Continually I met men with experiences in their past lives which showed how close the country was to those primitive conditions in which warfare with wild beasts was one of the main features of man’s existence.

At one dinner my host and two of my fellow-guests had been within a year or eighteen months severely mauled by lions. All three, by the way, informed me that the actual biting caused them at the moment no pain whatever; the pain came later. On meeting Harold Hill, my companion on one of my Kapiti Plains lion hunts, I found that since I had seen him he had been roughly handled by a dying leopard. The government had just been obliged to close one of the trade routes to native caravans because of the ravages of a man-eating lion, which carried men away from the camps.

A safari which had come in from the north had been charged by a rhino, and one of the porters tossed and killed, the horn being driven clear through his loins. At Heatley’s farm three buffalo (belonging to the same herd from which we had shot five) rushed out of the papyrus one afternoon at a passing buggy, which just managed to escape by a breakneck run across the level plain, the beasts chasing it for a mile. One afternoon, at Government House, I met a government official who had once succeeded in driving into a corral seventy zebras, including more stallions than mares; their misfortune in no way abated their savagery toward one another, and as the limited space forbade the escape of the weaker, the stallions fought to the death with teeth and hoofs during the first night, and no less than twenty were killed outright or died of their wounds.

Most of the time in Nairobi we were the guests of ever-hospitable McMillan, in his low, cool house, with its broad, vine-shaded veranda, running around all four sides, and its garden, fragrant and brilliant with innumerable flowers. Birds abounded, singing beautifully; the bulbuls were the most noticeable singers, but there were many others. The dark ant-eating chats haunted the dusky roads on the outskirts of the town, and were interesting birds; they were usually found in parties, flirted their tails up and down as they sat on bushes or roofs or wire, sang freely in chorus until after dusk, and then retired to holes in the ground for the night.

A tiny owl with a queer little voice called continually not only after nightfall, but in the bright afternoons. Shrikes spitted insects on the spines of the imported cactus in the gardens.

It was race week, and the races, in some of which Kermit rode, were capital fun. The white people—army officers, government officials, farmers from the country roundabout, and their wives—rode to the races on ponies or even on camels, or drove up in rickshaws, in gharries, in bullock tongas, occasionally in automobiles, most often in two-wheel carts or rickety hacks drawn by mules and driven by a turbaned Indian or a native in a cotton shirt. There were Parsees, and Goanese dressed just like the Europeans. There were many other Indians, their picturesque womenkind gaudy in crimson, blue, and saffron. The constabulary, Indian and native, were in neat uniforms and well set up, though often barefooted. Straight, slender Somalis with clear-cut features were in attendance on the horses. Native negroes, of many different tribes, flocked to the race-course and its neighborhood. The Swahilis, and those among the others who aspired toward civilization, were well clad, the men in half European costume, the women in flowing, parti-colored robes.

But most of them were clad, or unclad, just as they always had been. Wakamba, with filed teeth, crouched in circles on the ground. Kikuyu passed, the men each with a blanket hung round the shoulders, and girdles of chains, and armlets and anklets of solid metal; the older women bent under burdens they carried on the back, half of them in addition with babies slung somewhere round them, while now and then an unmarried girl would have her face painted with ochre and vermilion. A small party of Masai warriors kept close together, each clutching his shining, long-bladed war spear, their hair daubed red and twisted into strings.

A large band of Kavirondo, stark naked, with shield and spear and head-dress of nodding plumes, held a dance near the race-track. As for the races themselves, they were carried on in the most sporting spirit, and only the Australian poet Patterson could adequately write of them.

Theodore Roosevelt. Just finished re-reading African Game Trails. I tend to read it every few years, in my normal rotation of African hunting books.

Kermit was Roosevelt's son, and this was the time of Karen Von Blixen, so that would be my bet, as she was a writer.

Obviously that was written by Saeed, dont know where he got it from...
Did I won?

agree Teddy Roosevelt and also just finished re-reading his book again. I truly enjoy it

Yes, that is an excerpt from Theodore Roosevelt's classic book, African Game Trails, my favorite hunting book of all time.

If only we in the US were so lucky as to have another President as truly great as he was.

It is amazing and humbling to think about all that he accomplished in his brief life of only sixty years.

We rested for an hour or two at noon, under the shade of a very old tree with glossy leaves, and orchids growing on its gnarled, hoary limbs, while the unsaddled horses grazed, and the gun-bearers slept near by, the cool mountain air, though this was midday under the equator, making them prefer the sunlight to the shade.

When we moved on it was through a sea of bush ten or fifteen feet high, dotted here and there with trees; and riddled in every direction by the trails of elephant, rhinoceros, and buffalo. Each of these animals frequents certain kinds of country to which the other two rarely or never penetrate; but here they all three found ground to their liking.

Except along their winding trails, which were tunnels where the jungle was tall, it would have been practically impossible to traverse the thick and matted cover in which they had made their abode. We could not tell what moment we might find ourselves face to face with some big beast at such close quarters as to insure a charge, and we moved in cautious silence, our rifles in our hands.

Rhinoceros were especially plentiful, and we continually came across not only their tracks, but the dusty wallows in which they rolled, and where they came to deposit their dung. The fresh sign of elephant, however, distracted our attention from the lesser game, and we followed the big footprints eagerly, now losing the trail, now finding it again. At last near a clump of big trees we caught sight of three huge, dark bodies ahead of us. The wind was right, and we stole toward them, Kermit leading, and I immediately behind. Through the tangled branches their shapes loomed in vague outline; but we saw that one had a pair of long tusks, and our gun-bearers unanimously pronounced it a big bull, with good ivory.

A few more steps gave Kermit a chance at its head, at about sixty yards, and with a bullet from his .405 Winchester he floored the mighty beast. I rose, and we both fired in unison, bringing it down again; but as we came up it struggled to get on its feet, roaring savagely, and once more we both fired together. This finished it.

We were disappointed at finding that it was not a bull; but it was a large cow, with tusks over five feet long—a very unusual length for a cow—one weighing twenty-five, and the other twenty-two pounds. Our experience had convinced us that both the Winchester .405, and the Springfield .300 would do good work with elephants; although I kept to my belief that, for such very heavy game, my Holland .500-.450 was an even better weapon.

Not far from where this elephant fell Tarlton had, the year before, witnessed an interesting incident. He was watching a small herd of elephants, cows and calves, which were in the open, when he saw them begin to grow uneasy. Then, with a shrill trumpet, a cow approached a bush, out of which bounded a big lion. Instantly all the cows charged him, and he fled as fast as his legs could carry him for the forest, two hundred yards distant. He just managed to reach the cover in safety; and then the infuriated cows, in their anger at his escape, demolished the forest for several rods in every direction.

This is from a book called

INCREDIBLE HUNTING STORIES: CLASSIC TALES FROM THE FIELD.

BY JAY CASSEL.

Very enjoyable book.

We are on a hiking break in the Swiss Alps.

Where practically everything is up and down!

Yesterday we were on a trail going up at 27 degrees!

Good training for the Selous next month.

While not hiking, or visiting with friends and neighbors, I like to read.

And the Amazon Kindle app comes in very handy!

I have it on my iPad.

And find so many interesting books to read.

We actually have a large group of friends, who share the same Kindle book account.

Each has different interests, and our library has thousands of books!

I have a doctor friend, who enjoys medical books, and I find some of these are very interesting.

We spent two days here outfitting and on the morning of the third said goodbye to the assembled population and started with our pack train up the east bank of the Scumscum. We were starting out to live and travel in an unknown wilderness for over six months and our outfit may perhaps interest my readers: We had two saddle horses, four pack horses and a dog.


A small tent formed one pack cover. We had ten heavy army blankets, which we used for saddle blankets while traveling, they being kept clean by using canvas sweat pads under them. We were able to pack 150 pounds of grub on each horse, divided up as nearly as I can remember as follows: One hundred and fifty pounds flour, 50 pounds sugar, 30 pounds beans, 10 pounds rice, 10 pounds dried apples, 20 pounds prunes, 30 pounds corn meal, 20 pounds oatmeal, 30 pounds potatoes, 10 pounds onions, 50 pounds bacon, 25 pounds salt, 1 pound pepper, 6 cans baking powder, 10 pounds soap, 10 pounds tobacco, 10 pounds tea, and a few little incidentals weighing probably 10 pounds. We took two extra sets of shoes for each horse, with tools for shoeing, 2 axes, 25 boxes of wax matches, a large can of gun oil, canton flannel for gun rags, 2 cleaning rods, a change of underclothes, 6 pairs of socks and 6 moccasins each, with buckskin for resoling, toilet articles, 100 yards of fishing line, 2 dozen fish hooks, an oil stove, awl, file, screw-driver, needles and thread, etc. For cooking utensils we had 2 frying pans, 3 kettles to nest, 2 tin cups, 3 tin plates and a gold pan. We took 300 cartridges for each of our rifles. Bill carried a .38–55 Winchester, model ‘94, and I had my old .40–72 Winchester, model ‘95, which had proved too reliable to relinquish for a high-power small bore. Both rifles were equipped with Lyman sights and carefully sighted. As a precaution we each took along extra front sights, firing pins and main-springs, but did not have a chance to use them. I loaded the ammunition for both rifles myself, with black powder, smokeless priming, and lead bullets. Both rifles proved equal to every emergency.