of rocks, and we worked our way silently along to it in the expectation that the lions might have advanced that far. But even then our search disclosed nothing. For some time we waited, scouring the neighborhood with our glasses, and had almost reached the conclusion that the lions had made off down the other side of the hill and had reached the cover of a shallow ravine some distance away. Then we saw them—exactly where we had last seen them before we had started our stalk. They were still together and showed no sign of alarm nor knowledge of our presence so near them. At this time they were one hundred and ten yards away. They lay down again behind the rocks and we waited twenty minutes for them to show themselves. Off to our right and in the valley another large male lion appeared and moved slowly away among the low scrub trees.

Finally we decided to rouse the two lions by shouting, but before this decision could be carried out the male rose above the rocks and stood plainly in view. It had previously been arranged that Mr. Stephenson should try for the male, while I should try for the female. In an instant he fired with his big rifle, the lion whirled around and then started running down the hill to the right.

Then the lioness appeared and I wounded her with my first shot. She ran out in the open toward us, but evidently without knowing from where the firing came. A second shot was better placed and I saw her collapse in her tracks. Leaving the lioness, I went down to where Stephenson had followed the lion. Several shots had been fired, but the lion was still running, although badly wounded. Just as it reached a small tree down on the slope a shot was put into a vital spot, and the lion went wildly over on his side. Even then he managed to drag himself under the small bushes surrounding the tree, where a moment later Mr. Stephenson killed him with a shot from his .318 Mauser.

[Drawing: "A Very Interesting Experience," Said I Coolly, a Couple of Days Later]

We measured and photographed the lion, and then I took my camera to get a picture of the dead lioness up on the ridge. She was sitting up snarling, and I was the most surprised person in the world. I shot at her and she ran fifty yards to a small tree, where she came to a stop. Two more shots from my big gun finished her, and the photograph was finally secured.

Leaving the porters to watch the two lions, we followed the third lion that had been seen in the valley. He had not gone far and we soon found him, but too far away to get a shot. For an hour we followed him, but he finally disappeared and could not be located again.

It was sundown when our porters reached camp with the two lions, and it was then that we ate our long-deferred luncheon.

A week later, while marching from the Tana River to the Zeka River, Mr. and Mrs. Akeley and I came across a large lion, accompanied by a lioness. They were first seen moving away across a low sloping ridge of the plains within a couple of miles of where we had killed the lion and lioness a week before. We followed them and came up with them after a brisk walk of ten minutes. Both were hiding in the grass near the crest of the slope, and we could see their ears and eyes above the long grass. We crouched down a hundred yards away and the lion rose to see where we had gone. Mrs. Akeley fired and missed, but her second shot pierced his brain and he fell like a log. We expected a charge from the lioness and waited until she should declare herself. But she did not appear and her whereabouts remained an anxious mystery until she was finally seen several hundred yards away making her way slowly up a distant hill. Half-way up she sat down and watched us as we made our way cautiously in the grass to where her mate lay as he fell, stone dead. We afterward followed her, but she escaped from view and could not be located. This lion was the largest we had seen and measured nine feet from tip to tip.

This was our last experience with lions in the Trans-Tana country. After that we went up in the elephant country on Mount Kenia, but that is a story all in itself.

Lion hunting is the best kind of African hunting in one respect. One feels no self-reproach in having killed a lion, for there is always the comforting thought that by killing one lion you have saved the lives of three hundred other animals. Every lion exacts an annual toll of at least that number of zebras, hartebeests, or other forms of antelopes, all of which are powerless to defend themselves against the great creature that creeps upon them in cover of darkness. So a lion hunter may consider himself something of a benefactor.



CHAPTER VII

ON THE TANA RIVER, THE HOME OF THE RHINO. THE TIMID ARE FRIGHTENED, THE DANGEROUS KILLED, AND OTHERS PHOTOGRAPHED. MOVING PICTURES OF A RHINO CHARGE

Down on the Tana River the rhinos are more common than in any other known section of Africa. In two weeks we saw over one hundred—perhaps two hundred—of them—so many, in fact, that one of the chief diversions of the day was to count rhinos. One day we counted twenty-six, another day nineteen, and by the time we left the district rhinos had become such fixtures in the landscape as to cause only casual comment. Perhaps there were some repeaters, ones that were counted twice, but even allowing for that there were still some left. We saw big ones and little ones, old ones and young ones, and middle-aged ones; ones with long ears, short horns, double horns, and single horns; black ones and red ones—in fact, all the kinds of rhinos that are resident in British East Africa. One had an ear gone and another had a crook in his tail. If we had stayed another week we might have got out a Tana River Rhino Directory, with addresses and tree numbers. We studied them fore and aft, from in front of trees and from behind them, from close range and long range, over our shoulders, and through our cameras, every way whereby a conscientious lover of life and nature can study a prominent member of the Mammalia. We called the place Rhino Park because the country looks like a beautiful park studded with splendid trees and dotted with rhinos.

[Drawing: A Morning Walk on the Tana River]

When I went to Africa I was equipped with the following fund of knowledge concerning the rhinoceros: First, that he is familiarly called "rhino" by the daring hunters who have written about him; second, that he is a member of the Perissodactyl family, whose sole representatives are the horse, the rhino, and the tapir; third, that he savagely charges human beings who write books about their thrilling adventures in Africa, and, finally, that he looks like a hang-over from the pterodactyl age. The books and magazine stories that have come out since Mr. Roosevelt made African hunting the vogue invariably describe the rhino as being one of the most dangerous of African animals. A charging rhino, a wounded lion, a cape buffalo, and a frenzied elephant are the four terrors of the African hunters. All other forms of danger are slight compared with these, and I was full to the guards with a vast and fearful respect for the rhino. I fancied myself spinning around like a pinwheel with the horn of a rhino as a pivot, and the thought had little to commend itself to a lover of longevity—such as myself, for instance.

[Photograph: A Comfortable Hammock of Zebra Skin]

[Photograph: Mrs. Akeley and Her Tana River Monkey]

After going to Africa and meeting some of the best members of the rhino set I was able to form some conclusions of my own, chief of which is the belief that he is dangerous only if he hits you. As long as you can keep out of his reach you are in no great danger except from the thorns.

The prevailing estimate of the rhino is that he is an inoffensive creature who likes to bask under the shade of a tree and watch the years go parading by. His thick skin and fierce armament of horns seem to make of him a relic of some long-forgotten age—the last survivor of the time when mammoths and dinosauruses roamed the manless waste and time was counted in geological terms instead of days and minutes. His eyes are dimmed and he sees nothing beyond a few yards away, but his hearing and sense of smell are keen, and he sniffs danger from afar in case danger happens to be to windward of him. His sensitive nose is always alert for foreign and, therefore, suspicious odors, and when he smells the blood of an Englishman, or even an American, his tail goes up in anger, he sniffs and snorts and races around in a circle while he locates the direction where the danger lies—and then, look out. A blind, furious rush which only a well-sped bullet can prevent causing the untimely end of whatever happens to be in the way. That is the popular estimate of the rhino.

[Drawing: Popular Conception of Rhino]

Here are some of the conclusions I have formed: If the hunter carefully approaches the rhino from the leeward he may often come within a few yards of the animal and might easily shoot him in a leisurely way. The rhino can see only at close range and can smell only when the wind blows the scent to him. Consequently he would be defenseless and at the mercy of the hunter if it were not for one thing. Nature, in her wisdom, has sent the little rhino bird to act as a sentinel for the great pachyderm. These little birds live on the back of the rhino and, as recompense for their vigilance, are permitted to partake of such ticks and insects as inhabit the hide of their host. Whenever danger, or, in other words, whenever a hunter tries to approach their own particular rhino from any direction, windward, leeward, or any other way, the ever alert and watchful rhino birds sound a tocsin of warning. The rhino pricks up his ears and begins to show signs of taking notice. He doesn't know where or what the danger may be, but he knows the C.Q.D. code of danger signals as delivered to him from the outposts on his back and hastens to get busy in an effort to locate the foe. As a general thing the little birds, on sight of danger, begin a wild chatter, rising from the back of the rhino and flying in an opposite direction from the danger. Then they return, light on the rhino's back, and repeat, often several times, the operation of flying away from the danger. If the rhino is a wise rhino he learns from the birds which is the safe way to go and soon trots swiftly off. In a measure the habits of the rhino bird are as interesting as those of the rhino itself, and as an example of the weak protecting the strong, the Damon and Pythias relationship between bird and beast is without parallel in the animal kingdom.

[Drawing: Before and After the Rhino Birds Give the Alarm]

The rhino is a peaceful animal. He browses on herbs and shrubs and dwells in friendly relationship with the rest of the animal kingdom. Perhaps once or twice a day he ambles down to some favorite drinking place for a drink, but the rest of the time he grazes along a hillside or stands or lies sleepily under a tree. At such times as the latter he may be approached quite near without much danger. Each day he also goes to a favorite wallowing place, where he rolls in the red dirt and emerges from this dirt bath a dull red rhino. In the rhino country dozens of these red dirt rolling places may be found, each one trampled smooth for an area of fifteen or twenty feet in evidence of the great number of times it has been used by one or more rhinos. This dirt bath is a defensive measure against the hordes of ticks that infest the rhino. It is a subject for wonder that the six or eight tick birds do not keep the rhino free of ticks, and it has even been argued by some naturalists that the rhino bird does not eat ticks, but merely uses the rhino as a convenient resting-place. Also perhaps they enjoy the ride. We had planned to get a rhino bird and perform an autopsy on him in order to analyze his contents, but did not do so.

[Photograph: The Ford of Tana River]

[Photograph: The Baby Rhino]

After the rhino has taken his dirt wallow, and looks fine in his new red coat, he then slowly and painstakingly proceeds to kill time during the rest of the day. If danger threatens he becomes exceedingly nervous and excited. His anxiety is quite acute. In vain he tries to locate the danger, rushing one way for a few yards, then the other way, and finally all ways at once. His tail is up and he is snorting like a steam engine. When he rushes toward you in this attitude it looks very much as though he were charging you with the purpose of trampling you to flinders. As a matter of fact, or, rather, opinion, he is merely trying to locate where you are in order that he may run the other way. He looks terrifying, but in reality is probably badly terrified himself. He would give a good deal to know which way to run, and finally becomes so excited and nervous that he starts frantically in some direction, hoping for the best. If this rush happens to be in your direction you call it a charge from an infuriated rhino; if not, you say that he looked nasty and was about to charge, but finally ran away in another direction. In most rhino charges it is my opinion that the rhino is too rattled to know what he is doing, and, instead of charging maliciously, he is merely trying to get away as fast as possible. And in such cases the hunter blazes away at him, wounds him, and the rhino blindly charges the flash.

[Drawing: Trying to Provoke a Charge]

It was our wish to get moving pictures of a rhino charge. Mr. Akeley had a machine and our plan of action was simple. We would first locate the rhino, usually somnolent under a thorn tree or browsing soberly out in the open. We would then get to the leeward of him and slowly advance the machine; Mr. Akeley in the middle and Stephenson and I on each side with our double-barreled cordite rifles. In case the charge became too serious to escape we hoped to be able to turn him or kill the rhino with our four bullets. If we were unsuccessful in doing so—well, we had to manage the situation by jumping.

Our first experience was most thrilling, chiefly because we expected a charge. We thought all rhinos charged, as per the magazine articles, and so prepared for busy doings. A rhino cow and half-grown calf were discovered on a distant hillside. We stopped in a ravine to adjust the picture machine and then crept cautiously up the hill until we were within about seventy yards of the unsuspecting pair. Then the rhino birds began to flutter and chatter and the two beasts began to sniff nervously. Finally they turned toward us, with tails erect and noses sniffing savagely. Now for the charge, we thought, for it was considered an absolute certainty that a rhino cow accompanied by its calf would always attack. We moved forward a few yards, clapped our hands to show where we were, and their attitude at once became more threatening. They rushed backward and forward a couple of times and faced us again.

By this time we knew that they saw us and our fingers were within the trigger guards. It was agreed that, if they charged, they should be allowed to come within forty feet before we fired, thus giving the picture machine time to get a good record. The situation was intense beyond description, and seconds seemed hours. When they started trotting toward us we thought the fatal moment had come, but instead of continuing the "charge," they swung around and trotted swiftly off in an opposite direction. As far as we could see them they trotted swiftly and with the lightness of deer, sometimes zigzagging their course, but always away from us. The charge had failed in spite of all our efforts to provoke it. The whistling and hand-clapping which we had hoped would give them our location without doubt had merely served to tell them the way not to go.

The moving picture record of a "charging rhino" would have been a brilliant success but for one thing—the rhino refused to charge.

During the following ten days we made many similar attempts to get a charge and always with nearly the same results. Once or twice we got within thirty yards before they finally turned tail after a number of feints that looked much like the beginning of a nasty charge. It was always intensely thrilling work because there was the likelihood that we might get a charge in spite of the fact that a dozen or so previous experiences had failed to precipitate one.

In several cases the first rush of the rhino was toward us, but instead of continuing, he would soon swing about and make off, four times as badly scared as we were. It seemed as though these preliminary rushes toward us were efforts to verify the location of danger in order to determine the right direction for escape. In all, we made between fifteen and twenty different attempts on different rhinos to get a charge, but with always practically the same result, yet with always the same thrill of excitement and uncertainty.

[Drawing: The End of the Charge]

Comprehensive statistics on a rhino's charges are hard to obtain. The district commissioner at Embo told me that he had been ordered to reduce the number of rhinos in his district in the interest of public safety and that he had killed thirty-five in all. Out of this number five charged him. That would indicate that one rhino in seven will charge. Captain Dickinson, in his book, Big Game Shooting on the Equator, tells of a rhino that charged him so viciously that he threw down his bedding roll and the rhino tossed it and trampled it with great emphasis, after which it triumphantly trotted away, elated probably in the thought that it had wiped out its enemy. A number of fatalities are on record to prove that the rhino is a dangerous beast at times, and so I must conclude that the rhino experiences we had were exceedingly lucky ones, and perhaps exceptional ones in that respect.

In only one instance was it necessary for us to kill a rhino and even then it was done more in the interest of photography than of urgent necessity. On our game licenses we were each allowed to kill two rhinos, and as I wanted, one of the Tana River variety it was arranged that I should try to get the first big one with good horns. After a hunt of several hours we found two of them together out on the slope of a long hill. Our glasses showed that one of them was quite large and equipped with a splendid front horn nearly two feet long and a rear horn about a foot long. At the lower slope of the hill were two or three trees that screened our approach so that we were easily enabled to get within about one hundred and fifty yards of them without danger of discovery. From the trees onward the country was an open prairie for two or three miles.

Armed with a double-barreled cordite rifle and the comforting reflection that the chances were seven to one that the rhinos would not charge, I slowly advanced alone toward the two rhinos. Behind me about fifty yards was the long range camera and a second gun manned by Mr. Stephenson. When fifty yards from the rhinos I stopped, but as no offensive tactics were apparent in the camp of the enemy, I slowly walked forward to thirty-five yards. Then they saw me. They faced me with what seemed like an attitude of decided unfriendliness. Their tails were up and they were snorting like steam engines. When the big one started toward me I fired and it fell like a log. The other one, instead of thundering away, according to expectations, became more belligerent. It ran a few steps, then swung around, and I felt certain that it was going to avenge the death of its comrade. The camera brigade rushed forward, clapping their hands to scare it away, as there was no desire to kill both of the animals. But it refused to go. It would sometimes run a few steps, then it would turn and come toward us. It was evidently in a fighting mood, with no intention of deserting the field of action. Finally by firing shots in the air and yelling noisily it turned and dashed over the side of the hill. The photograph, taken at the instant the big rhino was struck, was remarkably dramatic and showed one rhino in an aggressive attitude and the other just plunging down from the shot of the big bullet.

The front horn of the dead rhino was twenty and three-quarters inches long and in many places the animal's hide was over an inch thick. Strips of this were cut off to make whips, and a large section was removed to be made into a table top. These table tops, polished and rendered translucent by the curing processes, are beautiful as well as extremely interesting. The rhino's tongue is even more delicious to eat than ox tongue and rhino tail soup is a great luxury on any white man's table; while the native porters consider rhino meat the finest of any meat to be had in Africa. The conscience of one who slays a rhino is somewhat appeased by the fact that a hundred native porters will have a good square meal of wholesome meat to help build up their systems.

[Drawing: A Real Rhino Charge]

Our expedition sustained only one real rhino charge. One day Mr. Stephenson stumbled on a big cow rhino that was lying in the grass. The meeting was as unexpected to him as to her, and before he could count five she was rushing headlong toward him. He clapped his hands, whistled, and shouted to turn her course, but she came on, snorting loudly and with head ready to impale everything in its way. Stephenson did not want to kill her, neither did he desire to be killed, so when all other means had failed he fired a soft nose bullet into her shoulder in the hope that it would turn her away without seriously hurting her. The bullet seemed to have no effect and she did not change her course in the slightest degree. By this time she was within a short distance of Stephenson, who was obliged to run a few feet and take refuge behind a tree.

[Photograph: The Sultan Looked Like an American Indian]

[Photograph: In the Thorn Brush on the Tana]

[Photograph: The Dummy Rhino]

The gunbearers and porters, who had fled in all directions, thought that Stephenson was caught, but the rhino, passing him with only a small margin of five feet, continued thunderously on her way. In a few yards she slowed down, and when last seen was walking. She had evidently been hit very hard by the soft nose bullet and was already showing signs of sickness. Suddenly a terrific squealing made the party aware that the cow rhino had been accompanied by a little rhino calf. The calf, only a couple of weeks old, charged savagely at every one in sight and every one in sight took refuge behind trees and bushes. Instead of trying to escape, the animal turned and continued to attack in all directions whenever a man showed himself. When a man leaped behind a tree the calf would charge the tree with such force that it would be hurled back several feet, only to spring up and charge again. His squealing could be heard for a mile. After a long time the porters succeeded in capturing it and they conveyed it back to camp strung on a pole. If that little rhino was any criterion of rhino pugnacity, then surely the rhino is born with the instinctive impulse to charge and to fight as savagely as any animal alive.

We fed our little pet rhino on milk and then swung it in a comfortable hammock made of zebra skin. In this more or less undignified fashion it was carried by eight strong porters to Fort Hall, two marches away, where it lived only a week or ten days and then, to our sorrow and regret, succumbed from lack of proper nourishment.

[Drawing: Retiring in Favor of Rhino]

Sometimes, when the safari is marching through bush country, the rhino becomes an element of considerable anxiety; An armed party must precede the caravan and clear the route of rhinos, otherwise the porters are likely to be scattered by threatened charges. It is no uncommon sight to see a crowd of heavily laden porters drop their loads and shin up the nearest tree in record time. Consequently, strong protective measures are always demanded when a long train of unarmed natives is moving through bush or scrub country where there are many rhinos.

[Drawing: Favorite Way of Being Photographed]

The lower Tana River country is admirably adapted to the life habits of the rhinos. Formerly the district was well settled by natives, but now, owing to the fever conditions prevailing there, the natives have all moved away to more wholesome places and only the forlorn remains of deserted villages mark where former prosperity reigned. The country has been abandoned to game, with the result that it has been enormously increasing during the last few years. In addition to the great numbers of rhinos there are big herds of buffalo, enormous numbers of hippo in the river, and many small droves of eland. Waterbuck, bushbuck, steinbuck, impalla, hartebeest and zebra dwell in comparative immunity from danger and may be seen in hundreds, grazing on the hills or in the woods that fringe the river. It is a sportsman's paradise, if he manages to escape the fever, and we enjoyed it tremendously, even though we shot only a hundredth part of what we might easily have shot. The charm of hunting in such a region lies in what one sees rather than in what one kills.



CHAPTER VIII

MEETING COLONEL ROOSEVELT IN THE UTTERMOST OUTPOST OF SEMI-CIVILIZATION. HE TALKS OF MANY THINGS, HEARS THAT HE HAS BEEN REPORTED DEAD, AND PROMPTLY PLANS AN ELEPHANT HUNT

After one has been in British East Africa two months he begins to readjust his preconceived ideas to fit real conditions. He discovers that nothing is really as bad as he feared it would be, and that distance, as usual, has magnified the terrors of a far-away land. In spite of the fact that he is in the heart of a primitive country, surrounded by native tribes that still are mystified by a glass mirror, and perhaps many days' march from the nearest white person, he still may feel that he is in touch with the great world outside. His mail reaches him somehow or other, even if he is in the center of some vast unsettled district devoid of roads or trails.

How it is done is a mystery; but the fact remains that every once in a while a black man appears as by magic and hands one a package containing letters and telegrams. He is a native "runner," whose business it is to find you wherever you may be, and he does it, no matter how long it may take him. A telegram addressed to any sportsman in East Africa would reach him if only addressed with his name and the words "British East Africa." There are only four or five thousand white residents in the whole protectorate, and the names of these are duly catalogued and known to the post-office officials both in Mombasa and Nairobi.

[Photograph: In the Forest]

If a strange name appears on a letter or despatch, inquiries are made and the identity of the stranger is quickly established. If he is a sportsman, the outfitters in Nairobi will know who he is. They will have equipped him with porters and the other essentials of a caravan, and they will know exactly in which section of the protectorate he is hunting. So the letter is readdressed in care of the boma or government station, nearest to that section. The letter duly arrives at the boma, and a native runner is told to go out and deliver the message. He starts off, and by inquiry of other natives and by relying on a natural instinct that is little short of marvelous he ultimately finds the object of his search and delivers his message.

If you look at a map of British East Africa you will be amazed at the number of names that are marked upon it. You would quite naturally think that the country was rather thickly settled, whereas in fact there are very few places of settlement away from the single line of railroad that runs from Mombasa to Victoria Nyanza. The protectorate is divided into subdistricts, each one of which has a capital, or boma, as it is called. This boma usually consists of a white man's residence, a little post-office, one or two Indian stores where all the necessities of a simple life may be procured, and a number of native grass huts. There is usually a small detachment of askaris, or native soldiers, who are necessary to enforce the law, repress any native uprising, and collect the hut tax of one dollar a year that is imposed upon each household in the district.

Other names on the map may look important, but will prove to be only streams, or hills, or some landmarks that have been used by the surveyors to signify certain places. In our five weeks' trip through Trans-Tanaland we found only two bomas, Fort Hall and Embo, and three or four ranches where one or more white men lived. In our expedition to Mount Elgon we encountered only two places where the mark of civilization showed—Eldoma Ravine and Sergoi. In the former place the only white man was the subcommissioner, and in the latter there was one policeman, and a general store kept by a South African. A number of Boer settlers are scattered over the plateau, trying to reclaim little sections of land from its primitive state.

Between Sergoi and Londiani, on the railroad, ninety miles south, there is one little store where caravans may buy food for porters and some of the simpler necessities that white men may require. All the rest of the country for thousands of square miles is given up to the lion and zebra and the vast herds of antelope that feed upon the rich grass of the plateau.

Yet in spite of the sparsity of settlement the native runner manages to find you, even after days of traveling, without compass or directions to aid him.

[Photograph: By courtesy of W.D. Boyce. An Askari Who Looked Like a Tragedian]

[Photograph: By courtesy of W.D. Boyce. Mr. Akeley]

Hunters who come to East Africa usually are sent to certain districts where game is known to be abundant. These districts are well defined and oftentimes there may be a number of safaris in them at the same time, but so large are the districts that one group of hunters very rarely encroaches upon the others.

Some parties are sent to Mount Kilima-Njaro, in the vicinity of which there is good hunting. Others are sent out from points along the railroad for certain classes of game that may be found only in those spots. Simba, on the railroad, is a favorite place for those who are after the yellow-maned or "plains" lion. Muhorini, also on the railroad, is a favorite place for those who want the roan antelope; Naivasha is a good place for hippo, and south of Kijabe, in what is called the Sotik, is a district where nearly all sorts of game abound. The Tana River is a favorite place for rhino, buffalo, nearly all sorts of antelope, and some lion; Mount Kenia is an elephant hunting ground, and the Aberdare Range, between Kenia and Naivasha, also is good for elephant. North of Kenia is the Guas Nyiro River, a rich district for game of many kinds. And so the country is divided up into sections that are sure to attract many sporting parties who desire certain kinds of game.

Our first expedition out from Nairobi was across the Athi Plains to the Tana River and Mount Kenia, a wonderful trip for those who are willing to take chances with the fever down the Tana River. In five weeks we saw lion, rhino, buffalo, and elephant—the four groups of animals that are called "royal game"; also hippo, giraffe, eland, wildebeest, and many varieties of smaller game. It is doubtful whether there is any other section of East Africa where one could have a chance for so many different species of game in such a short time as the Tana River country.

For our second expedition we selected the Guas Ngishu Plateau, the Nzoia River, and Mount Elgon. It is a long trip which involves elaborate preparation and some difficulty in keeping up supplies for the camp and the porters. It is the most promising place, however, for black-maned lion and elephant, and on account of these two capital prizes in the lottery of big game hunting occasional parties are willing to venture the time and expense necessary to reach this district.

We disembarked, or "detrained," as they say down there, at a little station on the railroad called Londiani, eight miles south of the equator and about eighty miles from Victoria Nyanza. Then with two transport wagons drawn by thirty oxen, our horses for "galloping" lions, and one hundred porters, we marched north, always at an altitude of from seventy-five hundred to ninety-two hundred feet, through vast forests that stretched for miles on all sides. The country was beautiful beyond words—clean, wholesome, and vast. In many places the scenery was as trim, and apparently as finished as sections of the wooded hills and meadows of Surrey. One might easily imagine oneself in a great private estate where landscape gardeners had worked for years.

[Drawing: One of the Transport Wagons]

At night the cold was keen and four blankets were necessary the night we camped two miles from the equator. In the day the sun was hot in the midday hours, but never unpleasantly so. After two days of marching through forests and across great grassy folds in the earth we reached Eldoma Ravine, a subcommissioner's boma that looks for all the world like a mountain health resort. From the hill upon which the station is situated one may look across the Great Rift Valley, two thousand feet below, and stretching away for miles across, like a Grand Canon of Arizona without any mountains in it. Strong stone walls protect the white residence, for this is a section of the country that has suffered much from native uprisings during the last few years. We called on the solitary white resident one evening, and, true to the creed of the Briton, he had dressed for dinner. The sight of a man in a dinner-coat miles from a white man and leagues from a white woman was something to remember and marvel at.

Northward from Eldoma Ravine for days we marched, sometimes in dense forests so thick that a man could scarcely force himself through the undergrowth that flanked the trail, and sometimes through upland meadows so deep in tall yellow grass as to suggest a field of waving grain, then through miles of country studded with the gnarled thorn tree that looks so much like our apple trees at home. It was as though we were traversing an endless orchard, clean, beautiful, and exhilarating in the cool winds of the African highlands. And then, all suddenly, we came to the end of the trees, and before us, like a great, heaving yellow sea, lay the Guas Ngishu Plateau that stretches northward one hundred miles and always above seven thousand feet in altitude.

Far ahead, like a little knob of blue, was Sergoi Hill, forty miles away, and beyond, in a fainter blue, were the hills that mark the limit of white man's passport. On the map that district is marked: "Natives probably treacherous." Off to the left, a hundred miles away, the dim outline of Mount Elgon rose in easy slopes from the horizon. Elgon, with its elephants, was our goal, and in between were the black-maned lions that we hoped to meet.

It would be hard to exaggerate the charm of this climate. And yet this, one thought, was equatorial Africa, which, in the popular imagination, is supposed to be synonymous with torrential rains, malignant fevers, and dense jungles of matted vegetation. It was more like the friendly stretches of Colorado scenery at the time of year when the grasses of the valley are dotted with flowers of many colors and the sun shines down upon you with genial warmth.

[Drawing: A Night on the Equator]

Each morning we marched ten or twelve miles and then went into camp near some little stream. In the afternoon we hunted for lions, beating out swamps, scouting every bit of cover and combing the tall grass for hours at a time. Hartebeest, topi, zebra, eland, oribi, reedbuck, and small grass antelope were upon all sides and at all times.

The herds of zebra and hartebeest literally numbered thousands, but, except as the latter were occasionally required for food for the porters, we seldom tried to shoot them. Every Boer settler we saw was interviewed and every promising lion clue was followed to the bitter end, but without result. Sometimes we remained in one camp a day or more in order to search the lion retreats more thoroughly, but never a black-maned lion was routed from his lair. A few weeks later, when the dry grass had been burned to make way for new grass, as is done each year, the chances would be greatly improved, and we hoped for better luck when we retraced our steps from Elgon in December. Before that time it would be like trying to find a needle in a haystack to find a lion in the tall grass, and a good deal more dangerous if we did find one. There were lots of them there, but they were taking excellent care of themselves. In July, three months previous, Mr. McMillan, Mr. Selous, and Mr. Williams were in this same district after black-maned lions. They heard them every night, but saw only one in several weeks. This one, however, made a distinct impression. Williams saw it one day and wounded it at two hundred yards. The lion charged and could not be stopped by Williams' bullets. It was only after it had leaped on the hunter and frightfully mauled him that the lion succumbed to its wounds. And it was only after months of suffering that Williams finally recovered from the mauling.

We felt that if Frederick Selous, the world's greatest big game hunter, could not find the lion, then our chances were somewhat slim.

[Drawing: Lion Hunting in Tall Grass]

There had been few parties in this district since McMillan's party left. Captain Ashton came in two months before us, and we met him on his way out. With him was Captain Black, a professional elephant hunter, who, three years before, on the Aberdare, had had a bad experience with an elephant. It was a cow that he had wounded but failed to kill. She charged him and knocked him down in a pile of very thick and matted brush. Three times she trampled him under her feet, but the bushes served as a kind of mattress and the captain escaped with only a few hones broken; although he was laid up for five weeks. Ashton and Black did not have much luck in the present trip and failed to get a single lion.

Two Spaniards passed our camp one day, inward bound. They were the Duke of Penaranda and Sr. de la Huerta, and reported no lions during their few days in the district. Prince Lichtenstein was also somewhere on the plateau, but we didn't run across him. In addition to these three parties and ours, the only other expedition in the Guas Ngishu Plateau was Colonel Roosevelt's party, toward which, by previous agreement, we made our way.

A number of months before Mr. Akeley, who headed our party, was dining with President Roosevelt at the White House. In the course of their talk, which was about Africa and Mr. Akeley's former African hunting and collecting experiences, the latter had told the president about a group of elephants that he was going to collect and mount for the American Museum of History in New York. President Roosevelt was asked if he would cooeperate in the work, and he expressed a keen willingness to do so. When our party arrived at Nairobi, in September, a letter awaited Mr. Akeley, renewing Colonel Roosevelt's desire to help in collecting the group.

It was in answer to this invitation that Mr. Akeley and our party had gone to the Mount Elgon country to meet Mr. Roosevelt and carry out the elephant-hunting compact made many months before at the White House.

[Photograph: Kermit, Leslie Tarlton and Colonel Roosevelt]

[Photograph: Winding Through Unbroken Country]

[Photograph: Our Safari on the March]

Eleven days of marching and hunting from the railroad brought us to Sergoi, the very uttermost outpost of semi-civilization. Here we found another letter in which Mr. Akeley was asked to come to the Roosevelt camp, and which suggested that a native runner could pilot him to its whereabouts. The letter had been written some days before and had been for some time at Sergoi. Whether the Roosevelt camp had been moved in the meantime could not be determined at Sergoi, and we knew only in a general way that it was probably somewhere on the Nzoia River (pronounced Enzoya), two or three days' march west of Sergoi, toward Mount Elgon.

So we started across, meeting no natives who possibly could have given any information. On the afternoon of November thirteenth we went into camp on the edge of a great swamp, or tinga-tinga, as the natives call it, only a couple of hours' march from the river. Many fresh elephant trails had been discovered, and the swamp itself looked like a most promising place for lions. A great tree stood on one side of the swamp, and in its branches was a platform which an Englishman had occupied seven nights in a vain quest for lions some time before. A little grass shelter was below the tree, and as we approached a Wanderobo darted out and ran in terror from us. The Wanderobos are native hunters who live in the forests, and are as shy as wild animals. So we could not question him as to Colonel Roosevelt's camp. Later in the afternoon a native runner appeared from the direction of Sergoi with a message to the colonel, but he didn't know where the camp was and didn't seem to be in any great hurry to find out. He calmly made himself the guest of one of our porters and spent the night in our camp, doing much more sitting than running.

On the morning of the fourteenth we marched toward the river, two hours away, the native runner slowly ambling along with us. We had been on the trail about an hour and a half when a shot was heard off to our left; At first we thought it was our Spanish friends, but a few moments later we came to a point where we could see, about a mile away, a long string of porters winding along in the direction from which we came, it was plainly a much larger safari than the Spanish one, and we at once concluded that it was Colonel Roosevelt's.

Three or four men on horses were visible, but could not be recognized with our glasses. The number corresponded to the colonel's party, however, which we knew to consist of himself and Kermit, Edmund Heller and Leslie Tarlton. A messenger was sent across the hills to establish their identity and we marched on to the river, a half-hour farther, where we found the smoldering fires of their camp.

A transport wagon of supplies for the Duke of Penaranda's safari was also there, and from the drivers it was definitely learned that the late occupants of the camp were Mr. Roosevelt and his party. In the meantime the messenger had reached Colonel Roosevelt, and when the latter learned that Mr. Akeley's safari was in the vicinity he at once ordered camp pitched forty-five minutes from our camp, and started across to see Akeley. The latter had also started across to see the colonel, and they met on the way. And during all this time the native runner with the message to Colonel Roosevelt was loafing the morning away in our camp. What the message might be, of course, we didn't know, but we hoped that it was nothing of importance. It was only when the colonel and his party reached our camp that the message was delivered. As we stood talking and congratulating everybody on how well he was looking the colonel casually opened the message.

He seemed amused, and somewhat surprised, and at once read it aloud to us. It was from America, and said: "Reported here you have been killed. Mrs. Roosevelt worried. Cable denial American Embassy, Rome." It was dated November sixth, eight days before.

"I think I might answer that by saying that the report is premature," he said, laughing, and then told the story of a Texas man who had commented on a similar report in the same words.

Colonel Roosevelt certainly didn't look dead. If ever a man looked rugged and healthy and in splendid physical condition he certainly did on the day that this despatch reached him. His cheeks were burned to a ruddy tan and his eyes were as clear as a plainsman's. He laughed and joked and commented on the news that we told him with all the enthusiasm of one who knows no physical cares or worries.

[Drawing: Reading the Report That He Had Been Killed]

"If I could have seen you an hour and a half ago," he told Akeley, "I could have got you the elephants you want for your group. We passed within only a few yards of a herd of ten this morning, and Kermit got within thirty yards to make some photographs." They had not shot any, however, as they had received no answer to the letter sent several days before to Mr. Akeley and consequently did not know positively that his party had reached the plateau.

The colonel asked about George Ade, commented vigorously and with prophetic insight on the Cook-Peary controversy, and read aloud, in excellent dialect, a Dooley article on the subject, which I had saved from an old copy of the Chicago Tribune. He commented very frankly, with no semblance at hypocrisy, on Mr. Harriman's death, told many of his experiences in the hunting field, and for three hours, at lunch and afterward, he talked with the freedom of one who was glad to see some American friends in the wilderness and who had no objection to showing his pleasure at such a meeting.

He talked about the tariff and about many public men and public questions with a frankness that compels even a newspaper man to regard as being confidential. Our safari was the only one he had met in the field since he had been in Africa, and it was evident that the efforts of the protectorate officials to save him from interference and intrusion had been successful.

Arrangements were then made for an elephant hunt. Colonel Roosevelt was working on schedule time, and had planned to be in Sergoi on the seventeenth. He agreed to a hunt that should cover the fifteenth, sixteenth, and possibly the seventeenth, trusting that they might be successful in this period and that a hard forced march could get him to Sergoi on the night of the eighteenth.