Animals, My Adventure

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ANIMALS MY ADVENTURE

A N I MALS MY ADVENTURE

by LUTZ HECK Translated by E.W. DICKES

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METHUEN & CO LTD, LONDON 36 ESSEX STREET, STRAND, W.C.=

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Translated, 1vitl, some omissions, from 'Tierc--Mein Abenteuer', published by Ullstci11 Verlag, A11stria, in 1952 First publishtd in Creal Britai11, August 26th, 1954

Reprinted, 1954

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CATALOGUB

NO. 5728/6

Printed anti bound in Grw Britain by Jarroltl anti Sons Limited Norwich

PREFACE of my life have been spent in the adventure of being concerned with animals. At first as assistant to my father, Professor Ludwig Heck, and then in succession to him as Director, my thoughts and energies were concentrated on the development and improve-

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ment of the Berlin Zoological Gardens, until in the course of the war the Zoo was destroyed by bombing. During those many years I certainly had countless exciting adventures with animals in wild life and in captivity. Lions broke at night into the enclosures for captured animals in my African camp. I have pursued gorillas with my camera in the dense primeval forest, ridden after giraffes with a lasso, and caught rhinoceroses with nets in thorny thickets. All this may fairly be called adventure. But those genuinely interested in animals and in breeding, may find adventure in quite different directions. To be in the African steppe, for instance, in the midst of plains stretching on all sides to the far horizon, and to see countless herds of wild animals as far as the eye can reach; or to go for days through arid bush country and then to come to a sunlit lake with thousands of birds-is not that adventure

enough? Perhaps, however, for me as a research zoologist the most wonderful and adventurous experience was the moment when, after years of painstaking experiment in breeding, carried out in Berlin and Munich after discussion with my brother Heinz, Director of the Hellabrunn Zoological Gardens, Munich, animals universally regarded as extinct reappeared. The breeding back of the aurochs and of the tarpan, the mouse-grey wild horse of ages past, had been accomplished!

All these manifold experiences with animals, together with the results of s my studies and observations of the rich resources of the Berlin Zoological Gardens (in which, for instance, in 1939 there were 3,715 animals representing 1,314 species), I noted down in diaries, card indexes, and stud books. As the years passed these records yielded books whose success was the best evidence of the public interest in the 'adventure' of concern with animals.

When the war ended it was found that many public and private libraries had been destroyed. My books were among those which had thus been put out of reach, and I was asked again and again whether a reissue was proposed. That was not so easy, for my library was one of those that had been largely destroyed through the war, together with my big collection of photographs and my notes and diaries. I have tried, however, to make the results of years oflabour and research available once more in this book. V

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bringing into a single volume, with my wife's help, what seemed to me the most interesting and important material still available, together with such photographs as could be rescued from the destruction of my unique collection with its many rarities, compiled through the labours of twenty years in the Berlin Zoological Gardens with the assistance of my photographic colleagues, especially Elfe Schneider and Ruth Katt-Sprenger. Professor Dr. Lutz Heck

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CONTENTS PART I-CATCHING ANIMALS IN AFRICA TRAPPING MONKEYS IN ABYSSINIA NETTING THE RHINOCEROS

LASSOING GIRAFFES THE DAEMON OP THE JUNGLE

PART II-ZOO IN FLAMES

PART III-EXPEDITIONS IN CANADA MEETING WITH ELKS THE BIGHORN A HUNT FOR GRIZZLIES A STRANGE RODENT: THE CANADIAN PORCUPINE THE BEAVER'S DWELLING

PART IV-RESURRECTION OF EXTINCT SPECIES OF ANIMALS THE AUROCHS THE TARP AN THB BISON

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45 66

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127 130 133

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155 159

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ILLUSTRATIONS Frontispiece

Mtoto

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Abyssinian chcctah

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Capture of an aardvark

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Transport of animals

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Large Green Baboon Baboons in the Hellabrunn Animal Park. Mmtlch Baboon trap On the track of the rhinoceros Rhinoceros corral in East Africa Two young rhinoceroses in the corral Rhinoceros and its kc:cpcr

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Abyssinian Oryx antdope c:i.lvcs Calf of the Small Kudu Fawn of the Long-Necked Gercnuk. Antelopes in the corral Abyssinian hunting picture

Prim..itive drawing of a gorilla Sleeping-place of a male gorilla 27 Male gorilla shot at a few yards' range 28 Bobby, the famow gorilla 30

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&twun pages 46 and 47 of giraffes in the East African bush 14 Bull giraffe in full flight 16 Lassoing a giraffe Gira.ffejwt after capture Cage for captured giraffes Giraffes in the corral

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to the coast

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Pongo A sea elephant Chimpanzee from the Cameroons

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Young orang-utan

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33 On a winter trip in Canada 34 Elk in search of 3 mate 3S ABighom ram 36 Beans and bacon in the Rockies

facing page 118 118

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37 Nick Haggblad with a grizzly 38 Baribal in a Cana dian forest

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39 A tree porcupine 40 A Wapiti 41 4,2

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A beaver by the Elbe A night's work by a beaver Newly bred aurochs Aurochscn grazing European bison Primeval bull with cow A group of wild horses Primeval wild horse Bisons used for breeding Buffaloes in the Canadian National Park European bison North Amcrian bison European bison in the bison park at Springe

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150 150 151 151 154 154 155

155 166 167 167

PART I

CATCHING ANIMALS IN AFRICA

TR APPIN G M O NKEYS IN ABYSSIN IA 11EN 1 first came to Abyssinia, many years ago, there was as yet no trace of the later energetic Europeanization or Americanization. The great motor roads from the Red Sea ports to Addis Ababa had still to be made. Apart from dromedaries or caravans of mules and donkeys, the only communication between the coast and the highlands was provided by the Franco-Ethiopian Railway. From the broiling heat of Jibuti, the port and capital of French Somaliland, the railway had to climb seven thousand feet to reach Addis Ababa, 'The New Flower'. At Dauanlch, the first station on the soil of Abyssinia (or Ethiopia), there waved from a high flagpole the green-white-yellow flag of that African empire. The landscape varied greatly on the way. Near the coast there were

pleasant plainlands with dwarf Flat-topped Acacias; graceful Pelzel Gazelles were browsing in small herds close to the line. Delightful little dwarf antelopes, Dik-diks, would jump away as the train drew near to them. Then we came to barren rocky mountains, with no living creature to be seen. The mountains gave place to arid steppes, and the first Soemmering Gazelles showed themselves-a beautiful species of antelope. Suddenly gigantic columns of dust rose to the sky and swept past our train, covering us, in spite of the closed windows, with a film of fine red dust. Just before we reached Diredawa, there began a sparse undergrowth, the home of countless birds. White-grey Buffalo Weavers, glittering green Glossy Starlings, and a small species of rhinoceros bird, the Red-billed Hornbill, flitted about the bushes everywhere; the Thick-billed Raven hovered in the sky, and bustards hurried across the sand. Here I also first found the Gerenuk or Waller's Gazelle, so typical of the Abyssinian bush, a tall, slender animal with a strikingly long neck. How surprising it was to see on this very first day, on our journey inland, the wealth of animal life! -and it was only a foretaste of what North Africa had to offer. I was full of expectation as I left the train in the evening at Diredawa.

In this Abyssinian town we were subjected to a surprisingly severe Customs examination. For three mornings, from nine to noon, we had to

open the whole of our baggage, item by item, in front of the Abyssinian Customs officials. They handled and minutely examined everythingtents, traps, photographic apparatus; and as they did so they made careful 3

notes. I was almost overpowered by the heat in the corrugated iron sheds.

A crowd of natives stood round us, thankful for the opportunity of this spectacle and admiring the foreign gentlemen. Their curiosity was fully satisfied, for the officials tore open cvcn zinc cases that had bccn soldcrcd

to protect the contents from the climate. Only one chest, with cinema apparatus, was so securely locked that the black Customs men gave it up. I was asked through the interpreter: 'The chest is so heavy-what is in iu' In exasperation I replied: 'Hot air!' And I stuck to that. After this I had to state the value of every fresh piece of our equipment. I was made to pay ten per cent ad valorem, an oppressively high duty. Fortunately I had taken the precaution of setting the values very low. In spite of this, the total was so heavy that I had to haggle for hours with the official in charge in the Oriental fashion, until he made substantial reductions, which he carefully calculated in each case from big reference books

and tariffs. Diredawa was a European settlement, in which were a few hundred Whites and fifteen thousand natives. The European town had fine broad streets with many shops, in which merchandise of all sorts was offered for sale, mostly by Greeks. Farther on, across a wide river-bed, were the huts of the natives, most of whom were covered with dirt and full of disease. There was begging everywhere; often whimpering cripples, covered with sores, with whole limbs eaten away by leprosy, begged for baksheesh. In the great vegetable market in the native town there was an unending whirl of humanity, and the streets were crowded with picturesque figures. Goats and Somali sheep filled the lanes. Long rows of dromedaries, loaded with dried hides and skins, and mules with sacks ofcoffee weighing a couple of hundredweight, came trooping into the town from long distances; Diredawa railway station was a special centre for the export of costly mocha from the province of Kaffa and from Harrar. Originally coffee trees grew wild in the forests of Kaffa, and the region is said to have given its name to coffee; the description 'mocha' comes from the port of that name in the Yemen, by the Red Sea; the town was at one time an important centre for the coffee trade. The hotel at which I stayed was a single-story building with a corrugated iron roof; there was a large veranda round a court in which were flourishing orange trees and flowering shrubs, watered every day, a great attraction in this arid country. From the terrace we could hear at night the howling of distant hyenas. Spotted and striped hyenas, the common grey jackal, and also the Black-backed Jackal, came at dusk into the streets of the town in search of garbage. Often there were bitter fights with the natives' dogs, 4

I whose furious barking, together with the howls of the hyenas, lasted almost all the night. As soon as we arrived we unpacked our trapping and feeding equipment, ranging from snares for birds to traps for beasts of prey, and from the

smallest rubber tcats for baby antelopes to flaked oats and countless tins of milk for the young animals. Somctimes we sent natives to collect for us, and our park outside the town soon began to fill in a gratifying way. Captured animals came from all quarters. A Somali appeared with a young panther genet. He had brought it, well secured, hanging from a stick over his shoulder; but it had been so expertly handled that it came to no harm. Another Somali brought a porcupine, which he had caught in a bow-net made of thin twigs. The porcupine had crept in, but could not get out again because of its quills. Small birds of every sort were caught for us by means of horsehair slings, and ichneumons, genets, and mongooses were brought to us. Gallas and Somalis competed in this traffic; we were even brought baby antelopes just born in the steppes, and one day there came two leopards and three cheetahs. In this way we gradually secured a fine collection; of antelopes alone we had seven Oryx, two Kudus, five Small Kudus, four Socmmering Gazelles, a Gerenuk, a Bushbuck, a Waterbuck, three Duikers, two Somali Gazelles, and Klipspringers! In addition to these, twelve young ostriches, nearly full-grown, from the steppes west of Dircdawa, were running about the park. The care of all these animals, which also included Hyraxes and rodents, was laborious work. We had the help of some Somalis, but we could not depend on those simple folk. The main burden fell on the keeper, Olesen, who had accompanied me on this first African journey. Sometimes he

was driven to despair by the natives' irresponsibility. 'Fifty times at least,' he grumbled, 'that man has fed the birds, but if ever I fail to remind him he forgets them!' One night, near full moon, Olesen and I were watching hyenas from the top of a tomb in the native cemetery, just outside the town and a little higher up. We saw them creeping along a dry river-bed below us, on their way into the town. They were startled when they caught sight of us, and crouched down, watching us. For a long time they remained motionless close to us; then they nervously trotted on. We had no need

to fear them, although we were unarmed, for these carrion-caters have no taste for attacking healthy men. They are very ready to set upon children and sick or intoxicated men, especially when the victims are lying on the ground, and one or two people are said to be torn to pieces by them every year-almost always natives who 5

had not gained the protection of their huts, which arc surrounded by thorn hedges. The old travellers' tales of male hyenas giving birth to young are fables, arising from the fact that the sexes arc almost indistinguishable.

Our first hunting cxpedition--my men were bcginning to gct hungry for fresh meat---was in search of the gerenuk, the most curious spccics of East African antelope. It lives in the sparse forest of the dry regions, where literally nothing grows close to the soil, which is as smooth as a tennis court. There the animal browses on the fine leaves or shoots of the Flattopped or Umbrella Acacia, and it has the very useful gift, a rare onc among

hoofed animals, of being able to stand for a long time straight up on its hind legs, so as to reach the higher boughs. It is a very graceful animal, with a finely marked head; the male has a lyre-shaped pair of horns, about six to seven inches long, with the tips bent sharply forward. We got up at 3 a.m., but it took almost two hours, with the waste of time customary in Africa, for a mule to be got ready, with two Somalis as guides. At last we set off, with the starlit night sky still above us. We went at a good pace past bare rocky mountains and across two sandy river-beds. Just at sunrise we came to the gazelles' feeding place, a barren, grassless plain with occasional Flat-topped Acacias. While I was still in the saddle I caught sight of a motionless gercnuk watching us. It was only visible from in front, and almost indistinguishable from the bushes; as I got off the mule it vanished at once behind trees and undergrowth. Soon our sharp-cyed Somalis caught sight of our quarry again. But it was some way off. I stalked it, bending below each bush and finally creeping forward behind a low mound. When I cautiously looked up, I saw in front of me at a hundred yards' distance a whole herd of gerenuks, five females and two bucks. The bucks were continually fighting and butting at one another, playfully engaging their horns and pushing and pulling; as they did so they bent their long necks sideways in curious and quite unnaturally sharp turns. I watched the charming picture for a long time. But the sun was high and getting hotter and hotter. The herd moved slowly away, until the five females appeared in a gap between the trees, one behind the other, and after them the stronger buck, which was trying to prevent the weaker one from following the herd. At that moment I fired, and the stronger buck fell. Instantly one of the Somalis rushed after it as fast as he could go. I had no idea what he wanted to do, but I ran after him to prevent any mischief. He raised a big knife and was going to cut the throat of the dying animal. This ritual slaughter is a religious duty of the Mohammedan; without it the Faithful must not eat the meat. As I had prevented it, the Mohammedan Somalis, 6

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I Abyssi11ia11 cheetah or l11111ti11g leopnrd. It is a species of great cat which does not creep after its prey but overtakes it, like a greyl101111d, i11 a sliort, sliarp chase.

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"" 2 Capture of earth-hog or aardvark. We had dug up an earth-hog from its burrow by a white ants' heap, and had put it i1110 tlze crate lteld ready for it. This strange nocturnal animal is a11 m1teater.

3 Tra11sport of a11i111als to 1/ie coast. Tlte crates were piled 11p i11 a11 opc11 railway truck, with the a11h11als a11d their fodder i11sidc. A young gelada baboon was allowed its lihcrty.

who arc great meat-caters, would not touch this unclean' game. But I had saved the skin of a rare gazelle, and was able later to take it, carefully dressed, to the Berlin Natural History Muscum. The Somali hunter began to lecture me vigorously, but I cut him short and sent him to fetch a dromedary from a ncarby kraal to carry our kill home.

Mcanwhile we picked up the gazelle and hung it in such shade as the scattered trees afforded, and lay down, tired, beside it. In a few minutes there settled on the nearest tree, as ifby chance, a Tawny Eagle. As I got up to look at it through my glasses, I noticed a Carrion Kite flying past. Soon I noticed several dark specks in the sky-great carrion-eating birds-and in no time a large collection of the most varied species of big birds had assembled. I counted two white and eight dark carrion kites, four

Griffon Vultures, ten Lappct-faced Vultures (one of the largest species of African vultures), a Whitc-headed Vulture with red beak, twoor three African Black Kites, and six to eight of the Common Raven. It was really remarkable how quickly these birds, of which there had not been a single one to be seen, had collected. It used to be assumed that the birds owed their ability to find carrion to a powerful sense of smell, but today it is known that the carrion-eating bird, floating high in the air and often invisible, sees its prey. It dives at once; its fellows notice the movement and follow it. Attracted by the smell of blood, there now crept cautiously up the wind a grey jackal; but it did not venture up to the entrails lying at a short distance from me. In this way we were soon surrounded by all sorts of animals, all greedy for a meal and waiting for us to go. Then I heard natives' voices in the distance, and the dromedary came up. With curious rattling shouts, and with blows on its front legs, the animal was induced to settle down, with loud bleats and grunts, a nasty greenish spittle dribbling from its mouth. A few hours later this beast of burden arrived with the precious kill at our hotel, and there was great jubilation, for a feast could take place, with roast gazelle for all those who were not bound by Mohammed's law. Our first serious enterprise was a small caravan journey from Diredawa to a hot spring at no great distance, where we hoped it would be possible to watch, film, and capture all sorts of animals, both wild and domestic: I was equally interested in both kinds. I rode ahead of our caravan on a mule with fine leather harness, and the horrible tight bridle and bit customary in the country. Everything we needed, tins and cooking gear, tents and cinema apparatus, had been packed on dromedaries, with the weight carefully distributed, and firmly roped on their broad humps. Our native companions belonged to all sorts of Abyssinian races. Gizao, who carried my gun, was a genuine Abyssinian or Amhara, and therefore 2-A.M.A.

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considered himself high above all the others. He was specially proud of my cartridges with their nickel cases; he carried about fifty of them in a

leather girdle. Later he asked for a few handfuls out of the cartridge

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chest, and with his own money bought a sccond girdle cmbroidercd in silver. Thus in the end he was carrying over a hundred cartridges, more than I ever necdcd. The new girdle gleamed in the sunshine, and however heavy and awkward it may have been, he was too proud of it ever to part with it. Another treasure was a pair of old shoes of mine, with crepe rubber soles: they further raised his social standing. But he was used to going barefooted, and before long he was unable to endure the pressure of the leather on his wide-splayed toes. He simply cut away the front of the uppers, and went about in these sandals of his own devising, freed from all fear of corns. My photographic equipment was carried by a Galla, and several other men of that industrious tribe, all quiet, steady fellows, came to look after the: mules. My boy for personal attendance was a young Somali. These people cannot as a rule: give their cxact age, but he was probably fourteen to sixteen years old. It was his duty to pitch my tent and set up the bed, table, and chair. He also made himself useful as a trapper, and began at once to show his quality: on the very first day he snared a big Fan-tailed Raven. Our Somalis were childlike, cheerful fellows, doing with a good grace any work they could not get out of. As Mohammedans they drank nothing alcoholic, and I had no objection to that; it was less admirable that they would only cat the flesh of animals ritually slaughtered. Whenever I shot an anim al for cooking they pounced on it at once to cut its throat. Often an animal was killed outright by the shot, and they would have none ofit. It was a problem for me then to find something for them to eat. The Abyssinians have been Christians from very early times, but they are like the Mohammedan Somalis in fanatically observing outward religious practices. They, too, gave me a good deal of trouble in regard to their food. Before Easter, in spite of the ample supply of meat, they fasted rigorously for many days; and at the end of the fast they stuffed their bellies so full with almost raw meat, their favourite meal, that some of them became very ill. It is said to be by no means an unusual event for this overeating of meat after long fasting to result in death. The meat is eaten so nearly raw, that they arc often afflicted with tapeworm; almost all of our Abyssinian comrades were suffering from it, and there was continual discussion of effectual remedies. The vermifuges in my tropical medicine chest were soon exhausted. Thus I had in my caravan members of all three of the principal races in Abyssinia. The men of different races were quite unable to understand each other, or almost so. I had also with me, for dressing skins and 8

stuffing birds, two men of pure Arab race, who always held aloof from the others. We Europcans spoke to all these men in Arabic, the universal language of general intercourse. Apart from numbers, however, our vocabulary consisted of no more than thirty words, but for the necessary brief orders that was enough. For any conversation with the natives we

had the services of a French-spcaking Galla as interpreter. Four hours' riding in the direction of Djcldessa brought us to our destination, a fine hot spring, surrounded by a few tall trees, in the midst of stony mountains and wild precipices. We pitched our tents under the

broad boughs of an acacia, to the astonishment of a great hamadryad, the last of a group that had been drinking; it made off with loud warning barks. Our camp looked out over a wide hollow, a splendid natural terrace, through which the water from the spring meandered in a shining

strcam. Numbers of flocks of animals crowded to the water, watched by Somali herdsmen. Many light-skinned goats and black-headed sheep were resting on the ground after drinking their fill, and new flocks were climbing all the time up the steep slope. A whole herd ofcamel mares, with their foals, came to drink; among them hamadryads trotted about, undisturbed by the peaceful doings of the tame animals. When we had our meal all sorts of birds of prey collected on the trees round our camp, waiting for the remains of our food; Riippell's Griffon Vultures, short-tailed ravens, Lappet-faced Vultures, and even a hungry marabou, bad come to gobble

up anything we left. Two African Black Kites circled above us. I threw a bit of meat high into the air, and one of these clever birds darted after it and caught it as it fell. I continually had fresh bits fetched from the cook in order to enjoy the marvellous feats of these birds. There was an endless variety of bird life by the hot spring. I saw wild doves of various species everywhere; splendid green parrots perched right above us in the trees; little Silverbeaks and many other finches came to the water, in addition to countless Glossy Starlings, Weaver Birds, small hornbills, singing birds, and mouscbirds or colys. In a single morning I counted no fewer than eleven great Fan-tailed Ravens; guineafowls and francolins, twice the size of partridges, flew past to the water, and I continually found new species ofbirds which I bad never seen before. In the steppes, at no great distance from our camp, we could often watch at leisure the graceful gerenuks. Every day there were wart-hogs and baboons to be seen. Thus we were living in the midst of a wonderful animal world, remote from the busy life of men, in the populous solitude

of the African steppes. On the fifth morning we returned to the town. My Abyssinian boy strode with tremendous dignity ahead of the caravan, contemptuously pushing aside the Somalis who came to meet us. We had made some good 9

films, caught animals, camped in the wilderness, and tested our cquipmcnt, our porters, and our beasts of burden; now we could procccd on another and a more ambitious enterprise. We decided to go in a couple of days on a tent expedition to the birds' paradise by Lake Haramaya, to the ancient city of Harrar, and to the forests of Mount Gara Mulata. In spite of our preparations for a new expedition, we had time to dig out an aardvark or earth-hog near Dircdawa. This is one of the most curious animals in Abyssinia; in some regions it is quite eornrnon. It looks like a pig with the long fleshy tail of a kangaroo, and has long cars, vcry like the hare's 'spoons'. It has claws and so docs not belong to the hoofed animals. Scientists were long puzzled about its classification; at last they went by its teeth, which are just like a row of tubes, and it was assigned to the order of Tubulata. The aardvark is insectivorous; and it sleeps during the day. It scrapes small holes down to the subterranean passages near ant-heaps and pulls out the ants with its long sticky tongue. Its nostrils arc protected from the intrusion of insects by a network of thick hairs. Stories arc told of the wonderful speed with which the animal can dig into the hard soil of the African steppes. It lies all day in its burrow. Natives told us one morning where an aardvark had dug itself in. Armed with shovels and a crate, we set out to dig up the earth-hog. It blinked sleepily at us in the sunlight and with its great claws began at once to dig another hole in the earth. Then Olesen, who is as strong as a lion, simply took the animal by its long ears; I held it by its fat, tail-like hindquarters, and in a moment it was our prisoner. It was still a starlit night when we started our next caravan journey, taking the road from Diredawa to Harrar. Road is not quite the word, for there were no roads in the old Abyssinia, only tracks trodden by the caravans, often leading steeply up and down mountains, through deep ravines, and across rivers. There was plenty of traffic; we continually met heavily laden donkeys and mules, carrying sacks of coffee; women, too, bore heavy burdens, almost equal to those of the animals. The men carried nothing but a spear, ready at any moment to chase away an enemy or a beast of prey. At times there came dromedary caravans; a slender Somali, armed with javelins, walked alongside the first animal, and the rest of the dromedaries were tied each to the tail of the one in front, so that they went in files of ten or a dozen. Armed men followed in the rear. There was a little rain in the early morning, the first sign of the approaching small rainy season; it freshened the dry land, and we rode on through a fine clear day. After a very steep ascent to a pass at about 6,500 feet, we had a view of a fertile plateau where, to my great surprise, thousands of IO

cattle, horscs, and donkeys were grazing. Scattered between gentle hills were villages and fields, a view recalling some thickly populated countryside of Central Germany. After riding some hours through this cultivated country we came to Lake Haramaya, which lies between undulating hills. There were no reeds, but a broad girdle of floating plants along the edges

of the lake offered food and shelter for a countless mass of marsh and waterfowl. There were swarms of them on the bank, and far in the distance all sorts of waterfowl were to be sccn as dark specks riding on the waves. Among them wcrc Rcd-knobbed Coots (very like our coot, but with a yellow patch on the forchcad), busy building their nests. And how cleverly

they were doing it! Bits of plants had accumulated in floating heaps, and on top of these the nests had been hollowed out, so that as the water rose and fell the nests were never flooded. Here, well into Africa, I found northern visitors, passing the winter in Abyssinia. There were our familiar Shovellers, Pintails, and Wigeons, our handsome Tufted Ducks and Ferruginous Ducks, our little Garganey Teals, and other teals. Between the ruffs on the bank little wagtails were darting about; Green Ibises were

flying to and fro, and everywhere swallows and swifts were hunting for insects. Not far off, Nile geese were pushing through the water, and the ibis, the sacred bird of the Egyptians, was busily investigating patches of bare mud with its curved beak. A Red-tailed Buzzard was circling above, and just as I was watching, a Marsh Harrier pounced down from the air on a sitting coot and devoured it on the floating nest. Undisturbed by the event, whole coveys of ducks were swimming close by. High above us in the sky hovered the finest representative of the noble feathered world of

Africa, the white-headed Fish Eagle. It was hard to tear myself away from this place, with its wealth of animal life to watch, fulfilling the aspirations of many years. But we had to go on, and so we passed through fertile highland country to Harrar, rode round its high walls, and settled in the only suitable camping place, an old Arab cemetery full of weatherworn gravestones. A vast noisy crowd came out, full of curiosity, and pressed round us until we surrounded our camp with long antelope nets and so gave ourselves room to move. The crowd stood there for hours, watching all we did. In Harrar, a picturesque and very ancient city, the traffic was enormous. The crowding of the market-place was really appalling. Close to the butchers' stalls and the coffee dealers a Court of Justice was sitting, in the open, and very dramatic it was. Apart from the immense vociferousness of the witnesses, the proceedings were short and sharp. Once they had been harsh, but in the course of time sentences became milder. For all that, a man who had been sentenced several times for theft was said, as recently as the time of my expedition, to have been sentenced to have a JI

hand cut off. Murder was dealt with on the evidence of the victim's relatives; there was no public prosecutor. The murderer could be killed by the relatives in the same way as he had killed his victim.

At Harrar I left the big caravan with all the dromedaries, and rode on with only one white companion, on mules, into a mountain region with a fascinating infinitude of wild animals. A Galla chicftain acted as guide and

took us by a steep track to the ro,000-foot summit of Mount Mulata. When we left the dry region behind us we seemed to be back at home in

the Alps: meadows full of flowers alternated with small comficlds, there were steep slopes thickly covered with juniper trees, white roses were blossoming in the hedges, globe thistles grew by the way, maple trees gave us shade, and as a bit of Africa thrown in we heard a leopard spit. Bushbucks started away, just like our docs. Some liveliness began in the branches of a tree: a colony of monkeys

shot up and down, and on looking closer we recognized them as the rarc Gucrezzas or Colobins, monkeys with only a vestige of thumbs. A long shinin g white mantle of hair waved about their black shoulders, a decoration that makes their skins costly and sought after by elegant women. At first the monkeys looked at us in astonishment; men they jumped and raced about, slipping past the boughs in meir lovely fur dress. We climbed higher. A precipice rose before us; in front of it was a small grass-covered space. Suddenly I noticed something moving: fifteen to twenty little animals of me size of rabbits were in flight, running. hopping, rolling into the crevices in me rock. They were hyraxes, known in other parts of Africa as classics. They resemble marmots, but are neither rodents nor beasts of prey; they are described-to the surprise of laymen-as near relatives of me elephant. Many things in the bodily structure of these little rock-dwellers show quite plainly me close relationship. These tiniest representatives of an order that includes the giants of the animal world have their canin e teeth arranged exactly like those of elephants, whose tusks arc rooted in the same way in the upper jaw. In other respects too, for instance in the formation of the feet, mere are many astonishing points of resemblance. I sat down quietly, and did not stir. Gradually the little company gained confidence and eyed me steadily from their crevices or from behind big stones. They must have been plagued with curiosity, and simply could not stop in their hiding-places. A fat little beast crept out from its refuge and stared at me. The others were not to be outdone, and came hopping cheekily forward. I began then to whistle little tunes, to their immense surprise. They crowded together on a ledge, fourteen of them, close as organ pipes, and listened, mum as mice. I must say that none of my other musical efforts has ever had so reverential an audience. By and by I had 12

to finish this strange recital, and I got up. The fat old animal gave a loud squeak-and in a moment the whole audience had disappeared. During our various expeditions we often met on the caravan tracks the

Mantled Baboon (also called the hamadryas) in herds of twenty to thirty or even a hundred. The males have a fine silver-grey mane over their shoulders and the upper part of their body, and great canine teeth like those of beasts of prey. All day long these baboons range over a wide region in search of food. On their way they turn up numberless stones to

look for larvae beneath them; they also relish birds' cggs and even small birds and mammals. But their favourite food is maize, sorghum, wheat,

and other grains. The natives live in fear of them, for the damage is very serious when a troop of several hundred baboons invades a field. The black farmers keep men permanently on guard to chase away these marauders, but often with little success, either for lack of firearms or becawc cartridges arc expensive. When we said we had come to hunt these monkeys, the natives were delighted and did all they could to help us. Close to Dircdawa was a place in which one of the troops of baboons spent every night. Shortly before sunset we waited under the sparse acacias for the baboons to come. Somali men and women were bringing in their goats and sheep when we heard in the distance the baying of the old baboons, mixed with the squeaking of the young ones. Covered by a cloud of dust, they approached, females and young in the centre, the babies on their mothers' backs or clinging to the hair on their bellies. The big males surrounded them, turning their sharp eyes in all directions and watching everything near them. The troop of monkeys, lit up by the setting sun, came straight through a Bock of goats; the Somali woman with the goats stepped aside and let the baboons pass, but some of her goats darted away. The Negro women have no liking for the baboons,

for when they are excited the males open their jaws and bare their teeth, a sight to strike fear into anyone. The men, too, prefer to keep out of the way of the pugnacious animals. When the baboons saw me, a European, the males sat down and then slowly came nearer, ready to attack and, as always when in a rage, showing their great canines. But the moment I Went towards them they fled, with furious baying, and joined their companions On the way to the sleeping places. Their retreat was covered by some great males, who would not leave me out of their sight. Finally the whole troop disappeared in a dark ravine, where they took refuge from any enemy and passed the night well hidden in caves. This small band had become very suspicious through the many attempts at capture made by the Natives, and we therefore looked for a better place, where there were more monkeys, less wide-awake! We rode far into the

mountains one day, and camped in the evening at a spot where troops of 13

Mantled Baboons regularly spent the night in really large numbers. Herc an amphitheatre of steep precipices surrounded a deep ravine which gradually opened out into the dist.·mcc between lower and lower mountains and lost itself in the Somali steppes. These precipitous cliffs offered security during the night to thousands of monkeys. It was a remarkably picturesque spot. Just after sunset on our first visit I sat down on a ledge of rock and waited for their return. The baying of the males, always the sign of their approach, could be hcard far off, with the screams and squeaks of the females and the young. First came small groups of fifty or less, led by six or seven big males; the wind played in

their silvery-grey shoulder-mantles and combed their long hair. Group after group came up at a great pace; the procession seemed endless. Greater and greater crowds collected, and by the time it was dark some two thousand monkeys filled the cliffs around with life. There was endless quarrelling and chasing up and down the cliffs and over crags and little trees. The monkeys were entirdy w1troubled by my presence. Some of the males came within a dozen yards ofme, and looked at me with surprise, and I at them; but then they on1y bared their formidable teeth and went away. There still circled in the dusk two great Black Eagles, enemies of the monkeys, which often pounce on thc young or half-grown and carry them off: Brown-necked Francolins flew away noisily from the ledge below us; then there was silence. A few big monkeys climbed on to a great crag as sentinels, standing out as shadowy forms against the darkening sky; soon they, roo, were seen no more. The noise among the rocks died down; crouching in cavities and niches, the troop of baboons slept, and all was still. It was a dear starlit night. Soon the moon came up and covered the valleys with its silvery radiance. Sleepless because of the cold-it was only six degrees above zero centigrade-we sat in our tropical clothes freezing by a fire, and looked at the mysterious mountain country. Once in the middle of the night we heard loud screams-perhaps a leopard, the great enemy of the monkeys, had seized a female or a tender young one. Not far from our bivouac, near a waterho]e, were our traps. Small huts had been made of thick logs driven deep into the ground and bound by pliant boughs into firm walls. They were about nine feet across and six feet high. Above the entrance was a trapdoor, kept up by a stick which could be pulled away. A rope leading from it, carefully concealed by weeds or earth, was held by a native in a hiding-place thirty yards away. Very early in the morning we strewed grains of maize in a line leading

to the trap from the baboons' line of approach to the waterhole. Then, still before sunrise, we sat down behind a screen of brushwood. But for five and a half hours, until midday, we waited in vain. Then I left the 14

Negro who had the line in his hand, and a Galla youth with him, and returned to our tent. Towards evening the Galla came running to us, shouting 'Los, los!'--the only word of German he had picked up from me 'Hurry up, hurry up!' or, indeed, 'Get a move on!' And he vividly mimicked monkeys stuffing themselves with maize. We ran quickly to the hiding-place, and soon we saw a troop of baboons approaching. Some of them stopped, twenty yards from us, sat down, and collected all the grain they could reach, but did not go farther. The most advcnturow, young ones or females, ultimately followed the line of grain, filling their mouths with both hands. They stopped outside the trapdoor, but then took courage, darted in, took a handful of maize, and darted out again. Soon they were sitting peacefully inside, filling their cheek pouches. A great male, with a magnificent fur mantle, came nearer and nearer. At first he sat doubtfully outside the hut, but in the end he went in to the heap of grain. One tug, and the trapdoor fell. The rest of the monkeys made off, chattering and shrieking in alarm. The natives ran to the hut. One of the crates hidden in the neighbourhood was soon brought up, to carry away fine the fine big male baboon. Most of the females and young were set free, for we were mainly interested in getting as many as possible of the splendid males. With the greatest patience, in the days that followed, a considerable number of monkeys were caught in the same trap by native trappers. When the captured animals had recovered from the first fright, they soon took fodder-a sign of returning interest in life---and they were not difficult to look after. We took them in good health and without losses to Diredawa, two or three males or five females in a crate. The moment they arrived in the roomy wire cage prepared for them, there began wild fighting among the males for the females and for supremacy over the whole group. Every fully-grown male took a wife to himself and defended her against all rivals. In these furious struggles the thick manes prevented serious wounds of the shoulders and back, but face and hands and the pink rear showed plain signs of the fighting. There are many thousands ofthese Mantled Baboons in the high steppes of Abyssinia, and in their impetuousness they are fairly easy to trap. It was quite a different thing to catch the geladas, denizens of high mountain regions.' Scientists value them for their strangeness and rarity; they are of striking appearance with their brown hair mantles and a patch of bare red skin on the breast, looking almost like a fresh wound. To reach these shy folk I had to penetrate into a mountain region best approached from Addis Ababa, and so I set out one day for the capital. At that time, as already mentioned, the 'New Flower' was much more 15

'African' than today, when it is rapidly being Americanized. Then there were no more than about twenty private motor-cars in the city, and therefore there were no taxis at the station when we arrived. At such a great altitude no one cares to walk, so we went on mules to our hotel. Here again the streets were crowded; the throng of riders, pedestrians, porters, women fetching water, and beasts of burden was greater than the crowd in many a European capital. An endless procession of beasts of burden, with great loads of firewood, sacks, salt, hides, or grass for thatch-

ing, passed through the strects. Galla peasants drove small animals to market, especially sheep with small cars and fat tails, and goats, and now and then zebus. Suddenly everyone squeezed to the side: a company of Abyssinians with rifles were marching past, tall, slender figures, the escort of the potentate riding in, bristling with arms, in their midst. A strange roar now began, the indefinable noise of a vast crowd. Masses of people were entering a great open space between the boothsanythin g between twdve and twenty thousand people. It was Addis Ababa's weekly market. Everythin g was to be bought there that the country produced or imported. Many goods had come from the immcdiate neighbourhood--meat, grain, spices, and also potatoes and onions; firewood, timber, fine woven baskets, in a word everything for the household. Great piles of oxhides, goatskins, and sheepskins changed hands. There were also artisans' stalls. Armourers offered their sword-blades, some of their own manufacture, some imported. Thus I found various old Bavarian sabres with the motto, In Treuefest ('Firm and true'); the hilts and scabbards had been altered to the African style and, as usual with valuable weapons, decorated with varicoloured leather. Elsewhere there were silversmiths at work, makin g the most beautiful crosses with all sorts of decoration. The craftsmen worked with such wealth of imagination that no two articles were the same. In the market a native painter offered me pictures in the genuine Abyssinian style, painted on cloth; most of them showed banquets of the rulers, or notables going to church or at other important moments in their lives. But there were also strange animal pictures, showing in primitive but vivid style the killing of wild beasts in Abyssinia, or anything exercising a native's fancy---a buffalo trampling on its hunter, even a man being tom to pieces by a lion; or a European with one foot on the lion he has killed, unmistakably posing, gun in hand, for his photograph. We went outside the city to the weekly horse and mule market, and

there, for fifteen to thirty thalers each--£,2 to 4--we bought riding horses and mules, which we took away at once with their owners as grooms. I bought a grey and a brown horse; I expected the latter to be a specially useful purchase for use in my observations of animals. The grey, 16

however, proved the more scrviccable, for the dark brown horse was much more noticeable in the bush than the grey, which the light earth of the steppes made almost invisible among the bushes and grasses. And so we rode out from Addis Ababa one morning into the district of Gcrmanan in the province ofDolgar, where Abyssinians familiar with the country had told me of a place in which I should certainly find gcladas. We rode all day long across wide plains, at a high level, with field after field in which the crops had been harvested. I looked doubtfully about me. Where could there be any monkeys: But suddenly and quite unexpectedly we came to the edge of this high ground, where rugged cliffs, thickly covered with juniper and acacia trees, dropped almost perpendicularly through several hundred yards. At the edge of these rough mountain slopes, by a spring near a little Christian chapel, we found a camping placc, and set up our small tents under two gigantic juniper trees, all that remained of the primeval forest. Here, then, high in the mountains, was supposed to be the home of the geladas. And I was not disappointed. As I was looking at the view I saw to my surprise fourteen geladas coming up from a rocky ravine. The one old male in the herd, a venerable giant, with his brown flowing mane, had an ominous look about him. The bare patch on his breast was a flaming blood-red. Startled, we looked at one another for a time without moving. Quite close to me were sitting several smaller monkeys, watching me with faces contorted by excitement. But these suspicious folk did not long put up with my presence. The whole band Bed towards the valley, until they could only be seen with difficulty as tiny specks on the great rocks far below. That had been a very good beginning. I went back to the camp, contented--and also hungry, for I had had next to nothing to eat all day. But that evening we went without our meal: the cook had prepared a duiker goulash, but had failed with it, burning it, and before he could prepare something else for us there was fresh excitement. As always when we set up a tent, natives came along out of curiosity, Galla peasants, and when I asked one of them about monkeys he pointed at once to the horizon beyond the ravine. I took my glasses and saw there, to my immense astonishment, two or three hundred geladas in the cornfields. Up and off at once, of course! But we had scarcely come near them when the monkeys rushed away and hid behind rising ground. We ran round the hill, climbed a steep mountainside, and hid in the bushes. A native then drove the troop towards us. So there came past us, only a few yards away, a host of monkeys! The great mass of them were females and young males. Many of the mothers bore sucklings at the breast; rather bigger child monkeys rode on their mothers' backs. Ahead of them, on either side, and behind them, were the grown males; like the older females, 17

they looked keenl y about them, and as soon as they saw anything unusual they gave a short warnin g bark. These fully-grown males, twenty to thir ty poun ds in weight, kept out of cach other's way even when among

the horde, but the younger ones chased and bit one another. A particularly strong male ruled absolutely over the troop, and ruthlessly drove away any rival from his little troop of wives. The moment he bared his teeth and showed fight, the others fled, for not a few of the younger, inexperienced rivals must have had a taste of those fearful jaws. The canine teeth of the adult male of this species are a good deal longer than those of the hamadryas and even those of the leopard, so that they can tcar dccp wounds and

can even kill with a single bite in the crutch. This passing troop was extremely impressive. It was wonderful to see a gigantic male keeping watch on a crag; its strange profile, with the bridgcless nose, stood out clearly against the sky; its fine brown mane flapped in the wind. As they passed me several males were crowded together within the throng and began to fight. In their rage they folded back the upper lip right over the nose, so that their strong jaws shone out, and at the same time they raised their brows, making the upper eyelids bloodless like white spots. This was a horrifying contortion that could inspire human beings themselves with fear. But it is a striking fact that these formidable monkeys are particularly afraid of human beings, for the moment we moved the monkeys all fled in panic. On our way back to our camp in the dusk the Natives told us many stories of the great simians. Especially they complained that their crops could not be protected from the many troops of geladas. The monkeys dug with their strong pointed finger-nails in the ground in the wilderness and found sufficient fodder there, but now and then they fed only in the cornfields. They live mainly on vegetable foods, but on occasion, like most simian species, they devour mammals, birds, insects, and eggs. Next day I awoke very early, and before daylight I went into hiding at a place about two hundred yards from our camp, where on the previous evening a band had disappeared among the rocks. The pools near our tent were covered with a thin layer of ice, showing that there were night frosts in the Gelada region. In the early morning it was bitterly cold. The monkeys evidently felt it as I did, for when the sun rose they came out of the rocky ravine and sat just below me sunning themselves. Gradually they began to move away, scratching the soil in search of roots and bulbs. They moved about at the top of the ravine, about fifteen yards away from me, undisturbed by my presence, and for me it was a wonderful experience to be able to have so close a view of these strange animals for so long. A hombiJl with a long beak suddenly alighted in the midst of the monkeys; a great black bird with a red crop, it strode through the troop. I was rather 18

afraid that a gclada might suddenly attack it and make a meal of it, and the bird itself must have had some such apprehension, for suddenly it seemed uneasy, and quickly it spread its great wings and got away. I laughed to myself, for there was something comic about its hurried retreat. The African 'chamois', the small klipspringers, were there again. For something like twenty minutes they stood in front of me, motionless as statues, until suddenly they came to life, gave a short cry, and disappeared. Then I was startled by a loud roar. I jumped up in alarm. There must be a furious bull near me-but it sounded more like a lion, or almost like a rutting stag. All sorts of wild ideas ran through my head. But it was an cntirely harmless creature that had made this alarming noise, a fine dark Wattled Ibis with a brightly decorated back, a harmless bird, but with a voice like that of a bittern roaring into a microphone. A Bearded Vulture was now soaring above, the same great bird that used to be seen in the Alps and may still be seen in pictures in old village inns, probably with a human baby in its eyric as food for its young. In actual fact the most the bird could carry aloft in its claws would be a yearling chamois. This bird lives mainly on fallen animals, and only on the remains of them left by other carrion-eating birds. When the other vultures have had their meal, it comes down and picks up the bones. There are still many Bearded Vultures in Abyssinia. I watched this bird of prey dive down, almost touching the cliff-top as it passed into the ravine; I had to move on my stomach close to the edge to watch its Right. Then I saw it, with its enormous spread of wings, gliding far below me-a fine but dizzy spectacle! But I turned back again and again to the geladas as they climbed the rocks with their powerful frames, dark spirits of the mountains, strange and almost dreadful, baring their formidable teeth, while the wind lifted their manes and left their purple breast-markings exposed. At that time I caught a small horde of these gdadas, and brought them safely oversea. The very first one we caught, quite a young animal, became the pet of the whole camp. It was remarkable how this little monkey, so unapproachable, at once grew tame, so that on the very first day we had been able to let it run freely about the tent. It quickly became friends with my native interpreter, closely examining his head as monkeys do, parting the hair with its little hands, and with a couple of fingertips pulling something out and putting it into its mouth. This 'lousing' has nothing to do with any search for vermin; it is a biological peculiarity of all monkeys and is a gesture of comradeliness. What is taken out of the hair and eaten is the scurf, which has a salt taste. I cannot remember ever actually noticing vermin on a monkey; it would be difficult for them to escape from its clever fingers. Our little gelada, in accordance 19

with its inherited habit, at the first possible moment sat on the Galla's head and held on to his curly hair. The little animal later made friends with me, and was always ready to do me the same scrvice. Its face would light up and it would greet me with strange cries; it would even try to defend me if anyone pretended to attack me. For the rest it was very well behaved, and free from the checkincss that makes baboons so amusing but such a nuisance. When I returned to Addis Ababa I found our imperial passports waiting for us. These were to enable me to visit the southern lakes, a wonderful region but a wild one seldom visited. Passports were indispensable for this journey, for many of the military posts in the country were intolerant of foreign visitors. My caravan would be going through the Galla region into the country of the Arussis, who were subjects of the Ethiopian cmpirc but often showed themselves hostile, insubordinate, and savage, making life difficult for any caravan. Again and again there was news of incidents. But it is just in that region in the south that the great lakes lie, with their most wonderful birds' paradise; there, too, live the last remnants of the great animals of East Africa, no longer to be found in the rest of Abyssinia.

Abyssinia's poverty in big game is due partly to geographical or climatic conditions, but mainly to long-continued extermination, under the mistakcn idea that wild life in natural conditions is inexhaustible. A fatal mistake! Nowhere in the world is the stock of wild animals so great that it cannot be destroyed by modem weapons, and no species of big game, however great its natural fertility, can endure without human protection. This applies as much as anywhere else to Abyssinia, where elephant, giraffe, rhinoceros, and hippopotamus now live only in districts remote from the settled regions, especially on the borders of the empire, which the Abyssinians with their modem weapons cannot reach so easily. But Abyssinia remains to this day a land of birds, and here the ornithologist can make an abundant haul. At last the day came for setting off on our caravan journey to the great Abyssinian lakes, and we took to the tracks beaten for countless ages by caravans going south into the interior of East Africa. Their traces were plain enough. In some places there were deep gullies made by rain in the soft sandstone, so that the track was a yard below the ground level. Once more our journey took us through a sort of man-made steppe, devoid of trees and bushes, the typical landscape made bare by intensive use. But then, after four hours' march, there opened before us the deep-cut valley of the river Akaki. Soon there were five green tents set up on the river's bank, the mules were set free to graze, and round us was the bush with all its birds. The wealth of bird life was really overwhelming, and when I 20

,

turn over the pages of my diary the profusion of birds recorded there

sccms unimaginable. At that first resting-place I noted: two hundred Spur-winged Geese and Egyptian Geese, four Knob-billed Geese, twelve Y:ellow-billed Ducks, a marabou, many Common Herons, a Glutton, and thrcc Sacred Ibises. Close by us in the acacia forest I saw Red-beaked Hornbills, thrcc-coloured Glossy Starlings, Buffalo Weavers, Tufted Guinea-fowl, European Swallows, White-breasted Babblers, Wattled Plovers, and Thrush-Babblers. Everywhere kites and Fan-tailed Ravens were flying about; two Long-crested Eagles perched close by us. Abyssinia is indeed a country to warm the heart of an ornithologist. We pushed on across wild lowlands, and in great heat through wide a.rid regions. Every evening we pitched our tents in some good, carefully chosen spot, our mind, filled with all we had seen and experienced through the day. How immensely attractive is a tent expedition of this sort, in a strange country, with one's own dwelling and all the things one is used to spending every evening in a new environment, first high in the mountains, then in barren steppes, then by a river bank and then beside a lake! We quickly got into a regular dmy routine. At dawn-always about six o'clock in the neighbourhood of the Equator, the equalizer-the camp awoke. While the boys quickly packed the tents the cook brought us hot tea and cold guinea-fowl, tasty game of which there was plenty_ there. Meanwhile the mules were laden. The signal for starting was given by a motor horn, whose 'music' was always enthusiastically encored by the Natives. We marched five or six hours a day, sometimes ten. The time spent on the march depended on the distance to the next water source, for it was of

vital importance to find water for man and beast. How precious water is in these arid regions is shown by a savage custom still followed, I was told, in remote regions of Somaliland. No man could marry who had not either killed another man or could at least produce evidence that he had emasculated him. 'Where could the water be got for all the children if every man could have them?' said the Somali who told me this. When we came near our objective for the day, I rode ahead to choose a suitable place for pitching the tents, and there waited for the caravan. When our camp town had been erected, the boys and mule-drivers squatted in parties, according to tribe and race, eating and drinking together and cheerfully discussing the small events of the day. One of the forelegs of the mules and horses was tied up, an immemorial device to prevent them from straying. In inhabited regions curious Natives soon appeared, walking about near us and then remaining in dumb surprise leaning on their spears and watching whatever we were doing. I always got into conversation with these visitors; they almost always included 21

hunters and men thoroughly familiar wi th the district who knew just where to fin d game and who could be hired as guides for the following

day. Our German maps served us very well, but we were glad of Natives as guides to take us by the most direct route to the next water source and to

the next after that. Beyond that the guide would not have the local knowledge to go, and indeed not the courage, for the country beyond was usually inhabited by tribal cnemics. One evening my Abyssinian interpreter came to my tent. I could sec from his solemn face that he had something important to tell mc.

'Well,' I asked in French, 'what's up?' 'Look after your safety, sir,' he said seriously. 'We have come to a region where not long ago a French hunter was murdered by the Natives.' 'Who was it? How long ago was ita Why did they kill him?' I asked question after question, but the interpreter would say nothing more. Obviously he knew no details and had only heard a rumour. None the less, I said to myself, there might be some truth in it, for only recently a very dark story had been current. A Greek trapper had gone into the solitary steppes where the very rare wild ass is still to be found. He had taken with him as guards four Abyssinians with rifles, but this precaution was of no avail, for one night he was murdered in his tent. In the dark the Natives had thrown javelins through the canvas and so made an end of the objectionable foreigner. I now set guards at night to keep the camp fire going, and had a loaded rifle next my bed, and then felt perfectly safe. My Abyssinian interpreter seemed less happy, for to him this was enemy country. So we came to the bank of the River Hauash. It had cut a deep bed in the acacia forest, and its waters flowed rapidly. We got into our collapsible boat and drifted downstream. Grey monkeys hissed at us from the trees above; broad tracks led to the places on the bank where hippopotamuses grazed at night; waterfowl of all sorts flew ahead of us, and Snake-birds or Darters were resting on the bank with their wings spread out to dry. We landed at a ford, where our caravan arrived some hours later. The water came almost up to the heads of some of the animals as they crossed the river. In the fields on the other side of the Hauash three Oribi Antelopes, which looked just like our roes, were grazing. They sprang away lightfootedly; I galloped after them, caught them up, and could easily have lassoed them. This gave me the idea of catching big animals in the steppes from horseback, and some years later I actually did this in the former German East Africa. A few days later we were on the west bank of Lake Suai. A broad bright band which I noticed on the shore of the lake soon proved to be a great assembly of many hundreds of pink pelicans. Tbe strange big birds sat in 22

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011r rhi11ocerC'sfol/o,11cd its keeper as it had followed its 111 or/1er-as lo11g as it felt like it r

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resting-place of rhinoceroses, for a regular path led in, trodden by these colossi. Herc there was no escape on either side; we could only see a few steps ahead, and on both sides we were faced by the formidable knife-edges of the Sanscvcria. We should certainly be in mortal danger if we met a rhinoceros on this narrow path, especially a mother with her calf to protcct. But we had no choice but to take the risk. With my gun in my hand I crept in. There was nothing--this clump of bushes was also empty! Rather desperate, and tired after ten miles' walking under the blazing sun, we went on with our search. Soon we had another dense island of bush in front of us, and it cost me an effort to crawl in once more. Our Blacks had already long lost interest, and after every short rest they held a shauri, a remonstrance: 'Rhinoceros and child far, far ahead! Camp with food far, far behind us!' Even Siedcntopfbegan to say 'Give it up!' But I insisted, 'Let us try this slope, and make it the last effort!' Bending between the thorns and the sharp leaves, I crawled into the thicket, Siedentopf following me; every sense was strained to the utmost. In front of me was the track, now very fresh. At that moment there sounded suddenly, quite close, the penetrating warning cry of an ox-bird. I did not move. At any moment an alarmed rhinoceros might rush on us in fury. If then our shot did not go home in the first fraction of a second, this would be our last hunt! And there it was, close in front of me among the bushes, a reddish glow-the hide, stained by the red clay, of a rhinoceros. Was it really the cow with its young which we had been following for so long, or was it perhaps another rhinoceros that had happened to choose this resting-place! The huge body turned its back to me; I stood motionless and searched the bushes for any sign of the calf. Suddenly the rhinoceros turned round, quick as lightning: perhaps the wind had changed direction, or a twig had snapped-and now I saw a calf under it pushed aside, and the huge beast rushed at me. Nothing seemed to hinder it. It came through the thicket like a tornado, crashing blindly through thick dry stumps of trees. I had no means of escape. Right and left were the daggers of the Sanseveria. The Blacks who had followed me threw everything down, even the delicate cinema apparatus and camera. and disappeared in a moment among the trees.

Of all this I saw nothing: I could give no attention to it. I stood still and took most careful aim. Three yards away from me, the rhinoceros fell to the ground, dead. 'Donnerwetter! Close shave!' was all Siedentopf said.

A spray of blood reached us and stained my camera. My Blacks were still up the trees; they had had such a fright that they only came down 4--4A.M.A.

39

slowly when I Ricked the car of the rhinoceros. Defore they could get excited at the kill, I looked threateningly at them and ordered absolute

silence lest we should alarm the calf. That was a fearful trial for all of them, for they were bursting with excitement. After hours of silent waiting, we found that the calf had left the clump of bushes, and had disappeared. Its track led out into the steppe. It was now evening, and quickly growing dark. All wc could do was to

set up a few primitive tents with our ground shccts. That night was an ordeal: for fifteen hours a cold tropical downpour drenched the camp. Shivering with cold, we felt once more the frightful contrasts of Africa-

unbearable heat and dryness that parched mouth and throat, and then downpours and searching cold. We froze that night, near the Equator, in

our tropical clothing, more than one ever docs in winter in the North. Our Negroes also crouched shivering until dawn, tl1eir faces grey with cold. In the morning we discovered to our dismay that the rain had washed away all the tracks of animals, and when daylight came there was no trace to be found of our young rhinoceros. We counted, however, on its returning to the spot where it had lost its mother, and we continued to search systematically in tltat quarter. But in vain! We grew more and more tired and hungry, and our spirits sank. The Wambulus, who had groaned at their labours the day before, could only with difficulty be induced to search ravines farther away. To encourage my men I shot a cow antelope, which was cut up and eaten at once. Little fires blazed up, the roast meat smelt appetizing, and at once good spirits were restored. The search for the rhinoceros began again with renewed energy. But to no purpose. Late in the evening we went back to our main camp, entirely exhausted, with nothing achieved. I could scarcely sleep at night. I was constantly tortured with the question how I could capture this little rhinoceros in spite of everything. The roar oflions on the hunt came into the tent. It might well be that the defenceless animal had already become tlteir prey! Once more I set out at dawn with our best track-finders, but the rhinoceros seemed to have been swallowed up by tltc eartlt. In the evening my natives hap. a great shauri as they squatted by the fire, after which a delegate came to me to declare loudly and vociferously that there was nothing to be gained by any further search, that they were all tired to death, and that none of them would start again. But I had made up my mind that I would find me little rhinoceros. On the following day I made all sorts of promises to the best of the trackfinders and persuaded some of them to go with me into the steppe, and so we set out once more. 40

We had been gone about an hour when suddenly one of my boys came running through the bush: 'Dwana, rhinoceros child is there! There by the river arc quite fresh traces: it had a drink in the night.' I went quickly back to the camp. In a moment all was excitement and feverish activity: all the past labours were forgotten, and everyone did his utmost to help. The porters brought ropes and cord, the gun-bearers

brought the guns, the camera boys took the apparatus, and in very little time we set off with sixty men. In a little valley I found one of my trackfinders waiting for me. 'Dig one not there, only child,' he whispered, and while the rest remain ed behind he led me to a little rise. And there I saw what we had spent three days looking for in heat and cold, wearing ourselves out--the little rhinoceros! Now we all went to work with energy. Noiscles.dy one side of the bushes was surrounded with nets. While we were doing this the young rhino came at a lcisurely pace towards us along a track. 'Don't stir!' The order was whispered from man to man, and everyone

stood stock still. The young animal came closer, suspecting nothing; then it probably noticed our motionless figures. For quite a while it stood still and looked at us. Then it turned round, trotted off, and once more was lost amid the bushes. 1 ran to the other side with my two gun-bearers, and stood right on the only rhinoceros track, which led there through the Sanscveria. The little grey animal appeared in a moment, and as soon as it saw us it rushed at us, full of rage. The Blacks leaped aside; I waited for it, stepped aside at the last moment, and then threw myself on the youngster. With all my strength I clutched it round its neck and held on. Furiously the rhinoceros aimed at me with its head and horns; I had to duck right down to the ground; meanwhile it dragged me against the walls of thorn and particularly against those appalling Sanseveria stilettos. But I hardly noticed the tears and the bleeding wounds. Half lying on the earth, I was dragged to and fro on the track, but my arms wormed themselves more and more tightly round the fat, smooth neck. Then the little animal, unable to free itself from my grip, began to give out penetrating squeaks. These were cries to its mother for help, and if there were any rhinoceroses within hearing they would understand them. If a grown rhinoceros appeared on the scene and attacked me---what then? But l could no longer let go, my arms were locked round the animal, and we were nothing but a knot in a cloud of dust. I had completely lost my balance and had slipped half under the rhinoceros, so that I received some hefty kicks in the stomach.

Probably I could not have held on much longer. My Wambulus, with ropes in their hands, were standing about idly and looking on to sec the 41

outcome of my struggle with the animal. Not until I roared at them did they make up their'minds to give a hand and catch hold of the rhino's hind legs. Now at last we had it in our power; we tied it with ropes to the surrounding bushes. It stood still and calmed down. But we human beings were also so exhausted that we had to stretch ourselves out on the ground to regain our breath. Then there began again the same game as before with Mtoto: as soon as a Black came near the rhinoceros it ran at him. This reaction of the animal enabled us to get it along to our permanent camp without any trouble to ourselves. I told a man to approach the animal and then start running towards our camp. The little pachyderm promptly ran at him, followed by my companions and myself holding the long ropes. This brought us to the camp in an hour and a half, streaming with perspiration, but proud

and happy.

There stood Olesen, mother of rhinos, waiting for the new arrival and warming rhinoceros broth over a fire. Mtoto cautiously raised his long upper lip and sniffed at his new fellow when it was shut into the corral with him; but Mtoto showed no sign of distaste. It was a young female, a bride, I hoped, for Mtoto. What a glorious prospect, to have these two rare and splendid animals peacefully united in our camp! It seemed to me that fate could have nothing better to offer me in Africa; any later successes must pale beside the exaltation of having two young living rhinoceroses, captured by myself. . This was certainly one of the finest moments of my life. That same

evening the young female drank from the bottle, standing next to Mtoto.

It was quite obviously the same animal whose mother we had shot down as it attacked us, the young animal we had then lost. But our good fortune did not last. It had wandered ten miles in the bush and spent three days and two nights alone there, and this was its undoing. Only a few days later the little animal, which had already won all our affection, succumbed to a heart attack. Probably it had been too long in the wilderness, alone and untended. It is difficult to describe our grief at its loss. ... It was a good thing that Mtoto was still there for us to look at. Full of good health and the joy of life, he made a great hullabaloo in his corral, a powerful, cheerful, trustful young rhinoceros. After about three weeks we let him roam about where he liked in the neighbourhood of the camp, though with a rope twenty yards long fastened to his collar and trailing after him. In this way he was able to find his natural fodder for himself on the trees and bushes, and so we learned which species he liked as a 'sweet' after the bottle. 42

Our rhinoceros calf throve on this diet and grew stronger and stronger; his excursions from the camp grew more and more extended; often he was away all day, always watched by Olesen. When the sun was at the zenith, the two lay down together in the shade of a tree for their afternoon nap. They made a peaceful picture, the stocky little Olesen sitting asleep against the tree, his hands crossed over his stomach, and close up against him the rhinoceros, evidently feeling safe in the protection of his foster-

mother. Now at last we could think about leaving the remote bush. Our return march was a severe test of patience, for our progress was determined entirely by our rhinoceros. When he cared to run, we could all make good progress; when he grew tired and lay down, we had to wait till he felt

inclined to go farther. On the first morning we went along tracks made by rhinoceroses, and did very well. But after an hour and a half our prot€g€ tired of running and began to feed from every bush, and then, as the sun rose higher and higher, he lay down in the shade and slept. That ended our march for that day. Next day we started off happily in the morning, but our rhinoceros was not very keen; after only twenty minutes he lay down and went to sleep, and we could get no farther. This time we were in the midst of the arid steppe, and the next water source was an

hour and a half away. A water-carrier sent for water had thus a threehour journey, and if we add an hour for gossip at the waterhole, it took half a day to get a bucket of water. On the following day we again made no progress! Mtoto was lord of the expedi tion, and everythin g depended on him. Siedentopf became thoroughly furious, but Olesen and I remained calm. When Mtoto still kept up his cheerful whims , I had a stretcher made for our precious captive, with poles so long that six men could hold them at each end. And when at last it was all ready, we found that our work had been for nothing; for Mtoto now had a pleasant surprise for us-he ran of his own free will. The reason was that Olesen went behind him and kept on prodding him with a stick, just as the cow rhinoceroses do with their calves, using their horns. In this way we covered a few miles every day. The distance could have been covered by a runner in a day and a half; it took us a week. But need we worry? In Africa nothing is so cheap as time. One morning we were just breaking up our camp in particularly beautiful, luxuriant green country, when suddenly a huge rhinoceros approached us. Now had come the moment we had always feared. If the big rhinoceros made an unexpected attack, my Blacks would all run away, and then our youngster might go off with the intruder and there would be nobody there to stop him. But by this time I had learnt something 43

about the way to treat rhinoceroses. Carrying a loaded riAc, only for any extremc emcrgency, I walked towards the intruder and played oncc more

the trick that had worked before: I roared at the rhinoceros at the top of my voice. It started, stood still---and then turned round and went off at full speed. My Blacks laughed with rclicf, and I, too, was rclicvcd.

At last we rcached the caravan track, with a 6,000-foot mountain to cross. Everything went smoothly during the ascent, and at the top we had the cheerful feeling that the worst was over. It was one more mistake, for on the peak our little rhinoceros refused to go down. He simply by down and would not move. Laboriously we towed him until sunset, when we reached a little wooded valley, where we were very glad to pitch our tents. Unfortunately the waterhole had becn fouled by cattle. Our tca tasted horrible, and Olesen said: 'If anyone asks us whether we have ever tasted cow dung, we can now truthfully say "Yes".' The farther we went in the following days from the home of the rhinoceros, the harder it became to get suitable fodder, for the bushes Mtoto liked grew rarer and rarer. In the end all the porters of the caravan had to be sent out to collect as many of them as they could find. So at last, after all sorts oftrials of patience, we reached the level country in which it was possible to go by lorry. A messenger was sent ahead to fetch our Chevrolet. Mtoto then set us our last problem. When we tried to lift him into the lorry he struggled so wildly that we had to give up the attempt. So we garlanded the lorry with green boughs and made it into a sort of clump of bushes. We backed it against a mound, over which we gently induced Mtoto to enter it. The camouflage was a triumphant success-our rhino noticed nothing. We shut him in, and Olesen and I heaved deep sighs of relief. From now on all went splendidly. During the journey Olesen sat next to Mtoto, talked to him, and calmed him when the lorry lurched over irregularities. The lorry with its Whitsun decorations and the pair inside it must have been a strange spectacle. But all of us were in high spirits, Olesen and I and the Negroes and the leading actor in the play, the rhinoceros. We all came in good shape to the Masai steppe between Kilimanjaro and Mount Meru, where we set up a new permanent camp for the second important objective of this expedition, the capture of giraffes.

LASSOING GIRAFFES Y FIRST meeting

with giraffes in the freedom of the wide African steppes took place in the bush at Hanga, not far from Kilossa, which is on the railway line from Dar cs Salaam to Tabora, by Lake Tanganyika. I set out in a car before dawn to observe wild animals. It was still twilight when I made out the first animals on my way---three wart-hogs, going leisurely through the bush. The wart-hog is a grotesque animal. Huge tusks-the world record for length is twenty-one inchescurve out of the sides of the jaw, and thick warty knobs stand out under the eyes; long hair hangs from the back. I saw the shining white of these wild boars' great tusks; the long manes on their backs waved as all three fled with great leaps. Soon after that a little family of green baboons ran across in front of me. The strongest male turned round in curiosity to look at me before they all disappeared in the bush. I next noticed two guinea-fowls. They did not fly, but ran away from me at an astonishing pace, cackling in alarm. These birds can run at more than thirty miles an hour, as I was able later to confirm from my car. A little later I saw a long-horned waterbuck in the tall grass. Noiselessly I stalked it; then a Yellow Reedbuck rustled dose to me in the thicket, giving me a start. Before I had recovered from it a whole herd of impallahs, black-heeled antelopes, were making the maddest capers! Some twenty of them raced past together, making astounding leaps into the air, several yards high. As I watched them in astonishment there came from a bush not far away two wart-hogs. They scratched quite unconcernedly in the ground for roots, only ten feet away from me, then knelt on their front legs and slid about, an altogether unusual spectacle! These animals look dangerous with their great tusks, but they are quite harmless: I was able to stand watching them without any firearms. With many species of African big game there is no need at all to be armed. But with others, particularly elephants, rhinoceroses, buffaloes, and lions, situations may easily arise that call for a gun in the hands of a good shot as an absolute necessity. 'There is not the least danger in going "across Africa with a walking-stick" 'the only people who can say that from their own experience are people who have kept out of the way of all the larger wild animals. On that early morning, however, with the sun rising so magnificently over the bush and steppe, I had no thought of danger from wild animals, but enjoyed the beauty of the world and in particular the wonderful

M

45

wealth of animal life round me in the East African bush. I was in a real animal paradise! Then, when I happened to look up, I suddenly saw to my great surprise two dark eyes looking down at me from the top of a tree. At first I was entirely nonplussed and almost alarmed, until in a gap bctween the boughs

I saw the head and neck of the owner of the cyes: it was a giraffe! What an cxpericnce! The first giraffe roaming frccly that I had sccn at close quarters! lo the confusion of light and shade among the boughs its body was made entirely indistinguishable by its dark brown spots. This camouflage was astonishingly effectual. But it was still stranger to me, as I cautiously approached the animal, to have to shade my eyes to look at it, a thing scarcely needed for any other animal on earth. Soon I made out five more giraffes, browsing unconccmcdly in front of me on the tops of the Umbrella Acacias. Almost any other wild animal has to move to and fro to browse, but these giraffes remained standing by a tree on the same spot for a long time while I, with my head bent back, stood still and watched them plucking one little leafy twig after another with their long black tongues. This method of getting its food from the tops of the trees suits the giraffe extraordinarily well. Its neck is certainly long, but in proportion to it its legs are still longer, so that this animal can pick up nothing from the ground, and cannot drink from a pool without straddling widely in a curious way with its forelegs. It is an odd thing that the long neck of the giraffe has only seven vertebrae, exactly the same number as the neck of other mammals, including man. This strange animal of the steppe is a ruminant, and its food is first stored in its great rumen or first stomach, and later brought up, chewed and carefully insalivated. One may watch a great mouthful moving up the long neck like a round swelling, and then, after it has been properly broken up, slipping down again as quite a little lump. I had often enough watched this strange animal for hours in the Berlin Zoological Gardens. But to stand here by giraffes in entire freedom, so close that one could hear them plucking the leaves, was a very different experience. And I had not even made out all the animals standing round me. When at last they moved, I counted seven, swaying as they galloped away thunderously, all in the one direction, and vigorously slapping themselves with their tails. After a few leaps they all stopped next to one another, in cxactly the same attitude, seven necks raised high in the air, and seven pairs of eyes looking round at me. Then they were lost to sight in the bush. The wealth of giraffes in the Tanganyika territory, the former German 46

0

II, 12

Herd of giraffes in the East African bush. The n11i111nls nre ntte11tively watclriug 11s.

13, 1.4 Bull gira_ffe i11 f111/.fliglu. Each lenp 111ens11res.fiftee11 to tweuty feet.

't&asses

.

. .

J, ,...~~

4; .......

~-

15, 16

,

Giraffe rearing after being lassoed---and them

standing calmly with its captor,

17 I wns s0CJ11 possible to come so close to this giraffe, just caught, that every hair of its splendid spotted hide could be made out, as could the t1!{ts of lzair 011 tlzc horny prot11bermzccs 011 its head, and even its lo11g

cyclns/zcs.

18 011 ,,,. · •11cJst mccessj,cl day we cat three giraffe,y i11 1/,,· 111< 1 .. 111g. Encl, 0111 had to !IC' , ,1111io11s/y towed to the lorry ,11,d wged there, To prevent the animals fro 1a/.:i11g f,·,:~111, we tied 0111 jackets 011cr 1/,cir heads.

19 Giraffes i11 011r corral i11 the steppe.

We /,ad set 11p ,111 c11closure

of tall rvire 11ettillg. Each animal had dijfere11t 111arki11gs, so t/,at it was easy to distinguish them f,0111 011e another.

East Africa, is astonishing. In some regions there the giraffe is the wild

animal most frequently seen. For that reason the first postage stamp issued by the British Mandatory Government for Tanganyika showed a giraffe's head. The frequency of the giraffe in certain regions may also be responsible for the fact that hcrc and there along the Uganda Railway line, telephone lines were torn down. After that the wires in the giraffe regions were put on such high poles that the giants could move comfortably to and fro beneath them. These harmless animals, which do no destruction, arc protected by strict hunting regulations, and special permission is required from the authorities for a hunter to kill one single giraffe in the year. The permit is expensive, and few are bought. More may have been in the past, for leather from the giraffe's hide was at one time cut for the long whips used by the Boers in driving their ox-teams: sixteen pairs used to be harnessed to their trekking waggons. Sometimes I saw giraffes behind low bushes, which provided cover for their bodies but not for their long necks. Then a whole dozen of these tall animals would often be watching me, as though on the look-out from watch towers in the steppe. When I wanted to observe a herd from close up, or to photograph them, I had always to go to work with the utmost caution, as the giraffe can see remarkably well from a distance and its height gives it a wide range. As a rule, when I approached they fled with their characteristic swaying gallop, and quickly disappeared among the trees. In this connexion it is interesting to notice how well these great and to all appearance strikingly marked animals are adapted to their environment. In the African sunlight their spotting is a perfect camouflage. Even a herd of giraffes in the bush match their environment so well with their variegated skins that one has to keep a very sharp look-out to catch sight of them amid the confusion of boughs and sparkling leaves and the shifting ·

strong light and deep shade. Yet these animals arc twelve to sixteen feet high. The giraffe's 'biotop', its favourite environment, is the sparsely wooded steppe. It is to be seen on uecless grassland without undergrowth only when it goes to drink or is moving from one wooded spot to another. I once followed a herd in my car as they wandered on in this way, and ventured closer and closer to them as they moved. After a time they got used to my company, apparently setting me down as a harmless animal, and they were so little disturbed by my presence that they fought out their little differences in front of me. Two bulls of this herd suddenly began fighting. But how do giraffes £ight1 Nature has made them such peaceful creatures! They did not face each other, but stood close together and struck each other sideways with the hair-covered protuberances on their heads, going for the back, neck and flank, and making a very strange 47

picture as they bent their long necks to hit out sideways. The blows and thrusts seemed very violent, for sometimes the noise could be heard a long way off, and soon one of them moved away, exhausted. In their relations with other animals the giraffes show great good nature. Often I saw herds of antelopes, cspecially Grant's and Thompson's Gazelles, taking no notice at all of the giraffes browsing in their midst; even the

grazing cattle, goats, and shccp of the Masai did not avoid them in the steppe. But at times giraffes may show astonishing strength. Martin Johnson tells of a cow giraffe with calf killing an attacking lion with a well-placed blow from the hard and heavy hoof of its foreleg. Other reliable observers have reported the astonishing force with which giraffes can give slashes and blows against beasts of prey with the hoofs of their hind legs. One of the main objectives of my East African expedition was the capture ofan umber of these rare and valuable exhibits: the trade price of a giraffe was fifteen thousand marks. We had first to make up our minds as to the best region to choose. After many inquiries and journeys ofinvcstigation we had found a place, in very beautiful country, in the Masai steppe, where grass and bush alternated-the giraffe's favourite haunt. The ground was so level that we could go anywhere by car, or at full gallop on horseback. The latter proved specially important, as I shall tell later. Herc We set up our camp. There were many herds of giraffes in the region, usually a bull with several cows and their calves. We had no sooner arrived than we saw a herd of nineteen, and later I was able to sec from a hill-top eighty-two animals at once. Three mountains gave us a wonderful view, especially in the morning and evening, when the air was perfectly clear. On one side rose the regular pyramid of Mount Meru, an extinct volcano crowned by primeval forest. Farther away rose the long stretched-out silhouette of Mount Longido, with a remarkable group of rocks on one side of its flat top. And in front of us was the beautiful, fairylike snow peak of Kilimanjaro, whose glaciers and snowfields emerged like a scene of enchantment above the haze of the plain. It seemed a miracle to be living in tropical heat, and sometimes suffering from it, while we could look out at the eternal snow and ice. At the foot of these mountains, on the last foothills of Mount Meru, we set up our permanent camp. As in all such expeditions, our success depended on careful preparation. Our plan developed only gradually. How to catch giraffes I The problem had exercised me for a long time. In East Africa they were caught from horseback, the young animals being lassoed. But who had any experience 48

I

of that method of capture? How could I find a man for the task, and, above all, where could I get the horses?' It seemed a stroke of great good fortune when I discovered in Arusha, a little town at the foot of Kilimanjaro, a Boer named Pitt Jones who was prepared to join us with his sixtccn-year-old relative, George de Baer. Doers have the reputation of being passionate hunters. The first time I met Pitt Jones I felt sure that he would give us valuable help in every way, and I was not mistaken. As a hunter he was in his clement; he was as familiar as a native with the wilderness; and he was a man of great physical strength and endurance and an impassioned hunter, all qualities that were necessary to enable us to achieve our unusual task. We found it difficult to get the horses we needed. There were cattle diseases in East Africa that made it almost impossible to keep horses, at all events in some regions, including the Masai steppe. We had therefore to get suitable horses from farther north, from the healthy and elevated environment of Nairobi in Kenya. Two qualities were essential: the horses must be able to catch up giraffes and other wild animals, and they must have no fear of coming close up to a fleeing herd of giraffes. We secured two good horses, both bred in South Africa, and they did not disappoint us. So far so good. But how were we to bring our captured giraffes to the camp! We could not drive them before us like the young rhinoceros, or lead them with a rope. We should have to have a lorry with a strong cage on it. But wood was scarce in the region. One morning, therefore, we went in our Chevrolet to the village of Engare, near Nairobi, where a capable German business man had a sawmill. We found him living in a pleasant thatched house that might have been brought from Westphalia. Ir front of his workshop we found some fine laths of cedar, and Pitt Jones and I set to work at once to build a tall and airy cage on the Chevrolet. At the end of the day we had fixed it up. When we told the sawmill -owner of our purpose he was entirely incredulous about the possibility of ever getting a live giraffe into that cedar-wood cage. But we had had so many pessimistic comments on my enterprise-even from Olesen, but he was an incurable pessimist-that I was not disturbed. On our departure the sawmill-owner's wife gave us a tame ostrich. It was a young animal, a little more than three feet high, still in the first plumage, yellowish with dark spots, a merry little ball of feathers. We put it straight into our cage as our first captive and drove away. Later we had many laughs over the amusing little creature. In the cool of the evening it would dance--that is the only word for its grotesque exercises at sunset. It made strange leaps, twirled round flapping its wings, and ran in zigzags between the tents; then it would lift its long legs in a ridiculous goose-step, flapping its 49

wings-so that we looked forward every evening to these demonstrations of the exuberance of youth.

It was already dark when we proudly drove our new transport cage into our camp. On our way all sorts of game had come into view, lit up by our headlights. I was quite astonished when suddenly innumerable bright lights shone in front of us, as if the steppe was full of watch-fires. They were the eyes of zebras, a big herd of which werc looking at us in the dark. Then there was suddenly a green light: a steppe lynx or scrval had crossed our path. Its eyes gave a green reflection of our light, as do all cats' eyes, including those of the lion. Then we saw eyes with a reddish gleamhunting dogs. We still needed a corral for our captured animals. Close to our tents was a thick dump of Flat-topped Acacias. Many herds of zebras must have rested in the shade of these trees at midday, to judge from the droppings. There were also the hoof-prints of many passing giraffes. Between these acacias we set up walls of wire-netting, ten feet high and so strong that giraffes could not tear them down. There was our corral! Now we wanted fodder-racks and troughs, and we hammered these into shape out of empty petrol tins. The young animals must also have broth made for them, and for this we had sacks of maize. But we had not the milk, for we could not bring the quantity of tinned milk needed. Here again we were fortunate: we were able to bring two cows from a farm, so that we had enough fresh milk. There was still the problem of a water supply to be solved, perhaps the greatest difficulty of all. We had to avoid open water sources because of the danger of the tsetse By, and had to keep to the healthy but arid steppes. We were therefore compelled to fetch water for man and beast from a distance. At first we were short of receptacles, but a farmer lent us a 200-gallon tank, and in this we were able to bring enough water for our needs. So the day came when, so far as could be seen, all was ready for a start. PittJones was quite sure that we should succeed, but Olesen was as gloomy as ever-partly, no doubt, because he was suffering from the great heat. He thought longingly of the iced beer of Berlin, of which there was none anywhere near Kilimanjaro. 'In Berlin,' he complained, 'you never have this awful thirst, and here there's no beer!' His dark prophecies influenced me to the extent that I determined to go cautiously. 'Let us start with zebras,' I suggested to Pitt Jones, 'and if we do all right, then we can try giraffes.' I had a licence from the Game Commission for six giraffes. The licence cost .£,9 for each animal, and so I had every reason for proceeding cautiously.

•

50

The two Bocrs at once agreed enthusiastically to go after zebras. They were energetic young men, and ready for any adventure. To look carefully after animals day after day, to prepare milk broth for them time after

time, was another matter. Herc Olescn was a master. His care and skill accustomed the animals to the change of food and kept them in perfect health. Dut to gallop wildly after zebras and antelopes was just what filled the Bocrs with enthusiasm. So I left Olesen to look after the animals, which nobody could do better, while the Boers gladly risked life and limb to fill the corral for him. There were always herds of zebras near the camp: we could watch them all day, and through the night we could hear the males neighing and the herds trotting away when they came up to our tents. On the day of our

first chase after zebras there was a small herd in an exceptionally good situation, not too far from the camp, on Bat ground where we could gallop after them without any hindrance. Pitt Jones had already made the lass( their {ent11rcs

,;,,is

pariirnlarly

cxpressi11e. Here ;, betrays npprehension and recal-

ci1rnnce.

3.2 Young orangt1ttlll. //

was bom

in the Berlin Zoo, and escaped the horrors of the

through

,var ti111ely

evawat/011

Copenhage11.

10

romping by monkeys big and small. Mangabeys, guenons, macaques, raced cheerfully about, hunted for fodder, rummaged in the bedclothes, squatted on the chest of drawers, and played every possible trick. But they were caught one after another, and put into warm quarters. Unfortunately, many of the monkeys were badly burnt or cut by flying glass. Others sat shivering amid the ruins or on the bare branches of a tree, until nearly all of them were driven back by hunger and cold. The gorilla Pon go, the treasure of the Gardens, successor to the famous Bobby, himself now weighing thirty-six stone, remained uninjured, to the great joy of all visitors to the Zoo. But in the disastrous night of the bombing he had had experiences that were quite unusual for him, as well as for his keeper, Liebetreu. The shock to the monkey-house opened a hole in the wooden panelling ofthe gorilla's cage. Pongo at once climbed through the hole. He was now in the fodder passage, which led behind the cages to Licbetreu's flat. Pongo, a black-haired monster with blazing little eyes, and with immense bunches of muscles on his arms, trotted along the passage, and suddenly came to Licbetreu's kitchen. There was nobody there. The ape quickly swept all the crockery off the shelves to smash on the floor, and then overturned everything he could lay hands on. Then the door opened and Frau Licbetrcu came in. The gorilla stood facing her, with his deep-set, blazing eyes, a picture of innate energy, but a very alarming one. Frau Liebetreu shrieked. Slowly she moved back, but not to escape: she shut the outer door, so that the ape should be unable to get into the Gardens. What marvellous courage this delicate woman showed! Pongo stood in the kitchen, undecided what to do next. Then, as though sent by heaven, Head Keeper Liebetreu came in. A loud, imperious command to the monkey, and Pongo moved back, apparently intimidated. But then he suddenly threw up his long hairy arms, fell upon Licbetreu, knocked him down, and bit him in the thigh. Licbetreu kept his arms in front of his face to protect it. His situation was really hopeless-for who had the strength to overcome that gigantic monster, to battle with those huge hands and those great jaws! It was thanks only to the circumstance that young Pongo had not yet the great canine teeth of the adult that Liebetreu escaped mortal injury. Then suddenly, for no apparent reason, Pongo let go of his keeper and went back into his cage. Licbetrecu, in spite of his injuries, jumped after him and dosed the panel, and the monster was once more behind bars, grunting in innocent contentmenta huge spoilt child that just before had nearly killed a man. Not till the morning after the raid could the damage done be gauged. Daylight penetrated indeed only slowly through the clouds of smoke 8--A.M.A,

103

that hung between the trees in the Zoological Gardens. Mcn and women who had been up all night were still going wearily to and fro. There was endless work to be done in putting out fires. A fire might seem to have

been dcfinitcly extinguished, but a few hours later it would flame up again. Many buildings suffered three and four times in this way. There were ruins where houses had stood the day before, trees lying across the paths like barriers, and through the chaos animals wandered about in

unaccustomed and largcly unwanted liberty. Apart from birds, small monkeys, and the dwarf hippopotamus, no

animal escaped beyond the walls of the Zoo-in spite of the fantastic reports of many 'eye-witnesses', who claimed to have met with lions and wolves in the streets of Berlin. Two blazing eyes which at night had alarmed a few people in the Zoo belonged to a harmless dingo, an Australian dog whose kennel had been burnt. A wolf wandering about the Gardens was shot in the early moming. Someone looking into a waste paper basket found curled up in it a raccoon very much alive. Moritz, the dromedary, tried hard to get into the veterinary surgeon's

house. The formidable African buffalo wandered about the Gardens with two cows, a fantastic picture. More dangerous than these intimidated cattle was a rutting Wapiti deer with long, strong horns. With these powerful horns it had forced up an iron bar and so opened its enclosure and got out. Then it attacked its keeper, Dettloff, who happened to be coming along. Dettloff, with great presence of mind,jumped behind a tree, then took refuge behind a lorry, and then ran into the Wapiti's enclosure and shut the gate. Now the keeper was behind the bars and the deer outside them. That morning the Wapiti was shot by my son Lutz, who was one of an armed patrol. Stiff and numb with the cold, but unhurt, the bird Abu Markub was found alive in the morning. We forced a couple of fishes down its throat; then it went into the bathroom in Head Keeper Schwarz's house. There this precious Egyptian bird soon recovered in the steamy warmth. Grave and rather menacing, with its powerful shoe-beak •chattering', it stood on a rubber mat in the bath, or, when it felt like it, wandered through the undamaged passages of the pheasant house. In one way or another a large number of animals, among them some that were valuable and unique, survived the terrors of the night of 22 November. The damage to buildings might also have been relatively

unimportant, had not fresh trouble come on the 23rd. The new wave of destruction on that night brought the end of the Aquarium, which became a real inferno. On the night of 23 November 1943, the sirens gave their wolves' howl again, and soon the people of the Berlin Zoological Gardens were back I104

in their shelter, this time with the worst expectations. How different the shelter now looked! It was only dimly lit, but packed with people; along the walls were wooden bunks with emergency beds from which the frightened eyes of children looked out or on which exha usted women had lain down. The raid of the night before had made eleven famili es homeless, and for weeks they had to make use of the shelter. My famil y and I had to use these bunks. On this night there was no longer the talking and laughing of the previous evening; everyone waited in tense silence for the beginning of the new raid.

Now we heard the cncmy aircraft. A few moments later the shelter was rocked by a fearful explosion. The first bomb, which must have fallen close to us, was followed by a series of hits. Scarcely were the bombers gone when I rushed out. There were still a few heavy bombers flying over. Scarchlights traced and held some of them. The flak continued incessantly. Somewhere in the city a fire had started, and the sky began to redden. The Zoo was in darkness. But I smelt at once the foul, carthy, sulphurous odour of the havoc worked by a bomb. There must have been a hit quite close. The glow of the fire was increasing, and now the Aquarium building stood out against it. Until then it had been a fine tall building, with a glass dome. I realized that something terrible must have happened to it. I hurried there with my friend and colleague Professor Tratz, of Salzburg, who on that of all days was passing through Berlin. The walls of the Aquarium were still standing. By the entrance still stood the sculptured iguanodon, sixteen feet high, which had given many Berliners an idea of the saurians of the Mesozoic age, extinct ninety million years ago. But the heavy entrance doors had been blown down. I found water running down the stairs. Our torches revealed in the entrance hall a picture of utter devastation. A land mine had hit the fine building in one of the worst possible places. It had fallen through the glass roof into the hundred-foot-long crocodile hall with its tropical landscape, where a bamboo bridge had led over a stretch of river running through primeval forest. The river was the home of alligators and crocodiles. The blast had smashed every pane of glass in roof, windows, aquariums, and 'terrarium' cabinets, and the interior of the great building was entirely wrecked. The forest river on the first floor, in which the great crocodiles and alligators, ten to fifteen feet long and more, could be admired from below through thick glass panes, had collapsed, and the animals had been thrown down, together with bamboos, palms, soil, tree trunks, and smashed cement and glass. The hall and stairs were covered with wreckage. The sight of these giant lizards, injured internally by blast, half buried 105

under fallen masonry, wounded by bomb splinters and writhing in pain under the water in the hall, with a great door burst open in the background through which could be seen the fires of wrecked Derlin, was like a vision from Dante's I.nfcmo. We climbed with difficulty in the dark, past gasping alligators, up to the first floor. We were not quite comfortable at the thought of the

poisonous snakes that had been liberated. The mamba might have been dangerous, for this poisonous rcptile is the most fcarcd in its African home because it attacks human beings at once if it feels that it is threatened. I had made the acquaintance of this grccnish-grcy snake in the Cameroons. We once found a specimen that had just crept up the bank of our path, and we went after it. At once it shot forward to bite us, and we jumped to safety only just in time. I recalled the incident as Dr. Tratz and I pushed past the chaos of die wrecked terrariums, in which there had been a mamba. There was less need for caution with the other species of snake. The puff adders which I had brought from Abyssinia, and the riverjack which we had caught in die primeval forest of Central Africa, were fat, heavy, lazy fellows, from whom no attack need be feared. The rattlesnakes would have warned us with their rattle, and the cobras would first have reared up before biting. But the winter cold was penetrating quickly into the corners of the Aquarium, and as the temperature fell within the building, now open everywhere to the outer air, the probability that any poisonous make could be dangerous diminished. These denizens of the tropics become rigid very quickly. On the following day Herr Wolf Durrian, a well-known journalist, himself a keen amateur zoologist, found a poisonous snake in the debris. 'Poor venomous snakes!' he wrote. 'They became so torpid in the cold. I picked up a rattlesnake and tried to warm it back to life under my coat. Unfortunately I failed.' It was no real misfortune that the snake was not brought back to life, for its first act would have been to bite its rescuer. When the day dawned, dense smoke lay again over the streets of west Berlin, and grit was drifting from the sky. Once more the men of the Zoo, with soot-covered faces and eyes inflamed by smoke, tired out, unshaven, and hollow-cheeked, returned to their day's work, which had grown to really gigantic proportions. The Aquarium, unequalled in the world in itself and its contents, the workplace of Dr. Heinroth and Chief Inspector Seitz and his staff, was destroyed. Nothing could be done with it. The bombs had wrecked the building with all that was in it, 750 species of animals in 250 cabinets, and the incoming cold air together with the effects of blast and the lack of water had killed most of the animals. All that survived were two 106

Malay False Gharials, some giant turtles, two pythons ten and fifteen feet

long, a few small alligators and land and water tortoises, four billfishes, four giant salamanders, which could stand the cold, a Hawksbill Turtle, and four spurious Hawksbill Turtles. The famous Komodo Dragon, first discovered in this century, a native of the island of Komodo, was still alive, but it was already doomed. It had lived fourteen years in Berlin, and had grown to a length of eight feet on a diet of raw eggs and small animals such as rabbits and rats. Everywhere lay corpses of crocodiles, snakes, lizards, and fishes. Dirty water lay in pools on the

floor. The spectacle defied description. The fine Berlin Aquarium, which had aroused the enthusiasm of every animal lover with its wonderful tanks of fishes, its miniature landscapes in the cabinets for reptiles, and

its insectarium, was a thing of the past. Yes, we of the Zoo had been dealt a terrible blow by Fate. My father's life's work, in which I had joined under him for ten years with many colleagues, and which I subsequently directed for twelve years, introducing many new open-air enclosures and improvements of the landscape, had been destroyed. For the keepers, too, and the gardeners and workmen, the destruction of the Zoo was the destruction of the world for which they had lived, and I saw old men among them who could not hide their grief and wept. Perhaps it was a good thing for us all in those days of terrible trouble that there was endless work to be done. In it the men of the Zoo gave fine proof of their dose comradeship. Anyone whose dwelling was still undamaged took in the homeless, and in two communal kitchens meals were cooked for the whole staff. We did not live badly in those weeks. There was meat in plenty; many an animal that had fallen victim to the raids went into the cooking pot, sometimes animals which no housewife would have dreamed were eatable. Very good were the crocodiles' tails; cooked in great containers till they were soft, they tasted like rich game. The deer, buffaloes, and antelopes that had been killed supplied hundreds of meals for human beings and animals. Later bear bacon and bear sausages were a particular delicacy for us. Yet an astonishing number of animals of every sort had escaped---721 mammals belonging to 233 species, and 1212 birds of 477 species. Perhaps the most valuable was the gorilla Pongo, and the first thing now was to

protect him from cold. The wing of the great monkey-house in which he lived was fortunately untouched, and we were able to shut it off from the destroyed part of the building by means of a high boarding. A great iron stove was kept going, and in this improvised hothouse Pongo 107

felt well and comfortable. The good Licbctrcu rightly held that anthropoid apes need 'spiritual comfort' to keep them cheerful. He bore no grudge against Pongo for the little tussle on the night of the raid, and he kept the great gorilla so well occupied in all sorts of ways, playing catch with him and so on, that Pongo came through this difficult time. The last survivor of the clephant house also rcccivcd a hothouse to himself, a high wall separating his stable from the rest of the ruined building. This elephant, too, survived the war. The interior in the monkeys' crag, where gibbons and baboons lived, had lost its glass roof; we replaced it with the linen of my African tent. The dwarf hippopotamuses were temporarily housed in the gentlemen's lavatory at the entrance to the Zoo from the underground railway; there they were fairly warm. 'Thus everything possible was done for every animal, particularly in the matter of securing the nccessary warmth. The Gardens were helped by offers from twenty-five private persons in the neighbourhood of Berlin to take charge of animals in the emergency. Thus homes were found for ponies, zebras, horned hogs, and cven some anthropoid apes, and for parrots and birds of paradise-a distribution that helped to save lives. There were, of course, wild rumours in Berlin about dangerous animals at large. Everyone had heard exciting stories, and some people claimed to have had experiences of their own. Somebody saw an anthropoid ape helping two of its young down to the underground railway-a touching picture! Someone else claimed to have passed a tiger in his car, and seriously told me about it himself. He was a sober bank director, whose fancy bad sprouted for once; nothing would persuade him that his 'experience' was imaginary. A wolf was said to have appeared in the tea room of the Eden Hotel, and then to have gone away without finding anybody worth gobbling up. Even the B.B.C. gave news, on 30 November 1943, of animals being machine-gunned in the streets of Berlin. We ignored all these rumours, and worked away on the principle of helping first the animals and ourselves. It was not too easy for me to busy myself with the animals in the first days after the disaster, knowing that my own house, which had been wrecked from top to bottom, had begun again to smoulder, so that our last possessions, books and pictures of my father's, my African collections, and so on, might be doomed to destruction. My sons Lutz and Heinz, who were helping wherever they could, stepped in here, so that a certain amount of scientific material survived tlie raids. ' The incendiaries that fell on the Zoo in those last years of the war were beyond counting. Words cannot describe the devoted efforts of all, often with risk to life, actually during the raids, or even under fire

men

108

from low-flying aircraft. Special mention is due, however, to the bravery shown at a11 times by the women, and to their tireless exertions everywhere, whether in a chain passing buckets along or on burning roofs or

in the saving of animals. They 'played the man'--and some of them did more. An important date in the history of the Berlin Zoological Gardens was approaching. The Zoo was first opened on 1 August 1844. How its centenary would have been celebrated in peace time! I had been present at the centenary celebrations of the London Zoo, when many scientists and well-known persons from all over the world were present. The same thing would have happened in the Berlin Zoo, wbich was no less world-

famous. Rarc spccics of animals had been shown there for the first time and studied by scientists; valuable: scientific materul had there been placed at the disposal of institutions and museums of every sort and of veterinary and other research centres. The Berlin Zoo was a recognized centre for experiments in animal psychology; thus, for instance, the Teneriffe chimpanzees, familiar in all the specialist literature, had been kept there for further experiments, and unnumbered scientists in the most varied fields of research had gained information and inspiration there. My father had always kid emphasis on attention to both science and an. and in his time there had been created picturesque animal houses and scientifically valuable collections of animals , in which those of related species were housed and exhibited together. Under my direction the Zoo was transformed by the creation of open-air enclosures. In these great spaces the animals were placed in biological groups, in famili es or herds that got on well together. But this brought no reduction in the number of species. In these Gardens the Berliner found not only scientific instruction but

relaxation. When the Zoo celebrated its centenary within modest limits in the war year of 1944, its very varied fields of activity were dealt with in lectures and films. It was a satisfaction to all lovers of the Zoo that it was still able to pursue its ideals, for in the summer of 1944 it had been reopened to visitors. Not more, however, than five thousand persons could be admitted at a time, as that was the most that could then find safety in the surrounding shelters in the event of an air raid. Thus many Berliners were still able to find pleasure and relaxation in those beautiful autumn days in their hundred-year-old Zoo; and they would have been able to continue to do so if the end of the war and the unfortunate history of Berlin in recent years had not added a tragic final chapter to the history of the Zoo. While other zoological gardens, such as those at Munich or at Stellingen, near Hamburg, have retained their old importance as scientific centres, as breeding-places for rare animals, as the last refuge of anim als that axe becoming extinct, and as centres 109

of the best sort of popular cducation, the difficulties in the Berlin Zoo have not yet been removed. Its breeding of nearly extinct animalsbison, aurochs, ibex, and the rest-is at an end; the famous systematic collections of monkeys, beasts of prey, deer, and cattle, and the many rare species of birds, have disappeared.

Today cspccially, when animal psychology has made grcat progress, when animals arc no longer attributed the same characteristics, desires and needs as a human being, and when it is known that cach species lives in an environment peculiar to itself, which a good keeper can provide in a zoo or an animal park, the idea of a modernized care of animals is reviving, and it is to be hoped that the day may come when Germany's oldest Zoological Gardens will once more be serving this ideal in the best possible way.

/

IIO

PART III

EXPEDITIONS IN CANADA

MEETING WITH ELKS

T

a quite special fascin ation in visiting regions which to this day resemble the primeval state of our homelands before they

H.BRB IS

were transformed by man. Such regions are scarcely to be found in Europe; they still exist in the almost inaccessible far north of Asia;

and nowhere are they more beautiful than in Canada's 'Wild West'. There I was able to enter virgin land full of the enchantment of untouched nature which works so powerfully on us in this over-urbanized age. The climatic conditions of western Canada are much the same as in Central Europe; the plants are related to those of Europe, and in the

animal world, too, many wild species resemble ours. But everything is on a larger scale. Summer is hotter, winter colder, the mountains and rivers are mightier, and similar ly many of the relatives of our wild animals tend to the gigantic. The Canadian giant red deer, or wapiti, the grizzly bear, the Canadian moose with its record-size antlers, the strong bighorn sheep, correspond to our more modest red deer, our brown bear, our elk, our lean wild sheep, the mouflon, and so on. With them there live in that wilderness anim als that have been exterminated or have become extinct among us, such as the wolf, the lynx, the bison, and also the furred animals that are the wealth of vast forest regions, such as the mink, the marten, and especially the beaver, and the white, red, and silver fox. All this Canadian animal world came originally from the great continental region of Eurasia in past geological epochs; the animals crossed over from East Asia to North America by a land bridge then existing where now are the Bering Straits; and in their new environment, finding good conditions of existence, the various species developed larger forms. Only a few species of big game failed to spread to the New World. To this list of the Eurasian anim als of America may be added the small

mammals, such as the marmot, the mole, and the squirrel, and many reptiles, batrachians, and representatives of the invertebrates. Mention may also be made of such birds as the golden eagle, the buzzard, the hawk, the raven, etc.; among fishes the salmon and trout; and among lepidoptera the noble Apollo butterfly, which I found fluttering over the mountain meadows near Banffjust as it does in the Alps or their foothills, while in the autumn I saw the white Vanessa butterfly, as that well-

known and beautiful butterfly is called, flying about just as it does in Germany in the last of the warm days. The vast land mass of Canada and the islands beyond it reach far into 113

the Polar region as a trcclcss tundra, so that it is not surprising that animals

of the far north of the Old World arc to be found there, such as the glutton, the polar bear, the arctic fox, the musk ox, and the American reindeer, the gigantic caribou. This wealth of animal life is further increased by a whole number of

species unrelated to any in Europe, since they are of South American origin, their ancestors having migrated northward through Central America. Our animal world in Europe has not these forms, for instance the puma or Silver Lion, the mule deer (which with the Virginia or black-tailed deer forms a group of its own), the remarkable opossum, and others. The long migration from the south to the north, which once brought these mammals to Canada, is made to this day by many birds every spring. Some species of birds which came originally from South America return to the warmer regions for the winter, but breed in Canada in the short hot summer. It is an astonishing fact that this is done by the tiny, brilliant-hued humming birds, which go as far as Canada every year at breeding time, flying back in the autumn to tropical America for the winter, much as our European birds of passage winter in Africa. To see as many as possible of the animals of the New World, and particularly those species which resemble our own familiar animals, was my principal objective in visiting the forest and game regions of Canada. For our first journey into the wilds I relied on an 'outfitter', Nick Haggblad. Starting from a collecting centre four hours' railway journey west of Edmonton, he was to guide us to forest regions with a wealth of game. He had made good preparations for everything-saddle horses, saddling, tents, and all equipment, except. of course, our own personal requirements. Life in the northern provinces of Canada has always made heavy demands on physical strength and endurance. We had to be prepared for a sort of trapper's existence, and as the 'Indian summer' brings not only sunshine but cold nights, rain and snow, we fitted ourselves out with the necessary warm and waterproof clothing in Edmonton, the capital of Alberta, where everything can be bought which the heart of a trapper desires, from wolfskins and wire slings to harmonicas and other comforts for the wilderness. What I especially needed was a good sleepingbag, preferably lined with eiderdown-for although the genuine trapper, of course, sleeps in a blanket by the camp fire and accustoms himself to a Spartan life, I felt that there was no sense in freezing. I procured a splendid sleeping-bag with hood and zip fastener, and in it I was able to defy Arctic frosts. Now all was ready, and we could set off. There is nothing finer than riding at the head of a procession of I14

pack-horses through the lonely woodlands of western Canada, the true Wild West. We wcn_t deeper and deeper into the pathless country

of the Rocky Mountains, constantly on the look-out for big game. The horscs were wonderful. With cars crect, our twenty ridinghorses, used to climbing, watched for safe foothold. In the confusion of

dead wood on the ground, through which it might be thought impossible to move without breaking bones, their hoofs always found a footing. Now and then there were fords across rushing mountain streams to be faced, where the waters foamed round the breasts of the horses. They fought strongly against the current so as not to be swept away. The leading horse had no undisputed precedence: every pack-horse, in

spite of its load of nearly two hundredweight, wanted to be at the head of the long file, and at the first extensive glade there came a race! The loads began to slip, sleeping-bags, ground sheets, photographic apparatus, collapsible hearths, tins of food, dropped to the ground, and the packsaddles hung under the horses' bellies. The runaways had to be caught, and then, after half an hour of patient collecting, repacking, and roping, the journey could be continued, deeper and deeper into the spacious wilderness, by whose charm we were entirely captivated. Every day remained unforgettable. On the evening of the first day we reached a lonely camping-ground. A little stiff from the long unaccustomed sitting in the heavy American buck-saddles with the awkward stirrups, we stood about in a narrow elevated valley on the bank of a rushing rivulet. The mountains rose steeply on either side, covered with dense pinewoods or with almost impenetrable green thickets of all sons of trees and tall grass, the 'timber'. The valley was dosed on the west by high mountain ridges, behind which rose enormous peaks. The mightiest mountain mass on the left, rising steeply as the Matterhorn, was called the Sugar Loaf. Most of the other peaks of this high range had no names. The horses, too tired to move, stood with their heads down, and the pack-horses waited for their heavy loads to be taken off them. That done, most of them threw themselves on to the ground to rub their backs at the spot where the saddle had chafed them. Some of them were so exhausted by the difficult journey through the wilderness that they could

not cat. Nick Haggblad unharnessed the horses as quickly as he could, and then sent round the whisky flask and set to work with his men on putting up the tents. Nick was of Swedish origin; Larsson, the cook. was from Denmark, George Richmond, the second hunter, was from Scotland, and black-haired Wery, who was only seventeen years old, looked as if his parents were Italian. 115

The place for the tents had been well chosen. The valley was here

about a hundred yards wide, and between thc pines, a little way up the mountainside, was an almost level glade, of sufficient size for our little tent ciry. From here the horses could easily find good grazing in the valley and up the mountain slopes. A higher tent had becn put up for me, covering four square yards of ground; I slept in it and my companion

and I had our meals in it. There was also the cooking tent, in which Larsson performed his office excellently, and there were two slccping tents for the three other men. When the loads had been taken off the horses' backs and the tents had been set up, I took a quick survey of the place. My first discovery, not far from our camping-ground, was an obvious bear track in the hard clay. On both sides of the rivulet-the 'creek', as it is called there-I found the banks covered by short undergrowth, with the tips of the plants everywhere bitten off by elks. I could not go far, for the only 'track' leading up and down the valley was the bed of the stream up which we had just ridden, through foaming water and over slippery stones, and the only alternative would have been to climb up the steep slopes through the dense timber. On our return to the camp we put our tents into order. Along one side of the tent pine-boughs had been piled high, making an elastic mattress for the sleeping-bag. A wood fire was soon crackling in the iron stove and sending wreaths of smoke up to the sky through the stovepipe, surrounded with asbestos, which passed through the top of the tent. Table and chairs were unfolded and stood up, and a soft light came from some candles. That evening, as the cooking stove had not yet been set going, Larsson cooked over an open camp fire, while we stood around. Soon twilight came over the quiet mountain scene, and then we saw an elk high up on the farther slope, clearly visible against the sky. It stood motionless, looking down at us and our fire, until night came and we could no longer distinguish it. This was the seventh elk we had seen on that first day of our hunting expedition. I had seen the first one that afternoon among a small group of poplars on a mountainside. It was a female. From that island of yellowing leaves in the midst of dark pinewoods it had watched us, motionless, until we passed on. An hour later we set flying another elk with its calf. Stepping high, the great animal rushed uphill, crashing over a confusion of trees that had been blown down, and then trotted quickly on, as if it was going over level ground, until it disappeared over a ridge. Our way led over that same mountainside, but it took us five times as long to get to the top of the slope on horseback. Then, when we were 116

going steeply downhill again, some of the loads got loose and slipped

round the horses' nccks. We had to dismount and rope up the loads again. During that halt I saw in the valley in the evening light, for the first time, a splendid male elk standing by willows next to a stream.

Its antlers were set farther apart, and the palmate antlers were broader than any I had seen in Europe. It stood for a long time in the open, about

five hundred yards away, and then disappeared in a dense pinewood. 'We shall sec still better ones,' said Nick Haggblad to comfort me, and my expectations grew! In the weeks that followed we devoted several days to watching, photographing, and hunting these gigantic primeval deer. We had to

endure cffort and exertion and put up with vile weather, but when we stalked them in their haunts we never misse d our quarry. The elk, up to seven feet high at the shoulders and weighing in

Alaska

up to fifteen hundredweight, is the largest species of stag still living on earth. In the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago I saw the heaviest and most gigantic elk's antlers, the 'world record'. The branches were three feet six inches long, the palmate antlers had thirty-two shoots or tips, and the spread, that is to say the maxim um distance between the tips on either side, was six feet four inches. These record antlers were secured in Alaska, where this primeval game finds the best conditions of existence; the finest elks in Canada fall short of these dimensions by some inches. The Canadian elks, in turn, outdistance the European, which today attain a maximum weight of ten to eleven hundredweight. Originally the habitat of this gigantic deer extended throughout the forest girdle of the temperate zone of the northern hemisphere, from West Europe, where it was exterminated in historical times, to North America. Today elks are still living in the northern states of Europe, beginnin g with East Prussia, in Poland, Russia, and Siberia, and in North America. It is interesting that their number can be fairly closely estimated. At the beginning of the war there were living in East Prussia between a thousand and fifteen hundred elks, in Norway seven thousand, in Sweden thirty thousand, in each of the Baltic countries (Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) some hundreds, in Poland five hundred, in European Russia four thousand, and in the vast Siberian region forty thousand. The most recent estimates of the number of elks in Alaska, according to Reichert Mcine, approached thirty thousand, and the Canadian elks may number some tens of thousands. It is well known that the elk can swim remarkably for many miles, and that it can easily negotiate swamps which otherwise neither man nor beast can enter. But only in Canada have I witnessed the ease with 117

which it can quickly and sure-footedly negotiate rocky mountain slopes, the stccpest banks of loose stones, and wide river-beds full of stones and muddy sediment, and walk or even trot over slopes with a veritable maze of fallen trees, piled up in every direction, in the virgin forest.

Here, in this primeval wilderness, however, the clk can also conceal itself, make itsclf almost invisible. The old animal with the fine palmate antlers, the hunter's chief quarry, will often creep away with incredible noiselessness. Only the rutting time changes all that. In my region, near Luscar in Alberta, where we had our tents by the

'creek', 26 September was the day on which the rutting time for clks set in. Before that there had bccn two days of light snow; then there had come clear skics, and at night brilliant starlight, and the Northern Lights flamed in wonderful colours, like waving veils, lighting up large parts of the night sky. It became chillier in the tent every hour, and my head grew bitterly cold as I slept; I moved farther and farther into the sleeping-bag. The thermometer fell in the night to ten degrees below zero centigrade. We got up while it was still dark, full of expectation, for the fallen snow would make it easy for us to track elks: with their black fur they would be bound to stand out very clearly at a great distance against the snowcovered forest. In the dusk of the early morning we crossed the foaming streamlet, jumping from stone to stone, and climbed up the other side of the valley to a high ridge. Up there a bitterly cold wind was blowing; there were no elks to be seen, but we found in the newly fallen snow the track of a fully-grown elk, and we followed it downhill . We took a rest at a spot protected from the wind, and warmed ourselves in the sun's rays. A magnificent view of forests and mountain valleys opened before us. Behind us towered up the rugged slopes of the Rocky Mountains, of which not one in that region had a name of its own or was to be found on a map. Nick Haggblad pointed to a bright glade far below us, and said: 'Down there, just a year ago, I saw a big black bear go past.' We were searching the region round us with our glasses, as usual high up in the mountains, but involuntarily we turned again and again to the bright spot in the valley where Nick had seen his bear. About an hour later, as Nick looked once more at the little heath, he started. 'Down there at the edge of the little mars h, isn't that another bean No, it looks like an elk to me!' Now I recognized the dark speck as an elk sitting down. It was only just visible through the glasses, behind a clump of pines; only a wide, strong antler stood out plainly against the snow. 118

'

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33 On a wi11tcr trip in Canada. We went through the northern forests

011 /,orseback or by sledge, at ten degrees below zero Cmtigrade, ova deep s110,v.

34 Rutting elk crossing an untrodde11 moor i11 the a11t1111111 i11 search of a mate.

'We must gct a look at it from close up,' I said, and we began stalking; but the wind was so fierce that we had to make a long detour. We went for three hours over rocks and fallen trees, and often it seemed almost impossible to make any progress through this intricate virgin forest. As we moved from one group of trees to another we were always accompanied by the long-drawn-out chirping of the tree squirrels as they passed on the news of our presence, and the striped ground squirrels, the charming little chipmunks, flitted on ahead of us. Then we were surprised at close quarters by a frequently repeated dull rattle. It was the strange croaking of a rutting elk. We crept on in excitement, with heating hearts, up a hill that gave us a view of the surroundings. Now there was a loud croaking and rattling in a clump of Banks' pine.

We waited, motionless, but only after an endless time did we sce any movement there: I recognize d a doe elk and a buck. Watching through the tops of the trees, we had momentary glimpses ofstag and doe as they moved away. They were about a couple of hundred yards from us, and I tried to keep them within sight, but for several minutes I lost them. At last the buck reappeared between the trees. In that difficult country, where I might never again catch sight of so fine a stag, I felt that I must seize my opportuni ty. My shot was followed by deep silence. There was no sign of either animal. Had my shot gone

home? A long time passed before I heard an elk-one only-jump away amid a loud snapping. Let us hope it's the doe, I thought. I waited in suspense to sec whether the buck would show itself again . At last there was a movement: the buck-between the trees. I shot again, and then a third time. A pine bent and shook, and a last loud crash showed that the buck had gone down. With the slight emotion that always comes over one when any big game has been brought low, I went down to the fallen giant. It was a huge elk, with broad antlers and twenty-cight tips on them; the antlers weighed over forty pounds. I was immensely pleased at this stroke of luck. It was good news, too, in the camp, for now there was plenty of game to cat. It took us some hours to bring in the antlers as a trophy and the best of the meat. 'The rest.' said Nick, 'the bear can have.' For my delight over the big elk I had killed, Nick had only an indulgent smile. Elks were an everyday matter to him. A bear would have been another story I To get a chance to shoot a bear was for him the crown of all hunting joys.

I was still full of the elk fever, for now, in the rutting time, was the

best opportunity of observing and photographing these strange animals. The elks were so filled with thoughts of love that they were often quite -A.M.A. 119

absorbed in them and sometimes cvcn more incautious than our red dccr at home, which seem to forget all about caution during the honeymoon.

On another search for elks I climbed over tree-trunks to a marshy place where spring water was oozing out and the ground was churned up everywhere by the elks' hoofs. It seemed to be a quite recent rutting

place. I splashed unhesitatingly through the mud to the other side of the valley, where there were many fresh clk-tracks in the clay.

Suddenly a young clk stag came out of the dcnsc woodland on to the open space, about thirty yards from me. It was obviously in search of docs. It probably took me for a rival, for it made straight for me. I

knelt down behind a small pine and took hold of my camera. After a brief pause the buck came nearer, bent down to take scent-raised its upper lip in a curious way, stood still for a long time as if enraptured-and then returned to its pursuit. It came past me so close that its outline grew too large for my lens. It eyed me several times without recognizin g me as a human being and without any timidity, and even when the shutter

clicked the animal only went away a few steps and then turned round to look at me again. At that moment another young buck elk appeared on the other side of the valley and came straight across to us. Soon the two were standing close against each other, ready to fight. Then a bough mapped just behind me: a female elk had unexpectedly appeared on the scene. With all its senses alert, it eyed me and listened to me. Once more there came a crashing sound, but this time quite loud. The lord of the place, a full-grown stag, had come, and stood alongside its doe. It croaked provocatively and beat its antlers against a dead stump; then, with its head high and its great antlers lying far back, it went after the two young stags, again beat resoundingly against the tree-trunks , and, a very unusual thing, galloped after its two rivals, which fled. Meanwhile the doe had been eyeing me, and quickly retreated into the protection of the pinewood. After that the stag elk came trotting back, intending to follow the doe. Now, however, I began to imitate the elks' croaking, scraping at the same time with my shoes and knocking a tree with a thick stick. I had learned this from an elk hunter in Memel. The rutting elk took it seriously, turned back, and made straight for me. With evilly sparkling eyes, ears set back, and head high, it came step by step towards its supposed enemy. But when it was only a little distance away, the doe made repeated appeals to it, almost like neighing! At that the buck turned round quite suddenly and went off. My 'rutting call' no longer tempted it! It disappeared at once. 'You'll never be closer than that to an elk,' said Nick, and he was right. From then on I devoted myself to another primeval animal I ' 120

THE BIGHORN FINEST of all experiences in the Rocky Mountains is to come across the mighty Bighorn shccp. It may be an impressive experi-

un

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cnce to face a grizzly bear, because it is a rare and may be a dangerous one; and usually it is entirely a matter of chance. But the search for the Dighom is hunting in the truc sense: this huge Canadian mountain shcep can only be discovered in its retreats after great physical exertion and with great expenditure of thought, skill and guile. The Bighorn is a wild sheep, and possesses in a high degree all the characteristics of that species. With its keen senses , its speed in Bight, and its continual changes of grazing ground, it knows very well how to evade persecution by the hunter, just as does the wild sheep or mouflon of Europe. The Bighorn is one of the largest representatives of the genuine wild sheep. These sheep are especially widespread in Asia, where their best representative is the great Argalian sheep, the finest in the world. The Canadian wild sheep, which almost equal the Argalian, must certainly have crossed over from Asia into the New World by the land bridge which formerly existed across the Bering Straits. In weight the Bighorn approaches the German red deer. Its meat tastes excellent, and its horns, which weigh up to thirty pounds and more, form one of the finest trophies on earth for the hunter. As a true mountain animal, the Bighorn has found in the wildly jagged Rocky Mountains a home uniquely suited to it. Through folding, these mountains arc piled up immensely steeply, and have at their peaks brittle surfaces on which no plant can live. Beneath them are often great mounds of loose stones which slip down if they are trodden on, and consequently are almost insurmountable by human beings. But the sheep cross them easily, and take refuge there from any danger, whether from huntsman or wolf or puma. In the midst of these barren, stony mountain deserts lie fiat mounds and depressions, in which, above the tree limit, short, thin grass grows. These are no juicy mountain meadows like those of the Alps, but the dry grass is particularly nourishing, and furnishes the wild sheep with

excellent grazing. Only one other animal can negotiate these difficult slopes-the white Arctic goat, a species allied to the antelopes and corresponding to the European chamois.

The wild sheep is spread over the long chain of the Rocky Mountains from Alaska to Mexico, and in many regions it forms various sub-species. 121

In the north, in Alaska, it is entirely white, and excellently served by that protective colouring. Farther south it gradually becomes darker, and in some regions particular herds include rams varying from pure white to the deepest blue-grey. Now September had come, and at times it was really cold. In the night

the waterfalls of our rivulet acquired many beautifully formed icicles. When we set out the steep slopes were still covered by the morning mist, but the sun fought its way through, and in spite of everything there was promise of a clear and sunny Indian summer day. Nick Haggblad and George Richmond, who were my guides, shouldered their burdens. They had placed ropc slings round the outside of their rucksacks, intending to pull the slings forward with their hands, or with their foreheads as well, where the going was difficult, and so distribute the pull of the rucksacks. I took my long 40-cm. telccamcra, which weighed about twenty-five pounds, and also another with the small, light 2o-cm. lens; I also carried my 9·3 Sauer und Sohn rifle, for this was

both a photographing and a hunting expedition. With their burdens sticking out on both sides the men could not have gone by the narrow footpath through the dense forest, so we went up by the river-bed. Above the tree limit we rested in a large depres-sion. Its sides rose almost perpendicularly, but between the grey walls lay yellowish surfaces covered with hard, dry grass-grazing for sheep! We busily searched the hills. Above us circled a golden eagle. There was no sign of our game. When we reached the ridge we crossed it as quickly as we could, so as not to stand out against the sky and be seen by

any sheep. Then we lay below the ridge, holding on above the loose stones. Before us stretched out in lonely magnificence the lifeless peaks of the Rocky Mountains, some of them resembling the Dolomites. In front of us the mountainside dropped precipitously to the valley, dotted with crags and loose stones that made it seem absolutely impossible to descend. Nick, with eyes as sharp as an Indian's, examined as usual every fold in the mountainside and every level spot, and he actually discovered on the other side of the valley, far in the distance, some Bighorns. But I was holding on to the rocks and could not use my telescope. At all events it was cheering news. We slipped down to the valley over the loose stones, trying with both hands to grip protruding bits of rock to prevent ourselves from getting out of control. It was a breakneck business; at times we could go neither forward nor back, but at last the loose hillside grew less steep, and with long jumps we dropped down to the forest. Here again, in the lonely mountain valley forest fires had 122

ragcd, and the dry corpses of trees lay piled upo n the ground in the utmost confusion. Our eyes were constantly searching the mountains round us, and now, high up, on a narrow ledge above the: tree limit we: saw two grazing

mountain goats; their white forms showcd up plainly against the dark mountain: unfamiliar game in a strange setting! I was delighted with this first meeting-what mysteries these mountains held, and what surprises they might yet have in store: for me! Up there in the barren desert of rock, on that dizzy ledge above us there: might be Bighorns, so up we must go after them. Full of immense excitement, we climbed unwearied yet another mountain. After two hours we: reached the tree limit, quite exhausted; we were once more at the height we had already reached once that day. We chose our camping-place on a little rise next

to a rustling streamlet that descended with many waterfalls. We had done enough for the day. A fire was quickly lit to boil water for tea, and soon our bacon and beans were cooking in a pan. The tent was put up and then, by the last light of day, we went off for an evening's stalkin g. We climbed the narrow valley, and soon approached the spot at which Nick had discovered our quarry at midday. On a treeless grassy surface we found quite fresh tracks and spoor of wild sheep. In tense excitement we stalked slowly on, and then found six to eight hundred yards above us, moving slowly over the stones, two Bighorn rams. In their grey coats they were scarcely distinguishable from the rocks. Meanwhile twili ght had come over the mountain world, and we had reluctantly to turn back. Very tired but full ofhigh hopes, I crept into my sleeping-bag in the tent. In the night I noticed, half asleep, that it was rainin g, but when I woke in the morning I scarcely believed my eyes: there was mow all round us, and worse still, dense fog. The snow was falling steadily. Rather disturbed, we crouched under the tent, the smoke meanwhile pouring into the tent from the fire so that our eyes ran; but to go outside was to be snowed up. It was not a pleasant situation. What could we do? Every mountaineer knows that fog makes climbing impossible--so all we could do was to sit by the fire and wait. After an hour, however, the fog began to disperse; there were still clouds here and there in the valley, but higher up it was clear. Magnificent views of mow-covered mountains extended all round. We waited no longer: with guns and camera we started climbing up to the slope on which we had seen the sheep. Scarcely did we come within sight of it when our supposition was

confirmed: the Bighorns were far away, tiny specks above a precipice! Through our glasses we made out three splendid rams. One was just going over a ridge, the second was resting, and the third standing and 123

looking round, motionless as a statue. What a splendid picture those powerful, noble animals made!

Although we were over two miles away as the crow flics, we hastily took cover: one cannot be too cautious with these sharp-sighted animals, Now we necdcd a plan. To begin with, what was the direction of the wind? After a short discussion we chose a wide detour, out of sight, crossing a steep slope, slipping down a rock chimney, and then climbing

in the dircction of our quarry--a bitter test of cdurance! Every step meant an effort, and in the rarcficd air we found ourselves breathing with more and more difficulty. At hst, after four hours, we were under the ridge. For ten minutes we crouched there, to give our hearts a rest. Then we cautiously looked over the top. There the snow came into our faces, blown by a keen wind. Nick started, and went down on his knee. The Bighorns were there. Not till after some time did I venture to look over the rocks. Down below were six big rams, grazing quite peacefully. The colour of the wool made their bodies almost invisible, but their great horns stood out clearly, especially in certain positions, from the light-coloured stones. It was difficult to say which was the finest animal. The darkest of them seemed to have the finest trophies, but another one had horns with a still greater spread. The sheep were three hundred yards away. We considered for a long time whether to risk a shot or to get closer from the other side. But the weather became threatening, and we had to act at once. We went over, crept behind some rocks, and put up the glasses again: the grey coats of the finest rams, and the white sterns and black tails, now stood out clearly. I chose a good position, and, half sitting, half lying, tried to get firm support. This would be the thirteenth shot from the new barrel of my Mauser rifle. 'This time thirteen must be my lucky number,' I said to myself, and I went very carefully to work. In front of me was a rock on which to lay the rifle; my hat must go under the barrel, to prevent the shot from being kicked up. With the sights fitted at three hundred yards the shot would strike sixteen inches below the aim, according to the graph of the trajectory which I had in my pocket. The big ram with the widespread horns was resting, so that I had time to aim. I had the sight exactly in position. As the shot echoed the ram simply turned on its side, without any other movement, killed instantly. The other rams sprang away, and were hidden from me by the rocks; but they soon came back into sight. Both the hunters behind me pointed to the darkest of them, which looked almost blue. It was certainly the finest of all. So it received the next shot. It remained standing. At the 124

second shot it fell and rolled hundreds of yards down the mountainside. A horrible picture! The other rams could not make out where the danger came from, for the echoes from the mountains made it impossible for them to tell the

origin of the shots, and the wind gave them no help. At first they had no idea what to do; then they moved in the wrong direction, towards us, coming closer and closer, so that at two hundred yards I was able to take a number of photographs. At last they disappeared over the slope facing us, climbing it with inconceivable case. Where wc should have had to climb for hours, they sccmcd to sail up, in a few minutes. It seemed a miracle! Now there was no controlling Nick and George-they nearly wrung my arm off in congratulating me on my hunter's luck! They were most impressed by the distance of the target; altogether they were really astonished at the accuracy of the telescopic sight of the rifle. Then we climbed down to the ram at the bottom. We gave it a push and it rolled another two hundred yards until it reached a level hollow, a good place for our task. Quickly and expertly the trophies were removed and as much of the meat cut off as we could carry. Then we dealt quickly with the second ram, and with our heavy load returned to our camp. On the following morning the mow was ten inches deep. It was ten degrees below zero, and there was thick fog. But nobody cared about that, I least of all. The four splendid horns on the ground outside the tent were a picture that put me in the best of good spirits. Later, at the International Hunting Exhibition, I received a gold medal for the larger pair and a silver medal for the other. That morning, in addition to bacon and beans, tea and bread, there was roast mutton--a rare delicacy! At last we set off. The going was good downhill, or at all events relatively so. The strain on heart, knees, shoe leather, and the soles of the stockings was still considerable, but the sight of the two pairs of horns on 'the backs of Nick and George carried me easily over a dizzy series of rocks and crevices and river beds. Then came the climb over those heaps of loose stones, hundreds of yards high, giving the impression that a gigantic lorry had been at work tipping from above. Nick crept on all fours up to this last ridge, and it took him nearly three houn. Stones slipped and rolled round us, and the whole mountain seemed to be on the move. At last we reached the top, thoroughly exhausted, but we had done it! The sun was shining splendidly, and behind us lay the magnificent snowcovered mountains from which· we had wrested such wonderful experiences. Yes, the Rocky Mountains had given us of their best. But they had demanded of us almost superhuman exertions. When we reached the valley, with trembling knees, we found the two 125

men who had rclll3lll ed in the camp. They had come, like good comrades,

a couple of houn' journey to meet us, armed with a bottle of rum. The bottle went round and round as we told our story. That soon put our knees in order. At last, warmed with rum but dead tired, I tramped down the bed our creek, and I simply don't know how I got back to the camp. But that is of no importance; when darkness fell we were already squatting in our warm tents, thankful to be sitting together, safe and sound, after all our efforts.

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126

A HUNT FOR GRIZZLIES HEN NICK HAGGBLAD W2S induced to talk of his many cxpericnces in the wilds as trapper and hunter, there always came a moment when he would say impressively: 'And then there suddenly appcared---a bear!' To come face to face with a bear is every-

W

body's dream in the Far West, and our thoughts, too, dwelt often on that prospect when we sat by the fire or went through the wild and lonely forests. A bear is like a spectre of the woods, pursued for wceks in vain and then unexpectedly encountered at some turning-point. So the bear haunts men's imagination in Canada. To this day there is some-

thing romantic about bear-hunting, and the huntsman who has killed a bear is surrounded by some of the atmosphere of adventure that was associated with the pathfinder and the scalp-hunter in the old days. The grizzly bear corresponds to the brown bear still found in eastern Europe and in Asia. Its nearest relative in the West is the Alaska bear, the largest carnivorous animal in the world. A bear from Kodiak that was long in the Berlin Zoological Gardens, the only one of which I have had exact knowledge from actual weighing, weighed eighty stone, three times as much as a strong lion and more than twice as much as the biggest feline beast of prey in the world, the Siberian tiger. The grizzly is one of the most combative of the carivora. If driven into a comer or shot at, it attacks; the female with small young will attack without provocation. Especially dangerous is the bear's habit of lurking for its prey. It creeps close up to its victim or waits for it and then suddenly closes with it. There have been cases in which a hunter found himself up against a bear at a point where the animal had no means of escape and for that reason attacked furiously. I was told that a gamewarden was faced in this way and killed by a bear in the Rocky Mountains, and similar hunting fatalities are frequently reported. It is a nervous business to be in a forest region in which there are many bears: at any moment one of them may appear and no one can tell what the outcome will be. We saw traces of bears everywhere. They had scratched for bulbs and roots of mountain plants in the lush meadows; an old and rotten stump of a tree was scored by the claws of bears, and the fat larvae had been taken from it. Dy a stream near our camp we found the bones of a bear. Nick was determined to do all he could to show me a grizzly, and so one afternoon a pistol-shot rang out in a narrow valley. 'George 127

has been to shoot the old horse,' he explained. 'It could do no more work. We have left it as bait. A bear,' he added, lowering his voice almost in awe, 'will come to the corpse---it will be there in a few

days!' But no bear came. Not even a coyote came, not even an eagle I When we approached the corpse still lying on the gravel by the stream, and looked out at it from safe cover, therc was no sign that beast or bird had been near it. Nick did not give up hope; he was sure that a bear would come before long. But our patience was severely tested.

The grizzly bear---known to science as Ursus horribilis--when wcrc we going to meet it? The day came, however, when I faced a huge grizzly bear. We were pushing through a forest region along a track made by wild animals into

a loncly wooded valley. All sorts of spoor and footmarks of animals were to be seen in the rain-sodden clay, and we noticed that the largest forest wolf of those mountains, the Timber Wolf, must have been there just before us. But there were plenty of tracks of other wild animalsMule Deer, a single big wapiti, a fox, and the little red Prairie Wolves, had crossed the path. Suddenly Nick started . A grey shadowy figure passed not far away into the undergrowth-a grizzly. But all I had seen for a brief moment was its great hind quarters; then a crackling of dry wood announced its Hight. In that thicket there was no possibility of following its track. 'Misse d it again!' I thought-we seemed to be bewitched: grizzlies were moving about everywhere, and I never got a real sight of one, to say nothing of a chan ce to photograph it. As we went on there was a nauseating smell of carrion, which gradually became almost unendurable. 'There must be a dead elk somewhere

here,' said Nick, sniffing thoughtfully, 'and we'll go after it now and see what's up.' Cautiously we crept over fallen trees that lay in confusion on the ground. The corpse must be quite near, to judge from the horrible odour. The wood cleared in front of us where there had been a fire, and we could see over the heaps of grey calcined timber. Nick turned very slowly to me and lifted a couple of fingers. I understood him at once: two bears!

Quite suddenly there appeared above a regular rampart of fallen trees a dark grey monster-a grizzly. It rushed at us at once, stopped suddenly just before reaching us, and raised itself up, a gigantic beast. One paw rested on a fallen tree-trunk; the other hit out towards us through the air; the anim al gave a vicious growl. For a moment I sighted the bear; then it fell back out of sight as my shot rang out. 128

36 Beans and bacon, the

usual a111ple diet of the forest ranger, and tender loi11 of mutton from the

Bighorn, ,vere cooked.for us by George afier