Through Central Africa from coast to coast

Foreword

^S this book details a specific journey for a specific X\^ purpose, the plans for which were laid lon^ in advance and carried out quite to the letter, barring some disappointments bound to occur in the furtherance of even the best laid plans, it is well to begin at the beginning; and, as it is also the personal story of the experiences and work of two men, it might be well to term them in advance, the Scribe and the Photographer.

The Scribe had it in his mind during the year 1912, that as soon as he could arrange his private affairs, and get them into condition for a long absence, he would journey to East Africa in quest of game pictures, and being very unskilful with the camera — having developed little of the patience and none of the technique — he was most anxious to secure a companion who would supply his own defects.

In the fall of 1912 the New York papers announced that Mr. Cherry Kearton, whose work in the field of natural history photography is known in America as well as in England, was in the city.

" If I could only get hold of Cherry Kearton," said the Scribe to himself, "I would have the man I would like to go with."

And shortly afterwards, exactly like a happening

VI

FOREWORD in a story book, the Scribe was seated in a restaurant lunching, when he was approached by a friend.

"Going abroad this winter?" asked the friend casually.

"Farther than that," the Scribe replied. "If 1 can arrange it, I am going to Africa."

"Just met a chap who knows all about it," observed the friend, turning, "his name is Kearton."

"You know him! How can I get hold of him?"

The friend pointed, "There he is at that table in the corner. Come over and I'll introduce you."

So the Scribe and the Photographer spent that afternoon together, and the whole of the next day, up in the Bronx, rambling through the botanical gardens and zoological park, and before they parted they sealed with a handshake the partnership that resulted in a year's stay in East Africa, Uganda and the Congo, and the cinema journey from coast to coast.

There were many things to be considered in the preliminaries and arrangements made before departure, and one was that the pictorial results they would try to obtain would be different from the exhibition films or the illustrations for books that had heretofore appeared.

Imprimis, it was resolved that there would be no wounded, trapped or harassed animals taken, that slaughter would be conspicuous by its absence, and that, so far as possible, animals would be seen moving undisturbed in their natural habitat, and that the native life would be represented unstaged and truthfully.

FOREWORD vii

So if the reader expects detailed accounts of big game bags, measurements of supposedly record beads, and accounts of terrific wounds by soft-nosed or solid bullets, be bad better put tbis volume down on the bookseller's counter, or if he has had the good fortune to buy it, place it back on bis shelves unread.

And there was another object also.

Attached to the American Museum of Natural History in New York City is a large lecture ball, where free entertainments are given to the public, and, lately with great success, moving picture films of animals in their natural surroundings have l:>een shown there. Now, it is the idea of the Scribe and the Photographer to present to the great natural history museums of the world a duplicate set of the pictures obtained on tbis expedition, to form, as it were, the nucleus of a "film library" for free exhibition only, in order that the public may see at least some of the mounted specimens staring out of their glass cases moving naturally in the freedom of prairie, veldt or forest, for before long some of them may be as extinct as the dodo.

A glance at the map that accompanies this volume will show the extent of the photographic wanderings. In April, 1913, the expedition started from London, and as the preparations had all been made long in advance for the first safari, they waited only two days at Nairobi, and the month of May found them skirting the Abadares in British East Africa, bound for the wide stretches of sand and thornbush north of the Uashu Neru. It was at the water-holes up towards

Vlll

FOREWORD the Abyssinian border, where the only inhabitants are nomadic tribes of RandiU, Samburra and Boran, that many of the pictures were secured. The story of taking them mals.es up the first part of the book; but it had always been the intention to go on to the westward, through Uganda, and thence down the Ituri and the Aruwimi to the Congo, following, practically, at least from the Rewenzori Mountains, Stanley's trail on the Emin Pasha relief expedition of 1887. There svas a faint hope that it might be possible to secure photographs or perhaps moving pictures of some of the rarer animals, only a few of which are represented in the collection of mounted specimens in the larger museums.

It may not be the best policy to preface a book with an apology, and yet it is rather necessary in this case, in order to explain the lack of animal pictures in the later chapters of the book.

No sooner had we left the wide-spreading Irumu plains, and entered the depths of the forest, when difficulties began. In the deep shade of the towering trees and dense undergrowth the moving picture cameras were at an utter discount. The six- or eight-inch lenses were absolutely useless. It required the exposure of from one-fifth of a second to a full second's time to obtain any result at noonday. In the morning and evening it was a perpetual gloom. The only chances for photographic work were along the rivers, in the few open glades that were encountered, and in the cleared spaces and the plantations near the native villages. Try our best we did. For many days we were

FOREWORD ix

in the country wliere the okapi had been netted or killed by the wambuti or pygmies but a short time before. We saw tlie footprints of this mysterious and lately discovered animal, and that is all. We had the jiygmies around us and tried to make moving pictures with a wide-open shutter and a slow turning of the handle, but only secured results when the subjects could be enticed out into the open. In the Scribe's diary will be found this despairing sentence: "The forest is impossible as a field for moving photography."

We were close to elephants more than once ; in one instance one of the partners found himself in the middle of a herd of at least a hundred. They were all around. One could hear the flappings of the great ears, and that strange stomachic rumbling that can only be heard when elephants are near to, yet not a photograph could have been taken, for the great beasts were as invisible as if they were miles away. It was disappointing and not wholly agreeable, in fact, the time spent in getting out of such rather uncomfortable positions was hardly worth mentioning.

The Scribe on two occasions was compelled to shoot in self-defence, and each time managed to put a bullet in one of the few vital spots that would stop an oncoming and hostile beast — the brain. On another occasion, in the deep forest, a beautiful leopard crossed the path in one swift bound, leaving the fleeting impression on the retina of tawny spots and straignt-held tail. What a picture would he have made if the camera had been gifted with X-ray quality to penetrate the curtains of thick foliage.

X FOREWORD

So the trip down to the Congo will record mostly canoe life, river and village scenes, with occasional glimpses of the forest where the percolating light was sufficient to make record possible by means of time exposure. Anyone who has read Stanley's book "In Darkest Africa" might follow with interest this perhaps unexciting narrative, for the expedition met natives who remembered him, old men now, long past the age when most savages have gone the way of African flesh, which mayhap is a little different from other flesh, in that very little is wasted. The records of impressions of this part of the journey will be found in the book. There was very little time for close investigations or analyses of native customs, for, lurking behind everything was the fear that the dampness, the intense heat and humidity might already be acting disastrously on the films already taken, and that it was necessary to carry along. There were troubles with deserting porters, rows with rebellious and truculent paddlers during the long river journey, and nights spent at villages where death and disease were rampant.

When at last the Scribe and the Photographer arrived at the head of steamer navigation, after paddling down the river in hollowed-out log canoes through half the night to Basoko, they caught the Congo river boat with only fourteen minutes to spare.

Now, looking back over it all, both the Scribe and the Photographer are very glad they went, but there are certain portions of the journey that they would not care to do again.

Contents

Foreword

PAce

V

Chapter I

SOME old Latin once recorded that "All things new come from Africa," but there are certainly some things that have come from there (indirectly perhaps) that are not new, and these are books. It seems to me that everyone who has ever gone there, no matter his excuse, incentive, or provocation, has perpetrated at least one volume, and some have had the temerity to repeat the dreadful experiment.

Almost all the books that I have read contain photographs and descriptions of Nairobi, that busy little centre of about eleven hundred whites, and four times that quantity of blacks, and where the Indian Fundi and bazaar merchant have the monopoly of the contractor's calling and trade. Suffice it, therefore, that, having reached this usual starting-point in the usual way by train from Mombasa, all of our thoughts were concentrated upon getting off on Safari* and away from the haunts of men. Nairobi irked us.

* Safari = Caravan : route of march.

It was, luckily, the off season, and the visiting "big game hunters" — mostly armed tourists out to kill — were not much in evidence. There was a land boom on; everyone was anxious to sell a farm or buy one — the latter class being the great minority. Perhaps it was for this reason that porters were easy to obtain. We were fortunate also to secure, for our first trip, the services ot Mr. S. H. Lydford, a young white hunter who possessed both knowledge and interest in photographic work, and who knew well the country into which it was our intention to penetrate — the little-known and waterless tracts north of the Uashu Neru up toward the Abyssinian border.

It was an old story to Kearton. It was his third visit to British East Africa. He had been through it all before. From the train window he had pointed out places where, on a previous visit, he had done photographic work, but it was all new to the Scribe, although he was familiar with the suhiect at second hand, having read so many of his friends' effusions and having listened to so many stories told at "Camp Fire" dinners at luxurious metropolitan hotels. But despite this mental preparation, and the recollection of much carefully garnered advice, there was a feeling of keen excitement and pleasure that came to both Kearton and myself, as, clad in our very new khaki outfits, we looked down the lines of black nondescripts who were to be our companions for nearly three months. When the column started, to the tooting of antelope horns and much shouting, out into the

Nairobi streets from the yard of the tradiiij^ company that had charge of equipiiing our expedition, 1 confess that it was with a thrill of deliglit that I slapped Kearton on the shoulder and said: "We're oii at last!"

Our destination was the railway station, hut word had come in, that owing to the heavy rains the trails to Fort Hall and northward around Mount Kenia were almost impassable, so under advice we decided to leave the railway and. take to the "leather express" at Gil-Gil, some six or seven hours' distance up the road.

Nothing delights an American negro so much as a railway journey — (whoever saw an unhappy porter on a Pullman train?) — and I found that this held true with his untutored and mostly unclad brother on his native stamping ground ; perhaps it is the fact that he is moving without exertion that gives the negro a sort of exultation, but, whatever the reason, no jollier or more contented lot of human beings have I ever seen than these Kikuyus, Wakambas, Kavirondos, and black tramps generally, who were crowded like herrings into two open cars at the end of the train. Like the Hours described by the bored poet, they were forced to "loll in each other's laps" to the journey's end. Nevertheless, they chatted, sang, and in general wore the aspect of a black boys' boarding school going home for the holidays. Poor thoughtless devils, there was hardship enough ahead for some of them.

To a certain degree, the safari porter is a ward of the local authorities at the point from which he starts, and there all responsihility ends. According to law, each one has to be provided with a black sleeved jersey, a blanket, and a tin water-bottle. Now, how some of those ex-warriors had found time to sell their new jerseys and new blankets and make appearance at the train in ragged substitutes was perplexing, and the number of second-hand canteens and water-bottles that appeared was beyond counting. The blankets, that I think are made mostly of cotton waste and paper stock, could not have brought much in the way of trade or ready-money, and as for the tin water-bottles, those that did not leak at the end of the first week's marching were discarded as useless incumbrances, yet what a row there would have been if every man had not received his own at the point of starting ! Besides the porters, we were provided with a head man or n'mpara, of whom I will write hereafter, a cook, and a private servant apiece.

The cook had come with a written recommendation from a former employer. We had picked him out because I insisted that he had an honest face, despite the fact that his worn and dog-eared letter was dated some two years back ; he sorrowfully averred that he had lost the others. However, at the hotel where we stayed for two days, I ran across the man who had most recently employed him, and whose name he had proudly mentioned.

" Yes," remarked the gentleman thoughtfully,

"Amassi is a good cook, perhaj^s the best in East Africa, but he is also one of the worst thieves and most arrant scoundrels I have ever met. He is a gambler and a general waster, but if you deal everything out to him carefully, and watch him like a suspicious constable, and beat him about once a week, he will serve you very well. He professes to be a Christian," my new found friend smiled slightly; *' but the only Christian principle that he has imbibed is never to let his left hand know what his right hand is doing."

Be it therefore recorded, after this warning, witliout beating, we got on with Amassi fairly well. Kearton's personal boy, Abadie, was the Uriah Heep of all personal boys. He was that humble that he was afraid to assert himself by touching anything of his master's until ordered to do so, and so shy and retiring was he, that I am firmly convinced he blushed when spoken to, although it could not be detected. In my personal boy, Juma, I thought I had discovered a jewel. He was a Mohammedan with rather a shifty eye, but he certainly ditl know his business. He could wait on the table, clean and press clothes like a duke's valet. He could also mend things very well, after you had given them to him, and as for packing things breakable and unbreakable, he could have got a job in a glass warehouse. At making beds he proved to be an adept. In fact, he began after the fashion of the traditional new broom, and stayed so until the latter end of the journey, when he departed with an overcoat, a suit of clothes and two pairs of hoots, and failed to come hack for a letter of recommendation. Oh! those letters! Those precious barruas, for which there must be a native clearing-house among personal hoys, with fixed prices and an adept translator, w^ho, however, occasionally lets some of the slyly worded ones get past. Lydford, the most experienced of the three of us, had drawn the worst card in the deck. I have forgotten the individual's name, but he was consigned to limbo after a few weeks' trial, and the work that he was supposed to do was practically divided between the retiring Abadie and the omniscient Juma. I have mentioned casually the head man, the ii^mpara, and I here record that if ever I go to Africa again I will do much searching until I find him. He was tall, of Herculean build, with a voice like that of a first mate on a river steamboat, and he could have taken the two biggest porters and dangled them like two-pound dumb-bells. He mentioned his name several times to me in a very husky voice, but I always failed to catch it, otherwise I would be glad to recommend him to anyone in need of such services as he could render.

While I am on this digression, I must mention a little incident which rather disproves the theory held by some irascible travellers that the African black is neither loyal nor faithful. Kearton had often told me stories of his former trips, and how he wished that he could get hold of his old camera boy who had accompanied him on his lion-spearing trip, and when he was taking the moving pictures for the Huifalo Jones expedition, a Kikuyu named Killenjui, hut how to find him Kearton did not know. The very morning of our start, however, as he was walking down Cjovernment Road, a little half-naked individual carrying the old haft of a spear smilingly saluted him. It was Killenjui himself! When he heard that his old hwana was going ofT immediately on safari, there was no hesitation — he dropped all and followed him. Killenjui, it seemed, was prosperous and owned cattle and sheep and goats, and possessed a family; but nothing counted ! Sending out w^ord to his kraal, which was a day's journey from the tow^n, that he would be gone for some time, he threw in his lot with us; and a more faithful, trustworthy, brave little chap never trod the long stretches of the game trails.

But to return to the train puffing up the heavy grades to the westward. We had purchased three mules, and they were in a horse-box ahead of the crowded trucks containing the tightly-wedged-in blacks. The train was late, and it was dark when we drew into Gil-Gil station, which we found consisted of two tin shanties presided over by a turbaned Indian, his tiny wife, and three roly-poly children. Nairobi itseit lies at an altitude of some 6,000 feet, and during the afternoon's journey we climbed over two thousand more. It was cold. The shelter offered by the tin rest-house was seductive, and I thought almost with pity of the unclad porters in their little cotton tents that they had pitched beside the track. A stroll over in their direction after we had made some shift at a supper convinced me that my sympathy was wasted. Great fires were roaring, and laughter and song, joke and story seemed to be going the round. Commend me for an example of contentment with mundane existence to the African porter with a full stomach; he is the one man who regrets no past, fears no future, and completely enjoys what the gods provide for the present fleeting moment, with the proviso that it is food and fire.

We were up betimes in the morning ; a glorious crisp day was coming on. I ached to try my new boots (and I actually did before the day went out), so I disdained the services of my mule and started along the well-defined trail to the north, at the head of the shouting and singing line of porters. By eleven o'clock it had grown hot, and I had become convinced that I would boast no longer of the perfections of my London footgear, I decided not to waste that mule, and waited for him. It was just after I had mounted that we got our first sight of game close to. A half dozen kongoni looked over the brow of a hill at us. The two dogs that we had commandeered at Nairobi started full tilt, as if let go from a leash. Following to the brow of a hill, I turned back disgusted. There was a tin farmhouse with a wooden verandah not half a mile away ! It was somewhat of a shock. The kongoni were private property. For the next few hours,

THE START FROM TOWN

DOWN Tin-. TKAIL f^u

K

**» ■ '■' -'■ ■ ■ 1

FORDING A SHALLOW STREAM

WHAT TW^O DAYS' RAIN WILL DO

I kept looking; tor more larins, hut this was tlic last hahitation seen until \vc came to the ahandoued (ioverninent post at Rumuruti li\e days later. 'I'he eoiuitry through which we passed still teems witii hartebeeste, both Coke's and Jackson's, steinbuck, thomi, granti, and zebra roaming in large herds ; bushhuck, reedbuck and waterbuck were frequently to be seen. But in a few years it will all be farm-land — there will be dozens of tin houses, instead of one. The game will go.

Although the rainy season was suj^posed to be oxer, it rained every evening, a cold, penetrating downpour. Two porters had decided by the third tiay that the constantly increasing altitude and cold nights ditl not agree with them, and had left us, one taking the precaution to break open his box and drink a bottle of bay rum in order to tone up his system, and the other — a careless beggar this — leaving his blanket and water-bottle behind him.

We saw a fine cheetah sunning himself on a rock, a long distance ofT, but he vanished before wx could get near enough to take a picture of him. A mangy old hyena ambled awkwardly ahead of us across the trail. Both the greater and the lesser bustards were plentiful, yet too wary were they for the photographer. Prolific rains had turned everything to a vivid green. There was none of the burnt and i:)arched effect that I had always pictured as part of the African landscape.

Charm has been aptly defined as the "capacity for infinite surprise," and it is the jirincijial reason lor Africa's hold upon both resident and \isitor. As we 3 climbed up from our camp on the shores of Lake Olgolositt, we turned and looked back. The rains had increased the lake to almost twice its usual size, the safari had waded and paddled for hours on the day before through the overflowed meadow lands. From the high ground, we could see a little bunch of hippopotami skirting the reeds on the far-off shore. Thousands of strange herons and flamingoes were wading about in the marshes, and water-fowl of all descriptions, mallard, teal and beautiful Egyptian geese traded from one end of the lake to the other. To the north, the heavily-wooded slopes of the Abadares, the haunts still of herds of elephants, lifted their massive crests into the depths of the opaque white clouds. But we had not gone a mile across the rising table-land when we stopped in surprise and delight. There, seventy or eighty miles to the eastward, rose the peak of Kenia against the clear blue sky. It glistened like a great diamond at the apex, and the white of glacier and snow line faded into a delicate hazy blue, beneath which showed the darker line of the forest, and up to its very base swept the undulating fair green of the veldt. In the space between the Abadares and the great mountain, the thin veil of a morning shower fell slantwise, moving like a trailing feather to the west. Quite close, in almost every direction, were herds of game.

Kongoni sentinels, alert and watchful, gazed at us from what they deemed safe distance. A herd of zebra mares with their foals galloped away and wheeled

THROUGH THK HUNTERS I'ARAUISl:.

-KIRTING LAKl'; ULGULOSITT

ON THE TRAIL FROM NAIROBI ii

as if at a word of command, and stood as tlioii^li at a review watching our approach. Little steinhuck bmst out of the grass hke rabbits out of tlieir burrows and flourished off, doubhng and tw'isting. The aii was crisp and cool ; it was a day in which to enjoy the essence of existence. We had started early, and we made some nineteen miles before evening, iieading due north, all in good spirits, the porters singing, and " Mack " and " Lady," the two dogs, returning from a dozen futile chases with as much joy as if they had brought their quarry to the ground.

I cannot tell where the change began, but suddenly w^e noticed that the grass was not so green, that the reddish brown earth was giving w^ay to sandy stretches, and that the thorn trees had a dimmed and dusty appearance. In the nineteen miles, we had stepped into an entirely different country. The game had been left behind, and we camped that night on the edge of a waterless brook, whose hot grey stones had known no rain for weeks. Our guide had expected to find it running full, but it did not flow from the Abadares for we had crossed the watershed. We had expended our last drop in making tea for luncheon, and search w^as made for a pool that might give us enough water for our needs that evening. At last we found one — a little pebbly spring at the base of a great rock. A porter had found it also ; he was standing ankle deep in it giving himself a bath. Not only that, but his discarded single garment and a cake of soap proved that he was a man of cleanly habits.

A half mile farther on, we found another smaller pool, before a porter had come across it. It was green and slimy, but after filtering and boiling, the water served its purpose. We were learning much about the African country, and not a little about the African himself!

Away to the south some eight or ten miles, it was pouring torrents, and just at sunset the cloud efifects were grand and marvellous beyond description, but only a few drops fell where we were, although one could almost have sworn that he heard the descent of the deluge so near by. It was one of the surprises that we got quite used to before the year was out.

chaptf:r II

ALONG THK I'ASHU NERU FROM RrMlRUTI

TO archer's post

RUMURUTI had once been an important Government post and fort in the days when tlie Masai had inhabited the country, but now that great tribe of herdsmen have made an exodus under Government promises and supervision to the south of the Uganda Railway line, an exchange that was fair robbery in the minds of a few people to-day, who insist they know something about it. So Rumuruti has fallen from its high state, to become the residence of a lonely and much sun-burned white man who holds the important position of Inspector of horses, cattle and camels. Here were gathered an encampment of Somalis, those prideful, wealthy and self-satisfied nomads who consider themselves far above the blacks and several rounds in the social ladder above the Englishman. The Somali is a combination of the Jew, the Gipsy and the Seminole Indian. You cannot beat him at a bargain, he will do you at a horse trade, and he has all the arrogance of the still unwhijiiied.

We were in the land of the lions now, and it was at Rumuruti that we first heard them roaring in the distance. The inspector had shot a large lioness inside the Government boma, while she was firmly attached to the nose of a cow, and was endeavouring to drag it out through a hole, through which she had just scraped her own lean body. A big black-maned male had taken a haunch of beef out of a tree within twenty feet of the inspector's window the night before we arrived. Another visitor put in appearance at the post about the same time we did. He was the Game Ranger, whose jurisdiction covers some hundreds of square miles north-west of Nairobi.

Newly opened countries bring forth strange characters. Extremes meet in most natural, if most unexpected places. I can well imagine G in white

spats and a grey topper at Ascot (sans his luxuriant golden grey whiskers), or sitting in the corner at White's Club detailing his turf winnings or losses imperturbably, in the same high accents of Belgravia that he used in describing the shortcomings of his half-naked personal boy or the good qualities of his saddle mule, on the tumble-down verandah of the inspector's house. I suppose, in the first instance, his eye-glass would have been attached to his person by a silk cord instead of a shoe-string, but his personality would have remained unchanged.