chained up in my camp. This one had hurt its paw when captured, and in
spite of every care a bad sore gradually festered. It wounded one of
my people very badly by ripping open a vein in his arm when he went to
feed it.
[Illustration:
_C. G. Schillings, phot._
FLASHLIGHT PHOTOGRAPH OF A LION. THE ANIMAL HAD MOVED SO SWIFTLY THAT
THE APPARATUS WAS NOT QUITE IN TIME TO TAKE IN ITS WHOLE BODY.]
Thus terminated my efforts to bring an old lion to Europe.
Much that is easy in appearance is troublesome in reality. Even when
the animal is overcome, the transportation of it to the coast is
accompanied by almost insuperable difficulties. It means something
to carry beast and cage, a burden amounting to something like eight
hundred pounds, right through the wilderness by means of bearers.
Even with the help of the Uganda Railway it has not been possible to
bring home a full-grown lion. I have repeatedly caught lions for this
purpose, but have always experienced ultimate failure.
Sometimes the animals would not return to the place where I had
tracked or sighted them, or would steer clear of the decoy. One often
meets with this experience in India with tigers, which are decoyed
in much the same way, and then shot from a raised stand. Interesting
information about the behaviour of tigers in such cases may be found
in the publications of English hunters, as well as in the very
interesting book on tropical sport by P. Niedieck, a German hunter of
vast experience. I might perhaps have succeeded on subsequent occasions
in transporting old lions, but I never had the strong cages at hand.
Now perhaps they are rusted and rotted, as well as the other implements
which I hid or buried on the velt, not having bearers enough to carry
them, and hoping to find them again later.
I had a most interesting adventure, once, with a lion on the right bank
of the Rufu River.
For several nights the continuous roaring of a lion had been heard in
the immediate vicinity of my camp. In spite of all my attempts to get
a sight of the beast by day I could not even find the slightest trace
of it. Moreover, the vegetation in the neighbourhood of the river was
not at all suitable for a lion-hunt. I decided to try my luck with a
trap. A very decrepit old donkey was used as a bait, and killed by the
lion the very first night. But to my disappointment the powerful beast
of prey had evidently killed the ass with one blow, and with incredible
strength had succeeded in dragging it off into the thicket without as
much as touching the trap. Very early the next morning I found the
tracks, which were clearly imprinted on the ground. Breathlessly I
followed up the trail step by step in the midst of thick growth which
only allowed me to see a few paces around me. I crept noiselessly
forward, followed by my gun-bearer, knowing that in all probability I
should come upon the lion.
The trail turned sharply to the left through some thick bushes. Now we
came to a spot where the thief had evidently rested with his spoil;
then the tracks led sharply to the right and went straight forward
without a pause.
We had been creeping forward on the sunlit sand like stealthy cats,
with every nerve and muscle taut, my people close behind me, I with my
rifle raised and ready to fire--when, suddenly, with a weird sort of
growl it leapt up right in front of us and was over the hard sand and
away. It is astonishing how the stampede of a lion reverberates even
in the far distance!
[Illustration:
_C. G. Schillings, phot._
PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN AT A DISTANCE OF ABOUT FIVE PACES OF A LION
WHICH I CAPTURED ALIVE AND BROUGHT BACK TO CAMP--A SPECIMEN OF
THE MANELESS LIONS OF THE MASAI VELT. SOME OF THE VERY OLD LIONS
DEVELOP MANES EVEN IN THIS REGION, BUT NEVER TO THE EXTENT USUAL
WITH LIONS IN CAPTIVITY, OR WITH THE ALMOST EXTINCT SPECIES OF
THE ATLAS COUNTRY OR OF SOUTH AFRICA.]
[Illustration: MY PLUCKY TAXIDERMIST MANAGED TO GET THIS CAPTURED HYENA
UNHARMED INTO CAMP, PROTECTING HIMSELF WITH A BIG CUDGEL.]
A few steps further I came upon the remains of the ass. The lion had
gained the open when I got out of the brushwood. It was useless to
follow the tracks, for they led only to stony ground, where they would
be lost. Discouraged, I gave up the pursuit for the time, but only to
return a few hours later. Approaching very cautiously to the place
where I had left the remains of the donkey, we found they were no
longer there. The lion had fetched them away. We followed again, but to
my unspeakable disappointment with the same result as in the morning. I
managed this time, however, to get near the lion through the brushwood,
but he immediately took to flight again--when only a few yards from
me, though hidden by bushes. Perhaps he is still at large in this same
locality!
Lions--generally several of them together--killed my decoys on several
occasions without themselves getting caught. I once surprised a lion
and two lionesses at such a meal in the Njiri marshes, in June 1903.
Unfortunately the animals became aware of my approach, and now began
just such a chase as I had already successfully undertaken on January
25, 1897.[8]
I was able by degrees to gain on the satiated animals. A wonderful
memory that! Clear morning light, a sharp breeze from over the swamps,
the yellowish velt with its whitish incrustation of salt--a few bushes
and groups of trees--and ever before me the lions, beating their
reluctant retreat, now clearly visible, now almost out of sight.
I try a shot. But they are too far--it is no use. Puffing and panting,
I feel my face glow and my heart beat with my exertions. At length one
lioness stops and glances in my direction. I shoot, and imagine I have
missed her. All three rapidly disappear in a morass near at hand. All
my efforts seem to have been in vain.... Eight days later, however, I
bag the lioness, and find that my ball has struck her right through the
thigh.
It may happen that a lion caught in a trap gets off with the iron
attached to him, and covers vast stretches of country. The pursuer has
then an exciting time of it. If the animal passes through a fairly open
district the issue is probably successful. But I have sometimes been
obliged to wade through a morass of reeds for hours at a stretch.
The hunter should remember that the irons may have gripped the lion’s
paw in such a way that he may be able to shake them off with a powerful
effort. Then the tables may easily be turned, and the lion may clasp
the hunter, never to let him go again.
[Illustration:
_C. G. Schillings, phot._
CARRYING A LIVE HYENA BACK TO CAMP.]
[Illustration: MY HYENA, THE ONE I AFTERWARDS BROUGHT TO EUROPE AND
PRESENTED TO THE BERLIN ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS. IT WAS CHAINED UP IN CAMP.]
On another occasion I caught two full-grown lions in one night. They
had roamed about quite near my camp night after night. They had
frightened my people, and had been seen by the night sentinels; but in
the daytime no one had been able to catch a glimpse of them. At last
one night a sick ass, that had been placed as a bait, was torn away.
The trail of the heavy irons led, after much turning and twisting, to
a reedy swamp. Here it was impossible to follow the tracks further.
Several hours passed before I succeeded finally in finding first one
lion and then the other. To kill them was no easy matter. I could hear
the clanking of the chains where they were moving about, but I must
see them before I could take effective aim. Meanwhile one of the lions
was making frantic efforts to free himself. Supposing the irons were
to give way! But these efforts were followed by moments of quiet and
watching. How the beasts growled!
* * * * *
I cannot agree with those who condemn indiscriminately the trapping of
lions. Of course, it must be done for a good purpose. I should not have
been able to present the Imperial Natural History Museum in Berlin with
such beautiful and typical lions’ skins had I not had recourse to these
traps.
A lion story with a droll ending came to me from Bagamo o. There a lion
had made itself very obnoxious, and some Europeans determined to trap
it. The trap was soon set, and a young lion fell into it. Several men
armed to the teeth approached the place, to put an end to the captive
with powder and shot. I cannot now exactly remember what happened
next, but on the attempt of the lion to free itself from the trap the
riflemen took to their heels and plunged into a pond. According to one
version, the lion turned out afterwards to be only a hyena!
At one time there was a perfect plague of lions near the coast
towns--Mikindani, for instance. Hungry lions attacked the townsfolk
on many occasions, and even poked their heads inside the doors of the
dwellings.
[Illustration]
[Illustration:
_C. G. Schillings, phot._
MASAI MAKING GAME OF A HYENA WHICH HAD ATTACKED THEIR KRAAL AND
WHICH I HAD TRAPPED AT THEIR REQUEST. THEY KILLED IT AT LAST WITH
A SINGLE SPEAR-STAB THROUGH THE HEART.]
The extermination of wild life has been almost as great a disaster
to the lions as to the bushmen of South Africa. Extermination awaits
bushman and lion in their turn--not through hunger alone.
I was more fortunate in my attempt to get a fine example of the striped
hyena (_Hyena schillingsi_, Mtsch.), which I had previously discovered,
and in bringing it to Germany, where I presented it to the Berlin
Zoological Gardens. On page 501 is to be seen a picture of one of this
species caught in a trap. Orgeich, my plucky assistant, had armed
himself with a big cudgel, for use in the case of the beast attacking
him, but never lost his equanimity, and smoked his indispensable and
inseparable pipe the whole time! Another illustration is of a hyena
which was confined in the camp. This fine specimen, an old female, was
very difficult to take to the coast. Something like forty bearers were
needed to transport the heavy iron apparatus with its inmate as far as
Tanga. This representative of its species was one of the first brought
alive to Europe, and lived for several years in the Berlin Zoological
Gardens.
It is less troublesome to obtain possession of smaller beasts of prey.
Thus I kept three jackals (_Thos. schmidti_, Noack) in my camp until
they became quite reconciled to their fate. It is very interesting to
study the various characteristics of animals at such times. Some adapt
themselves very easily to their altered circumstances; others of the
same species do so only after a long struggle. The study of animal
character can be carried on very well under the favourable conditions
of camp life in the wild.
Although grown jackals may be fairly easily brought over to Europe, we
had great difficulty with members of the more noble feline race, and
above all with the King of Beasts himself. I learnt by experience that
lynxes and wild cats were only to be tamed with great difficulty, and
I once lost a captive lynx very suddenly in spite of every care.
These things are not so simple. This is why it is not yet possible
to bring many of the most charming and most interesting members of
the African animal world to Europe. I much wish that it were possible
to bring full-grown lions over. I would far rather see one or two of
them in all their native wildness and majesty than a whole troop of
home-reared and almost domesticated specimens.
But the hours I devoted to my own attempts in this direction were not
spent in vain. They were memorable hours, full of splendid excitement.
[Illustration: A FEW SPECIMENS OF ELEPHANT-TUSKS SECURED BY THE
EMISSARIES OF DEUSS & CO., IN PORTUGUESE EAST AFRICA.]
XII
A Dying Race of Giants
Every one who knows Equatorial East Africa will bear me out in saying
that it is easier nowadays to kill fifty rhinoceroses than a single
bull-elephant carrying tusks weighing upwards of a couple of hundred
pounds.
There are only a few survivors left of this world-old race of giants.
Many species, probably, have disappeared without leaving a single
trace behind. The block granite sarcophagi on the Field of the Dead in
Sakkarah in Egypt, dating from 3,500 years ago, are memorials (each
weighing some 64 tons) of the sacred bulls of Apis: the mightiest
monument ever raised by man to beast. Bulls were sacred to Ptah, the
God of Memphis, and their gravestones--which Mariette, for instance,
brought to light in 1851--yield striking evidence of the pomp attached
to the cult of animals in those days of old.
But no monument has been raised to the African elephants that have been
slaughtered by millions in the last hundred years. Save for some of the
huge tusks for which they were killed, there will be scarcely a trace
of them in the days to come, when their Indian cousins--the sacred
white elephants--may perhaps still be revered.
John Hanning Speke, who with his fellow-countryman Grant discovered the
Victoria Nyanza, found elephant herds grazing quite peacefully on its
banks. The animals, nowadays so wild, hardly took any notice when some
of their number were killed or wounded: they merely passed a little
farther on and returned to their grazing.
The same might be said of the Upper Nile swamps in the land of the
Dinkas, in English territory, where, thanks to specially favourable
conditions, the English have been successfully preserving the
elephants. Also in the Knysna forests of Cape Colony some herds of
elephants have been preserved by strict protective laws during the
last eighty years or so. Experience with Indian elephants has proved
that when protected the sagacious beasts are not so shy and wild as is
generally the case with those of Africa. For the latter have become,
especially the full-grown and experienced specimens, the shyest of
creatures, and therefore the most difficult to study.
Should any one differ from me as to this, I would beg him to
substantiate his opinion by the help of photographs, taken in the
wilderness, of elephants which have not been shot at--photographs
depicting for us the African elephant in its native wilds. When he
does, I shall “give him best”!
[Illustration:
_Photographed at Zanzibar._
THE HEAVIEST ELEPHANTS’ TUSKS EVER RECORDED IN THE ANNALS OF EAST
AFRICAN TRADE. THEY WEIGHED 450 POUNDS. I TRIED IN VAIN TO SECURE
THEM FOR A GERMAN MUSEUM. THEY WERE BOUGHT FOR AMERICA.]
The elephant is no longer to be found anywhere in its original numbers.
It is found most frequently in the desert places between Abyssinia and
the Nile and the Galla country, or in the inaccessible parts of the
Congo, on the Albert Nyanza, and in the hinterlands of Nigeria and the
Gold Coast. But in the vicinity of the Victoria Nyanza things have
changed greatly. Richard Kandt tells us that a single elephant-hunter,
a Dane, who afterwards succumbed to the climate, alone slaughtered
hundreds in the course of years.
According to experts in this field of knowledge, some of the huge
animals of prehistoric days disappeared in a quite brief space of time
from the earth’s surface. But we cannot explain why beasts so well
qualified to defend themselves should so speedily cease to exist.
However that may be, the fate of the still existing African elephant
appears to me tragic. At one time elephants of different kinds dwelt in
our own country.[9] Remains of the closely related mammoth, with its
long hair adapted to a northern climate, are sometimes excavated from
the ice in Siberia. Thus we obtain information about its kind of food,
for remnants of food well preserved by the intense cold have been
found between the teeth and in the stomach--remnants which botanists
have been able to identify.
By a singular coincidence, the mammoth remains preserved in the ice
have been found just at a time when the craze for slaughtering their
African relations has reached its climax, and when by means of arms
that deal out death at great, and therefore safe distances, the work of
annihilation is all too rapidly progressing. The scientific equipment
of mankind is so nearly perfect that we are able to make the huge
ice-bound mammoths, which have perhaps been reposing in their cold
grave for thousands of years, speak for themselves. And it can be
proved by means of the so-called “physiological blood-proof” that the
frozen blood of the Siberian mammoths shows its kinship with the Indian
and African elephant!
It is strange to reflect that mankind, having attained to its present
condition of enlightenment, should yet have designs upon the last
survivors of this African race of giants--and chiefly in the interests
of a game! For the ivory is chiefly required to make billiard balls! Is
it not possible to contrive some substitute in these days when nothing
seems beyond the power of science?
A. H. Neumann, a well-known English hunter, says that some years ago it
was already too late to reap a good ivory harvest in Equatorial Africa
or in Mombasa. He had to seek farther afield in the far-lying districts
between the Indian Ocean and the Upper Nile, where he obtained about
£5,000 worth of ivory during one hunting expedition.
[Illustration:
A STORE OF ELEPHANTS’ TUSKS IN ONE OF THE WORKROOMS OF THE
IMPORTANT IVORY FACTORY OF A. MEYER AT HAMBURG. IT SHOULD BE
BORNE IN MIND THAT THERE ARE A NUMBER OF OTHER SUCH FACTORIES ON
THE CONTINENT AND IN AMERICA.]
Meanwhile powder and shot are at work day and night in the Dark
Continent. It is not the white man himself who does most of the work of
destruction; it is the native who obtains the greater part of the ivory
used in commerce. Two subjects of Manga Bell, for instance, killed a
short time back, in the space of a year and a half, elephants enough
to provide one hundred and thirty-nine large tusks for their chief!
There is no way of changing matters except by completely disarming
the African natives. Unless this is done, in a very short time the
elephant will only be found in the most inaccessible and unhealthy
districts. It does not much matter whether this comes about in a
single decade or in several. What are thirty or forty or fifty years,
in comparison with the endless ages that have gone to the evolution
of these wonderful animals? It is remarkable, too, that in spite of
all the hundreds of African elephants which are being killed, not a
single museum in the whole world possesses one of the gigantic male
elephants which were once so numerous, but which are now so rarely to
be met with. Accompanying this chapter is a photograph of the heaviest
elephant-tusks which have ever reached the coast from the interior. The
two tusks together weigh about 450 pounds. One can form some idea of
the size of the elephant which carried them! I was unfortunately unable
to obtain these tusks for Germany, although they were taken from German
Africa. They were sent to America, and sold for nearly £1,000.
I should like the reader to note, also, the illustration showing a room
in an ivory factory. The number of tusks there visible will give an
approximate notion of the tremendous slaughter which is being carried
on.
The price of ivory has been rising gradually, and is now ten times
what it was some forty years ago in the Sudan, according to Brehm’s
statistics. In Morgen’s time one could buy a fifty-pound tusk in the
Cameroons for some stuff worth about sevenpence. In the last century or
two the price of ivory has risen commensurately with that of all other
such wares. Nowadays a sum varying from £300 to £400 may be obtained
for the egg of the Great Auk, which became extinct less than half a
century ago: whilst a stuffed specimen of the bird itself is worth at
least £1,000. What will be the price of such things in years to come!
In the light of these remarks the reader will easily understand how
greatly I prize the photographs which I secured of two huge old
bull-elephants in friendly company with a bull-giraffe, and which are
here reproduced. It will be difficult, if not indeed impossible, ever
again to photograph such mighty “tuskers” in company with giraffes.
In the year 1863 Brehm wrote that no true picture existed of the real
African elephant in its own actual haunts. The fact brought to light by
these pictures is both new and surprising, especially for the expert,
who hitherto has been inclined to believe that giraffes were dwellers
on the velt and accustomed to fight shy of the damp forests. That they
should remain in such a region in company with elephants for weeks at a
time was something hitherto unheard of. I do not know how to express my
delight at being able after long hours of patient waiting to sight
this rare conjunction of animals from my place of observation either
with a Goerz-Trizeder or with the naked eye, but only for a few seconds
at a time, because of the heavy showers of rain which kept falling.
How disappointing and mortifying it was to find oneself left in the
lurch by the sun--and just immediately under the Equator, where one
had a right to it! What I had so often experienced in my photographic
experiments in the forests by the Rufu River--that is, the want of
sunlight for days together--now made me almost desperate. At any moment
the little gathering of animals might break up, in which case I should
never be able to get a photographic record of the strange friendship.
Since the publication of my first work I have often been asked to give
some further particulars about this matter. Therefore, perhaps these
details, supported by photographs, will not be unacceptable to my
readers.
[Illustration:
AN AUK’S EGG, ABOUT THREE-FIFTH OF ACTUAL SIZE. AUK’S EGGS COME
INTO THE MARKET IN ENGLAND FROM TIME TO TIME AND FETCH AS MUCH AS
£300 APIECE.]
[Illustration:
THE SPECIMEN OF THE AUK PRESERVED IN THE BERLIN NATURAL HISTORY
MUSEUM. IT WOULD BE WORTH AT LEAST £1,000 IF OFFERED FOR SALE.
(REPRODUCED HERE BY KIND PERMISSION OF THE DIRECTOR OF THE MUSEUM, DR.
BRAUER VON FRL. ELFRIEDE ZIMMERMANN.)]
I candidly admit that had I suddenly come upon these great
bull-elephants in the jungle in years gone by I could not have resisted
killing them. But I have gradually learned to restrain myself in this
respect. It would have been a fine sensation from the sportsman’s
standpoint, and would besides have brought in a round sum of perhaps
£500; but what was all that in comparison with the securing of one
single authentic photograph which would afford irrefutable proof of so
surprising a fact?
The western spurs of the great Kilimanjaro range end somewhat abruptly
in a high table-land, which is grass-grown and covered in patches with
sweet-smelling acacias. This undulating velt-region gradually slopes
down until in its lowest parts the waters collect and form the western
Njiri marshes, which at some seasons of the year are almost dry.
Volcanic hills arise here and there on the plain, from whose summits
one can obtain a wide view. One of the most prominent of these hills
has a cavity at its summit. It is evidently the crater of an extinct
volcano which is filled with water, like the volcanic lakes of my
native Eifel district. A thicket begins not far from this hill, and
gradually extends until it merges into the forest beyond. The burning
sun has dried up all the grass up to the edge of the thicket. There is
so little rain here that the poor Xerophites are the only exception
that can stand the drought. Only on the inner walls of the steep crater
do bushes and shrubs grow, for these are only exposed at midday to the
sun’s heat.
Thus a cool moisture pervades this hollow except during the very
hottest season. Paths, trodden down by crowds of game, lead to the
shining mirror of the little lake. It used to be the haunt of beasts
of prey, and the smaller animals would probably seek drinking-places
miles distant rather than come to this grim declivity. There is,
however, a kind of road leading to the summit of this hill, a very
uneven road, wide at first, then gradually narrower and narrower, which
had become almost impassable with grass and brushwood when I made my
way up. This road was trodden by the cattle herds of the Masai. It
may be that rhinoceroses and elephants were the original makers of it
before the warlike shepherds began to lead their thirsty cattle to this
secluded lake. Be this as it may, my Masai friends assured me that
they brought their herds here time out of mind until the rinderpest
devastated them.
[Illustration:
_C. G. Schillings, phot._