Roosevelt's marvelous exploits in the wilds of Africa, containing thrilling accounts of his killing lions, rhinoceri and other ferocious beasts of the jungle ...

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Introduction

HEODORE ROOSEVELT, having, on March 4, 1909, with his retirement as twenty-sixth President of the United States, completed over twenty-five years of public service, decided to take rest and recreation in a trip abroad, half of which was to be spent in Africa under the British flag as a faunal naturalist.

When the tentative announcement of this great trip of adventure was made, about a year before his retirement from office, the world in an instant was agog.

Rumors as absurd as they were conflicting began to fill the air, but the President pursued his preparations unmoved. It was not until the 3rd of the December preceding his stepping down from office, indeed, that he made any official announcement of his plans. On that date, however, the following official statement was given out at the White House :

" In March, 1909," it said, " Theodore Roosevelt will head a scientific expedition to Africa, outfitted by the Smithsonian Institution and starting from New York City. This expedition will gather natural history materials for the government collections, to be deposited by the Smithsonian Institution in the new United States National Museum at Washington.

" Besides the President and his son, Kermit Roosevelt, the personnel of the party, on leaving New York, will consist of three representatives of the Smithsonian Institution: Major Edgar A. Mearns, medical corps, U. S. A., retired; Edmund Heller and J, Alden Loring.

" On arriving in Africa the party will be enlarged by the addition of R. J. Cuninghame, who is now in Africa preparing the President's outfit. He will have charge of a number of native no*

INTRODUCTION.

porters, who, with necessary animals, will be formed into a small

caravan. , . ,. , .

" Mr Roosevelt and his son will kill the big game, the skins and skeletons of which will be prepared and shipped to the United States by other members of the party. Kermit Roosevelt is to be the official photographer. >

" The national collections are very deficient in natural history

COL. THEODORE ROOSEVELT.

materials from the Dark Continent and an effort will be made by the expedition to gather general collections in zoology and botany to supply some of its deficiencies, but the main effort will be to collect the large and vanishing African animals.

" R. J. Cuninghame, who is now engaged in assembling the materials for Mr. Roosevelt's use, will act as guide and manager. Mr. Cuninghame is also an experienced collector of natural history specimens, having made collections for the British Museum in Norway and Africa. He is an English field man, who has guided numerous hunting parties in Africa and who was chief hunter for the Field Columbian Exposition.

TO PRESERVE BIG GAME SPECIMENS.

u Edmund Heller, a graduate of Stanford University, class of 1 90 1, is a thoroughly trained naturalist, whose special work will be the preparation and preservation of specimens of large animals. Mr. Heller is about thirty years old. His former experience, when associated with D. G. Eliot and Mr. Ackley, of the Field Columbian Museum, in collecting big game animals in the same portions of Africa which Mr. Roosevelt will visit, will be a valuable asset to the expedition.

" Mr. Heller has had large experiences in animal collecting in Alaska, British Columbia, the United States, Mexico, Central America and South America. In the year 1898 he made a collecting trip of eleven months to Gallopagos Islands, starting from San Francisco.

" He is a born and enthusiastic collector, as well as a well equipped naturalist. He is also the author of scientific papers on mammals, birds, reptiles and fishes. At present he is assistant curator of the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology of the University of California.

" J. Alden Loring is a field naturalist, whose training comprises service in the biological survey of the Department of Agriculture, and in the Bronx Zoological Park, New York City, as well as on numerous collecting trips through British America, Mexico and the United States. He is about thirty-eight years old, of ardent temperament and intensely energetic.

" In August, September and October, 1898, he made the highest record for a traveling collector, having sent in to the United States National Museum many well-prepared specimens of small mammals in the three months' journey from London through Sweden, Germany, Switzerland and Belgium.

" Major Edgar A. Mearns, a retired officer of the medical corps of the army, will be the physician of the trip and have charge of the Smithsonian portion of the party. He has had twenty-five years' experience as an army doctor, and is also well known as a naturalist and collector of natural history specimens."

It was Rooseveltian in the extreme, yet the people had long been prepared for this great climax to the career of America's great game hunter, whose battles with the bear and bison of the West left him none but the greatest of all game fields yet to conquer.

A LIFE FULL OF THRILLING ADVENTURE.

Long had it been the desire of Colonel Roosevelt to make a hunting tour into the heart of Africa. He had made numerous trips in search of big game in every part, of the United States where such animals make their abode. For years he had been an ardent hunter and a writer of hunting stories.

Some of his books on the subject are: " Hunting Trips of a Ranchman," written from his experiences while on a North Dakota ranch, when he spent two years raising cattle; " Ranch Life and Hunting Trail," " The Wilderness Hunter," ' The Deer Family," " Outdoor Pastimes of an American Hunter." In the latter volume he refers to the sport in these words :

" From the days of Nimrod to our own there have been mighty hunters before the Lord, and most warlike and masterful races have taken kindly to the chase as chief among those rough pastimes which appeal naturally to men with plenty of red blood in their veins."

One might think our ex-President desired to emulate the earlier among the great conquering kings of Egypt and Assyria, who, he says, hunted the elephant and the wild bull, as well as the lions with which the country swarmed, and Tiglath-Pileser I, who as overlord of Phoenicia embarked on the Mediterranean and there killed " a sea monster," presumably a whale — a feat which, Colonel Roosevelt declares, " has been paralleled by no sport-loving sovereign of modern times save by that stout hunter the German kaiser, although, I believe, the present English king has slain both elephants and tigers before he came to the throne."

INTRODUCTION.

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Speaking of the great hunting grounds of the world, Colonel Roosevelt says that there remain only three in the present century. South Africa is the true hunter's paradise, in his opinion. If the happy hunting grounds are to be found anywhere in this world, he says, they lie between the Orange and the Zambesi, and extend northward here and there to the Nile countries and the Somaliland.

COLONEL ROOSEVELT AND HIS SON IN THE PADDLE.

Nowhere else are there such multitudes of game, representing so many and such widely different kinds of animals of such size, such beauty, such infinite variety. " We should have to go back to '.he fauna of pleistocene to find its equal."

Having been in public life almost continually since he graduated from Harvard University in 1880 — serving the people in the capacity of assemblyman in New York State, Civil Service Commissioner of the United States, President of the Police Board in New York City, Assistant Secretary of the Navy of the United States, Colonel of the First United States Volunteer Cavalry in the Spanish War, Governor of the State of New York, Vice-President of the United States, and finally as President of the nation, the highest gift in the power of the people of the country — Colonel Roosevelt felt that he had earned the right to put in a portion of his time in the sport which most appealed to him.

He proposed to spend some months away from the United States for two reasons. Rest and recreation in hunting and scientific research were only the minor ones.

REASONS FOR THE TRIP INTO AFRICA.

He intended to put himself beyond the reach of those persons who he believed would inevitably seek, if he were within reach, to use his influence with the administration of President Wm. H. Taft.

Colonel Roosevelt was, of course, aware of the manner in which the charge had been circulated that Mr. Taft would be only a Roosevelt man as President, and whatever Mr. Taft, as President, might do it would be ascribed to Colonel Roosevelt's influence.

It was because of this situation that Colonel Roosevelt decided to take himself out of the country, where it would be impossible for anyone to repeat any such charge against President Taft.

Colonel Roosevelt well selected a place where his seclusion in this respect would be secure, for hardly could a more inaccessible locality be found. In this connection, Colonel Roosevelt, some months before the Republican national convention had nominated Mr. Taft to the Presidency, made a statement in which he said :

" If Mr. Taft is nominated and elected President, which would be very gratifying, it would make impossible any criticism, if I were abroad, to the effect that I was dictating to him and being followed, or that I had dictated and had been turned down in any suggestions."

In traveling abroad Theodore Roosevelt determined not to make any such tour as did General Grant after retiring from the Presidency. General Grant was received in state by emperors and kings wherever he went on his tour around the world. He was feted as no other American ever has been.

Colonel Roosevelt decided to avoid all that, it being his desire to travel as a plain American citizen, and spend a good part of his time in pursuit of game, thus putting himself out of the way of social entertainment.

Statements had been made to the effect that the game preserves , in British East Africa under control of the British Colonial Government were to be opened to the President and his companions to shoot at will. No advantage of these offers, he decided, should be taken, Colonel Roosevelt having made up his mind to decline to do -any shooting on government preserves where the hunting is not open

to all.

HUNTING FOR PURPOSES OF SCIENCE ALONE.

The feeling of the ex-President on this matter of shooting on government reservations he explained in this way : A person taking advantage to shoot on government reservations in Africa would be exactly in the same position of any foreigner who came to America and was given permission by the United States government to shoot at will in the government reservation at Yellowstone Park, where the American buffalo, to be found almost nowhere else, roams unmolested. Colonel Roosevelt declared that such permission rightly would arouse resentment.

Colonel Roosevelt shares with other sportsmen the feeling that the wild animals on reservations sh< aid be protected to the utmost, and that under no circumstances should permission be given to kill them, except, possibly, when predatory animals become too numerous for the safety of other practically defenseless animals.

Permission for one person to shoot on a reservation, Colonel Roosevelt believed, would lead eventually to permission to others, and that in the end the game reservation would not be a reservation at all in its proper sense.

It was Colonel Roosevelt's desire that his African hunting expedition should not be looked upon as one with sport as a main object. A limited number of specimens of mammals and birds were to be killed for the uses of the United States National Museum. Other killing was to be confined to the limits of the necessary food supply of the camp.

On his trip Colonel Roosevelt hoped to secure for scientific purposes two adult specimens, one of each sex, and a specimen of their young, of animals he was likely to meet on the Dark Continent.

For the ordinary needs of the Museum the ex-President and the naturalists and director of the Smithsonian Institution, whom he had consulted, thought these would be sufficient, but whether they were sufficient or not these are all he had in mind to kill, no matter how plentiful the game might be.

It was the known wish of the ex-President that the expedition into Africa should be made with the privacy that marks, or should mark, any other scientific expedition. Colonel Roosevelt wanted an outing and a chance to do a moderate amount of shooting, with a first view to getting results that will be of some benefit to science

WARNING AS TO RIVAL EXPEDITIONS.

A few days before he sailed for Africa, and while he was at Oyster Bay preparing for the trip, a telegram was handed the former President from a press association stating that a rival concern " had fitted out an expedition to follow him to Africa," and requested the privilege to do the same.

" Now, what do you think of that?" he inquired, sarcastically. " I want it understood that I will permit no other expedition besides my own to accompany me in Africa."

" Do you expect to survive your trip, Mr. Roosevelt?" was a jocular question put to the former President.

" Come and see me when I return to America and then I shall answer you," he answered. "If these professors who take such a warm interest in my trip and my chances of contracting and surviving miasmatic fevers in the African jungle knew how little their views affected me they might not utter them. I have been in bad places before and I know how to take care of myself. Besides, the tei ritory in Africa I am going to visit is as safe to traverse as are the marshes of the South.

' I am accustomed to facing dangers, and the fear of fever is purely imaginary. I served my apprenticeship on the Western plains, and a little jaunt in Africa will be merely a diversion." Colonel

Roosevelt reverted to his cowboy days in Dakota as the happiest of his life.

One member of the party told Colonel Roosevelt that he used to be a cowboy in the Panhandle of Texas. " I am only a has-been, now, though," added the visitor.

"Don't say that — don't say that!" exclaimed the former President. " Bully for you ! Give me your hand ! I used to be a cowboy, too, but I'm no has-been, and I guess I'm a little older than you."

ASSIDUOUS PREPARATIONS.

During his summer vacation the previous year, which he spent at his summer home in Oyster Bay, Long Island, N. Y., Colonel Roosevelt did most of his planning for the trip. During the hot summer days from June till September he devoted much of his time sitting on the broad veranda of his home studying books on natural history and big-game hunting in Africa. These he procured from every available source.

Working out the details of his plans occupied a great deal of time. Pie was continually in correspondence during the summer, and even after he again resumed his official duties at Washington, with the noted big-game hunters and naturalists who have devoted years of study to Africa and its fauna. Men who had spent any length of time in that part of Africa where he intended visiting were welcome visitors at Sagamore Hill, and from these he gained valuable information.

This was the case also when he returned to the White House, and among those whom he entertained there were Bishop Hartzell, who had spent many years as missionary bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Africa, and Sir Harry H. Johnston, the noted English naturalist and author, who had twenty-five years' experience in Central Africa and was the discoverer of the Okapi.

Sir Harry, after his visit to the President, said he was surprised to find Colonel Roosevelt so well informed on Africa and its fauna, and declared that the President was able to tell him things about it of which he had no knowledge.

Numerous other persons who had been to Uganda and British East Africa the President consulted, and, as a result, he gathered a store of information not to be obtained from books.

It was to Secretary Walcott. of the Smithsonian Institution, that Colonel Roosevelt first unfolded the tentative plans for his African trip.

In a letter to the secretary he made known his project of going, after his term of office expired, to Africa for the purpose of hunting and traveling in British and German East Africa, crossing Uganda and working down the Nile, with side trips after animals and birds. He declared then that he is " not in the least a game butcher," saying :

" I like to do a certain amount of hunting, but my real and main interest is the interest of a faunal naturalist."

TENTATIVE PLANS FIRST UNFOLDED.

In his letter he expressed the opinion that this trip opened the best chance for the United States National Museum to get a fine collection, not only of the big game beasts, but of the smaller mammals and birds of Africa, and ought not to be neglected.

The President offered to take with him several professional field naturalists and taxidermists who should prepare and send back the specimens he is to collect, the collection to go to the National Museum.

The President said that as an ex-President he should feel that that institution was the museum to which his collection should go. While he would pay the expenses of himself and his son, he felt that he had not the means that would enable him to pay for the naturalists and their kit and the curing and transport of the specimens for the museum.

All he desired to keep would be a few personal trophies of little scientific value which, for some reason, he might like to keep. He said the actual hunting of big game he would want to do himself or have his son do.

Seeing the value of the President's proposition, Secretary Walcott immediately set to work selecting men to form the party.

He decided that three men should form the Smithsonian Institution's portion of the party. The necessary funds for the Smithsonian's share of the expense were secured from a source which has not been revealed. It is stated that no part of these funds was derived from any government appropriation or the income of the Smithsonian Institution.

But before going further, perhaps it would be well to dwell a little more fully upon the careers and qualifications of the former President's companions than he himself did in his official statement.

COLONEL ROOSEVELT'S COMPANIONS.

In selecting the four men to accompany Colonel Roosevelt the best men in the scores of naturalists of the country were selected. .

It was decided that Major Edgar A. Mearns would have charge of the Smithsonian portion of the party. As an ornithologist, Major Mearns is probably one of the highest authorities, having made a specialty of bird study for many years. The Major was one of the founders of the American Ornithologists' Union, and has written widely on bird subjects.

He is a member of the Linnaean Society of Natural History of New York, of the National Geographical Society, of the Biological Society of Washington, of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a patron of the American Museum of Natural History of New York.

As a field naturalist J. Loring Alden was probably the most efficient and experienced man in the party. He has made a specialty of the smaller mammals, and it is said of him that, where other traps and baits fail, he can devise a trap and select a bait that will lure any of the smaller creatures into captivity. His home is in Owego, N. Y.

Of the party, the only one who has had previous experience in that section of Africa through which the expedition was to journey was Edmund Heller. In order that he might accompany Colonel Roosevelt, his release from his position as assistant curator of the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology of the University of California w T as. secured by the Smithsonian Institution.

He is an enthusiastic collector as well as a natively equipped naturalist. Of numerous scientific papers on mammals, birds, reptiles and fishes he is the author. Mr. Heller's home is at Los Gatos, Cal.

Kermit Roosevelt, the President's second son, then a young man of nineteen years, was selected as the official photographer of the expedition. His collection of photographs of animals and scenes was to be made use of in a scientific way and as illustrations. Young Mr. Roosevelt was a student at Harvard University and a great favorite of his father.

KERMIT ROOSEVELT PREPARES HIMSELF.

He spent considerable time in preparing himself for the work he was to undertake. During his summer vacation he made a study of the camera and photographic methods. He also experimented in taking pictures of the animals at the Zoological Gardens in New York.

It was his first trip abroad, and he looked forward to it with the keenest interest. He is tall and slender, a good horseman and a splendid rifle shot. Much of the shooting of the big game he shared with his father.

To complete the personnel of the expedition, R. J. Cuninghame was chosen. No better manager for the trip could have been selected, because Mr. Cuninghame is thoroughly familiar with every nook and corner of East Africa and its natives.

He spent some time in London purchasing the outfit for the expedition and shipping it to Mombasa. After that had been completed he proceeded to British Africa, and was engaged in selecting the natives and animals necessary for the expedition until the time he met the party at Mombasa.

Before this, however, the expedition was joined by another ' big game " hunter whose fame was international — Frederick Courteney Selous, the hero of Rider Haggard's novel, Allan Ouarterman, whose achievements and adventures will be spoken of more in detail later in this volume. Suffice it to say, at this time, that no hunter in the world has won greater celebrity by his bravery .and skill than has Mr. Selous.

This hunting of big game has a double fascination. There is the fascination that all big game hunters confess to — the danger of it for one thing, and which to many is lure alone. That is one side of the fascination that it holds. The other is for the stay-at- Tiomes and those who follow big game hunting by reading about it. It is interesting to note that since the first publication of the ex-President's intention of making a hunting trip to Africa that almost as many hunters started for the Dark Continent as usually invade the Maine woods at the opening of the hunting season. No announcement had ever so popularized that region.

STRANGE FASCINATION IN HUNTING BIG GAME.

A New York firm furnished the greater part of the outfit for Colonel Roosevelt and his party, more accurately, that part of it which has to do with tents, camp equipage, rations, cooking utensils, khaki hunting suits and waterproof bags for clothing, hunting boots and shoes, pith helmets, sleeping bags and blankets, filters, hunting and skinning knives, folding bath tubs, folding brass lanterns, bull's-eye lamps, candles, hot water bottles, etc.

As was explained by this furnisher of hunting outfits, one of its chief essentials for an African campaign is a serviceable tent, The hunters must have rest at night or else their health will give way. And to insure that rest a specially constructed tent is required.

The ones that were provided for Colonel Roosevelt and his party were of green waterproof silk — a material so light in texture that an entire tent with its telescoping pole weighs only thirteen pounds.

It is essential that its color be green, this because of the fact that a rhinoceros, reckoned by big game hunters as the most dangerous and vicious of all wild animals, will charge a white tent the moment he sees it, no matter if the tent were surrounded by a whole caravan of attendants.

One can imagine the restless slumber of a hunter who goes to sleep with the knowledge that he might have his life crushed out at any moment by the infuriated charge of one of these vicious animals.

Of the greatest importance was the battery of guns which Colonel Roosevelt carried along with him. When it became known that he intended to make a hunting expedition into Africa many of his friends presented him with guns. But he did not select any of these to take with him on his trip.

Instead, he had made specially for him by one of the best American gun manufacturers four different types of rifles, each having a special use.

ONE DISCORDANT NOTE MARS THE PREPARATION.

Amid all these preparations there was but one discordant note — the fear that the former President would fall a victim to some of those dreaded and mysterious fevers which have given to Africa the title of " The Grave of the White Man. 1 '

If these dire predictions did more than cause amusement to Colonel Roosevelt, the public never heard of it. Those closest tohim say he read them and smiled — smiled in that Rooseveltian way that expresses so much — a smile that carried with it even more of dogged determination than it did of amusement.

As for the American people who love him so well, they watched. the preparations with the keenest interest, practically free from apprehension. They had little fear that the hero of San Juan Hill would be unable to take good care of himself under any and all circumstances.

He had slain the moose and the deer, the wild cat and the panther, the grizzly and the bison on American soil. What new, dangers could Africa offer ? America felt that the unfailing nerve, the cold eye, the trained muscle of its most beloved citizen were; equal to any emergency.

ANIMALS, REPTTLES AND FISH OF THE TROPICS

THE FAMOUS ROOSEVELT EXPEDITION

"EWS SHOW.NG PART OF THE OUTF.T TAKEN BY COL. ROOSEVELT ON HIS TRIP THROUGH THE WILDS OF AFRICA

ROOSEVELT AS A HUNTER WHEN A YOUNG MAN

, /VASHINGTON, D. 0.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT WRITING HIS LAST MESSAGE IN HIS OFFICE AT THE WHITE HOUSE

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SOUTH AFRICAN OSTRICHES

A MONKEY CHASE

THE WHITE-TAILED GNU

BRUSH-TAILED PORCUPINE

THE MARABOU STORK OF AFRICA

THE STORK BELONGS TO THE WADING BIRDS, HAVING LONG LEGS AND LONG POINTED BILL. IT FURNISHES PLUMES FOR ORNAMENTS

THE SECRETARY BIRD

AN INHABITANT OF AFRICA AND IS INVALUABLE IN DESTROYING SNAKES

THE VULTURE

A SCAVENGER THAT IS FOUND IN VARIOUS PARTS OF AFRICA

XPLORING PARTY ON THE MARCH-SCENE IN AFRICA o

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COL. ROOSEVELT AND HIS LIVING QUARTERS WHILE IN THE WILDS OF AFRICA

Chapter I

Lueeed to Seeep by Roaring Lions — Arrival at Kieindini — British Warship Salutes — Great Reception at Mombasa — Oee eor the JungeE — The Hunting Grounds at Last- Plains Aeive with Game — Others Tele oe Wondereue Trip — Prowess Toed in Sketch and Song.

|w^ OOSEVELT'S ship, the Admiral, on the evening of April 21, entered Kilindini harbor, flying the American flag at her fore and mainmasts. She dipped the German ensign *3 while passing the British cruiser Pandora, . h^t- whose rails and masts were manned by --^ffliL. cheering sailors. The Pandora saluted the ex-President, who was on the bridge.

The first word of the sighting of the Admiral brought the people of Mombasa in crowds to vantage points, where they might catch a glimpse of the distinguished visitor. The Admiral came slowly up to the harbor and it was dark when Colonel Roosevelt, his son Kermii and the captain were brought ashore In the commandant's surfboat and carried to a place of shelter in chairs on natives' shoulders.

There was a perfect deluge of rain, but in reply to the expressions of regret at this, the Colonel said he was glad to get ashore in any weather. He added that he was in splendid health and that the start to the hunting grounds could not come a minute too soon. The Governor's aide boarded the Admiral and extended a welcome to Colonel Roosevelt, who received another cordial greeting on shore from the provincial commissioner, who conducted him to the government house.

R. F. Cuninghame, the hunter and field naturalist, who had charge of the preparations for the expedition, also was on hand at the pier.

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Colonel Roosevelt was pleased highly when he observed the military guard drawn up. He replied to the salute by doffing his hat and smiling broadly. The crowds pressing forward to see the noted American included Europeans, Indians and natives, and presented a picturesque appearance. While genuinely hearty in their welcome, the people were not demonstrative.

The week's voyage from Aden was interrupted only by a short stop at Mogadiscio, in Italian Somaliland. A feature of the trip was the captain's dinner to Colonel Roosevelt. The saloon was decorated artistically and much enthusiasm was shown over the speeches which were exchanges of good fellowship.

SOCIAL AMENITIES IN THE JUNGLE.

In toasting the ex-President the captain wished him Godspeed and a safe return to the United States. Colonel Roosevelt replied, first in English and then in German and French.

It had been the intention of Colonel Roosevelt to remain in Mombasa two days, but the floods had been heavy and it was deemed advisable to change this plan. The special train, which was to carry the ex-President and his party to Sir Alfred Pease's ranch on the Athi River, was therefore scheduled to leave at 2 o'clock on the following afternoon.