rwj,

That is one of the more interesting websites that I have come across. The first story I read was Rommell's suicide. If you get a chance, visit that site and look around.

Get a dozen or two of your buddies together and try it sometime before you feel too sorry for the lion.

I'll even furnish the spears!

Longbob: I have a first edition of African Game Trails (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1910). The hunting ethic was a bit different then than it is now. Early in the book he talks about loosing only two wounded animals...but I think in the body of the book he mentions more than two. More than a few of the lions he shot were cubs. He used an army Springfield .30 caliber, a Winchester .405, and double barrled .500-450 Holland. I wish I could have been there with him.

I read the book recently, and it was eye-opening. He did a good job describing the country as he found it, and the habits of the various species. However, three things struck me.

First off, Ted wasn't a very good shot. He missed and wounded a lot of animals.

Second, the shooting was a bit excessive. I know he was collecting specimens for a museum, but 19 rhino??(I recall that was the total, or maybe it was 13). How many rhino can you put in a museum.

Third, the man was hardly politically correct. In fact he was a bigot. Nobody would publish material like that today. The indigenous people were black savages to him, uncivilized and backward; while the whites were the logical and deserving rulers and possessors of the better parts of Africa.

All that being said, I enjoyed the book and would recommend it to anyone who wants to get a historical perspective.

I don't think you could call Mandela or Mbeki backward or uncivilized. They each have advanced degrees, Mbeki has several I think, and is a true gentleman in person. Mbeki is about as close to an English gentleman as you can get without being born to a title. The problem seems to lie in the values of many African politicians, ie I am the big cheese now so cut me and my cronies in on every deal, and don't even think about replacing me and my buddies or I will have you taken care of; and their inability or unwillingness to create an environment where the economy prospers and lifts all boats. I would say Botswana is the shining exception, Namibia to some degree as well.

Russ: I am going to post two message here, one regarding Roosevelt and one regarding modern Africa (Mandela and Mbeki). I agree with you on both of your statements on these points.



I was being polite when I said Roosevelt claimed to have lost two wounded animals on his hunt (which he claimed in his book), when he documented in the rest of his book that he shot at and wounded lots of animals almost on a daily basis for months on end. He walked away from many of the animals that he wounded, which we would not want to do today. When he said that he lost only two wounded animals, I am certain that he meant that he only lost two wounded animals that he looked for but could not find....he did not mean that he did not wound animals and leave them in the bush....all but two of which he did not look for... I think he did most of his shooting with that .30 cal Springfield. There was no shame it it whatsoever. God knows I want to shoot an African lion, but the parts where he shoots several lion cubs as he encounters them made me cringe, even when I read it 15 years ago. I still would like to have been there with him.



I also agree with you on your statements about modern Afican leaders. I bet many of them have learned their craft from Great Britain and the United States.

Longbob: It sounds like a great webpage..I will look it up. Thank you.

I wasn't judging the guy, who am I to do that? Just noting the things that struck me when reading the book. And I have read a lot of books written about the early exploits of the white man in Africa, didn't get the same sense re the poor shooting and the superior/inferior race stuff at all.

Regarding quantities of game taken, sure, Bell and Hunter and and the rest of those guys killed like there was no tomorrow. I didn't like that either, they were market hunters, a species of hunter I don't hold in high regard. But Teddy was a sportsman, and I thought he overdid it for someone who professed to be that (and a great conservationist to boot!).

Well, perhaps his guilty conscience was a factor in his conservation efforts here in the USA (or was that all before he quit the Presidency to go to Africa?).

No matter, it was still a very conscientious account of a time long gone when Africa was young and game was plentiful. Truly the "good old days", well except for the fact that everyone was dying of some tropical disease or other.

I think the whites made a couple of mistakes in Africa. First, carving the place up into haphazard chunks of land without regard to tribal divisions; second, destroying the tribal societies and their low-impact lifestyles; third, introducing money and guns, which made dictatorship and corruption so efficient and attractive; and finally, just dumping the mess when they lost interest, without preparing their successors adequately.

Water under the bridge now though. Thankfully nature is stubborn and Africa is still a wild place in pockets.

No, they didn't learn their craft from the Brits or the U.S. There has always been "evil men" through out the world's history that seek power to domonate their fellow human beings. And it will always be that way. That's why "freedom is never free." You have to work for it and fight for it against all odds. That's what is happening in Iraq, to bring freedom and democracy to an oppressed people in a region that has never known such. And hoping that the people of Iraq's neigbors will take their freedom too once they see it happen. It's not about oil, it's about bringing about harmony in the world to rid the worold of people like Ben Laden. But alas, mankind will never truely have peace and freedom by it's own accord.