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