The Elephants' Skulls Were Saved
Removing an Elephant's Skin
He was asked whether he had secured, among his trophies, any new species of animal that might be named after him. In Africa there is a custom of giving the discoverer's name to any new kind or class of animal that is killed. For instance, the name "granti" is applied to the gazelle first discovered by the explorer Grant. "Thompsoni" is applied to the gazelle discovered by Thompson. "Cokei" is the name given the hartebeest discovered by Coke, and so on. If Colonel Roosevelt had discovered a new variation of any of the species it would be called the "Roosevelti ——."
The colonel said that he had not discovered any new animals, but that Heller, he thought, had found some new variety of mouse or mole on Mount Kenia. He supposed that it would be called the Mole Helleri.
He then told about an exciting adventure they had with a hippo two nights before. Away in the night the camp was aroused by screams coming from the big swamp in front. Kongoni, his gunbearer, rushed in and shouted: "Lion eat porter!" The colonel grabbed his gun and dashed out in the darkness. Kermit and one or two others, hastily armed, also appeared, and they charged down the swamp, where a hippo had made its appearance in the neighborhood of a terrified porter. Kermit dimly made out the hippo and shot at it, but it disappeared and could not be found again.
After luncheon the colonel said, "Now, I want to inflict my pigskin library on you," and together we went into his tent and he opened an oilcloth-covered, aluminum-lined case that was closely packed with books, nearly all of which were bound in pigskin. It was a present from his sister, Mrs. Douglas Robinson. The tent was lined with red, evidently Kermit's darkroom when he was developing pictures. A little table stood at the open flaps of the entrance and upon it were writing materials, with which Mr. Roosevelt already had started to write up the elephant hunt of the day before. His motto seems to be, "Do it now, if not sooner."
The Pigskin Library
I sat on his cot, Mrs. Akeley on a small tin trunk, and Stephenson on another. The colonel squatted down on the floor cloth of the tent and began to show us one by one the various literary treasures from his pigskin library. The whole box of books was so designed that it weighed only sixty pounds, and was thus within the limit of a porter's load. Some of the books were well stained from frequent use and from contact with the contents of his saddle-bags. Whenever he went on a hunt he carried one or more of these little volumes, which he would take out and read from time to time when there was nothing else to do. He never seemed to waste a moment.