Ladies and Gentlemen,

I thought you might enjoy these photos from the book: WONDERLAND OF THE EASTERN CONGO; by T. Alexander Barnes, who hunted there early in the last century.

Those were the days

Saeed,

I always enjoy seeing Africa from long ago..

Mike

cool, thanks

Very interesting pictures, I wonder what things will look like in 2120.

Great pics! Must have been an interesting time to be in Africa if you survived!

thats about as interesting as I've seen a good while. Great pics.

Thanks, Billy

There is a fantastic old Belgium film clip taken in the Congo near the turn of the last century. I saw it once only. It must be in some Belgium film library. Its so old the film flickers.

It shows the first Indian elephant catchers the Belgiums brought to the Congo with their African helpers running down and catching completey wild African elephants alive and on foot with only ropes.

Unbelieveable stuff. Makes the crocodile hunter look like a candy ass. Just like running into a herd of elephants to cull them, and then instead lassoing their feet, running and dodging when they charge, and then grabbing the rope again when they run.

Mobs of very fit young African guys dodging and darting into the herds and then bringing these huge elephants to a standstill. And then the Mahouts taming them to haul logs.

The Belgium elephant station is still there but there is only one trained elephant and one old trainer left from the colonial days.


VBR,


Ted Gorsline

Fascinating pictures! So, that's where the Watusi dance of the sixties came from!(There's some mighty tall dudes in those pictures) (Doin' the Watsui. . .), AND the Watusi-Ankole Cattle, or Ankole-Watusi Cattle(With the monster horns), whichever is correct.

quote:

Originally posted by Ted Gorsline:
.... Makes the crocodile hunter look like a candy ass. ....

True in any case.

***

Hopefully some of these old films are not lost for good and will re-surface oneday.

***

Interesting old photos. Thanks for posting.

Very nice pictures Saeed !

Great pictures.

I just finished reading Teddy Roosevelt's "African Game Trails" and am now reading Abel Chapman's "On Safari". The late 1800's and early 1900's were the days.

Reading these books makes you stop and think, what happened to change all of this so drastically over the last 100 years?

Great pics!

I want a time machine!!!

There is a Belgium pilot in Mwanza, Tanzania, named Marc LeCler who for many years had a small airline in the Congo with Sauro Albertini.

Marc told me he once went to a village in the Congo and the chief dug up and shoqwed him a set up tusks that he had buried in the ground. Marc said they weighed around 214 pounds a side.

If this is true these unheralded tusks would have been the second largest set on record, next to the ones in the British Museum.

There really were big elephants in the Congo and not very long ago. There are apparently still alot of elephnats in Garamba National Park but elephant hunting is closed nowadays.


VBR,


Ted Gorsline

quote:

Jim Manion: I just finished reading Teddy Roosevelt's "African Game Trails" and am now reading Abel Chapman's "On Safari". The late 1800's and early 1900's were the days....
Reading these books makes you stop and think, what happened to change all of this so drastically over the last 100 years?

I agree. The old classics make most of the more recent books read like fiction.

What happened was the invention of anti biotics leading to huge population growth. When that happened the population of Africa began to soar.

Combine that with a culture that still depends upon inefficient slash and burn agriculture and the land just gets chewed up.

When Teddy Roosevelt visited East Africa there were likely less than 600,000 people in Tanzania. Now there are about 40 million. The people have huge families and no money. The only way they can feed their kids is with three acre slash and burn farms.

Just about everbody has one and they have to make a new one every three years because the unfertilized soil soon gets exhausted.

The late African PH Saidi Kawawa told me he had about 125 children that he knew about. He was Muslim, had four wives, and when they got old he just traded them in on newer models so the kids just kept coming.

When I first got my hunting block in Tanzania there were no farms along the Ruipa river and almost no cattle. Maybe 400 head of cattle total. In that exact same area now, just 10 years later, there are now at least 1,500 new farms or Shambas along the Ruipa River and at least 30,000 head of cattle based there. The game is all gone. Just forty years ago there were still black rhino along the Ruipa river. Some of my staff remember them.

The change for the worse is simply unbelieveable.

quote:

Ted Gorsline: What happened was the invention of anti biotics leading to huge population growth.

James Mellon, when asked about the long-term future of hunting around the world, replied that it is bleak because of population trends, exacerbated by industrialization and improved living standards.