Other members of the Roosevelt family and friends of the Colonel came, and what they said encouraged us. I made one model after another, trying to blend the majesty of a real lion with the symbolism. Then one day when Mr. Brite and I were in the studio a man came in whom we had never seen before. After some desultory conversation he asked how large the lion was to be. We said we didn't know. "How big ought it to be?" we asked. "It ought to be as big as possible and it ought to be placed in Washington," was his reply.
Brite pointed out that so large a lion would necessitate a pedestal that would nearly cut him off from view from the ground. And then developed the idea of placing the lion in a great bowl.
That was the beginning of a long period of work on a great plan for a Roosevelt Memorial.
All this was originated without thought of the Roosevelt Memorial Society which had raised a million and a half dollars among other things to erect a monument to Roosevelt. The natural thing to do was to submit this offering of ours to that society. We have done this, and it will be judged in competition with the designs of others. If it should be chosen it will be because no other competitor, though they all be better sculptors, can possibly have the same deep desire as I to perpetuate the spirit of Theodore Roosevelt and to do him all honour.
CHAPTER XI HUNTING GORILLAS IN CENTRAL AFRICA
In 1910 I was in British East Africa collecting specimens for the group of elephants recently completed in the American Museum of Natural History in New York. My plan at that time was to leave the region of snow-capped Mt. Kenia when I had finished making my elephant studies, and to go into German East Africa, as it was then, in an endeavour to get specimens for a group of gorillas to be mounted for the Museum. I had obtained the proper papers from the German authorities, and I had funds for the purpose. Nevertheless, I had to abandon the plan at that time because an elephant caught me unawares and mauled me sufficiently to prevent my carrying out my project.
But the gorilla group remained as an interesting prospect ahead, and I read eagerly any reports which came to my knowledge of hunters or scientists who had seen or killed any of these animals. Most gorillas reported since their original discovery had been reported from nearer the west coast of Africa than the region which I had intended to explore for them, but I had heard of one instance of a gorilla in German East Africa. The story was of a German who had tried to catch a grown gorilla in a net. He had succeeded in getting the net over the animal and then the animal had succeeded in tearing his way out of the net and killing the man. Whether this story was true or not I do not know. Before I left Africa, in 1911, I heard that a man named Grauer had gone into the country where I had intended going and that he had come out through Nairobi with eight gorilla skins. Altogether there came to me considerable corroboration of my belief that there were gorillas in the Lake Kivu country of Central Africa, and my intention to go there and collect the material for a group remained constant although, through the period of the war, inactive.
It came to life in 1920. One night I was expounding the beauties of Africa to my friend Mr. H. E. Bradley when he turned to Mrs. Bradley and said, "Let's take him at his word and spend a year in Africa." Mrs. Bradley asked what they should do with their five-year-old daughter. Nothing pleased me more than to assure them that an expedition to Central Africa was entirely safe and practicable for women and children, and so an expedition was agreed upon. Years before, when she was a child, I had promised the niece of a friend of mine, Miss Martha Miller, to take her to Africa. I had never been allowed to forget the promise. Now the time for fulfillment had come. So the party was formed of these two ladies, Bradley, the five-year-old child, Miss Priscilla Hall, and me. Miss Hall had agreed to look after the youngster while the others hunted. Not long afterward it was definitely decided that the expedition was to be a gorilla expedition. I received a letter from an Englishman, Mr. C. D. Foster, who had shot a male and female gorilla and caught a baby in the country I had in mind. That led us to base our plans on gorillas alone, and it was a gorilla expedition, although Miss Miller killed an elephant the first time she shot at anything in Africa and both she and Mrs. Bradley killed lions.