In Africa Part 8

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

So we started across, meeting no natives who possibly could have given any information. On the afternoon of November thirteenth we went into camp on the edge of a great swamp, or _tinga-tinga_, as the natives call it, only a couple of hours' march from the river. Many fresh elephant trails had been discovered, and the swamp itself looked like a most promising place for lions. A great tree stood on one side of the swamp, and in its branches was a platform which an Englishman had occupied seven nights in a vain quest for lions some time before. A little gra.s.s shelter was below the tree, and as we approached a Wanderobo darted out and ran in terror from us. The Wanderobos are native hunters who live in the forests, and are as shy as wild animals.

So we could not question him as to Colonel Roosevelt's camp. Later in the afternoon a native runner appeared from the direction of Sergoi with a message to the colonel, but he didn't know where the camp was and didn't seem to be in any great hurry to find out. He calmly made himself the guest of one of our porters and spent the night in our camp, doing much more sitting than running.

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

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

A transport wagon of supplies for the Duke of Penaranda's _safari_ was also there, and from the drivers it was definitely learned that the late occupants of the camp were Mr. Roosevelt and his party. In the meantime the messenger had reached Colonel Roosevelt, and when the latter learned that Mr. Akeley's _safari_ was in the vicinity he at once ordered camp pitched forty-five minutes from our camp, and started across to see Akeley. The latter had also started across to see the colonel, and they met on the way. And during all this time the native runner with the message to Colonel Roosevelt was loafing the morning away in our camp.

What the message might be, of course, we didn't know, but we hoped that it was nothing of importance. It was only when the colonel and his party reached our camp that the message was delivered. As we stood talking and congratulating everybody on how well he was looking the colonel casually opened the message.

He seemed amused, and somewhat surprised, and at once read it aloud to us. It was from America, and said: "Reported here you have been killed.

Mrs. Roosevelt worried. Cable denial American Emba.s.sy, Rome." It was dated November sixth, eight days before.

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

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

[Drawing: _Reading the Report That He Had Been Killed_]

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

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

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

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

It was arranged that he and Mr. Akeley, with Kermit and Tarlton and one tent should start early the next morning on the hunt, trusting to luck in overtaking the herd that he had seen in the morning. The hunt was enormously successful, and the adventures they had were so interesting that they deserve a separate chapter.

CHAPTER IX

THE COLONEL READS MACAULAY'S "ESSAYS," DISCOURSES ON MANY SUBJECTS WITH GREAT FRANKNESS, DECLINES A DRINK OF SCOTCH WHISKY, AND KILLS THREE ELEPHANTS

On the afternoon of November fourteenth, a little cavalcade of hors.e.m.e.n might have been seen riding slowly away from our camp on the Nzoia River. One of them, evidently the leader, was a well-built man of about fifty-one years, tanned by many months of African hunting and wearing a pair of large spectacles. His teeth flashed in the warm sunlight. A rough hunting s.h.i.+rt encased his well-knit body and a pair of rougher trousers, reinforced with leather knee caps and jointly sustained by suspenders and a belt, fitted in loose folds around his stocky legs. On his head was a big sun helmet, and around his waist, less generous in amplitude than formerly, was a partly filled belt of Winchester cartridges. His horse was a stout little Abyssinian shooting pony, gray of color and lean in build, and in the blood-stained saddle-bag was a well-worn copy of Macaulay's _Essays_, bound in pigskin. Our hero--for it was he--was none other than Bwana Tumbo, the hunter-naturalist, exponent of the strenuous life, and ex-president of the United States.

[Drawing: _Improving Each s.h.i.+ning Hour_]

If I were writing a thrilling story of adventure that is the way this story would begin. But as this is designed to be a simple chronicle of events, it is just as well at once to get down to basic facts and tell about the Roosevelt elephant hunt, the hyena episode, and the pigskin library, together with other more or less extraneous matter.

[Photograph: A Flag Flew Over the Colonel's Tent]

[Photograph: Kermit and Mr. Stephenson Diagnosing the Case]

Colonel Roosevelt, his son Kermit, Leslie Tarlton, who is managing the Roosevelt expedition, and Edmund h.e.l.ler, the taxidermist of the expedition, came to our camp on the fourteenth of November to have luncheon and to talk over plans whereby Colonel Roosevelt was to kill one or more elephants for Mr. Akeley's American museum group of five or six elephants. The details were all arranged and later in the afternoon the colonel and his party left for their own camp, only a short distance from ours.

Mr. Akeley, with one of our tents and about forty porters, followed later in the evening and spent the night at the Roosevelt camp. The following morning Colonel Roosevelt, Mr. Akeley, Mr. Tarlton and Kermit, with two tents and forty porters and gunbearers, started early in the hope of again finding the trail of the small herd of elephants that had been seen the day before. The trail was picked up after a short time and the party of hunters expected that it would be a long and wearisome pursuit, for it was evident that the elephants had become nervous and were moving steadily along without stopping to feed. In such cases they frequently travel forty or fifty miles before settling down to quiet feeding again.

The country was hilly, deep with dry gra.s.s, and badly cut up with small gullies and jagged out-croppings of rock on the low ridges. At all times the ears of the hunting party were alert for any sound that would indicate the proximity of the herd, but for several hours no trumpeting, nor intestinal rumbling, nor crash of tusks against small trees were heard. Finally, at about eleven o'clock, Tarlton, who, strangely enough, is partly deaf, heard a sound that caused the hunting party to stop short. He heard elephants. They were undoubtedly only a short distance ahead, but as the wind was from their direction there was little likelihood that they had heard the approach of the hunters. So Tarlton, who has had much experience in elephant hunting, led the party off at a right angle from the elephant trail and then, turning, paralleled the trail a few hundred feet away. They had gone only a short distance when it became evident that they had pa.s.sed the herd, which was hidden by the tall gra.s.s and the thickly-growing scrub trees that grew on all sides.

The wooded character of the country rendered it easy to stalk the elephant herd, and with careful attention to the wind, the four hunters and their gunbearers advanced under cover until the elephants could be seen and studied. Each of the four hunters carried a large double-barreled cordite rifle that fires a five-hundred-grain bullet, backed up by nearly a hundred grains of cordite.

As was expected, the herd consisted solely of cows and calves. There were eight cow elephants and two _totos_, or calves, a circ.u.mstance that was particularly fortunate, as Colonel Roosevelt was expected to secure one or two cows for the group, while some one else was to get the calf.

For some moments the hunting party studied the group of animals and finally decided which ones were the best for the group.

Two of the largest cows and the calf of one of them were selected. It is always the desire of collectors who kill groups of animals for museums to kill the calf and the mother at the same time whenever practicable, so that neither one is left to mourn the loss of the other. It is one of the unpleasant features of group collecting that calves must be killed, but the collector justifies himself in the thought that many thousands of people will be instructed and interested in the group when it is finished.

Elephant hunting is considered by many African hunters as being the most dangerous of all hunting. When a man is wounded by an elephant he is pretty likely to die, whereas the wounds inflicted by lions are often not necessarily mortal ones. Also, in fighting a wounded lion one may sometimes take refuge in the low branches of a tree, but with a wounded elephant there is rarely time to climb high enough and quick enough to escape the frenzied animal. In elephant shooting, also, the hunter endeavors to approach within twenty or thirty yards, so that the bullets may be placed exactly where their penetration will be the most instantaneously deadly. Consequently, a badly placed bullet may merely infuriate the elephant without giving the hunter time to gain a place of safety, and thus be much worse than if the hunter had entirely missed his mark.

Among elephant hunters it is considered more dangerous to attack a cow elephant than a bull, for the cow is always ready and eager to defend its calf, hence when Colonel Roosevelt prepared to open fire on a cow elephant, accompanied by a calf, at a range of thirty yards, in a district where the highest tree was within reach of an elephant's trunk, the situation was one fraught with tense uncertainty.

Colonel Roosevelt is undoubtedly a brave man. The men who have hunted with him in Africa say that he has never shown the slightest sign of fear in all the months of big game hunting that they have done together.

He "holds straight," as they say in shooting parlance, and at short range, where his eyesight is most effective, he shoots accurately.

This, then, was the dramatic situation at about twelve o'clock noon on November fifteenth, eight miles east of the Nzoia River, near Mount Elgon: Eight cow elephants, two _totos_, one ex-president with a double-barreled cordite rifle thirty yards away, supported by three other hunters similarly armed, with native gunbearers held in the rear as a supporting column.

The colonel opened fire; the biggest cow dropped to her knees and in an instant the air was thunderous with the excited "milling" of the herd of elephants. For several anxious minutes the spot was the scene of much confusion, and when quiet was once more restored Colonel Roosevelt had killed three elephants and Kermit had killed one of the calves. It had not been intended or desired to kill more than two of the cows, but with a herd of angry elephants threatening to annihilate an attacking party, sometimes the prearranged plans do not work out according to specifications.

Kermit was hastily despatched to notify our camp and the work of preparing the skins of the elephants was at once begun.

In the meantime, we at our camp, eight miles away from the scene of battle, were waiting eagerly for news of the hunting party, although expecting nothing for a day of so. It seemed too much to expect that the hunt should have such a quick and successful termination. So when Kermit rode in with the news late in the afternoon it was a time for felicitation. We all solemnly took a drink, which in itself was an event, for our camp was a "dry" camp when in the field. Only the killing of a lion had been sufficient provocation for taking off the "lid," but on the strength of three elephants for the group the "lid" was momentarily raised with much ceremony and circ.u.mstance.

The burden of Kermit's message was "salt, salt, salt!" and porters and second gunbearers to help with the skinning. So James L. Clark, who has been connected with the American Museum of History for some time and who was with us on the Mount Elgon trip to help Mr. Akeley with the preparation of the group, started off with a lot of porters laden with salt for preserving the skins. It was his plan to go direct to the main Roosevelt camp, get a guide, and then push on to the elephant camp, where he hoped to arrive by ten o'clock at night. He would then be in time to help with the skinning, which we expected would be continued throughout the entire night. Kermit stopped at his own camp and gave Clark a guide for the rest of the journey, after which he went to bed.

At eleven o'clock the sound of firing was heard some place off in the darkness. The night guard of the Roosevelt camp, rightly construing it to be a signal, answered it with a shot, and, guided by the latter, Clark and his party of salt-laden porters once more appeared. They had traveled in a circle for three hours and were hopelessly lost. Kermit was routed out and again supplied more guides--also a compa.s.s and also the direction to follow. Unfortunately he made a mistake and said northwest instead of southeast--otherwise his directions were perfect.

For three hours more Clark and his porters went b.u.mping through the night, stumbling through the long gra.s.s and falling into hidden holes.

The porters began to be mutinous and the guides were thoroughly and hopelessly lost. It was then that they one and all laid down in the tall gra.s.s, made a fire to keep the lions and leopards away, and slept soundly until daylight. Even then the situation was little better, for the guides were still at sea. About the time that Clark decided, to return to the river, miles away, and take a fresh start, he fired a shot in the forlorn hope of getting a response from some section of the compa.s.s. A distant shot came in answer and he pushed on and soon came up with the colonel and Tarlton returning home after a night in the temporary elephant camp. The colonel gave him full directions and at nine o'clock the relief party arrived at their destination.

In the meantime we, Mrs. Akeley, Stephenson and myself, had left our camp on the river at six-fifteen, gone to the Roosevelt camp, and with Kermit guiding us proceeded on across country toward the elephant camp.

On our way we also met the colonel and Tarlton, the former immensely pleased with the outcome of the hunt and full of enthusiasm about the adventure with the elephants. But the most remarkable thing of all, he said, was the hyena incident. He told us the story, and it is surely one that will make all nature fakers sit up in an incredulous and dissenting mood.

During the night, the story goes, many hyenas had come from far and near to gorge on the carca.s.ses of the elephants. Their howls filled the night with weird sounds. Lions also journeyed to the feast, and between the two they mumbled the bones of the slain with many a howl and snarl.

Early in the morning the colonel went out in the hope of surprising a lion at the spread. Instead, to his great amazement, he saw the head of a hyena protruding from the distended side of the largest elephant. It was inside the elephant and was looking out, as through a window. A single shot finished the hyena, after which a more careful examination was made.

There are two theories as to what really happened. One is that the hyena ate its way into the inside of the elephant, then gorged itself so that its stomach was distended to such proportions that it couldn't get through the hole by which it had entered the carca.s.s.

[Drawing: _The Hyena Episode_]

The other theory is that, after eating its way into the elephant, it started to eat its way out by a different route. When its head emerged the heavy muscles of the elephant's side inclosed about its neck like a vise, entrapping the hyena as effectively as though it had its head in a steel trap. In the animal's despairing efforts to escape it had kicked one leg out through the thick walls of the elephant's side.

[Photograph: Kermit Roosevelt]