THE FIRST HALF OF THE VOYAGE. FROM NAPLES TO THE RED SEA, WITH A FEW
SIDE LIGHTS ON INDIAN OCEAN TRAVEL
Lion hunting had not been fraught with any great hardships or dangers up
to this time. The Mediterranean was as smooth as a mill-pond, the Suez
Canal was free from any tempestuous rolling, and the Red Sea was placid
and hot. After some days we were in the Indian Ocean, plowing lazily
along and counting the hours until we reached Mombasa. Perhaps after
that the life of a lion hunter would be less tranquil and calm.
The _Adolph Woermann_ was a six-thousand-three-hundred-ton ship, three
years old, and so heavily laden with guns and ammunition and steel rails
for the Tanga Railway that it would hardly roll in a hurricane. There
were about sixty first-class passengers on board and a fair number in
the second class. These passengers represented a dozen or so different
nationalities, and were bound for all sorts of places in East, Central,
and South Africa. Some were government officials going out to their
stations, some were army officers, some were professional hunters, and
some were private hunters going out "for" to shoot.
There were also a number of women on board and some children. I don't
know how many children there were, but in the early morning there seemed
to be a great number.
These Indian Ocean steamers are usually filled with an interesting lot
of passengers. At first you may only speculate as to who and what they
are and whither they are bound, but as the days go by you get acquainted
with many of them and find out who nearly everybody is and all about
him. On this steamer there were several interesting people. First in
station and importance was Sir Percy Girouard, the newly appointed
governor of British East Africa, who was going out to Nairobi to take
his position. Sir Percy is a splendid type of man, only about forty-two
years old, but with a career that has been filled with brilliant
achievements. He was born in Canada and was knighted in 1900. He looks
as Colonel Roosevelt looked ten years ago, and, in spite of a firm,
definite personality of great strength, is also courteous and kindly. He
has recently been the governor of northern Nigeria, and before that time
served in South Africa and the Soudan. It was of him that Lord Kitchener
said "the Soudan Railway would never have been built without his
services."
The new governor was accompanied by two staff officers, one a Scotchman
and the other an Irishman, and both of them with the clean, healthy look
of the young British army officer. There would be a big reception at
Mombasa, no doubt, with bands a-playing and fireworks popping, when the
ship arrived with the new executive.
[Photograph: By courtesy of W.D. Boyce. "Crossing the Line"
Ceremonies]
[Photograph: Mr. Stephenson, Mr. and Mrs. Akeley and Mr. McCutcheon.
Courtesy of Boyce Balloonagraph Expedition]
[Drawing: _Before and After Outfitting_]
There were also several officials with high-sounding titles who were
going out to their stations in German East Africa. These gentlemen were
mostly accompanied by wives and babies and between them they imparted a
spirited scene of domesticity to the life on shipboard. The effect of a
man wheeling a baby carriage about the deck was to make one think of
some peaceful place far from the deck of a steamer.
Little Tim was the life of the ship. He was a little boy aged eighteen
months, who began life at Sombra, in Nyassaland, British Central Africa.
Just now he was returning from England with his father and mother.
Little Tim had curly hair, looked something like a brownie, and was
brimming over with energy and curiosity every moment that he was awake.
If left alone five minutes he was quite likely to try to climb up the
rigging. Consequently he was never left alone, and the decks were
constantly echoing with a fond mother's voice begging him not to "do
that," or to "come right here, Tim." One of Tim's chief diversions was
to divest himself of all but his two nearest articles of wear and sit in
the scuppers with the water turned on. A crowd of passengers was usually
grouped around him and watched his manoeuvers with intense interest.
He was probably photographed a hundred times and envied by everybody on
board. It was so fearfully hot in the Red Sea that to be seated in
running water with almost no clothes on seemed about the nicest possible
way to pass the time.
[Drawing: _Little Tim_]
There was a professional elephant hunter on board. He was a quiet,
reserved sort of man, pleasant, and not at all bloodthirsty in
appearance. He had spent twenty years shooting in Africa, and had killed
three hundred elephants. On his last trip, during which he spent nearly
four years in the Congo, he secured about two and one-half tons of
ivory. This great quantity of tusks, worth nearly five dollars a pound,
brought him over twenty thousand dollars, after paying ten per cent. to
the Congo government. The Belgians place no limit upon the number of
elephants one may shoot, just so they get their rake-off. In British
territory, however, sportsmen are limited to only two elephants a year
to those holding licenses to shoot. Our elephant hunter friend was now
on his way back to shoot some more.
[Drawing: _The Elephant Hunter and His Bag_]
There was another interesting character on board who caused many of us
to stop and think. He was a young British army officer who was mauled by
a lioness several months ago in Somaliland. He now walked with a decided
limp and was likely to lose his commission in the army because of
physical infirmities. He was cheerful, pleasant, and looked hopefully
forward to a time when he could have another go at a lion. This is the
way the thing happened: Last March he was shooting in Somaliland and ran
across a lioness. He shot her, but failed to disable her. She
immediately charged, chewed up his leg, arm and shoulder, and was then
killed by his Somali gunbearer. He was days from any help. He dressed
his own wounds and the natives tried to carry him to the nearest
settlement. Finally his bandages were exhausted, the natives deserted,
and it was only after frightful suffering that he reached help. In three
weeks blood poisoning set in, as is usual after the foul teeth of a lion
have entered the flesh, and for several months he was close to death.
Now he was up and about, cheerful and sunny, but a serious object lesson
to the lion hunters bound for the lair of the lion.
In the smoking-room of the _Adolph Woermann_ was a bronze bust of Mr.
Woermann presented by himself. Whether he meant to perpetuate his own
memory is not vital to the story. The amusing feature lies in the fact
that some irreverent passenger, whose soul was dead to the sacredness of
art, put a rough slouch hat on Mr. Woermann one night, with
side-splitting results. Mr. W. is a man with a strong, intelligent
German face, something like that of Prince Henry, and in the statue
appears with bare neck and shoulders. The addition of a rakish slouch
hat produced a startling effect, greatly detracting from the strictly
artistic, but adding much to the interest of the bust. It looked very
much as though he had been ashore at Aden and had come back on board
feeling the way a man does when he wants his hat on the side of his
head. Still, what can a shipowner expect who puts a nude bust of himself
in his own ship?
[Drawing: _Having Fun with Mr. Woermann_]
[Drawing: _An African Hair-Cut_]
The ship's barber was the Associated Press of the ship's company, and
his shop was the Park Row of the vessel. He had plenty of things to talk
about and more than enough words to express them. Every vague rumor that
floated about was sure to find lodgment in the barber shop, just as a
piece of driftwood finally reaches the beach. He knew all the secrets of
the voyage and told them freely.
One day I went down to have my hair trimmed. He asked if I'd have it
done African style. "How's that?" I inquired. "Shaved," said he, and
"No," said I. A number of the Germans on board were adopting the African
style of hair-cut, and the effect was something depressing. Every bump
that had lain dormant under a mat of hair at once assumed startling
proportions, and red ears that were retiring suddenly stuck out from the
pale white scalp like immense flappers. A devotee of this school of
tonsorial art had a peeled look that did not commend him to favorable
mention in artistic circles. But the flies, they loved it, so it was an
ill wind that blew no good.
The Red Sea has a well-earned reputation of being hot. We expected a
certain amount of sultriness, but not in such lavish prodigality as it
was delivered. The first day out from Suez found the passengers peeling
off unnecessary clothes, and the next day found the men sleeping out on
deck. There wasn't much sleeping. The band concert lasted until
ten-thirty, then the three Germans who were trying to drink all the beer
on board gave a nightly saengerfest that lasted until one o'clock, and
then the men who wash down the decks appeared at four. Between one and
four it was too hot to sleep, so that there wasn't much restful repose
on the ship until we got out of the Red Sea.
[Drawing: _We Slept on Deck in the Red Sea_]
Down at the end of the Red Sea are the straits of Bab-el-Mandeb. In the
middle of the straits is the island of Perim, a sun-baked, bare and
uninviting chunk of land that has great strategic value and little else.
It absolutely commands the entrance to the Red Sea, and, naturally, is
British. Nearly all strategic points in the East are British, from
Gibraltar to Singapore. A lighthouse, a signal station, and a small
detachment of troops are the sole points of interest in Perim, and as
one rides past one breathes a fervent prayer of thanksgiving that he is
not one of the summer colony on Perim.
They tell a funny story about an English officer who was sent to Perim
to command the detachment. At the end of six months an official order
was sent for his transfer, because no one is expected to last longer
than six months without going crazy or committing suicide. To the great
surprise of the war office a letter came back stating that the officer
was quite contented at Perim, that he liked the peace and quiet of the
place, and begged that he be given leave to remain another six months.
The war office was amazed, and it gladly gave him the extension. At the
end of a year the same exchange of letters occurred and again he was
given the extension.
I don't know how long this continued, but in the end the war office
discovered that the officer had been in London having a good time while
a sergeant-major attended to the sending of the biannual letter. I
suppose the officer divided his pay with the sergeant-major. If he did
not he was a most ungrateful man.
The _Adolph Woermann_ is a German ship and is one of the best ones that
go down the east coast. Its passengers go to the British ports in
British East Africa, to the German ports in German East Africa, and to
several other ports in South Africa. Consequently the passengers are
about equally divided between the English and the Germans, with an
occasional Portuguese bound for Delagoa Bay or Mozambique.
When we first went aboard our party of four desired to secure a table by
ourselves. We were unsuccessful, however, and found it shared by a
peaceful old gentleman with whiskers. By crossing with gold the palm of
the chief steward, the old gentleman was shifted to a seat on the first
officer's right. Later we discovered that he was Sir Thomas Scanlon, the
first premier of South Africa, the man who gave Cecil Rhodes his start.
There were many interesting elements which made the cruise of the
_Woermann_ unusual. Mr. Boyce and his party of six were on board and
were on their way to photograph East Africa. They took moving pictures
of the various deck sports, also a bird's-eye picture of the ship, taken
from a camera suspended by a number of box kites, and also gave two
evenings of cinematograph entertainment.
There were also poker games, bridge games, and other forms of seaside
sports, all of which contributed to the gaiety of life in the Indian
Ocean. In the evening one might have imagined oneself at a London
music-hall, in the daytime at the Olympian games, and in the early
morning out on the farm. There were a number of chickens on board and
each rooster seemed obliged to salute the dawn with a fanfare of
crowing. They belonged to the governor and were going out to East Africa
to found a colony of chickens. Some day, years hence, the proud
descendents of these chickens will boast that their ancestors came over
on the _Woermann_, just as some people boast about their ancestors on
the _Mayflower_.
[Drawing: _Mauled by a Lion_]
When we crossed the equator, a committee of strong-arm men baptized
those of the passengers who had never before crossed the line. Those who
had crossed the line entered into the fun of the occasion with much
spirit and enthusiasm.
On the hottest day of the trip, just as we left Suez, when the mercury
was sputtering from the heat, we heard that the north pole had been
discovered. It cooled us off considerably for a while.