The Happy
Hunting-Grounds
[Illustration: Arab sheikhs who had ridden in, camel-back, from the
desert to pay their respects]
The
Happy Hunting-Grounds
By
Kermit Roosevelt
Author of “War in the Garden of Eden”
Illustrated from Photographs by the Author
London
Hodder & Stoughton
1920
Copyright, 1912, 1920, by Charles Scribner’s Sons, for the
United States of America
Printed by the Scribner Press
New York, U. S. A.
TO
THE MISTRESS OF SAGAMORE
Contents
PAGE
I. THE HAPPY HUNTING-GROUNDS 3
II. IN QUEST OF SABLE ANTELOPE 53
III. THE SHEEP OF THE DESERT 71
IV. AFTER MOOSE IN NEW BRUNSWICK 103
V. TWO BOOK-HUNTERS IN SOUTH AMERICA 123
VI. SETH BULLOCK--SHERIFF OF THE BLACK HILLS COUNTRY 151
Illustrations
Arab sheikhs who had ridden in, camel-back, from the
desert to pay their respects _Frontispiece_
FACING
PAGE
Sir Alfred Pease’s sketch of our first giraffe hunt 24
Father and R. H. Munro Ferguson at the Elkhorn Ranch,
after the return from a successful hunting trip 34
Facsimile of a picture letter by father 38
Putting the tape on a tusker 42
Launching a newly made dugout on the Dúvida 44
A relic of the Portuguese occupation; an old well beside
the trail 56
The Death Dance of the Wa Nyika children in memory
of the chieftain’s little son 58
Across the bay from Mombasa; the porters ready to
shoulder loads and march 66
A desert camp in old Mexico 78
Casares on his white mule 88
Making fast the sheep’s head 96
A noonday halt on the way down river, returning from
the hunting country 106
Bringing out the trophies of the hunt 118
The Captain makes advances to a little Indian girl 152
A morning’s bag of prairie chicken in South Dakota 170
I
The Happy
Hunting-Grounds
I
THE HAPPY HUNTING-GROUNDS
There is a universal saying to the effect that it is when men are off
in the wilds that they show themselves as they really are. As is the
case with the majority of proverbs there is much truth in it, for
without the minor comforts of life to smooth things down, and with
even the elemental necessities more or less problematical, the inner
man has an unusual opportunity of showing himself--and he is not
always attractive. A man may be a pleasant companion when you always
meet him clad in dry clothes, and certain of substantial meals at
regulated intervals, but the same cheery individual may seem a very
different person when you are both on half rations, eaten cold, and
have been drenched for three days--sleeping from utter exhaustion,
cramped and wet.
My father had done much hunting with many and varied friends. I
have often heard him say of some one whom I had thought an ideal
hunting companion: “He’s a good fellow, but he was always fishing
about in the pot for the best piece of meat, and if there was but
one partridge shot, he would try to roast it for himself. If there
was any delicacy he wanted more than his share.” Things assume such
different proportions in the wilds; after two months living on
palm-tree tops and monkeys, a ten-cent can of condensed milk bought
for three dollars from a rubber explorer far exceeds in value the
greatest delicacy of the season to the ordinary citizen who has a
varied and sufficient menu at his command every day in the year.
Even as small children father held us responsible to the law of the
jungle. He would take us out on camping trips to a neck of land four
or five miles across the bay from home. We would row there in the
afternoon, the boats laden with blankets and food. Then we would
make a driftwood fire on which to fry our supper--usually bacon and
chicken. I do not know whether it was the, to us, wild romance of our
position, or the keen appetite from the row, but never since then
have I eaten such bacon. Not even the smallest child was allowed to
show a disposition to grab, or select his pieces of chicken--we were
taught that that was an unpardonable offense out camping, and might
cause the culprit to be left behind next time. And woe to any one
who in clumsily walking about kicked sand into the frying-pan. After
supper we would heap more driftwood on the fire, and drape ourselves
in our blankets. Then we would stretch ourselves out in the sand
while father would tell us ghost stories. The smallest of us lay
within reach of father where we could touch him if the story became
too vivid for our nerves and we needed the reassuring feel of his
clothes to bring us back to reality. There was, however, a delicious
danger in being too near him. In stories in which the “haunt” seized
his victim, father generally illustrated the action by making a grab
at the nearest child. After the stories were finished we rolled up
in our blankets and, thoroughly permeated with sand, we slept until
the first faint light of dawn. Then there was the fire to be built
up, and the breakfast cooked, and the long row home. As we rowed we
chanted a ballad, usually of a seafaring nature; it might be “The
Rhyme of the Three Sealers,” or “The Galley Slave,” or “Simon Danz.”
Father taught us these and many more, _viva voce_, when he was
dressing for dinner. A child was not taken along on these “campings
out” until he was six or seven. They took place three or four times
a summer, and continued until after the African expedition. By that
time we were most of us away at work, scattered far and wide.
Father always threw himself into our plays and romps when we were
small as if he were no older than ourselves, and with all that he
had seen and done and gone through, there was never any one with so
fresh and enthusiastic an attitude. His wonderful versatility and
his enormous power of concentration and absorption were unequalled.
He could turn from the consideration of the most grave problems of
state to romp with us children as if there were not a worry in the
world. Equally could he bury himself in an exhaustive treatise on the
_History of the Mongols_ or in the _Hound of the Baskervilles_.
Until father sold his ranches in North Dakota he used to go out West
each year for a month or so. Unfortunately, we were none of us old
enough to be taken along, but we would wait eagerly for his letters,
and the recipient of what we called a picture letter gloried in the
envy of the rest until another mail placed a substitute upon the
pedestal. In these picture letters father would sketch scenes and
incidents about the ranch or on his short hunting trips. We read most
of them to pieces, unluckily, but the other day I came across one of
the non-picture letters that father wrote me:
August 30, ’96.
Out on the prairie.
I must send my little son a letter too, for his father loves
him very much. I have just ridden into camp on Muley,[1] with a
prongbuck strapped behind the saddle; I was out six hours before
shooting it. Then we all sat down on the ground in the shade of the
wagon and had dinner, and now I shall clean my gun, and then go and
take a bath in a big pool nearby, where there is a large flat stone
on the edge, so I don’t have to get my feet muddy. I sleep in the
buffalo hide bag and I never take my clothes off when I go to bed!
By the time we were twelve or thirteen we were encouraged to plan
hunting trips in the West. Father never had time to go with us,
but we would be sent out to some friend of his, like Captain Seth
Bullock, to spend two or three weeks in the Black Hills, or perhaps
we would go after duck and prairie-chicken with Marvin Hewitt.
Father would enter into all the plans and go down with us to the
range to practise with rifle or shotgun, and when we came back we
would go over every detail of the trip with him, revelling in his
praise when he felt that we had acquitted ourselves well.
Father was ever careful to correct statements to the effect that he
was a crack shot. He would explain how little being one had to do
with success and achievement as a hunter. Perseverance, skill in
tracking, quick vision, endurance, stamina, and a cool head, coupled
with average ability as a marksman, produced far greater results
than mere skill with a rifle--unaccompanied to any marked extent by
the other attributes. It was the sum of all these qualities, each
above the average, but none emphasized to an extraordinary degree,
that accounted for father’s great success in the hunting-field. He
would point out many an excellent shot at a target who was of no use
against game. Sometimes this would be due to lack of nerve. Father
himself was equally cool and unconcerned whether his quarry was a
charging lion or a jack-rabbit; with, when it came to the question of
scoring a hit, the resultant advantage in the size of the former as
a target. In other instances a good man at the range was not so good
in the field because he was accustomed to shooting under conventional
and regulated conditions, and fell down when it came to shooting
under disadvantageous circumstances--if he had been running and were
winded, if he were hungry or wet, or tired, or feeling the sun, if
he were uncertain of the wind or the range. Sometimes, of course, a
crack shot possesses all the other qualities; such is the case with
Stewart Edward White, whom Cuninghame classified as the best shot
with whom he had hunted in all his twenty-five years in the wilds.
Father shot on a par with Cuninghame, and a good deal better than I,
though not as well as Tarleton.
I have often heard father regret the fact that he did not care for
shooting with the shotgun. He pointed out that it was naturally
the most accessible and least expensive form of hunting. His
eyesight made it almost impossible for him to attain much skill
with a shotgun, and although as a boy and young man he went off
after duck for sport, in later years he never used a shotgun except
for collecting specimens or shooting for the pot. He continually
encouraged us to learn to shoot with the gun. In a letter he wrote me
to Europe when I was off after chamois he said: “I have played tennis
a little with both Archie and Quentin, and have shot with the rifle
with Archie and seen that he has practised shotgun shooting with
Seaman.”
When my brother and myself were ten and eight, respectively, father
took us and four of our cousins of approximately the same ages to the
Great South Bay for a cruise, with some fishing and bird-shooting
thrown in, as the guest of Regis Post. It was a genuine sacrifice
on father’s part, for he loathed sailing, detested fishing, and
was, to say the least, lukewarm about bird-shooting. Rowing was
the only method of progression by water for which he cared. The
trip was a great success, however, and father enjoyed it more than
he anticipated, for with the help of our host he instructed us in
caring for ourselves and our firearms. I had a venerable 12-bore
pin-fire gun which was the first weapon my father ever owned. It was
usually known in the family as the “rust bore” because in the course
of its eventful career it had become so pitted and scarred with
rust that you could put in as much time as you wished cleaning and
oiling without the slightest effect. I stood in no little awe of the
pin-fire because of its recoil when fired, and as I was in addition
a miserably poor shot, my bag on the Great South Bay trip was not
large. It consisted of one reedbird, which father with infinite pains
and determination at length succeeded in enabling me to shoot. I am
sure he never spent more time and effort on the most difficult stalk
after some coveted trophy in the West or in Africa.
Father’s hunting experiences had been confined to the United States,
but he had taken especial interest in reading about Africa, the
sportsman’s paradise. When we were small he would read us incidents
from the hunting books of Roualeyn Gordon Cumming, or Samuel Baker,
or Drummond, or Baldwin. These we always referred to as “I stories,”
because they were told in the first person, and when we were sent to
bed we would clamor for just one more, a petition that was seldom
denied. Before we were old enough to appreciate the adventures we
were shown the pictures, and through Cornwallis Harris’s beautiful
colored prints in the _Portraits of Game and Wild Animals of Southern
Africa_ we soon learned to distinguish the great beasts of Africa.
The younger Gordon Cumming came to stay with us at Sagamore, and when
father would get him to tell us hunting incidents from his own varied
career, we listened enthralled to a really living “I story.” To us he
was known as the “Elephant Man,” from his prowess in the pursuit of
the giant pachyderm.
Then there was also the “Shark Man.” He was an Australian who told us
most thrilling tales of encounters with sharks witnessed when among
the pearl-divers. I remember vividly his description of seeing a
shark attack one of the natives working for him. The man was pulled
aboard only after the shark had bitten a great chunk from his side
and exposed his heart, which they could see still beating. He said,
“Master, master, big fish,” before he died.
The illustrations in Millais’s _Breath from the Veldt_ filled us with
delight, and to this day I know of no etching that affects me as
does the frontispiece by the author’s father. It is called the “Last
Trek.” An old hunter is lying dead beside his ox-wagon; near him
squat two of his Kafir boys, and in the distance graze herds of zebra
and hartebeeste and giraffe.
Of the mighty hunters that still survived at that time, father
admired most Mr. F. C. Selous. His books he knew almost by heart.
Whenever Selous came to the United States he would stay with us, and
father would sit up till far into the night talking of wild life
in the open. Selous, at sixty-five, enlisted in the late war as a
private; he rose to be captain, and was decorated with the D. S. O.
for gallantry, before he fell, fighting the Germans in East Africa.
No one could have devised a more fitting end for the gallant old
fellow than to die at the head of his men, in a victorious battle
on those plains he had roamed so often and loved so well, fighting
against the worst and most dangerous beast of his generation.
In 1887 father founded a hunting club called the “Boone and Crockett”
after two of the most mighty hunters of America. No one was entitled
to membership who had not brought down in fair chase three species
of American big game. The membership was limited to a hundred and
I well remember my father’s pride when my brother and I qualified
and were eventually elected members. The club interests itself
particularly in the conservation of wild life, and the establishment
of game refuges. Mr. Selous and other English hunters were among the
associate members.
In the summer of 1908 my father told me that when his term in the
White House ended the following spring, he planned to make a trip to
Africa, and that if I wished to do so I could accompany him. There
was no need to ask whether I wanted to go. At school when we were
writing compositions, mine almost invariably took the form of some
imaginary journey across the “Dark Continent.” Still, father had ever
made it a practice to talk to us as if we were contemporaries. He
would never order or even tell us to follow a certain line; instead,
he discussed it with us, and let us draw our own conclusions. In
that way we felt that while we had his unreserved backing, we were
yet acting on our own initiative, and were ourselves responsible
for the results. If a boy is forced to do a thing he often makes
but a half-hearted attempt to succeed, and lays his failure to the
charge of the person who forced him, although he might well have come
through with flying colors had he felt that he was acting on his own
responsibility. In his discussions with us, father could of course
shape our opinions in what he thought the proper mould.
In like manner, when it came to taking me to Africa father wanted me
to go, but he also wanted me to thoroughly understand the pro’s and
con’s. He explained to me that it was a holiday that he was allowing
himself at fifty, after a very busy life--that if I went I would
have to make up my mind that my holiday was coming at the beginning
of my life, and be prepared to work doubly hard to justify both him
and myself for having taken it. He said that the great danger lay in
my being unsettled, but he felt that taken rightly the experience
could be made a valuable asset instead of a liability. After we had
once finished the discussion and settled that I was to go, father
never referred to it again. He then set about preparing for the
expedition. Mr. Edward North Buxton was another African hunter whom
he greatly admired, and it was to him and to Selous that he chiefly
turned for aid in making his plans. It was often said of father that
he was hasty and inclined to go off at half-cock. There was never any
one who was less so. He would gather his information and make his
preparations with painstaking care, and then when the moment came
to act he was thoroughly equipped and prepared to do so with that
lightning speed that his enemies characterized as rash hot-headedness.
Father always claimed that it was by discounting and guarding against
all possible causes of failure that he won his successes. His last
great battle, that for preparedness for the part that “America the
Unready” would have to play in the World War, was true to his life
creed. For everything he laid his plans in advance, foreseeing as far
as was humanly possible each contingency to be encountered.
For the African expedition he made ready in every way. I was at the
time at Harvard, and almost every letter brought some reference to
preparations. One day it would be: “The Winchester rifles came out
for trial and all of them were sighted wrong. I sent them back with
rather an acid letter.” Then again: “You and I will be so rusty when
we reach Sir Alfred Pease’s ranch that our first efforts at shooting
are certain to be very bad. In March we will practise at Oyster Bay
with the 30-30 until we get what I would call the ‘rifle sense’ back
again, and this will make it easier for us when, after a month’s sea
trip, we take up the business of hunting.”
A group of thirty or forty of the most famous zoologists and
sportsmen presented my father with a heavy, double-barrelled gun.
“At last I have tried the double-barrelled Holland Elephant rifle.
It is a perfect beauty and it shoots very accurately, but of course
the recoil is tremendous, and I fired very few shots. I shall get
you to fire it two or three times at a target after we reach Africa,
just so that you shall be thoroughly familiar with it, if, or when,
you use it after big game. There is no question that except under
extraordinary circumstances it would be the best weapon for elephant,
rhino, and buffalo. I think the 405 Winchester will be as good for
everything else.”
“About all my African things are ready now, or will be in a few
days. I suppose yours are in good trim also [a surreptitious dig at
a somewhat lackadaisical son.] I am pursuing my usual plan of taking
all the precautions in advance.”
A few days later came another reference to the Holland & Holland:
“The double-barrelled four-fifty shot beautifully, but I was
paralyzed at the directions which accompanied it to the effect that
two shots must always be fired in the morning before starting, as
otherwise from the freshly oiled barrels the first shot would go
high. This is all nonsense and I shall simply have to see that the
barrels are clean of the oil.” The recoil of the big gun was so
severe that it became a standing joke as to whether we did not fear
it more than a charging elephant!
Father gave the closest attention to every detail of the equipment.
The first provision lists prepared by his friends in England were
drawn up on a presidential scale with champagne and pâté de foies
gras and all sorts of luxuries. These were blue-pencilled and two
American staples substituted--baked beans and canned tomatoes. Father
always retained the appreciation of canned tomatoes gained in the
early ranching days in the West. He would explain how delicious he
had found it in the Bad Lands after eating the tomatoes to drink the
juice from the can. In hunting in a temperate climate such as our
West, a man can get along with but very little, and it is difficult
to realize that a certain amount of luxury is necessary in the
tropics to maintain oneself fit. Then, too, in Africa the question
of transportation was fairly simple--and almost everywhere we were
able to keep ourselves and the porters amply supplied with fresh
meat. Four years later during the descent of the Dúvida--the “River
of Doubt”--we learned to our bitter cost what it meant to travel
in the tropics as lightly equipped as one could, with but little
hardship, in the north. It was not, however, through our own lack of
forethought, but due rather to the necessities and shifting chances
of a difficult and dangerous exploring expedition.
Even if it is true as Napoleon said, that an army marches on its
belly, still, it won’t go far unless its feet are properly shod,
and since my father had a skin as tender as a baby’s, he took
every precaution that his boots should fit him properly and not
rub. “The modified duffle-bags came all right. I suppose we will
get the cotton-soled shoes, but I do not know. How do you like the
rubber-soled shoes? Don’t you think before ordering other pairs it
would be as well to wait until you see the army shoes here, which are
light and somehow look as if they were more the kind you ordinarily
use? How many pairs have you now for the African trip, and how many
more do you think you want?”
Father was fifty years old in the October before we left for Africa,
and the varied experiences of his vigorous life had, as he used to
say, battered and chipped him. One eye was to all intents useless
from the effects of a boxing-match, and from birth he had been so
astigmatic as to be absolutely unable to use a rifle and almost
unable to find his way in the woods without his glasses. He never
went off without eight or ten pairs so distributed throughout his kit
as to minimize the possibility of being crippled through any ordinary
accident. Even so, any one who has worn glasses in the tropics knows
how easily they fog over, and how hopeless they are in the rains. It
was a continual source of amazement to see how skilfully father had
discounted this handicap in advance and appeared to be unhampered by
it.
Another serious threat lay in the leg that had been injured when the
carriage in which he was driving was run down by a trolley-car, and
the secret service man with him was killed. In September, 1908, he
wrote me from Washington: “I have never gotten over the effects of
the trolley-car accident six years ago, when, as you will remember,
they had to cut down to the shin bone. The shock permanently damaged
the bone, and if anything happens there is always a chance of trouble
which would be serious. Before I left Oyster Bay, while riding, I
got a rap on the shin bone from a branch. This was either the cause
or the occasion of an inflammation, which had grown so serious when
I got back here that Doctor Rixey had to hastily take it in hand.
For a couple of days it was uncertain whether we would not have to
have another operation and remove some of the bones of the leg, but
fortunately the doctor got it in hand all right, and moreover it has
enabled me to learn just what I ought to do if I am threatened with
similar trouble in Africa.”
His activity, however, was little hampered by his leg, for a few
weeks later he wrote: “I have done very little jumping myself,
and that only of the small jumps up to four feet, because it is
evident that I have got to be pretty careful of my leg, and that an
accident of at all a serious character might throw me out of gear
for the African trip. This afternoon by the way, Archie Butt and I
took a scramble down Rock Creek. It was raining and the rocks were
slippery, and at one point I slipped off into the creek, but merely
bruised myself in entirely safe places, not hurting my leg at all.
When we came to the final and stiffest cliff climb, it was so dark
that Archie couldn’t get up.” From which it may be seen that neither
endurance nor skill suffered as a result of the accident to the leg.
Still, as Bret Harte says, “We always wink with the weaker eye,”
and when anything went wrong, the leg was sure to be implicated.
Father suffered fearfully with it during the descent of the River
of Doubt. One of the most constant pictures of father that I retain
is at Sagamore after dinner on the piazza. He would draw his chair
out from the roofed-over part to where he could see the moon and the
stars. When things were black he would often quote Jasper Petulengro
in Borrow’s _Lavengro_: “Life is sweet, brother.... There’s day and
night, brother, both sweet things; sun, moon, and stars, all sweet
things; ... and likewise there’s a wind on the heath,” and would add:
“Yes, there’s always the wind on the heath.” From where he sat he
looked across the fields to the dark woods, and over the tree-tops
to the bay with the changing twinkling lights of the small craft;
across the bay to the string of lamps along the causeway leading
to Centre Island, and beyond that again Long Island Sound with
occasionally a “tall Fall Steamer light.” For a while father would
drink his coffee in silence, and then his rocking-chair would start
creaking and he would say: “Do you remember that night in the Sotik
when the gun-bearers were skinning the big lion?” or “What a lovely
camp that was under the big tree in the Lado when we were hunting the
giant eland?”
We get three sorts and periods of enjoyment out of a hunting trip.
The first is when the plans are being discussed and the outfit
assembled; this is the pleasure of anticipation. The second is the
enjoyment of the actual trip itself; and the third is the pleasure
of retrospection when we sit round a blazing wood-fire and talk over
the incidents and adventures of the trip. There is no general rule
to know which of the three gives the keenest joy. I can think of a
different expedition in which each sort stands out in pre-eminence.
Even if the trip has been exceptionally hard and the luck unusually
bad, the pleasures of anticipation and preparation cannot be taken
away, and frequently the retrospect is the more satisfactory because
of the difficulties and discomforts surmounted.
I think we enjoyed the African trip most in the actuality, and that
is saying a great deal. It was a wonderful “adventure” and all the
world seemed young. Father has quoted in the foreword to _African
Game Trails_: “I speak of Africa and golden joys.” It was a line
that I have heard him repeat to himself many times. In Africa
everything was new. He revelled in the vast plains blackened with
herds of grazing antelope. From his exhaustive reading and retentive
memory he knew already the history and the habits of the different
species of game. When we left camp in the early morning we never
could foretell what we would run into by nightfall--we were prepared
for anything from an elephant to a dik-dik--the graceful diminutive
antelope no larger than a hare. In the evening, after we had eaten we
would gather round the camp-fire--for in the highlands the evenings
were chilly--and each would tell the adventures of his day, and
discuss plans for the morrow. Then we would start paralleling and
comparing. Father would illustrate with adventures of the old days in
our West; Cuninghame from the lore gathered during his twenty years
in Africa would relate some anecdote, and Mearns would talk of life
among the wild tribes in the Philippines.
[Illustration: Sir Alfred Pease’s sketch of our first giraffe hunt]
Colonel Mearns belonged to the medical corps in the army. He had
come with us as an ornithologist, for throughout his military career
he had been actively interested in sending specimens from wherever
he was serving to the Smithsonian National Museum in Washington.
His mild manner belied his fearless and intrepid disposition. A
member of the expedition once came into camp with an account of the
doctor, whom he had just run across--looking too benevolent for this
world, engaged in what our companion described as “slaughtering
humming-birds, pursuing them from bush to bush.” One of his
Philippine adventures filled us with a delighted interest for which
I don’t believe he fully appreciated the reason. He told us how with
a small force he had been hemmed in by a large number of Moros. The
Americans took refuge in a stockade on a hilltop. The Moros advanced
time and again with the greatest gallantry, and Mearns explained how
sorry he felt for them as they fell--some under the very walls of the
stockade. In a musing tone at the end he added: “I slipped out of
the stockade that night and collected a most interesting series of
skulls; they’re in the Smithsonian to-day.”
Father was the rare combination of a born raconteur--with the gift of
putting in all the little details that make a story--and an equally
good listener. He was an adept at drawing people out. His interest
was so whole-hearted and obvious that the shyest, most tongue-tied
adventurer found himself speaking with entire freedom. Every one
with whom we came in contact fell under the charm. Father invariably
thought the best of a person, and for that very reason every one
was at his best with him--and felt bound to justify his confidence
and judgment. With him I always thought of the Scotch story of the
MacGregor who, when a friend told him that it was an outrage that
at a certain banquet he should have been given a seat half-way down
the table, replied: “Where the MacGregor sits is the head of the
table!” Where father sat was always the head of the table, and yet
he treated every one with the same courtesy and simplicity, whether
it was the governor of the Protectorate or the poorest Boer settler.
I remember how amazed some were at the lack of formality in his
relationship with the members of the expedition. Many people who have
held high positions feel it incumbent on them to maintain a certain
distance in their dealings with their less illustrious fellow men.
If they let down the barrier they feel, they would lose dignity.
They are generally right, for their superiority is not innate, but
the result of chance. With father it was otherwise. The respect and
consideration felt for him could not have been greater, and would
certainly not have been so sincere, had he built a seven-foot barrier
about himself.
He was most essentially unselfish, and wanted no more than would
have been his just due if the expedition, instead of being owing
entirely to him, both financially and otherwise, had been planned and
carried out by all of us. He was a natural champion of the cause of
every man, and not only in his books would he carefully give credit
where it was due, but he would endeavor to bring about recognition
through outside channels. Thus he felt that Colonel Rondon deserved
wide acknowledgment for the years of exploring in the Brazilian
Hinterland; and he brought it to the attention of the American and
British Geographical Societies. As a result, the former awarded the
gold medal to Colonel Rondon. In the same way father championed the
cause of the naturalists who went with him on his expeditions. He
did his best to see that the museums to which they belonged should
appreciate their services, and give them the opportunity to follow
the results through. When an expedition brings back material that
has not been described, the museum publishes pamphlets listing the
new species, and explaining their habitats and characteristics. This
is rarely done by the man who did the actual collecting. Father,
whenever it was feasible, arranged for the naturalists who had
accompanied or taken part in the collecting to have the credit of
writing the pamphlets describing the results of their work. To a
layman this would not seem much, but in reality it means a great
deal. Father did all he could to encourage his companions to write
their experiences, for most of them had led eventful lives filled
with unusual incident. When, as is often the case, the actor did
not have the power of written narrative, father would be the first
to recognize it, and knew that if inadequately described, the most
eventful careers may be of no more interest than the catalogue of
ships in the _Odyssey_, or the “begat” chapters in the Bible. If,
however, father felt that there existed a genuine ability to write,
he would spare no efforts to place the articles; in some cases he
would write introductions, and in others, reviews of the book, if the
results attained to that proportion.
One of the most careful preparations that father made for the African
expedition was the choosing of the library. He selected as wide a
range as possible, getting the smallest copy of each book that was
obtainable with decent reading type. He wanted a certain number of
volumes mainly for the contrast to the daily life. He told me that he
had particularly enjoyed Swinburne and Shelley in ranching days in
the Bad Lands, because they were so totally foreign to the life and
the country--and supplied an excellent antidote to the daily round.
Father read so rapidly that he had to plan very carefully in order
to have enough books to last him through a trip. He liked to have
a mixture of serious and light literature--chaff, as he called the
latter. When he had been reading histories and scientific discussions
and political treatises for a certain length of time, he would plunge
into an orgy of detective stories and novels about people cast away
on desert islands.
The plans for the Brazilian expedition came into being so
unexpectedly that he could not choose his library with the usual
care. He brought Gibbon’s _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_ in
the Everyman’s edition, and farmed out a volume to each of us, and
most satisfactory it proved to all. He also brought _Marcus Aurelius_
and _Epictetus_, but when he tried to read them during the descent
of the Rio da Dúvida, they only served to fill him with indignation
at their futility. Some translations of Greek plays, not those of
Gilbert Murray, for which he had unstinted praise, met with but
little better success, and we were nearly as badly off for reading
matter as we were for provisions. I had brought along a selection
of Portuguese classics and a number of French novels. The former
were useless to father, but Henri Bordeaux and Maurice Leblanc were
grist to the mill. It was father’s first introduction to Arsène,
and he thoroughly enjoyed it--he liked the style, although for
matter he preferred Conan Doyle. Father never cared very much about
French novels--the French books that he read most were scientific
volumes--histories of the Mongols--and an occasional hunting book,
but he afterward became a great admirer of Henri Bordeaux.
At last the time came when there was nothing left but the Oxford
books of English and French verse. The one of English verse he had
always disliked. He said that if there were to be any American poetry
included, it should be at any rate a good selection. The choice
from Longfellow’s poems appealed to him as particularly poor, and I
think that it was for this reason that he disapproved of the whole
collection. Be that as it may, I realized how hard up for something
to read father must be when he asked me for my Oxford book of English
verse. For French verse father had never cared. He said it didn’t
sing sufficiently. “The Song of Roland” was the one exception he
granted. It was, therefore, a still greater proof of distress when
he borrowed the Oxford book of French verse. He always loved to
tell afterward that when he first borrowed it he started criticising
and I had threatened to take it away if he continued to assail my
favorites. In spite of all this he found it infinitely preferable to
_Epictetus_ and _Marcus Aurelius_, and, indeed, became very fond of
some of the selections. Villon and Ronsard particularly interested
him.
When riding along through the wilderness father would often repeat
poetry to himself. To learn a poem he had only to read it through
a few times, and he seemed never to forget it. Sometimes we would
repeat the poem together. It might be parts of the “Saga of King
Olaf,” or Kipling’s “Rhyme of the Three Sealers,” or “Grave of a
Hundred Head,” or, perhaps, “The Bell Buoy”--or again it might be
something from Swinburne or Shelley or Keats--or the “Ballad of Judas
Iscariot.” He was above all fond of the poetry of the open, and I
think we children got much of our love for the outdoor life, not only
from actual example, but from the poetry that father taught us.
There was an indissoluble bond between him and any of his old hunting
companions, and in no matter what part of the world he met them, all
else was temporarily forgotten in the eager exchange of reminiscences
of old days. On the return from Africa, Seth Bullock, of Deadwood,
met us in London. How delighted father was to see him, and how he
enjoyed the captain’s comments on England and things English! One
of the captain’s first remarks on reaching London was to the effect
that he was so glad to see father that he felt like hanging his hat
on the dome of Saint Paul’s and shooting it off. We were reminded of
Artemus Ward’s classic reply to the guard who found him tapping, with
his cane, an inscription in Westminster Abbey: “Come, come, sir, you
mustn’t do that. It isn’t permitted, you know!” Whereupon Artemus
Ward turned upon him: “What, mustn’t do it? If I like it, I’ll buy
it!” It was never difficult to trail the captain. When my sister and
I were going through Edinburgh Castle, the local guide showed us an
ancient gun, firing a cluster of five or six barrels. With great
amusement he told us how an American to whom he was showing the piece
a few days previously had remarked that to be shot at with that gun
must be like taking a shower-bath. A few questions served to justify
the conclusion we had immediately formed as to the identity of our
predecessor. Father had him invited to the dinner given by the donors
of the Holland & Holland elephant rifle.
Of the hunting comrades of his early days, he told me that Mr. R.
H. Munro Ferguson was the most satisfactory of all, for he met
all requirements--always good-humored when things went wrong,
possessing a keen sense of humor, understanding the value of silent
companionship, and so well read and informed as to be able to discuss
appreciatively any of the multitudinous questions of literature or
world affairs that interested my father.
In Washington when an old companion turned up he would be
triumphantly borne off to lunch, to find himself surrounded by famous
scientists, authors, senators, and foreign diplomats. Father would
shift with lightning rapidity from one to the other--first he might
be discussing some question of Indian policy and administration, next
the attitude of a foreign power--then an author’s latest novel--and
a few moments later, he would have led on Johnny Goff to telling an
experience with the cougar hounds.
[Illustration: Father and R. H. Munro Ferguson at the Elkhorn Ranch,
after the return from a successful hunting trip]
Any man who had hunted with father was ready to follow him to the
ends of the earth, and no passage of time could diminish his loyalty.
With father the personal equation counted for so much. He was so
whole-heartedly interested in his companions--in their aspirations
and achievements. In every detail he was keenly interested, and he
would select from his library those volumes which he thought would
most interest each companion, and, perhaps, develop in him the love
of the wonderful avocation which he himself found in reading. His
efforts were not always crowned with success. Father felt that our
African companion, R. J. Cuninghame, the “Bearded Master,” as the
natives called him, being Scotch should be interested in Scott’s
novels, so he selected from the “Pigskin Library” a copy of one of
them--_Waverley_, I think it was. For some weeks Cuninghame made
progress, not rapid, it is true, for he confessed to finding the
notes the most interesting part of the book, then one day when they
were sitting under a tree together in a rest during the noonday
heat, and father in accordance with his invariable custom took out a
book from his saddle-pocket, R. J. produced _Waverley_ and started
industriously to work on it. Father looked over his shoulder to see
where he had got to, and to his amused delight found that Cuninghame
had been losing ground--he was three chapters farther back than he
had been two weeks before!
We more than once had occasion to realize how largely the setting is
responsible for much that we enjoy in the wilds. Father had told me
of how he used to describe the bellowing of the bull elk as he would
hear it ring out in the frozen stillness of the forests of Wyoming.
He thought of it, and talked of it, as a weird, romantic call--until
one day when he was walking through the zoological gardens
accompanied by the very person to whom he had so often given the
description. As they passed the wapitis’ enclosure, a bull bellowed,
and father’s illusions and credit were simultaneously shattered, for
the romantic call he had so often dwelt upon was, in a zoological
park, nothing more than a loud and discordant sort of bray.
In spite of this lesson we would see something among the natives that
was interesting or unusual and get it to bring home, only to find
that it was the exotic surroundings that had been responsible for
a totally fictitious charm. A wild hill tribe in Africa use anklets
made from the skin of the colobus, a graceful, long-haired monkey
colored black and white. When father produced the anklets at home,
the only thing really noticeable about them was the fact that they
smelt!
Another equally unfortunate case was the affair of the beehives. The
same hill tribe was very partial to honey. An individual’s wealth was
computed in the number of beehives that he possessed. They were made
out of hollowed logs three or four feet long and eight or ten inches
in diameter. A wife or a cow was bought for an agreed upon number of
beehives, and when we were hunting, no matter how hot the trail might
be, the native tracker would, if we came to a clearing and saw some
bees hovering about the forest flowers, halt and offer up a prayer
that the bees should deposit the honey in one of his hives. It seemed
natural to bring a hive home, but viewed in the uncompromising light
of the North Shore of Long Island it was merely a characterless,
uninteresting log.
Not the least of the many delights of being a hunting companion of
father’s was his humor. No one could tell a better story, whether
it was what he used to call one of his “old grouse in the gunroom”
stories, or an account, with sidelights, of a contemporaneous
adventure. The former had to do with incidents in his early career
in the cow-camps of the Dakotas, or later on with the regiment in
Cuba--and phrases and incidents of them soon became coin-current in
the expedition. Father’s humor was never under any circumstances
ill-natured, or of such a sort as might make its object feel
uncomfortable. If anything amusing occurred to a member of the
expedition, father would embroider the happening in inimitable
fashion, but always in such a way that the victim himself was
the person most amused. The accompanying drawing will serve as
illustration. Father and I had gone out to get some buck to eke out
the food-supply for the porters. We separated, but some time later
I caught sight of father and thought I would join him and return to
camp. I didn’t pay particular attention to what he was doing, and as
he was some way off I failed to notice that he was walking stooped to
keep concealed by a rise of ground from some buck he was stalking.
The result was the picture.
[Illustration: An Elderly Parent, in the temporary absence of his
Affectionate son, begins a Cautious Stalk of a buck.]
[Illustration: Joyful Emotions of the Aff. son, and the Aff. Son’s
followers, on witnessing the Cautious Stalk and preparing to take an
Active Part in it.]
[Illustration: Arrival of Aff. Son; mixed emotions of Elderly Parent;
buck in vanishing perspective.]
Before we started on the serious exploring part of the Brazilian
trip, we paid visits to several fazendas or ranches in the state
of Matto Grosso, with the purpose of hunting jaguar, as well as
the lesser game of the country. One of the fazendas at which we
stayed belonged to the governor of the state. When we were wakened
before daylight to start off on the hunt we were given, in Brazilian
fashion, the small cup of black coffee and piece of bread which
constitutes the native Brazilian breakfast. We would then sally
forth to return to the ranch not before noon, and sometimes much
later, as the hunting luck dictated. We would find an enormous
lunch waiting for us at the house. Father, who was accustomed to an
American breakfast, remarked regretfully that he wished the lunch
were divided, or that at least part of it were used to supplement
the black coffee of daybreak. The second morning, as I went down the
hall, the dining-room door was ajar, and I caught sight of the table
laden with the cold meats and salads that were to serve as part of
our elaborate luncheon many dim hours hence. I hurried back to tell
father, and we tiptoed cautiously into the dining-room, closing the
door noiselessly behind us. While we were engaged in making rapid
despatch of a cold chicken, we heard our hosts calling, and the next
minute the head of the house popped in the door! As father said
afterward, we felt and looked like two small boys caught stealing jam
in the pantry.
The Brazilian exploration was not so carefully planned as the African
trip, because father had not intended to make much of an expedition.
The first time he mentioned the idea was in April, 1913, in reply to
a letter I wrote from São Paulo describing a short hunting expedition
that I had made. “The forest must be lovely; some time I must get
down to see you, and we’ll take a fortnight’s outing, and you shall
hunt and I’ll act as what in the North Woods we used to call ‘Wangan
man,’ and keep camp!”
Four months later he wrote that he was planning to come down and see
me; that he had been asked to make addresses in Brazil, Argentina,
and Chile, and “I shall take a naturalist with me, if, as I hope, I
return via Paraguay and the Amazon.” At the time it did not look as
if it would be possible for me to go on the trip. In father’s next
letter he said that after he left me, “instead of returning in the
ordinary tourist Bryan-Bryce-way, I am going to see if it is possible
to work across from the Plata into the valley of the Amazon, and come
out through the Brazilian forest. This may not be possible. It won’t
be anything like our African trip. There will be no hunting and no
adventures, so that I shall not have the pang I otherwise would about
not taking you along.” These plans were amplified and extended a
certain amount, but in the last letter I received they didn’t include
a very serious expedition.
“I shall take the Springfield and the Fox on my trip, but I shall
not expect to do any game-shooting. I think it would need the
Bwana Merodadi, [My name among the natives in Africa] and not his
stout and rheumatic elderly parent to do hunting in the Brazilian
forest. I shall have a couple of naturalists with me of the Heller
stamp, and I shall hope to get a fair collection for the New York
Museum--Fairfield Osborn’s museum.”
It was at Rio that father first heard of the River of Doubt. Colonel
Rondon in an exploring expedition had crossed a large river and no
one knew where it went to. Father felt that to build dugouts and
descend the river offered a chance to accomplish some genuine and
interesting exploration. It was more of a trip than he had planned
for, but the Brazilian Government arranged for Colonel Rondon to make
up an accompanying expedition.