the old English sporting spirit is not dead; that the farthest and
wildest hunting grounds of the world, a visit to which demands the
greatest energy and courage, are still sought out by men of the English
race, as in earlier days. England owes a great part of her colonies
to men, eager for enterprise, who as hunters penetrated into unknown
wildernesses; and the English hunter has, thanks to his courage and
determination, always played a great part among strange peoples. The
reckless conduct of travellers in far-off countries and among strange
tribes is often sufficient to give a _whole nation_ a bad character
in the eyes of these people, while a right bearing may make it appear
worthy of their admiration. Philips-Wolley further points out that the
taking of “big bags” of game in far-off hunting grounds[30] should not
be considered merely from the point of view of stay-at-home people,
but from the point of view of those who have special knowledge of the
districts in question.
The time has passed when far-off lands were secured in this way.
But I would wish for the German sportsman that he may, so far as is
possible, visit the splendid hunting grounds that he can now find in
the German colonies, and there become familiar with the chase in forms
that our homeland can no longer offer to him. The more brethren of the
green-coated guild go abroad nowadays, and bring us tidings of the
fauna and of the hunting grounds of the German colonies, the more will
our knowledge of this difficult subject be enlarged, and we shall be in
a better position for working out practical protective regulations for
the preservation of these splendid hunting grounds.
And what a deep charm for the hunter there is in pursuing the chase in
such regions! It is true that circumstances have so greatly changed
in a few decades of years that the old hunters--say those of fifty
years ago--would probably not be able to take the same deep delight in
the sport of to-day that they felt in their own time. It was quite a
different matter to go out to meet the dangerous wild beasts of Africa
with the simple weapons, the muzzle-loaders, of that time. True, the
African hunters, whom Professor Fritsch made acquaintance with in Cape
Colony about the time of the ‘sixties, already possessed long-range
weapons. They used “small-bore rifles” firing an elongated bullet that
carried up to 1,500 yards. These rifles were fitted with ivory sights
and silver sighting-lines, for shooting at night. A hunter named Layard
was at that time famous in Cape Colony for having brought down an
ostrich at 1,750 yards!
Let us follow for once the wanderings of a hunter in East Africa,
and give ourselves up completely to the charm of such a sporting
expedition. No one is better fitted for making himself acquainted with
lands that are remote, difficult of access and unhealthy, than the
sportsman, who, even in such tracts of country, can find enjoyment.
Besides the greater or less delight that the chase itself affords, much
besides that is beautiful and desirable will present itself to him.
When he has got his caravan together he enjoys in the first place the
feeling of primitive untrammelled life in the wilderness. We see,
indeed, how amongst those who belong to the most highly developed
of civilised nations, even in our own days, the need of some dim
reflection of this life makes itself plainly felt. Thus, especially in
America, we see how many dwellers in cities spend some days out ill the
woods and prairies, in order to enjoy there for some time under the
tent the pleasures of camp-life.
In a land which, like Africa, harbours all kinds of dangers, we must
leave all hesitation behind us. In fact, the charm of danger must be
an attraction to the huntsman. He has to justify the confidence of
his followers and of his comrades. The natives who come in contact
with him will by his bearing and conduct form their judgment of all
his compatriots, and of his native land as a whole. So there imposes
itself on him the duty of regarding himself as _a representative of
his nation_. Though he is justified, if it comes to that, in defending
his life even by bloodshed, he will nevertheless seek, as far as is
possible, to enter into friendly relations with the native tribes. In
many districts of Africa the European will traverse, with altogether
superior weapons in his hands, countries whose inhabitants still fight
with nearly the same weapons that were borne by prehistoric tribes.
But notwithstanding this, he must remember that his superiority rests
chiefly on the prestige that the European possesses in presence of the
black man. But this prestige will not suffice, especially at night, to
keep off all attacks. It is therefore necessary that proper precaution
should be the rule. This is in the long run not such an easy matter,
for generally in the midst of apparent peace no one will think of the
possibility of an attack. But it often takes place without warning; and
thefts at night will also sometimes happen. In short, the middle course
between necessary precaution and needless nervousness is not always
easy for the traveller to hit upon.
But all this, to a great extent, adds to the charm of that wild caravan
life. There is something endlessly alluring in thus going out into
the open country with all one’s belongings, pitching one’s camp by
some pleasant place where there is water, and under shady trees, and
wandering, free as the birds, wheresoever the desire or wish of the
moment leads one. Of course, if no shady trees are to be found, if the
water tastes strongly of natron, or looks more like pea-soup than clear
spring-water, if swarms of mosquitoes annoy one in the night, and flies
and other insects in the daytime, all this must be put up with as a
part of this wild life. Free as the birds, we can indeed choose our
way, but with the everlasting restriction that it lies where water is
to be found, and that we can secure supplies.
But with a little good-humour one can get over all this, especially if
one keeps before one’s eyes the fact that there are many worse things
here, such as malaria, dysentery, and all the other numerous tropical
diseases with which these lands are so lavishly supplied. But we could
not find greater enjoyment in the primitive beauty and charm of this
wilderness, even if all this were not so.
It is true that the hunter in Equatorial Africa cannot obtain such
splendid trophies as the stag’s antlers, that marvellous structure
built up by an animal organism, and, according to Röhrig’s striking
researches, renewed again year after year in about eighteen weeks.
But instead there beckon to him other prizes--the mighty horns of the
buffalo, the heavily knotted horns of the eland, the strong spiral
horns of the two species of kudus, the variously shaped horns of the
cow-antelopes, the sword-like horns of the oryx-antelope, all the
beautiful variously shaped antelope and gazelle horns, and many others
that make most delightful trophies, and will be still more highly
valued the more sportsmen go to these distant countries, and the more
these treasures, often so difficult to obtain, are understood. The
mighty weapons of the elephant, that glitter white in the sun, the
uncouth horns from the head of the rhinoceros or the tusks of the
hippopotamus, the head of a giant crocodile bristling with teeth, the
plain and yet so eagerly coveted hide of the King of the Desert, and
the glaringly variegated skin of the leopard--all these are souvenirs
and trophies that have the greatest charm for the hunter; of the
greatest charm and value if he himself has taken them, and not merely
(to use the sharp words with which Roosevelt scourges such practices)
contracted for their capture. The German sportsman must contend for all
these trophies against certain unsportsmanlike elements, such as the
Boers, who unfortunately seem to be now exterminating the wild animals
on Kilimanjaro; but they belong to the sportsman much more than to such
as these. German hunters should not hesitate to take by sportsmanlike
methods their fair share of the stock of big game, and in this way,
as has long been the case in India and Ceylon, a code of customs of
the chase will grow up in the German colonies, suited to the special
circumstances of the country. In a publication by Captain Schlobach,
that is well worth reading, it was recently stated that the military
posts at Olgoss and Sonjo on the Masai uplands were continually at
starvation point, and, in default of other supplies, had often recently
been provisioned entirely with the spoils of the chase.[31] What would
not German sportsmen (who contribute such large sums to the colonies)
have given to be able to shoot these wild animals, and at the same time
to help to spread in our colonies the ideals of the chase as understood
in Germany, and to assist in the general recognition and success of
German sportsmanship!
Our knowledge of the animal world of foreign lands is gradually
increasing to such a satisfactory extent that not only do we find a
general interest taken in the wild life and the hunting grounds of our
colonies, but we shall also be in a position to introduce adequate
measures of protection for this beautiful fauna.
[Illustration:
_C. G. Schillings, phot._
THE NYÍKA: A BIRD’S-EYE VIEW.]
In our colonies much has been lately done towards clearing up the
hitherto hidden secrets of animal life. But if one remembers how
many different opinions there are, even amongst authorities at home
in Germany, with regard to many of the questions relating to our
home fauna, one will pass a more lenient judgment on the many sharp
controversies about matters of this kind in the tropics.
But nothing of value is to be hoped for from controversial strife over
divergent theories. All men who have acquired expert knowledge on these
difficult matters should rather unite in a common task, and strive by
co-operation to obtain some adequate result.
In the wide British colonial possessions in Africa very extensive
reservations have been established, in which no one is allowed to harm
the animals. The practice of making exceptions in favour of certain
officials has not been found to answer, and has been given up. So now
wide districts of British Africa rank as animal sanctuaries.
In German Africa, too, the authorities have tried, as far as they can,
to obtain useful results by similar methods. Unfortunately serious
events of many kinds are daily contributing to the diminution in
numbers of the fauna of German Africa. Thus the war in South-West
Africa is sweeping away the still surviving stock of wild animals as
with an iron broom.
In the face of all this, all parties concerned should take their
share in common action. Our museums should be provided with the
necessary material. Even if our knowledge of the African fauna has made
sufficient progress, it further concerns us to exert an educating and
informing influence on every pioneer of our colonies, so that he may
not come in contact with that beautiful animal world in utter ignorance
of it. Unfortunately we are still greatly wanting in this respect.
However, in recent years a great amount of material has been placed
at the disposal of the museums by our colonial officers, officials,
and private individuals. Many of them have even made important
contributions to our special knowledge of the animal world.
But now, whether it is a question of tracing out the hidden and unknown
life and ways of that equatorial animal world that has come into our
possession, or of investigating the customs and languages of races that
are barely discovered, or of tracking the horrors of tropical diseases
and the germs that excite them and becoming master of that miniature
world of life with the lens and the microscope, or of going into the
wilderness as a sportsman--the men who devote themselves to all these
pursuits will be led onwards by that spell, whose name the reader
guesses, the spell of unchanged primeval conditions and untouched
nature!
May as many as possible of our German sportsmen go forth into our
tropical possessions and yield themselves up to this spell! That which
in our hunting grounds at home speaks to their hearts in the rustling
of the oak and beech woods and on familiar moors and fields, they will
find in a far higher degree in that far-off wilderness under the German
flag. Returning home, may they, working in unison, and by mutually
supplying what each may lack, bring into existence some splendid
memorial of the joys of German sport.
[Illustration: ORYX ANTELOPES TAKING TO FLIGHT.]
VI
The Lonely Wonder-world of the Nyíka
The endless wilderness of the Nyíka presents to the traveller so much
that is strange, beautiful, and wonderful that at times his senses
become wearied of these changing impressions of travel, and a longing
comes over him for the familiar scenes he has learned to love at home.
As though in giant characters written on its rocks, the Nyíka tells
us of the conditions and the life of the past and at the same time of
everyday actualities, giving us its message as well by its snow-covered
volcanic peaks as in the footprints and tracks of the mighty creatures
that wander through it. It is a difficult undertaking to reconstruct
in fancy all the splendours that must once have presented themselves
to the eye in this region. But nevertheless I will tell of what I have
looked upon in the past,--of the many beautiful sights that linger in
my memory and rise up like the shadows of a mirage,--of the delightful
manifestations of its moving life, coming and going on hill and in
valley, as strange, wondrous, and unfamiliar forms reveal themselves
to the astonished spectator.
[Illustration: A VELT HILLOCK. THE SOLITARY TREE WAS FULL OF NESTS OF
WEAVER-BIRDS.]
The mystery of a deep harmonious influence belongs to the mighty
wilderness. It reveals itself in its full beauty to him who has
strenuously acquired a love for it by making a long sojourn in it and
paying to it the tribute it demands.
* * * * *
A stony wilderness extends endlessly on all sides, and the sight ranges
without limit over the expanse that loses itself in mist and cloud. A
barren stony sea, as far as the eye can reach!
But it is not the velt or the African desert that lies below us as we
rise one moment a hundred yards above the surface of the earth and
the next three hundred yards and more. It is the sea of houses that
form the capital of the German Empire.... In a few seconds the view
takes in all the full extent of the mighty city, and then, as if in a
dream, what we have just seen disappears from our sight. Borne by a
breeze, of which we are hardly aware, our balloon sweeps towards the
Baltic Sea.... It is a strange feeling thus to enjoy, thanks to our
lofty point of outlook, an extended view far over the level March of
Brandenburg with its teeming population all below us, a view which,
old as the world is, has been vouchsafed to few mortal men. The city,
with all its human life and activity, lies far below us. Its roar and
tumult, that strange voice of the stony sea, has died away. We begin
to make a long journey only a few hundred feet above the surface of
the earth. Later on we rise, sailing through banks and clouds to a
height of nine thousand feet above the earth, but before this higher
ascent we have time and leisure to take a bird’s-eye view of “all that
creeps and flies.” What an outlook over forest and plain! As we fly
over them, horses grazing in paddocks, cattle on the pastures, for a
moment suggest to me an illusion of the African velt peopled with its
wild life. The eye, again and again fascinated by this prospect as a
whole, can hardly grasp the details. Now our course is over endless
open heaths, over moors and woodlands. The fleet-footed red deer,
frightened by the drag-rope, look up in astonishment and stare at the
strange monster, not knowing whither to turn in flight from such a
menacing apparition. How the strange monster was a few hours later
within a hair’s breadth of burying us in the waves of the Baltic Sea is
another story....
[Illustration:
_C. G. Schillings, phot._
THE SUMMIT OF MOUNT ’NGAPTUK, ABOUT 6,000 FEET HIGH. THE
CLEARNESS OF THE AIR MAKES IT LOOK AS IF THE ASCENT COULD BE
QUICKLY MADE, BUT IT IS A WORK OF SEVERAL HOURS. I CLIMBED IT
IN 1899--THE FIRST ASCENT BY A EUROPEAN. IN THE RAVINE RUNNING
UP ON THE LEFT I FOUND SEVERAL ELEPHANTS. IN THE DRY SEASON
THESE HILLS ARE THE RESORT OF NUMBERS OF RHINOCEROSES.]
How many hundred times, after I had gone back to the Dark Continent,
have I wished for such a lofty observatory, an airship that would
bear me over velt and desert, and from which I could fathom all the
secrets of the animal world of the tropics, instead of having to travel
toilsomely, fettered to the earth, often merely making step after step
automatically in the blazing heat of the sun. When one day such a wish
as this is fulfilled, that animal world in its beauty and splendour
will have to a great extent passed away....
I must, therefore, content myself with lofty observatories of another
kind, that are not unfrequently to be found in the Masai uplands,
in the form of numerous hills and rock masses. These afford splendid
views and pictures of the animal creation to the spectator who waits
patiently on their summits for hours and days, and has the help of
good optical instruments. What life and activity displays itself there
before our eyes under favourable circumstances! Though the wilderness
may appear a desert solitude, bare and empty of all life, let only a
few hours go by and the sun change its position a little, and already
one sees movement under the trees and bushes that have been till now
casting deep shadows. Then with measured steps, prudently regardful
of their safety, all kinds of animals come forth to graze. We see the
different wild species appearing, at first a few individuals, and soon
in greater or smaller herds.
How far the eye carries in this clear transparent atmosphere, and what
a wide tract of country we are able to overlook! In this tropical
brightness, after weeks and months, and even years, I could not get
rid of the perplexing illusion as to distances. The tract of country
that my sight could command seemed always much less extensive than it
really was. And again, we were continually being misled by shimmering
reflections of the air, so that we took gnus for elephants, ostriches
for rhinoceroses, zebras for wild asses, and we might even hold to our
mistaken view for a considerable time. He who wants to watch the living
animals in this way from a lofty point of observation, must be able to
keep on persistently for hours. Thus only will the scene piece by
piece become familiar to him. Thus only will all the moving life below
him very gradually combine into one splendid and intelligible picture.
[Illustration:
_C. G. Schillings, phot._
ONE OF MY LOOK-OUT PLACES ON THE PLATEAU BETWEEN KILIMANJARO AND MOUNT
MERU.]
On the way to my look-out hill I pass thousands of the tracks made by
wild animals.
At the very outset, the traveller from northern lands sees a most
surprising sight in those hundreds of thousands of tracks made by wild
animals, and faithfully preserved for weeks and even for longer periods
in the dry season on the plains of Africa. The giants of the animal
world leave behind them their mighty footprints, often for nearly
a year, holes in which a man will sometimes break his leg. But the
footprints of the smaller animals also last a long time on velt and
plain. And the language of the wilderness rises to a most effectual
appeal to our senses when these tracks are associated with the marked
tarry scent of the waterbuck in the bush, the breath of the great wild
herds on the plain, the strong scent left by elephant or rhinoceros in
the primeval forest and in the sultry thickets, and the scent of the
buffalo among the reed-beds.
There is often a chaos of tracks, a wild maze of paths trodden flat
as a barn-floor, crossing each other, and then again uniting, so that
the idea of tame herds, mentioned before as at times suggested, can no
longer hold good.
To-day we have again waited patiently to see the wilderness gradually
come to life in the hours of the afternoon. And we have not been
disappointed.
Out from the shadows of scattered groups of trees there march
great herds of the white-bearded gnus, that remind one so of small
buffaloes. Slowly they make their way to the more open grazing ground
and disperse themselves over it. But careful watch is kept by a few of
them--the bulls that lead the herds, experienced old fellows! Under
their guardianship the herd feels itself perfectly safe. There is
also an unusually large drove of the wonderfully graceful impallah
or black-tailed antelope. What a remarkable contrast is presented
as the herds mingle together! The gnus, strongly built, haughty in
their bearing, conscious of their strength against all animal foes,
stand out wonderfully amongst their almost too graceful comrades, the
impallah-antelopes. We can plainly distinguish that the females and
those that are accompanied by young ones keep more together, while the
bucks of the impallah-antelopes keep apart and look after their safety.
Now a dark black mass slowly separates itself from a large group of
trees. It is followed by several forms that do not so easily catch the
eye. Our field-glasses tell us that a small flock of ostriches has come
to mix with the wild species already noted. Now there are perhaps well
over three hundred head of these three kinds of wild animals united
together in one gathering. They are used to come together in the most
friendly way, without apparently taking much notice of each other. For
a long time the sight of these creatures, all so different, holds us
fascinated. But our optical instruments must restlessly explore the
distance for new sights of the animal kingdom; and at the same time
there are even better instruments of investigation at work--the
eyes of my black companions.
[Illustration:
_C. G. Schillings, phot._
HERD OF BLACK-HOOFED ANTELOPES.]
[Illustration:
_C. G. Schillings, phot._
A HERD OF BLACK-HOOFED ANTELOPES PHOTOGRAPHED AFTER STALKING THEM WITH
THE CAMERA FOR HALF AN HOUR.]
“Pharu, bwana!” now whispers one of my men, and points cautiously with
his arm down to a certain point on the plain. His caution, however, is
not necessary, for it is at a distance of at least a thousand yards
that his sharp eyes have distinguished the outlines of two almost
invisible rhinoceroses that are moving slowly through a group of
acacias. What an effect that word “pharu” has upon me! For once more
there has come close to me one of those strange, mighty beings that
really belong to a time long passed, and which, like the elephant,
the giraffe, the zebra, the gnu, and a few other forms, lend to the
wilderness the charm of primeval days. Naturally still stronger is
the effect of the cry of “Tembo!” on the hunter and the watcher amid
such scenes. “Elephant!” This name electrifies even the weariest
traveller. But when the word is “Twigga!” (“Giraffe!”)--even here in
Europe the strange, slender-necked creature, moving in some acacia wood
all flooded with the sunlight, comes up bodily before me--bodily and
plainly to be seen, but alas, only in imagination!
After trying for a minute, I succeed in getting the massive creatures
sharply defined in the middle of the field of my glass. But the clear
view of them is something that comes and goes. Several times it
looks as if the velt had swallowed them up; then they suddenly come
into sight again, being specially visible to the eye when they show
themselves sideways. Seen from front or rear, particularly when at
rest, they are all but invisible. We are in luck; the rhinoceroses are
ambling towards us, and come nearer and nearer, slowly following the
line of some hollows in the ground.