One who has perhaps felt and enjoyed their spell more than any one else is Alfred Brehm. But he has travelled only in regions that had long been under the influence of man and his activity. He has only once seen the king of beasts, and has never looked upon the giraffe—whose beautiful eyes the Arab compares with the eyes of his beloved—and many other forms of the African fauna.[37] Nevertheless he has done wonders, thanks to his deep feeling for his subject, his intimate understanding of it, and his incomparably poetical power of description. He has given us imperishable pictures in words that are among the most beautiful that have ever been written about Nature. Our old famous teacher, Dr. Schweinfurth, has seen and described similar scenes. With these two we may rank in equal honour the name of the German explorer Richard Böhm,[38] who unhappily lost his life so tragically and at such an early age on the shores of Lake Upämba in Southern Urúa, of which he was the discoverer. Many others might also be named who were deeply influenced by these primeval splendours. But the fauna of South Africa has vanished unsung and untamed, before any artist or master of words arose to place in a fitting way its beauties on record for all time!
C. G. Schillings, phot.
TELEPHOTOGRAPH OF A HERD OF WATERBUCK (COBUS ELLIPSIPRYMNUS, Ogilb.) RUNNING AWAY.
C. G. Schillings, phot.
ORYX ANTELOPES (ORYX CALLOTIS, Thos.); “CHIROA” OF THE SWAHILI, “OL GAMASSAROK” OF THE MASAI): A MOST DIFFICULT ANIMAL TO STALK.
Masters of words like Ludwig Heck, by whose skilful pen the life of the mammalia has been lately described anew for us in Brehm’s Tierleben, and like Wilhelm Bölsche, would perhaps have been capable of grasping, and reproducing the impressions that the traveller feels in those far lands. But they have never trodden these distant countries, and they must therefore confine themselves to describing artistically and yet truly what they have never actually seen, from ideas based on their own clear understanding of the observations of others.
The sun is setting. It is time for me to come down from my hill and return to my camp. The sun goes to his rest in flaming splendour, there is a glowing radiance of violet and purple light; soon dark night will surround me. Thoughtfully I tread my homeward way, with my mind richly stored with impressions, but anxious as to my efforts to describe all that I have seen, and doubtful as to my success.
“To have passed a thousand and more days, a thousand and more nights in the wilderness with a great longing in my heart in some way to grasp and make my own all the splendour I have seen and all its charm; to have again and again delighted in the beauty of the Nyíka: this does not make me capable of reproducing it. And even if after many decades of years I could fully comprehend it, I should never succeed in reproducing it in its full significance and bringing it home to the minds of those who have never looked upon it with their own eyes.”