The head of the Reiche firm, and its directing spirit, was Mr. Charles
Reiche, who was well educated and had traveled widely. His New York
establishment was each day passed unnoticed by thousands of
pedestrians, yet from it wild animals were supplied to almost every
traveling show in the United States. The great supply depot for this
country was in Hoboken. Henry Reiche, his brother, lived in Germany,
where they had a large supply farm for all the world, with
accommodations and appliances for keeping almost every bird, beast and
reptile produced by any country or clime of the world. They were ready
at any time to fill an order for anything, from a single canary to a
flock of ostriches, or from a field-mouse to an elephant.
Africa, the home of the most fiercely voracious animals, was their most
extensive field for operations. In it they had many stations, with
sheiks or chiefs in their employ, and standing rewards offered to
natives for choice specimens of rare birds or beasts. During nine
months of every year they had a band of experienced white African
hunters traveling from station to station, overseeing and directing the
work of the natives, and capturing elephants, lions, leopards, tigers
and such other beasts as they might be instructed to obtain. The
company, usually composed of four or six, and never more than eight,
was under the command of Charles Lohse, a veteran hunter and trapper,
and started from Germany about the first of September and generally
returned from Africa early in June. During the remaining three months
of the year, the rainy season, the climate is so unhealthful that it is
almost certain death for a white man to remain in Africa.