In Brightest Africa

by Carl Ethan Akeley

"Let me try my new Rigby on Tommie," Tarlton said, as he drew a bead on the centre of the gazelle's chest. When we reached the antelope and found the bullet one inch below where he expected it, he remarked that he had suspected that his rifle was not accurately sighted. This was no conceit on his part. He expected to place his bullet exactly where he wished and if his gun was accurately sighted he rarely missed.

Tarlton's first lion was shot about this time. The lion had charged his friend and with his front paws on the man's shoulder, and his mouth open, was reaching for the man's head when Tarlton pulled the trigger fifty yards away. The friend escaped without a scratch.

In the conduct of his business in Nairobi, Tarlton must have come in contact with all sorts of men, for there are sportsmen and so-called sportsmen of all shades and degrees. There is the man who goes over keen to get a representative head of every species of game animal. No one can take exception to him while there is plenty of game left. On the other hand, there is the man who hunts for record heads and with him I have little patience. One man came into camp in Somaliland who, although he never shot unless he believed his prey to be unusual, had killed seventy-five aoul or Soemmerring's gazelle before he got the record. Another class of sportsmen is made up of men who seem to think that the end to be attained is to kill all the law will allow them. I have seen a great many of this type. Having paid for a license which allows them to kill a given number of animals of each species, they are never content until they have killed the full number regardless of their needs, the size of the horns, or anything else. In the same class with the man who kills to his limit is the man who has made careful preparation for a hunt in Africa and who goes there determined to kill every available species within three months. One I know told his agents that he would pay them for the full time if they would so arrange it that he could get his game in three weeks. His idea is to kill and get out of Africa. He has none of that appreciation of Africa's charm and of that real interest in its animals which create in the true sportsman the desire to remain as long as possible.

There are many professional hunters in British East Africa, but perhaps R. J. Cuninghame is the most notable of the type. I met him first in 1906. I wanted elephants, and everyone at Nairobi agreed that he was the best elephant hunter. So I went to him and asked him to teach me to hunt elephants. We had some trouble in arranging the terms because he did not want any remuneration for helping an expedition bent on scientific collection. I couldn't accept his time gratis but have always appreciated this offer. Coming from a Scotchman it was quite unexpected, but it was typical of Cuninghame's generosity and indicative of his interest in scientific work.

He taught me as much as one man can learn from another about the game of hunting elephants. There are some things which one can learn only through experience, and in elephant hunting most of the essentials must be learned in that way. It is easy and natural to assume that these huge beasts will always be too obvious for the unexpected to happen. But in spite of their size they are not always easy to see, for in their own country elephants are the colour of the shadows and on occasion quite as silent. In a forest or rock environment one may almost literally run on to an elephant before being aware of its presence. The fact that Cuninghame spent so many years hunting the great game of Africa without ever being mauled is evidence of his skill.

We went together to the Aberdare and killed one elephant—the single tusker now in the group in the Field Museum in Chicago. Then we went down to the government station at Fort Hall and got permission to go up on Mt. Kenia for further elephant shooting. We spent six weeks on the slopes of the mountain, I as an amateur under Cuninghame's tutelage. And he was a real elephant hunter. He had killed many elephants, and his long experience had given him a great deal of that knowledge about elephants which would enable him to kill them without himself being killed. On the other hand, Cuninghame hunted elephants for ivory, and when a man approaches a herd looking for ivory, he is not likely to see much excepting tusks. It is natural, therefore, that from the ivory hunters we learn comparatively little of the more intimate things that we should like to know about the every-day life of the elephant. The world has no record of the knowledge of wild life that their experience should have given the ivory hunters.

It is for this reason that the camera hunters appeal to me as being so much more useful than the gun hunters. They have their pictures to show—still pictures and moving pictures—and when their game is over the animals are still alive to play another day. Moreover, according to any true conception of sport—the use of skill, daring, and endurance in overcoming difficulties—camera hunting takes twice the man that gun hunting takes. It is fortunate for the animals that camera hunting is becoming popular.

The first notable camera hunter in Africa was Edward North Buxton, whose book, "Two African Trips," was published in 1902. In the preface to this book Buxton writes that "it would better be described as a picture-book than a volume of travels." This book paved the way for another in 1905, "With Flashlight and Rifle," by C. G. Schillings. Considering the state of photography at that time, Schillings' book is a truly remarkable record of wild animal life. In 1910, A. Radclyffe Dugmore brought out his book, "Camera Adventures in the African Wilds." In it are several pictures of lions taken by flashlight at night from a blind that are photographically as good as are ever likely to be taken.

Then came the first of the moving-picture hunters. The first success was the film called "The Water Hole" taken by Mr. Lydford, who was temporarily the photographer of Paul Rainey's expedition. Although it is not photographically as good as some of the later ones, it was a remarkable achievement, as all who saw it will testify, especially when they realize that this was Mr. Lydford's first experience in making motion pictures and that his equipment was not as good as equipment is now. The film had a deservedly popular run. Like all such films it was arranged for public exhibition by piecing together parts taken on different occasions, so that the audience gets in one crowded hour the fruits of weeks and months of painstaking effort.

The next successful moving picture that I know of was taken on the expedition of Lady Grace McKenzie. It has in it the very remarkable piece of film showing a charging lion. The lion almost got the operator and ended the picture but fortunately both escaped. This reel has never been extensively shown.