In Wildest Africa, Vol. 2

by C. G. Schillings

There is a wonderful fascination at all times in lying in wait by night for animals, and watching their goings and comings and all their habits. Even here at home, in our game preserves, the experience of passing hour after hour on the look-out has a charm about it difficult to describe in words. Out in the wilderness it is increased immeasurably. It is an intense pleasure to me to read other people’s impressions of such experiences, when I feel the accounts are trustworthy. They are so different in some respects, so much alike in others. In my first book I cited Count Coudenhove, mentioned above, in this connection, as a man of proved courage, who writes at once sympathetically and convincingly. Here let me give a passage from the book of another sportsman. Count Hans Palffy. In his Wild und Hund he speaks as follows: “I had been waiting for two hours or so in the darkness without being able to descry the carcase of the rhinoceros” [which he himself had shot and which he was using as a bait for the lion], “when suddenly I heard a sound like that of a heavy body falling on the ground, and then almost immediately the lion began growling beside the dead animal. I could hear the King of Beasts quite distinctly, as he began to pull and bite at the flesh.... He would move away from it every ten or twenty minutes, always in the same direction, to give out a series of roars. The effect of this was magnificent beyond description. Beginning always with a soft murmur, he gradually raised his mighty voice into a peal of thunder—I never in my life heard anything so beautiful.”

C. G. Schillings, phot.

JACKALS. ONLY ONE IS VISIBLE, BUT THE GLEAMING EYES OF TWO OTHERS (NOS. 2 AND 3) GIVE A PECULIAR INTEREST TO THIS PHOTOGRAPH.

C. G. Schillings, phot.

PHOTOGRAPHS OF EAST AFRICAN ANTELOPES SHOT BY THE AUTHOR AND NOW PRESERVED IN VARIOUS MUSEUMS. 1. SMALL KUDU (STREPSICEROS IMBERBIS, Blyth), BUCK. 2. DWARF GAZELLE (GAZELLA THOMSONI, Gthr.), BUCK. 3. WHITE-BEARDED GNU (CONNOCHÆTES ALBOJUBATUS, Thos.), BULL. 4. BUSH-BUCK (TRAGELAPHUS MASAICUS, Neum), BUCK. (THE FEMALE OF THE FIRST-NAMED AND LAST-NAMED SPECIES HAVE NO HORNS.)

Both on account of the hardships and fatigue involved—which are calculated in the long run to ruin his constitution—and also because he really cannot manipulate his cameras successfully except on starry or moonlight nights, it is most desirable for the photographer to provide himself with an apparatus working automatically. You cannot count upon its working as you would wish. The string which sets it in action may be caught and pulled by a bat or even a cockchafer instead of a lion you want to photograph. The photograph reproduced on p. 697, for instance, was the work of the turtledoves therein visible. The motion of their wings, it may be noted, was too quick for a clearly defined record.

This picture, taken in the early morning, is a good instance of the way in which I have always enforced my rule as to never touching up my photographs. The plate was broken on its way home, but the cracks which resulted were left as they were.[21] I remember one case in which I had put up my apparatus with a view to securing photographs of certain lions, and in which I had to be content with a picture of a spotted hyena splashing its way in full flight through the swamp. The hideous cowering gait of the animal came out very strikingly on the negative.

There is wide scope for a man’s dexterity and resourcefulness in the setting up of a flashlight apparatus. All the qualities that go to the making of a big-game hunter are essential to success in this field also. You have to keep a sharp look-out for the tracks of the different animals and to watch for their appearance, taking up your position in some thorn-bush hiding-place or up a tree if you propose to operate the camera yourself by means of a string. In the case of most animals you have, of course, to pay special attention to the direction of the wind. This is not necessary, however, in the case of lions. Lions take no notice whatever of the man in hiding. Elephants, on the contrary, are very easily excited, and when this is so they are apt to force their way into his thorn retreat and trample on him or to drag him down from his point of vantage.