In Wildest Africa, Vol. 1

by C. G. Schillings

THE SUMMIT OF MOUNT ’NGAPTUK, ABOUT 6,000 FEET HIGH. THE CLEARNESS OF THE AIR MAKES IT LOOK AS IF THE ASCENT COULD BE QUICKLY MADE, BUT IT IS A WORK OF SEVERAL HOURS. I CLIMBED IT IN 1899—THE FIRST ASCENT BY A EUROPEAN. IN THE RAVINE RUNNING UP ON THE LEFT I FOUND SEVERAL ELEPHANTS. IN THE DRY SEASON THESE HILLS ARE THE RESORT OF NUMBERS OF RHINOCEROSES.

How many hundred times, after I had gone back to the Dark Continent, have I wished for such a lofty observatory, an airship that would bear me over velt and desert, and from which I could fathom all the secrets of the animal world of the tropics, instead of having to travel toilsomely, fettered to the earth, often merely making step after step automatically in the blazing heat of the sun. When one day such a wish as this is fulfilled, that animal world in its beauty and splendour will have to a great extent passed away....

I must, therefore, content myself with lofty observatories of another kind, that are not unfrequently to be found in the Masai uplands, in the form of numerous hills and rock masses. These afford splendid views and pictures of the animal creation to the spectator who waits patiently on their summits for hours and days, and has the help of good optical instruments. What life and activity displays itself there before our eyes under favourable circumstances! Though the wilderness may appear a desert solitude, bare and empty of all life, let only a few hours go by and the sun change its position a little, and already one sees movement under the trees and bushes that have been till now casting deep shadows. Then with measured steps, prudently regardful of their safety, all kinds of animals come forth to graze. We see the different wild species appearing, at first a few individuals, and soon in greater or smaller herds.

How far the eye carries in this clear transparent atmosphere, and what a wide tract of country we are able to overlook! In this tropical brightness, after weeks and months, and even years, I could not get rid of the perplexing illusion as to distances. The tract of country that my sight could command seemed always much less extensive than it really was. And again, we were continually being misled by shimmering reflections of the air, so that we took gnus for elephants, ostriches for rhinoceroses, zebras for wild asses, and we might even hold to our mistaken view for a considerable time. He who wants to watch the living animals in this way from a lofty point of observation, must be able to keep on persistently for hours. Thus only will the scene piece by piece become familiar to him. Thus only will all the moving life below him very gradually combine into one splendid and intelligible picture.

C. G. Schillings, phot.

ONE OF MY LOOK-OUT PLACES ON THE PLATEAU BETWEEN KILIMANJARO AND MOUNT MERU.

On the way to my look-out hill I pass thousands of the tracks made by wild animals.

At the very outset, the traveller from northern lands sees a most surprising sight in those hundreds of thousands of tracks made by wild animals, and faithfully preserved for weeks and even for longer periods in the dry season on the plains of Africa. The giants of the animal world leave behind them their mighty footprints, often for nearly a year, holes in which a man will sometimes break his leg. But the footprints of the smaller animals also last a long time on velt and plain. And the language of the wilderness rises to a most effectual appeal to our senses when these tracks are associated with the marked tarry scent of the waterbuck in the bush, the breath of the great wild herds on the plain, the strong scent left by elephant or rhinoceros in the primeval forest and in the sultry thickets, and the scent of the buffalo among the reed-beds.

There is often a chaos of tracks, a wild maze of paths trodden flat as a barn-floor, crossing each other, and then again uniting, so that the idea of tame herds, mentioned before as at times suggested, can no longer hold good.