I Married Adventure

by Osa Johnson

  Apparently for our benefit, a note was struck that, half comic, nevertheless emphasized the lavish beauty of this animal sanctuary. A big elephant knee-deep in the water with other members of his family seemed to decide that his bath was complete and that he had had enough to drink, so he turned to lead the way up into the forest. Wound firmly around his switching, ropelike tail at a most decorative angle was one of the blue water lilies.

  Two hours after our arrival at Lake Paradise, the “long rains,” which we had dreaded for weeks, began to fall.

  Unexpected difficulties, I think, are at once the challenge and the charm of the lives of all explorers. When we had puffed into Nairobi on the Uganda railway with our two hundred and fifty-five crates and cases of equipment, we thought complacently, this safari is going to be wonderful; this time we have every last thing we could possibly need to make our expedition a success. We didn’t realize that the weight and bulk of our supplies would hamper and almost defeat us. At best, the five-hundred-mile journey northward was beset with difficulties, and something like half the distance would be virtually impassable once the heavy rains set in. Certainly, should the Guaso Nyiro be at flood when we reached it, our safari would end on its southern bank.

  Had we traveled light, we could have been under way within possibly two weeks after our arrival in Nairobi. This would have given us a safe margin before the “long rains” were due. As it was, five weeks raced by before the last case was unpacked and made up into the usual sixty-pound bundles for the porters to carry. Eighteen guns, twenty-one cameras, six Willys-Knight cars with safari bodies—water tanks, hardware, staple foodstuffs, clothing, ammunition, photographic supplies—these and hundreds of items had been assembled to be transported, over a country largely trackless, to Lake Paradise.

  In all, our cavalcade comprised the six Willys-Knights; four motor lorries; five wagons, each drawn by six mules; four ox carts, each drawn by four oxen; two hundred and thirty-five natives, two hundred of whom were porters; together with gunbearers, cooks, house servants, and the like.

  As rapidly as possible we loaded the slower-moving vehicles and sent them on ahead to Isiolo, but when we ourselves left Nairobi, we were obliged to face the fact that we were three weeks behind schedule and only by the rarest good luck could get through ahead of the rains. At all events we were cheered by the fact that Blayney Percival, who had retired from his position as game warden for British East Africa, would join our expedition at the Guaso Nyiro.

  Martin rarely worried, but I saw that the responsibility of this undertaking weighted heavily upon him. For one thing, his was the task of being commander, judge, physician, and provider for more than two hundred natives. We had been told, and also knew from experience, that before the end of the long and harsh trip a certain percentage of this number was almost sure to die. Picked carefully, these men always appeared to be of equal strength and fitness when we started out, but fevers, illnesses, accidents, or wounds of one sort or another almost invariably took a toll. And even graver, if possible, than this responsibility was the one we owed to the Museum of Natural History, to George Eastman, and to all the others who had invested confidence and money in our undertaking.

  Although the skies were leaden when we reached the Guaso Nyiro, the rains had not yet fallen and we crossed it, singing gaily. Blayney, according to promise, joined us there, and his presence in our safari was of itself reason for rejoicing.

  Arrived at Archer’s Post, Martin made a reckless decision to which I gave enthusiastic support. This was to attempt a shortcut through the mountains. Blayney was doubtful that we would succeed, and he was right. The mountains proved impassable, and we were obliged to turn back to Archer’s Post, a distance of some sixty-five miles. Precious days and energies were lost, and, added to this, an unrecognized ailment reaching almost epidemic proportions spread among our porters. All of our efforts at doctoring them proved unavailing, so Martin put the worst cases into ox carts and sent them back to Meru. A day or two later, while we were still at Archer’s Post, our ranks were further depleted by the desertion of some twenty porters. With the help of Blayney, however, we reorganized our safari, and March 29 found us pushing northward across the now familiar Kaisoot Desert, a vast expanse which under threatening skies had the look of a gray, sleepy sea.

  Scattered rains began to fall, and with the men—both black and white—grunting, sweating, and swearing, we were obliged to fight every foot of the way. Our cars, lorries, and wagons bogged repeatedly, and more times than I could count we were obliged to get out, unload our supplies, and dig, haul, and push and carry before we could go on again.

  Old Boculy joined us at Kampia Tembo, a godforsaken government station which was made up of a few mud huts and some scrawny cattle. With this strange old fellow to lead us, our spirits lifted, and we started out on what he assured us would be a short, quick route to Lake Paradise. A bit distrustful by now of short routes, nevertheless we followed him into wholly unfamiliar territory. Fifty men with axes and crowbars cleared a sort of trail along which our heavily burdened safari moved at best little faster than a slow walk.

  After about ten days of this we came to country so rough that we were frightfully discouraged. Boculy, however, nimble and cheerful as a little gnome, waved his bony arms and urged us on, and because there was nothing else to do we followed him once more, skidding over boulders, creeping through high, tough grass, crashing down ravines, and straining up steep grades until abruptly and to our complete astonishment, late on the afternoon of April 12, we found ourselves at the foot of the crownless mountain which we knew cradled our lake.

  Rain! I have been in many tropical regions famous for their heavy downpours, but never had I dreamed that rain could take on the proportions of the deluge that fell from the skies just two hours after our arrival at Lake Paradise.

  As soon as the wagons arrived with our camping equipment, we of course put up our tents, but no canvas that was ever made could keep out the water that poured upon us as if tipped from the shore of some celestial sea. Our men, having no shelters whatever, were completely miserable. I did what I could to keep them cheerful by giving them extra sugar and coffee, and Blayney shot buffalo to provide fresh meat. We also managed to keep great fires going at least part of the time so that the poor fellows could be warm even though wet.

  We were close to panic on April 15, three days after our arrival, when we discovered that the instructions accompanying our electric-light plant stated plainly and uncompromisingly that the batteries must be in use before April 11.

  Martin’s generalship in this emergency was a joy to watch. Picking some sixty of our best men, he rushed to completion in a single day the fourteen-foot-square building which for nearly four years was to house both our electric plant and machine shop. The men were divided into groups, and the work was done with little or no lost motion. One group brought clay and dung, another group mixed, another cut poles, others cut grass, some twenty of our best craftsmen put up the actual building as the raw materials were brought in, and eight men, expert thatchers, added the roof the moment the walls and roof poles were up.

  Blayney helped Martin install the plant, and we tried not to remember that we were four days behind the deadline for putting the batteries into operation. Our porters stood banked three and four deep outside the windows and the open door. Boculy, being a privileged person, stood just inside the door. There even seemed to be a lull in the pounding of the rain, but actually there was no dramatic delay whatever when the big moment came. The three of us shook hands solemnly, I crossed my fingers, Martin seized the wheel and gave it a spin, and the lights were on. It was as simple as that. Martin smiled. Blayney said, “Stout fellow.” Boculy rubbed the top of his head, and the natives in chorus said “Ahhhhh.” I remembered noticing how their wet, ebony bodies glistened in the sudden blaze of man-created light.

  In spite of the discomforts and hardships of working in the rain, we
rushed work on the rest of our permanent buildings. These, we were determined, should be of more durable construction than the mud-and-straw shacks usually found in British East Africa. We built the huts of stout logs for permanence, standing the logs upright in African native fashion, and plastered them inside with a mixture of dung and mud that dried eventually to the hardness and firmness of concrete. The whole was then stuccoed with a mixture of buffalo, elephant, and rhino dung mixed in exact proportions with clay, and the result was a surface the color of Chinese punk and very like Mexican adobe. This, topped with a thatch of dried yellow grass, was very attractive against the pale and darker mahogany greens of the forest.

  Martin wisely provided for a double-air-space thatching for all our permanent buildings. This was very puzzling to our native thatchers, but certainly it provided greater coolness than the single thatch and was an added protection against the seasonal rains.

  We covered the interior walls with rough, unbleached sheeting—pasting it on, wallpaper fashion, with a mixture of shellac and glue—and were rewarded with an ivory tone and a soft dull texture that gave a very pleasing effect. The wooden cases which had boxed Martin’s photographic materials and our foodstuffs were taken apart very carefully and made into good, smooth floors.

  Our living room was fourteen by seventeen feet, with a big screened veranda across the front, and our bedroom, fifteen feet square, boasted a large pink stuccoed bathroom which opened off the end wall. I was delighted to find the clay which gave us this delicate shade. In no time at all, of course, I had put frilled sash curtains at all the windows.

  The most important building of the lot, of course, was Martin’s laboratory. A room eighteen feet by twelve housed the big drying drums, storage cases, table, and racks, and the darkroom, ten by fourteen feet, was equipped with the special lighting, running water, developing vats, storage tanks, and all the rest of the paraphernalia that go to make an up-to-date motion-picture laboratory.

  Clear water was all-important for the developing of our negatives, and eight hundred gallons a day was brought up from the lake on the backs of mules. This water was filtered repeatedly through charcoal and sand, and finally was put through cotton. In the rainy season, Martin simplified the problem with the same method he used so successfully at our bungalow in Nairobi—he built roof gutters.

  An always-present problem on our safaris was keeping the highly sensitized film and chemicals in perfect condition, but my husband managed this very well by using special drying compounds and having continuous shipments of fresh stock sent from the Eastman Kodak plant in Rochester. And, of course, after the films were dried on the big drums, they were patched in 200-foot lengths, wrapped in special chemical-proof paper, and then placed in tins which, in turn, were made completely airtight with a coating of paraffin wax.

  In due time, of course, we added guest houses and landscaped gardens. On the far side of the garden, like a row of barracks, stood the huts of the porters. Our buildings, several acres of vegetable gardens, a regiment of employees, our motor trucks, cars and ox wagons, flocks of chickens (which multiplied with astonishing rapidity), and herds of donkeys, humpbacked cows, and camels were all enclosed in a stockade of palings and thornbush thirteen feet high. It was quite an impressive village.

  Whenever we settled long enough anywhere, I always planted a garden, and this time, knowing that we were establishing ourselves for perhaps four years, I had brought garden tools, seeds, and bulbs enough—Martin said—to cultivate all the land clear to the Abyssinian border. This was a slight exaggeration, of course, but I did have enough surplus to start most of the water holes blooming with flowers in and around Lake Paradise. Wherever there was running water, too, I always popped in some watercress seeds. The elephants loved watercress.

  On the second day after our arrival at Paradise, I got out my big bundle of seeds, put on overalls and boots, and, with a dozen or more men carrying picks and shovels and wearing puzzled expressions, went hunting for a likely garden spot. I found a well-drained plot with good soil on the side of the hill, not too far from our camp, and put the men to work. It was a very muddy business, and Martin and Blayney stood around and scoffed. At any rate, they were quite skeptical.

  “I should be inclined to think that most of the seeds would rot,” Blayney offered reflectively.

  “That’s my guess, too,” Martin contributed. “And, of course,” he went on, “any that don’t rot will naturally be gobbled by the birds.”

  I went right on slopping around and putting seeds in the ground.

  “I seems to me,” my husband next said—winking at Blayney but addressing me—“that you’d have a lot more fun if you just sat down and made mud pies.”

  In spite of these pessimistic predictions, however, I managed to raise a fine crop of beans, peas, sweet corn, carrots potatoes, cucumbers, turnips, squash, salsify, cantaloupes, and watermelons, and fairly popped with audible pride every time any of these came on the table.

  “Never argue with a woman,” my husband grumbled to Blayney. “Nine times out of every ten she’s right.”

  Much as I enjoyed the vegetables and fruits out of our garden, I think I relished even more the wild delicacies I found in the forest. Often I’ve returned home with armfuls of wild asparagus and spinach. There was a black cranberry, very sweet and good; a native coffee; abundant mushrooms; a fruit that seemed a cross between an apricot and an apple; a bitter wild plum that made fine jam; and a wonderful brown honey. Darkest Africa!

  It would be impossible for me to set down in chronological order the things that happened at Lake Paradise. Time, as we know it in the city, doesn’t exist in the wilderness, for there are no newspapers, scheduled events, or social calendars to set one day, week, or month apart from another. The seasons alone marked time for us and governed our goings and comings and our work.

  During the rains, when water was available on desert and plain, we could be found there in our blinds, photographing gazelle, antelope, giraffe, zebra, warthog, and lion. During the drier weather, we divided our time among the marvelous water holes and the forests about Lake Paradise, where steadily we built up a film record of the buffalo, the rhino, and, most important of all, the elephant.

  Martin and I often laughed, remembering our first expedition to the South Seas. It, like all our other expeditions, had been a photographic one, but our only camera was an old reconditioned hand-crank Universal, and our film totaled a few thousand feet. On this safari to Lake Paradise, we had a battery of twenty cameras—ten motion picture, ten still—and our lenses, bought in America, England, and Germany, had been ground to order and thoroughly tested.

  Five of the motion-picture cameras were designed by Carl Akeley especially for photographing wildlife. Two of these were mounted together, one taking regularly timed pictures while the other took the same action in slow motion. A third Akeley camera was fitted with four lenses of different focal length that could be switched and adjusted in a fraction of a second.

  Still another camera—Martin called it his “fire department” camera—was mounted on a heavy unipod and designed to take pictures from our car as we traveled. This was great fun, as it could be swung into position and focused before even the fleetest animal could get out of range.

  Another series of cameras was operated by an electric motor and could be set up and controlled from a distance by wires. All of these cameras, equipped with wide-angle lenses, portrait lenses, landscape lenses, and diffusing lenses, prepared Martin for any photographic emergency.

  Anyone seeing the arsenal with which we arrived at Lake Paradise would have been justified in assuming that we were out to kill animals quite as much as to photograph them in their wild state. It was merely a precautionary measure, however, and took into account the series of emergencies that might arise over a period of from four to five years. I list this arsenal roughly.

  3 English Blands, .470, double-barrelr />
  1 English Bland, .275, Mannlicher action

  1 American Springfield, .303, Mauser action

  1 English Rigby, .505, Mauser action

  3 American Winchesters, .405, lever action

  1 American Winchester, .32, lever action

  2 English Jeffries, .404, Mauser action

  1 American Winchester shotgun, .12, double-barrel

  1 American Ithaca, .20, double-barrel

  1 American Ithaca, .20, saw-off shotgun, called riot gun

  1 .38 Colt revolver

  1 .45 Colt revolver

  On these jaunts, lasting sometimes for ten days, we usually took with us the following men:

  2 camera bearers

  1 tripod bearer carrying two tripods

  1 bearer with lens case

  1 bearer with press Graflex and tripod

  1 bearer with a case of loaded film magazines

  1 bearer with two cases of loaded plate holders

  1 bearer with 4 × 5 Graflex and tripod

  1 bearer with case of odds and ends: filters, tools, oil, first-aid kit

  1 bearer carrying lunch

  Martin’s gun-bearer

  my gun-bearer

  Boculy, the guide, and Bukhari, our headman.

  Martin had worked out a fine system that made for almost split-second timing and efficiency. Each case was boldly numbered and each bearer was thoroughly rehearsed until he knew both the sight and sound of the number, with the result that with a single command, and wholly without confusion, any one of the score of cameras could be brought forward and put within reach of my husband’s hand.

  In case of danger, our gun-bearers crawled up close and were ready with our rifles. These men were always of higher-than-average intelligence and acted both on knowledge of the various animals and on clear judgment rather than on orders from us. It was generally accepted, I think, that Boculy, the little, brown, lop-jawed man, knew more about elephants than any other native in the whole of Africa. Neither he nor his methods were particularly convincing at first glance, for much of the time he shuffled along muttering to himself and apparently was more than half asleep. Aware of the doubts which we felt concerning his self-boasted cleverness, he sometimes put on quite a show of examining the earth and looking for signs where I’m sure there were none, but after a while we came to have a complete and almost fatuous confidence in him. I have seen him scent, or perhaps “sense,” game with the sureness of a bloodhound, and his methods, while often meaningless to us, were certain of result. It developed that we almost hung on the negative or affirmative shake of his head, and this was all the more amusing when one considered that often the object under consideration in his clawlike hand was nothing more nor less than a small piece of mud. Just that. While he turned it over and over, examining it with his half-blind eyes and making funny little noises, we waited breathless on his decision and accepted it as absolute.