such herds of elephants as those that I saw coming down there to the
lake to drink, rolling themselves in the mud of its banks, and openly
making friends with the hippopotami? Just as in the daytime I had
noticed the different kinds of antelopes and the zebras, so here I saw
again the elephants and hippopotami living their life close together,
moving round or beside each other without fear or hesitation. The
herd, numbering many hundred heads, was guided to its drinking-place
silently and slowly by its aged leader, a female elephant of most
exceptional size. Many young elephants were there in company with their
mothers. Some very little ones, only a few weeks old, played with their
comrades, or knowingly imitated the movements of the older animals in
the water, while the old ones took care to prevent the tender young
creatures from taking any harm.
But it all seemed somehow impossible! Veterans among the most
experienced black elephant-hunters had assured me that such huge
herds were not to be met with. And if I saw aright in the shimmering
moonlight, what a great mass of hippopotami were moving about there
before me! And now, paying, no attention to the elephants that were
peacefully bathing farther out in the muddy water, they clambered on
to the land, and began to graze like cows on the bank among some more
of the elephants. It was exactly the same friendly relation that
I had seen between the dwarf gazelles and the zebras during the day.
Could I be only dreaming? Such a multitude of huge creatures here close
to my camp--it could hardly be a reality!
[Illustration: GROUP OF GNUS. HARTEBEESTS IN THE BACKGROUND.]
[Illustration:
_C. G. Schillings, phot._
NILE GEESE ON THE LOW BANK OF THE NATRON LAKE (LAKE NAKURO). DWARF
GAZELLES IN THE BACKGROUND.]
[Illustration: A HERD OF GRANT’S GAZELLES.]
[Illustration:
_C. G. Schillings, phot._
CRESTED CRANES AND ZEBRAS.]
And now I perceived that a second herd of elephants, some hundreds
strong, was approaching the water. In a straight line these still more
giant-like colossi came down to the lake margin--all of them, as I
now clearly perceived, bulls with mighty tusks, and amongst them some
quite enormous tuskers, obviously patriarchs of the herd, and carrying
some hundreds of pounds’ weight of ivory that glittered afar in the
moonlight.
The two herds greeted each other with their curious cries, difficult to
describe, and then the newcomers began to bathe and drink.
My attention was especially arrested by some of the elephants, clearly
visible in the moonlight, keeping apart from the rest. Standing
together in pairs they caressed each other with their trunks, while
the enormous ears which are such an imposing decoration of the African
elephant stood out from their heads, so as to make them look larger
than ever.
My wonder increases! Numerous herds of giraffes, hundreds strong,
come down to the lake, and this, too, not far from the elephants, and
without any fear.
And now there is again a new picture! A herd of innumerable buffaloes.
With their great formidable heads turned watchfully towards the
rest of the crowd, they too are coming for a refreshing bath. Their
numbers still increase. It is a sight recalling, surpassing even, the
descriptions given by the first travellers over the velt regions of
Cape Colony.
How did all this accord with the reports I had received of the scarcity
of elephants? with the destruction of the buffalo by the cattle
plague? With my own previous experiences? The most authoritative of my
informants had assured me that in this district the elephant was to be
found very rarely, the buffalo hardly ever!
Suddenly with mysterious swiftness the night is gone, and the day
breaks. I search for and find the tracks of my giant guests of the
night. I had made no mistake. Monstrous footprints are sharply
impressed in the mud, the ground looks as it had been ploughed up,
and in the midst of the plain, not very far from the lake, there are
actually hundreds of mighty elephants standing near some ol-girigiri
acacias. As I begin to watch them, they suddenly become restless. In
their noiseless way they make off at an extremely quick rate, and soon
disappear behind the nearest ridge.
Round about me I see herds of zebras, hartebeests, and wild animals of
all kinds in vaster numbers even than those yesterday. The deep bellow
of the wild buffalo breaks upon my ear. I can see long-necked towering
giraffes in the acacia thickets. The snorting of numerous hippopotami
sounds from the lake. Some of these burly fellows are sunning
themselves on its margin; and quite close to them several rhinoceroses
are grazing peacefully in the midst of their uncouth cousins.
I am surprised, too, at seeing a troop of lions disappearing into the
bush, after having made a visit to the water. They are so close to
me that I can plainly see by the shape of their bodies that they are
going home after having had an abundant repast.
[Illustration:
_C. G. Schillings, phot._
A CAMP ON THE VELT.]
The behaviour of my people puzzles me. I had no opportunity for
questioning them as to why they were not more impressed by this
unexpected spectacle, for my attention was suddenly arrested by the
appearance of a lengthy caravan of bearers, that seemed as if it had
emerged before my eyes from the trampled ground. There is new life
and movement among the herds of wild animals. Slowly, defiantly, or
in swift-footed fear, each according to its kind, all these wonderful
creatures seek safety from the approaching crowd.
A robust negro marches at the head of the caravan. He carries a white
flag inscribed all over with texts from the Koran. Hundreds of bearers
come steadily in. Each carries a load of nearly ninety pounds’ weight,
besides his cooking gear, sleeping-mat, gun and powder-horn. At regular
intervals grave-looking, bearded Arabs march among the bearers. Two
stately figures, riding upon asses and surrounded by an armed escort,
are evidently the chiefs, and a great drove of asses with pack-saddles
laden with elephant tusks brings up the rear. Very quickly the numerous
party establish their camp, and I now remark that hundreds of the
bearers are also laden with ivory. It is clearly a caravan of Arab
ivory-traders.
After the usual greetings--“Sabal kher” (“God bless thee”), and “Salaam
aleikum,” questions are asked in the Swahili language: “Habari ghani?”
(“What news?”) I now learn that the party of travellers set out some
two years ago from Pangani on the coast to trade for ivory in the
Masai country. I am surprised to hear the Arabs tell how, although
theirs is one of the first caravans that have made the attempt, they
have penetrated far into the inhospitable and perilous lands of the
Masai. Their journey has been greatly delayed, for they have had to
fight many battles with the Wachenzi, the aborigines of the districts
through which they marched. “But Allah was with us, and the Unbelievers
had the worst of it! Allah is great, and Mohammed is his prophet!”
Every one set busily to work. In the turn of a hand the camp was
surrounded with a thorny zereba hedge, and made secure.
And now I had personal experience of what has passed, times without
number, in the broad lands of the Masai;--armed detachments from the
caravan started on raids for far-off districts. The timid Wandorobo,
that strange subject tribe of the Masai, brought more and more ivory
to the camp to sell it to the traders, after long and obstinate
bargaining. It was remarkable how clever were the people of the caravan
in dealing with these timid wild folk, and how well they knew how to
gain their confidence.[9] This confidence, however, was not made use of
in trade and barter for the advantage of the natives. But thanks to the
methods and ways of managing the natives, as the traders understood
them, we saw that the wild folk were quite satisfied, and this was the
main point.
[Illustration:
_C. G. Schillings, phot._
NATIVE SETTLEMENT WITH PALISADE AND ZEREBA (HEDGE) ON THE MIDDLE COURSE
OF THE PANGANI RIVER. (PROTECTIVE CHARMS ARE PLACED OVER THE GATEWAY
AND IN FRONT OF IT, IN THE FOREGROUND OF THE PICTURE.)]
But what patience is required in trade of this kind! A white man could
never develop such Oriental patience. Again and again a tusk would be
endlessly bargained over, till at last, often after days of chaffering,
it passed into the possession of the caravan. The natives were of
course bent on getting the tusks, sooner or later, into the camp. At
the very outset they had sent in a most exact description of them, and
then envoys from the caravan had to go and inspect them, often at a
distance of several days’ march from the camp.
Every day a great number of Masai warriors appeared in the camp. Men
belonging to many kraals, owners of great herds of cattle, camped near
the lake. There were not infrequent skirmishes, especially at night
time. The young warriors, the Moran, made attempts at plunder, and were
beaten off with broken heads. But, on the whole, this hardly disturbed
the good understanding. “It is their testuri (custom),” thought the
experienced and fatalistic coast folk, and they accepted it as an
unavoidable incident of the trade. But festivals were also arranged,
with dance and song. In the still moonlit nights the strange chant
rang out in a high treble far over the plain, and sounded in the rocky
hills, and festivity and rejoicing reigned among the warriors, the
girls, and the women.
But by day one saw their busy life displayed, all the bucolic poetry
of grazing herds of cattle with their spear-armed herdsmen. There was
a great deal to be done, and in each and every task the Masai girls
and women showed themselves, like the men, excellent guardians and
attendants of their herds.
In the neighbourhood of the Masai kraals the wild animals of the plain
mingled freely with the tame cattle of the Masai, knowing well that the
Masai folk would not shoot them. The wild animals were exposed only to
the attacks of the Wandorobo. But these latter bore themselves very
shyly in the presence of their over-lords, the Masai, and went off to
far distant hunting grounds, so that the wild animals were hardly ever
disturbed by a hunter.
The young Masai warriors also began to devote themselves to hunting
for ivory. With great courage, and often with no small display of
dexterity, they killed a large number of elephants, allured by the
high prices offered by the caravans. But they kept the beautiful
tusks carefully hidden, buried in the earth till the moment when they
had successfully arranged a sale. The buried treasure was easy to
conceal. At the place where the tusks were put away the grass was set
on fire and burned up over a considerable area, and then no eye could
distinguish the slightest indication of the buried treasure.
The Elmoran also made use of a method of hunting which is employed in
other parts of Africa, namely, to slip quietly up to an elephant, and
with a single powerfully delivered sword-cut sever the tendon Achilles.
But few indeed were daring enough to attempt this, and these were
strong, brave, and well-trained warriors. Such an exploit won for them
high respect among their comrades of the clan.
[Illustration:
_C. G. Schillings, phot._
ELAND-ANTELOPES RALLIED IN A GROUP BEFORE TAKING TO FLIGHT.]
[Illustration:
_C. G. Schillings, phot._
A HERD OF WHITE-BEARDED GNUS. IN THE BACKGROUND ONE OF THE
CHARACTERISTIC HILLS OF THE MASAI UPLANDS.]
While the Masai warriors thus took their share in elephant-killing, and
the Wandorobo stuck to their long, trusted poisoned darts and poisoned
spears, the caravan folk attacked the elephants with powder and iron
bullets,[10] and slew whole hecatombs of them.
“Nowadays,” the leader of the caravan told me, “the chase is easier
and less dangerous, and your firearms also give the man from the coast
the power of hunting and killing the Fihl (elephant). For example, you
know, sir, that my half-brother, Seliman bin Omari, is not a practised
hunter. And yet, believe me, he and his people have brought down many,
many elephants.”
But his banker on the coast, the Hindoo Radda Damja, certainly never
hears one word of any elephant being killed by Seliman’s people:
“No one is so clever as he is at knowing nothing about elephants when
questions are asked. The ivory is always something traded for with the
natives, far, far away in the interior,” he adds, with a cunning wink.
“The main point is that we all get pembe (ivory), and he gets plenty of
it! I would like to work the business as he does, but, sir, I am not so
clever in preparing amulets, and moreover, I don’t know as much as he
does of the ways of the elephant.
“But it’s a pity that in all parts of the country the ivory is becoming
very scarce, so one has to be going always farther into the interior,
and one must try to find new ivory districts.”
Thus my Arab informant talked a long time with me. He told me much that
was interesting and much that was new to me. He told me of caravans
that had been massacred, cut off to the last man by the natives in
remote districts: and again of caravans that had been not one or
two,--no, as long as six years on the march, that had buried a lot of
ivory and gradually got it down to the coast. Time counts for nothing
here, for the people--that is to say, those who are not slaves--receive
only the one lump sum agreed upon for the journey, no matter how
long it lasts. His friends, with caravans mustering many hundreds,
had carried hundreds and hundreds of barrels of gunpowder into the
interior, they had sought everywhere for new districts abounding in
ivory, and the result had been the slaughter of the elephants on all
sides. Nevertheless he had not much to tell me of men having enriched
themselves by this trade. However, this did not apply to the traders
on the coast, who advanced the money. These lent money to the caravan
leaders, who went into the interior, at the high rate of interest usual
in the East, and thus became rich men. They had, of course, also many
losses. It happened not seldom that one of their debtors was “lost” in
the interior, which means that he simply did not come back, but chose
to pass the rest of his life in exile. And in that case it would be a
difficult matter for the creditor to take proceedings against him.
[Illustration:
_C. G. Schillings, phot._
A MASAI DANCE--THE PHOTOGRAPH SHOWS THE PLAITED QUEUE WORN BY
THE YOUNG WARRIORS (EL MORAN), WHO LEAP AS HIGH IN THE AIR AS
THEY CAN. THE YOUNG WOMEN, WHOSE HEADS ARE CLIPPED COMPLETELY
BARE, SING AND DANCE ROUND THEM.]
Then my informant told me how many of the elephant hunters still living
had been carrying on their business already for a long time before any
Europeans whatever thought of making a prolonged stay in the country.
He told me also much that was interesting about the old trade routes
extending far through Africa, and even to the Congo. He had friends
and relatives who had already traversed these routes many times, and
journeyed from the east coast even to the Congo, long before any
European traveller. Many of the people of his caravan were able to tell
from memory each day’s journey as far as the Congo, and give exact
information about the chiefs who held sway in each district, and the
possibility of getting supplies of various kinds of provisions, such as
maize, millet, bananas, or other products of the country.
I cannot exactly say how long he had talked with me about elephants
and elephant-hunting, about the ivory trade, and many other things.
I only know one thing--that after some time his talk became more and
more difficult for me to understand, that I strove in vain against an
ever-increasing weariness, and that at last I saw neither the Arab nor
the caravan--in a word, saw nothing more, felt nothing more.
I fell into a deep sleep in which, in my dreams, I had a lively
argument with some Europeans, who would not believe so many elephants,
buffaloes, and other wild animals had formerly been here, and who kept
on objecting strongly that it was impossible that all this could have
been the case so short a time ago.
When I woke up again I found myself in my lounging-chair, a primitive
piece of furniture of my own construction. My black servant stood
before me, and asked me if I would not rather go to bed.
I rubbed my eyes--it had all been a dream, then; the spell of Elelescho
must have inspired me with it. How foolish to yield to this spell! But
men will perhaps so yield to it when all this has become “historical”
and the Masai and their lives and deeds have, like the Redskins of
America, found their Fenimore Cooper.
Then may the spell of the Elelescho exert its rightful power; then may
it make famous the slender, sinewy, noble Masai ol-morani as, amidst
his fair ones, his “doiye,”[11] he leads the song-accompanied dance
as he goes out to war, and reigns the free lord of the wilderness!
But to-day he bears on his brow the significant mark of an inexorable
fate--that of the last of the Mohicans.
The spell of the Elelescho has departed from Lake Nakuro, once so
remote from the world.
The lake is no longer remote.
Iron railway lines link it with the Indian Ocean. Vanished from it is
the spell that I once felt both waking and sleeping; gone is the poetry
of the elephant herds, the Masai, the Wandorobo, and the caravan life
in all its aspects; gone all that I saw there. The traveller, if he
would learn to know the primitive life and ways, whether of men or of
the animal world, if he would know the primeval harmony that speaks
to him in an overpowering language peculiar to itself, must press on
into the wilderness farther away from these tracks. This harmony,
whose special character is day by day disappearing, day by day is in
an ever increasing measure destroyed, cannot be recalled under the
new, the coming system, the system that abandons itself to
restlessness--that, in a word, which we call modern industry, modern
civilisation.
[Illustration: A HERD OF WHITE-BEARDED GNUS AT CLOSE QUARTERS.]
[Illustration:
_C. G. Schillings, phot._
A MORE DISTANT VIEW OF THEM.]
[Illustration: THEY SHOW THEIR DISQUIET BY SWINGING THEIR TAILS.]
[Illustration:
_C. G. Schillings, phot._
FINALLY THEY DECIDE TO BEAT A RETREAT.]
[Illustration:
_C. G. Schillings, phot._
EFFECTS OF HEAT AND MIRAGE.]
To-day one may perhaps read in the _East African Gazette_ that Mr.
Smith, the railway engineer, favoured by extraordinary luck on a
hunting expedition, has seen one solitary bull elephant not far from
Lake Nakuro! This is something quite out of the ordinary, and Mr.
Smith is to be congratulated. Unfortunately his efforts during many
years to have even one young East African elephant sent to London have
been without any result. A young animal is no longer to be found. In
the same number of this newspaper, under another heading, we read the
report that the export of ivory this year by the Uganda Railway has
been utterly disappointing; the quantity carried has been terribly
small, hardly worth mentioning!
I had a talk lately with a travelling companion who had spent some time
with me in the wilderness ten years ago, and who had just revisited
those distant lands, availing himself of the railway. Alfred Kaiser, a
widely travelled man, recalled to me the life we had lived together,
when there was yet hardly a trace of European influence among the
people of the interior by Lake Victoria. In memory we saw again the
inhabitants of then hardly known Sotikoland receiving us mistrustfully
on their frontier, thousands strong. Their glittering spears sparkle in
the morning sun; chiefs, ministers, and court ladies of the Wakawiróndo
appear in camp in most primitive costume; club-armed warriors regard us
with the most open distrust; cowry shells and artificial pearls form
their costume and are used as their money; sudden attacks and fighting
are quite in the order of the day.
And now, only ten years later, Kaiser has seen the Masai at Lake
Nakuro, English-speaking caricatures of civilisation.
A feeling of something like resentment comes upon the traveller who has
had to pay toll for his journey with the ceaseless sweat of his brow,
when he thinks that now any one can reach Lake Nakuro in a few days
from the coast. It is true that the over-anxious globe-trotter is kept
in check by only too well justified fears of the treacherous malaria
and the sleeping-sickness that has made such terrible progress of late.
Otherwise the railway journey from Mombassa to the Victoria Nyanza, and
then down the Nile to Cairo, would be a much-travelled route.
I have tried to describe, in brief outline, the rapid, unwelcome change
of our time, the result of European civilisation forcing its way in. As
I describe things, so they were half a century ago, and even yet ten
years ago, when I stayed by the shores of Nakuro, and no railway had
yet been made there.
To-day one can no longer find the old spell of the Elelescho there, or
anywhere else where the white man has penetrated.
The traveller probably sees only a shrubby plant.
It covers many a ridge, and the lonely plains of the uplands, and
sends afar its spicy perfume. The botanists call it _Tarchonantus
camphoratus_, L. They class it among the Compositæ.
[Illustration:
_C. G. Schillings, phot._
A HOT DAY IN THE GREAT RIFT VALLEY.]
But here it can no longer exercise any spell.
That has flown far, far away, into the interior. There, where the white
man has not yet come, it still prolongs its existence.
How long, yet will it be before it has entirely departed?
[Illustration: GROUP OF MASAI--THE WARRIOR ON THE LEFT DRESSED IN A
COSTUME IMPROVISED OUT OF A COLOURED BED QUILT.]
[Illustration: ONE OF THE OLDEST “NATURE DOCUMENTS” FROM THE HAND OF
MAN. PREHISTORIC SKETCH OF A MAMMOTH ON A FRAGMENT OF IVORY.
(From L. Reinhardt’s work _Der Mensch zur Eiszeit in Europa_.)]
II
From the Cave-dweller’s Sketch to the Flashlight Photograph
The mysterious charm of wild nature, undisturbed, almost untouched, by
the hand of man,--the charm inherent in all that I have in mind when I
talk of “the spell of the Elelescho”--explains the keen and profound
interest with which my pictures of animal life were received at home.
In these days, when even electricity has been harnessed by men, there
is a feeling that the knell has been sounded of all that is wild,
be it man or beast. And however unpretending and inadequate the
little pictures might be that I had won from the wilderness, yet all
nature-lovers felt that they had here before them authentic, first-hand
records revealing secrets which the eye of man had never before looked
upon, or had had but scant opportunity for studying.
These pictures were the first to show really wild animals in full
freedom, just as they actually live their life on velt and marsh-land,
in bush, forest, air, and water. They showed nature in its unalloyed
reality, and therefore a peculiar stamp of truth and beauty must have
imprinted itself upon them. They came, too, as a surprise, for in many
points the hitherto accepted representations of the animal world and
those given by my photographs did not agree.
Mere subject counts for so much in a picture with most people that
it takes them a long time to appreciate a work of art the subject
of which does not at the first glance appeal to them. This applies
peculiarly to my African photographs. It is not a very easy matter
for the eye to grasp the movements of the varying forms of animal
life in their natural freedom. Often their appearance is so blended
with their surroundings that it requires long practice to distinguish
the individual characteristics of each, the fleeting graces of their
momentary aspects.