Cairo to Kisumu

by Frank G. Carpenter

Sportsmen of a dozen different nationalities come here every year to hunt the giraffes and all sorts of other big game, which is so plentiful that almost any one can get something. Women are often included in the hunting parties.

There is such a great variety of game that there is no need of chasing over the swamps or tramping about over the plains for days before one gets a shot. One sees a dozen different kinds of beasts on the plains at the same time, and can change his sport from day to day. The sportsman will find antelopes almost everywhere and will not infrequently be in sight of an ostrich or so. These birds are big game and are hunted largely on ponies. They are very speedy, and, however it may be elsewhere, here they do not poke their heads down in the sand and wait for the hunter to come. On the other hand, they spread out their wings and go off on the trot, swimming, as it were, over the ground. They can run faster than a horse, but they actually run in large circles and the hunters catch them by cutting across the arcs of the circles or running around in smaller circles inside. It is a great thing here to shoot a cock ostrich in order that you may give your sweetheart or wife the beautiful white feathers from his wings.

And then there is the zebra! His black and white stripes shine out so plainly in the brilliant sun that he is to be seen by the thousand on the Athi plains, and not far from the railroad all the way from Voi to Uganda—a distance greater than from New York to Pittsburgh. Had it not been against the law, I could have picked off some with my revolver as I rode through on the cars. The zebra is rather shyer when found far from the railroad, but on the whole he is easy to kill. Away from the game reservations on the railroad he will run like a deer, and as zebras usually go in droves the excitement of following them over the plain is intense. Zebra skins tanned with the hair on are fine trophies, and I am told that zebra steak is excellent eating. The flesh tastes like beef with a gamier flavour. The animals are so beautiful, however, and so much like horses, that only a brute would kill them for sport.

In hunting elephants many a sportsman makes enough to pay a good share of his African expenses. He can shoot only two bull elephants, but if he gets good ones their four tusks may bring him fifteen hundred or two thousand dollars. The African elephants have the largest tusks of their kind. I have seen some which weighed one hundred and fifty pounds each, and tusks have been taken which weigh up to two hundred pounds. African ivory is the best and fetches the highest prices. It is difficult to get the tusks out. The porters may be half a day chopping away the meat, and it will take about four men to carry a tusk of the size I have mentioned. There are men here who hunt elephants for their ivory, but most of the licenses are issued to sportsmen, who care more for the honour of having made a good shot than anything else.

One of the best places to shoot an elephant is through the eye or halfway between the ear and the eye. Another good shot is just back of the flap of the ear, and a third is in a place on one side of the tail so that the ball will run along the spine and enter the lungs. Large bullets and heavy guns are used. When the animal is close it is exceedingly dangerous to shoot and not kill. When injured the elephant is very revengeful. He will throw his trunk into the air, scream, hiss, and snort and rush after the hunter, knocking him down with a blow of his trunk and charging upon him with his great tusks. If the man falls, the huge beast is liable to kneel upon him and mash him to a jelly.

One of the difficulties of hunting elephants is the fact that it is not easy to distinguish them in the woods, as they are of much the same colour as the trees. A traveller here tells me that he once almost walked into a big elephant while going through the forest. He was stooping down and looking straight before him when he saw the beast’s legs and took them for tree trunks.

The average elephants of this region can easily make six miles an hour while on the march. They usually travel in herds, young and old moving along together. Notwithstanding their enormous weight, the animals can swim well, and can cross the largest rivers without any trouble.

Most of those which used to overrun these plains have been driven away and must now be hunted in the woods; but there are plenty in the forests between here and Uganda, and about the slopes of Mt. Kenya and Mt. Kilimanjaro. There are also many in the south near the Zambezi, and west of Lake Tanganyika, in the forests along the Congo. Some years ago they were being killed off at such a rapid rate, and the ivory output was decreasing so fast, that strict rules for their preservation were inaugurated and are being enforced.

As for hippos and rhinos, there are plenty of them still left along the streams and about the great lakes of the tropical parts of the continent. There are rhinoceroses almost everywhere in the woods between Nairobi and Uganda. I have seen a number of hippos, and were I a hunter, which I am not, I could, I venture to say, bag enough of their hides to make riding whips for all the hunt clubs of Virginia. The settlers tell me the animals come in and root up their gardens, and that it is almost impossible to fence against them.