In Africa: Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country

by John T. McCutcheon

That night we camped in a little circular clearing which the Akeleys called "Tembo Circus," for it was near this same clearing that one of their large elephants had been killed three years before, and in the clearing the skin had been prepared for preservation. All about us stretched the vast forest, full of strange night sounds and spectral in the darkness. In the morning we awoke in a dense cloud and did not break camp until afternoon. Our Kikuyu and Wanderobo guides were sent out with promises of liberal backsheesh to find fresh trails, but they returned with unfavorable reports, so we marched back to the main camp again.

Thus ended our Kenia elephant experience, for a letter from Colonel Roosevelt, asking Mr. Akeley if he could come to Nairobi for a conference on their elephant group, led to our departure from the Mount Kenia country.

The other two elephant experiences were much more spectacular and perhaps are worthy of a separate story.

CHAPTER XI

NINE DAYS WITHOUT SEEING AN ELEPHANT. THE ROOSEVELT PARTY DEPARTS AND WE MARCH FOR THE MOUNTAINS ON OUR BIG ELEPHANT HUNT. THE POLICEMAN OF THE PLAINS

The Mount Elgon elephants have a very bad reputation. The district is remote from government protection and for years the herds have been the prey of Swahili and Arab ivory hunters, as well as poachers of all sorts who have come over the Uganda border or down from the savage Turkana and Suk countries on the north. As a natural consequence of this unrestricted poaching the herds have been hunted and harassed so much that most of the large bull elephants with big ivory have been killed, leaving for the greater part big herds of cows and young elephants made savage and vicious by their persecution. Elephant hunters who have conscientiously hunted the district bring in reports of having seen herds of several hundred elephants, most of which were cows and calves, and of having seen no bulls of large size.

The government game license permits the holder to kill two elephants, the ivory of each to be at least sixty pounds. This means a fairly large elephant and may be either a bull or a cow. The cow ivory, however, rarely reaches that weight and consequently the bulls are the ones the hunters are after and the ones that have gradually been so greatly reduced in numbers. The elephants of this district roam the slopes of the mountains and often make long swinging trips out in the broad stretches of the Guas Ngishu Plateau to the eastward, in all a district probably fifty miles wide by sixty or seventy miles long.

The hunters who invade this section usually march north from the railroad at a point near Victoria Nyanza, turn westward at a little settlement called Sergoi, and continue in that direction until they reach the Nzoia River. Naturally, these names will mean nothing to one not familiar with the country, but perhaps by saying that the trip means at least ten days of steady marching in a remote and unsettled country, far from sources of supplies, I will be able to convey a faint idea of how hard it is to reach the elephant country.

Our purpose in making this long trip of ten weeks or more was to try for black-maned lion on the high plateau and to collect elephants for the group that Mr. Akeley is preparing for the American Museum of Natural History. The government gave him a special permit to collect such elephants as he would require, two cows, a calf, a young bull, and, if possible, two large bulls. One or more of these were to be killed by Colonel Roosevelt and one by myself. It seemed promising that the cows, calf, and young bull could be got on Mount Elgon, but the likelihood of getting the big bulls was far from encouraging. Lieutenant-Governor Jackson thought we might be successful if we directed our efforts to the southeastern slopes of the mountain and avoided the northeastern slopes along the River Turkwel, which had been hunted a good deal by sportsmen and poachers. If we were unable to get the big bulls on Elgon it might be necessary to make a special trip into Uganda for them. However, we determined to try, and try we did, through eight weeks of hard work and wonderful experiences in that remote district.