34 chapters
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34 chapters
1913
1913
CONTENTS I. ON BOOKS OF ADVENTURE II. AFRICA III. THE CENTRAL PLATEAU IV. THE FIRST CAMP V. MEMBA SASA VI. THE FIRST GAME CAMP VII. ON THE MARCH VIII. THE RIVER JUNGLE IX. THE FIRST LION X. LIONS XI. LIONS AGAIN XII. MORE LIONS XIII. ON THE MANAGING OF A SAFARI XIV. A DAY ON THE ISIOLA XV. THE LION DANCE XVI. FUNDI XVII. NATIVES XVIII. IN THE JUNGLE XIX. THE TANA RIVER XX. DIVERS ADVENTURES ALONG THE TANA XXI. THE RHINOCEROS XXII. THE RHINOCEROS-(continued) XXIII. THE HIPPO POOL XXIV. BUFFALO XX
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I. ON BOOKS OF ADVENTURE
I. ON BOOKS OF ADVENTURE
Books of sporting, travel, and adventure in countries little known to the average reader naturally fall in two classes-neither, with a very few exceptions, of great value. One class is perhaps the logical result of the other. Of the first type is the book that is written to make the most of far travels, to extract from adventure the last thrill, to impress the awestricken reader with a full sense of the danger and hardship the writer has undergone. Thus, if the latter takes out quite an ordinary
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II. AFRICA
II. AFRICA
In looking back on the multitudinous pictures that the word Africa bids rise in my memory, four stand out more distinctly than the others. Strangely enough, these are by no means all pictures of average country-the sort of thing one would describe as typical. Perhaps, in a way, they symbolize more the spirit of the country to me, for certainly they represent but a small minority of its infinitely varied aspects. But since we must make a start somewhere, and since for some reason these four crowd
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III. THE CENTRAL PLATEAU
III. THE CENTRAL PLATEAU
Now is required a special quality of the imagination, not in myself, but in my readers, for it becomes necessary for them to grasp the logic of a whole country in one mental effort. The difficulties to me are very real. If I am to tell you it all in detail, your mind becomes confused to the point of mingling the ingredients of the description. The resultant mental picture is a composite; it mixes localities wide apart; it comes out, like the snake-creeper-swamp-forest thing of grammar-school Sou
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IV. THE FIRST CAMP
IV. THE FIRST CAMP
Our very first start into the new country was made when we piled out from the little train standing patiently awaiting the good pleasure of our descent. That feature strikes me with ever new wonder-the accommodating way trains of the Uganda Railway have of waiting for you. One day, at a little wayside station, C. and I were idly exchanging remarks with the only white man in sight, killing time until the engine should whistle to a resumption of the journey. The guard lingered about just out of ea
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V. MEMBA SASA
V. MEMBA SASA
I wish I could plunge you at once into the excitements of big game in Africa, but I cannot truthfully do so. To be sure, we went hunting that afternoon, up over the low cliffs, and we saw several of a very lively little animal known as the Chandler's reedbuck. This was not supposed to be a game country, and that was all we did see. At these we shot several times-disgracefully. In fact, for several days we could not shoot at all, at any range, nor at anything. It was very sad, and very aggravatin
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VI. THE FIRST GAME CAMP
VI. THE FIRST GAME CAMP
In the review of “first” impressions with which we are concerned, we must now skip a week or ten days to stop at what is known in our diaries as the First Ford of the Guaso Nyero River. These ten days were not uneventful. We had crossed the wide and undulating plains, had paused at some tall beautiful falls plunging several hundred feet into the mysteriousness of a dense forest on which we looked down. There we had enjoyed some duck, goose and snipe shooting; had made the acquaintance of a few o
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VII. ON THE MARCH
VII. ON THE MARCH
After leaving the First Game Camp, we travelled many hours and miles over rolling hills piling ever higher and higher until they broke through a pass to illimitable plains. These plains were mantled with the dense scrub, looking from a distance and from above like the nap of soft green velvet. Here and there this scrub broke in round or oval patches of grass plain. Great mountain ranges peered over the edge of a horizon. Lesser mountain peaks of fantastic shapes-sheer Yosemite cliffs, single but
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VIII. THE RIVER JUNGLE
VIII. THE RIVER JUNGLE
We camped along this river for several weeks, poking indefinitely and happily around the country in all directions to see what we could see. Generally we went together, for neither B. nor myself had been tried out as yet on dangerous game-those easy rhinos hardly counted-and I think we both preferred to feel that we had backing until we knew what our nerves were going to do with us. Nevertheless, occasionally, I would take Memba Sasa and go out for a little purposeless stroll a few miles up or d
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IX. THE FIRST LION
IX. THE FIRST LION
One day we all set out to make our discoveries: F., B., and I with our gunbearers, Memba Sasa, Mavrouki, and Simba, and ten porters to bring in the trophies, which we wanted very much, and the meat, which the men wanted still more. We rode our horses, and the syces followed. This made quite a field force-nineteen men all told. Nineteen white men would be exceedingly unlikely to get within a liberal half mile of anything; but the native has sneaky ways. At first we followed between the river and
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X. LIONS
X. LIONS
A very large lion I killed stood three feet and nine inches at the withers, and of course carried his head higher than that. The top of the table at which I sit is only two feet three inches from the floor. Coming through the door at my back that lion's head would stand over a foot higher than halfway up. Look at your own writing desk; your own door. Furthermore, he was nine feet and eleven inches in a straight line from nose to end of tail, or over eleven feet along the contour of the back. If
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XI. LIONS AGAIN
XI. LIONS AGAIN
As to the dangers of lion hunting it is also difficult to write. There is no question that a cool man, using good judgment as to just what he can or cannot do, should be able to cope with lion situations. The modern rifle is capable of stopping the beast, provided the bullet goes to the right spot. The right spot is large enough to be easy to hit, if the shooter keeps cool. Our definition of a cool man must comprise the elements of steady nerves under super-excitement, the ability to think quick
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XII. MORE LIONS
XII. MORE LIONS
Nor do the last remarks of the preceding chapter mean that you shall not have your trophy in peace. Perhaps excitement and a slight doubt as to whether or not you are going to survive do not appeal to you; but nevertheless you would like a lion skin or so. By all means shoot one lion, or two, or three in the safest fashion you can. But after that you ought to play the game. The surest way to get a lion is to kill a zebra, cut holes in him, fill the holes with strychnine, and come back next morni
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XIII. ON THE MANAGING OF A SAFARI
XIII. ON THE MANAGING OF A SAFARI
We made our way slowly down the river. As the elevation dropped, the temperature rose. It was very hot indeed during the day, and in the evening the air was tepid and caressing, and musical with the hum of insects. We sat about quite comfortably in our pajamas, and took our fifteen grains of quinine per week against the fever. The character of the jungle along the river changed imperceptibly, the dhum palms crowding out the other trees; until, at our last camp, were nothing but palms. The wind i
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XIV. A DAY ON THE ISIOLA
XIV. A DAY ON THE ISIOLA
Early one morning-we were still on the Isiola-we set forth on our horses to ride across the rolling, brush-grown plain. Our intention was to proceed at right angles to our own little stream until we had reached the forest growth of another, which we could dimly make out eight or ten miles distant. Billy went with us, so there were four a-horseback. Behind us trudged the gunbearers, and the syces, and after them straggled a dozen or fifteen porters. The sun was just up, and the air was only tepid
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XV. THE LION DANCE
XV. THE LION DANCE
We took our hot baths and sat down to supper most gratefully, for we were tired. The long string of men, bearing each a log of wood, filed in from the darkness to add to our pile of fuel. Saa-sita and Shamba knelt and built the night fire. In a moment the little flame licked up through the carefully arranged structure. We finished the meal, and the boys whisked away the table. Then out in the blackness beyond our little globe of light we became aware of a dull confusion, a rustling to and fro. T
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XVI. FUNDI
XVI. FUNDI
Fundi, as I have suggested, was built very much on the lines of the marabout stork. He was about twenty years old, carried himself very erect, and looked one straight in the eye. His total assets when he came to us were a pair of raggedy white breeches, very baggy, and an old mesh undershirt, ditto ditto. To this we added a jersey, a red blanket, and a water bottle. At the first opportunity he constructed himself a pair of rawhide sandals. Throughout the first part of the trip he had applied him
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XVII. NATIVES
XVII. NATIVES
Up to this time, save for a few Masai at the very beginning of our trip, we had seen no natives at all. Only lately, the night of the lion dance, one of the Wanderobo-the forest hunters-had drifted in to tell us of buffalo and to get some meat. He was a simple soul, small and capable, of a beautiful red-brown, with his hair done up in a tight, short queue. He wore three skewers about six inches long thrust through each of his ears, three strings of blue beads on his neck, a bracelet tight around
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XVIII. IN THE JUNGLE
XVIII. IN THE JUNGLE
(a) THE MARCH TO MERU Now, one day we left the Isiola River and cut across on a long upward slant to the left. In a very short time we had left the plains, and were adrift in an ocean of brown grass that concealed all but the bobbing loads atop the safari, and over which we could only see when mounted. It was glorious feed, apparently, but it contained very few animals for all that. An animal could without doubt wax fat and sleek therein: but only to furnish light and salutary meals to beasts of
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XIX. THE TANA RIVER
XIX. THE TANA RIVER
Our first sight of the Tana River was from the top of a bluff. It flowed below us a hundred feet, bending at a sharp elbow against the cliff on which we stood. Out of the jungle it crept sluggishly and into the jungle it crept again, brown, slow, viscid, suggestive of the fevers and the lurking beasts by which, indeed, it was haunted. From our elevation we could follow its course by the jungle that grew along its banks. At first this was intermittent, leaving thin or even open spaces at interval
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XX. DIVERS ADVENTURES ALONG THE TANA
XX. DIVERS ADVENTURES ALONG THE TANA
Late one afternoon I shot a wart-hog in the tall grass. The beast was an unusually fine specimen, so I instructed Fundi and the porters to take the head, and myself started for camp with Memba Sasa. I had gone not over a hundred yards when I was recalled by wild and agonized appeals of “Bwana! bwana!” The long-legged Fundi was repeatedly leaping straight up in the air to an astonishing height above the long grass, curling his legs up under him at each jump, and yelling like a steam-engine. Retur
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XXI. THE RHINOCEROS
XXI. THE RHINOCEROS
The rhinoceros is, with the giraffe, the hippopotamus, the gerenuk, and the camel, one of Africa's unbelievable animals. Nobody has bettered Kipling's description of him in the Just-so Stories: “A horn on his nose, piggy eyes, and few manners.” He lives a self-centred life, wrapped up in the porcine contentment that broods within nor looks abroad over the land. When anything external to himself and his food and drink penetrates to his intelligence he makes a flurried fool of himself, rushing mad
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XXII. THE RHINOCEROS-(continued)
XXII. THE RHINOCEROS-(continued)
At first the traveller is pleased and curious over rhinoceros. After he has seen and encountered eight or ten, he begins to look upon them as an unmitigated nuisance. By the time he has done a week in thick rhino-infested scrub he gets fairly to hating them. They are bad enough in the open plains, where they can be seen and avoided, but in the tall grass or the scrub they are a continuous anxiety. No cover seems small enough to reveal them. Often they will stand or lie absolutely immobile until
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XXIII. THE HIPPO POOL
XXIII. THE HIPPO POOL
For a number of days we camped in a grove just above a dense jungle and not fifty paces from the bank of a deep and wide river. We could at various points push through light low undergrowth, or stoop beneath clear limbs, or emerge on tiny open banks and promontories to look out over the width of the stream. The river here was some three or four hundred feet wide. It cascaded down through various large boulders and sluiceways to fall bubbling and boiling into deep water; it then flowed still and
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XXIV. BUFFALO
XXIV. BUFFALO
The Cape Buffalo is one of the four dangerous kinds of African big game; of which the other three are the lion, the rhinoceros, and the elephant. These latter are familiar to us in zoological gardens, although the African and larger form of the rhinoceros and elephant are seldom or never seen in captivity. But buffaloes are as yet unrepresented in our living collections. They are huge beasts, tremendous from any point of view, whether considered in height, in mass, or in power. At the shoulder t
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XXV. THE BUFFALO-continued
XXV. THE BUFFALO-continued
Some months later, and many hundreds of miles farther south, Billy and I found ourselves alone with twenty men, and two weeks to pass until C.-our companion at the time-should return from a long journey out with a wounded man. By slow stages, and relaying back and forth, we landed in a valley so beautiful in every way that we resolved to stay as long as possible. This could be but five days at most. At the end of that time we must start for our prearranged rendezvous with C. The valley was in th
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XXVI. JUJA
XXVI. JUJA
Most people have heard of Juja, the modern dwelling in the heart of an African wilderness, belonging to our own countryman, Mr. W. N. McMillan. If most people are as I was before I saw the place, they have considerable curiosity and no knowledge of what it is and how it looks. We came to Juja at the end of a wide circle that had lasted three months, and was now bringing us back again toward our starting point. For five days we had been camped on top a high bluff at the junction of two rivers. Wh
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XXVII. A VISIT AT JUJA
XXVII. A VISIT AT JUJA
Next day we left all this; and continued our march. About a month later, however, we encountered McMillan himself in Nairobi. I was just out from a very hard trip to the coast-Billy not with me-and wanted nothing so much as a few days' rest. McMillan's cordiality was not to be denied, however, so the very next day found us tucking ourselves into a buckboard behind four white Abyssinian mules. McMillan, some Somalis and Captain Duirs came along in another similar rig. Our driver was a Hottentot h
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XXVIII. A RESIDENCE AT JUJA
XXVIII. A RESIDENCE AT JUJA
A short time later, at about middle of the rainy season, McMillan left for a little fishing off Catalina Island. The latter is some fourteen thousand miles of travel from Juja. Before leaving on this flying trip, McMillan made us a gorgeous offer. “If,” said he, “you want to go it alone, you can go out and use Juja as long as you please.” This offer, or, rather, a portion of it, you may be sure, we accepted promptly. McMillan wanted in addition to leave us his servants; but to this we would not
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XXIX. CHAPTER THE LAST
XXIX. CHAPTER THE LAST
With our return from Juja to Nairobi for a breathing space, this volume comes to a logical conclusion. In it I have tried to give a fairly comprehensive impression-it could hardly be a picture of so large a subject-of a portion of East Equatorial Africa, its animals, and its people. Those who are sufficiently interested will have an opportunity in a succeeding volume of wandering with us even farther afield. The low jungly coast region; the fierce desert of the Serengetti; the swift sullen rhino
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APPENDIX I
APPENDIX I
Most people are very much interested in how hot it gets in such tropics as we traversed. Unfortunately it is very difficult to tell them. Temperature tables have very little to do with the matter, for humidity varies greatly. On the Serengetti at lower reaches of the Guaso Nyero I have seen it above 110 degrees. It was hot, to be sure, but not exhaustingly so. On the other hand, at 90 or 95 degrees the low coast belt I have had the sweat run from me literally in streams; so that a muddy spot for
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APPENDIX III
APPENDIX III
For the benefit of the sportsman and gun crank who want plain facts and no flapdoodle, the following statistics are offered. To the lay reader this inclusion will be incomprehensible; but I know my gun crank as I am one myself! Army Springfield, model 1903 to take the 1906 cartridge, shooting the Spitzer sharp point bullet. Stocked to suit me by Ludwig Wundhammer, and fitted with Sheard gold bead front sight and Lyman aperture receiver sight. With this I did most my shooting, as the trajectory w
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IN WHICH HE APPEARS AS DIFFERENT FROM THE ENGLISHMAN
IN WHICH HE APPEARS AS DIFFERENT FROM THE ENGLISHMAN
It is always interesting to play the other fellow's game his way, and then, in light of experience, to see wherein our way and his way modify each other. The above proposition here refers to camping. We do considerable of it in our country, especially in our North and West. After we have been at it for some time, we evolve a method of our own. The basis of that method is to do without; to GO LIGHT. At first even the best of us will carry too much plunder, but ten years of philosophy and rainstor
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WHAT HE SHOULD TAKE
WHAT HE SHOULD TAKE
Before going to Africa I read as many books as I could get hold of on the subject, some of them by Americans. In every case the authors have given a chapter detailing the necessary outfit. Invariably they have followed the Englishman's ideas almost absolutely. Nobody has ventured to modify those ideas in any essential manner. Some have deprecatingly ventured to remark that it is as well to leave out the tinned carfare-if you do not like carfare; but that is as far as they care to go. The lists a
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