In Brightest Africa

by Carl Ethan Akeley

I am putting the youngsters and their ball into bronze for one group.

The other is called At Bay and represents an elephant with trunk up standing at bay with his hind leg tied to a great log.

One of the native's methods of hunting elephants is to dig a pit in an elephant path, cover the pit over with a "basket"—a kind of trap—put a noose on top of the "basket," and camouflage the whole with grass and leaves. When the trap is set there is no evidence of anything but a plain and safe path. The noose is one end of a twisted rawhide cable, the other end of which is fastened to a heavy log. If the trap works, the elephant steps on the "basket" and his leg goes through. The "basket" sticks to his leg and holds the noose until the elephant moves enough to draw it tight. Then he begins to drag the heavy log through the forest. He cannot go far or fast and he leaves an unmistakable trail. He is a high-strung, nervous creature and when after a few days of trekking about with his tormenting log the natives come up with him, he is weak from lack of food and water. There he stands at bay, as I have pictured him in bronze. But his defiance is of slight avail, for there is little to be feared from his charge. It is comparatively simple for his enemies to finish him off with poisoned spears and arrows.

In my bronzes I am telling bit by bit my stories of African animals. A series of three groups telling the story of native lion-spearing will be finished by the time this book is out and will ultimately take its place in Roosevelt African Hall. In 1911 I got together a band of Nandi spearmen on the Uasin Gishu Plateau to hunt lions. I wanted a motion picture of native lion-spearing, the most dramatic thing Africa has to offer. In twenty days the Nandi had speared ten lions and five leopards. My moving pictures were not very satisfactory but I did get two other very diverse results from the trip—the determination to invent a better camera for wild-animal photography, and the idea for these lion-spearing groups.

The first two groups represent three native spearmen in the act of facing the charge of a lion and lioness, the lioness characteristically leading the charge. The third group, a sequel to the other two, shows the three hunters chanting a requiem over the dead lion.

I have done another lion—one that interests me more than all the others. And this piece of sculpture came about in this way. When I met President Roosevelt at the White House on my return from Africa in 1906, I was impressed with the power and humanity of the man as all were who knew him. One of the great experiences of my life was that quiet talk with Theodore Roosevelt in the shade of the acacia tree on the Uasin Gishu Plateau when I came to know the man and to love him. After our return from Africa, he was constantly reminding me of my unwritten African book and saying that he wanted to write a foreword and a chapter for that book. But I had no such hankering to write as I had to do sculpture, and so I put it off. At last, however, in 1919, after the war was over, I sat down one day and started to write him a letter to say that I would begin the book. I had written the two words, "Dear Colonel," when the telephone rang. It was my friend, George H. Sherwood, the executive secretary of the Museum.

"Ake," he said, "I have bad news for you. Colonel Roosevelt died this morning."

For me the bottom dropped out of everything. From that time until I got back from the funeral I did nothing. When I returned from the funeral I was terribly depressed. I had to find expression. I found it most naturally in modelling. I set to work on a lion. I meant to make it symbolic of Roosevelt, of his strength, courage, fearlessness—of his kingly qualities in the old-fashioned sense. And this modelling afforded me great comfort and relief. I worked on it day after day. Taxidermy, groups and bronzes, were all forgotten. While I was so engaged one day an old friend of mine, James Brite, an architect, called me on the telephone. I asked him if he wouldn't come up and design a pedestal for the lion. He came up not only that day but many others. Neither of us knew just what we were going to do with it when it was finished. I had a vague idea of casting it, making one bronze for Mrs. Roosevelt, and destroying the model.

We were still working when one day Archie Roosevelt came in. I showed the lion to him.

"None of us want to see statues of Father," he said. "They can't make Father," and as he put his arms about the pedestal of the lion, "but this is Father. Of course, you do not know it, but among ourselves we boys always called him the 'Old Lion' and when he died I cabled the others in France, 'The Old Lion is dead.'"