I Married Adventure

by Osa Johnson

  We hadn’t the remotest idea what to expect. Eleven great lions not ten yards away. All I could do was hope they weren’t hungry. Martin’s eyes fairly popped, and Mr. Eastman went to work at once with his 16mm cine. This reminded my husband that he also had a camera with him, and as quietly and speedily as might be, he set it up. To our amazement, the tawny beasts still paid little attention, though the click of the camera seemed to tickle their ears a little and they twitched them slightly. It was I, of course, who had to grow noisily excited. Up to now they had merely turned their heads toward us and blinked lazily; several had yawned, but at sound of my voice they faced us sharply, their muscles bulging under their shining coats. Several switched their tails and growled, and while I don’t know about the others of our party, I do know that I was goose bumps from head to foot.

  The lions, however, after a moment or two of consideration, seemed to conclude either that we were not good food or that we just didn’t matter one way or another, so, rolling over, they stuck their feet in the air and went fast asleep.

  We were all so happy we could scarcely contain ourselves, and exchanged congratulatory grins.

  My husband ground hundreds of feet of film of the lovely big cats, Mr. Eastman’s camera buzzed, and finally we all decided to leave, when a twelfth lion, bigger than any of the rest, meandered into the scene, eyed his sleeping companions whimsically for a few moments, then apparently decided to tease them a little. He mauled and mouthed them, every last one, until he had them all awake. The donga resounded with their growls and snarls of irritation and then, as suddenly as he had started his little game, the big fellow thought he too would like a nap, and presently twelve kingly beasts lay, feet in the air, snoring blissfully.

  We tiptoed away, and selecting a shady spot under a mimosa, we ate our lunch and for two hours talked lion. I’ve since been so glad to have that memory of Carl; it was one of his happiest moments, I think, to be able to prove a tried and fond theory of his, that the lion will not molest man unless he is first attacked.

  We were to have made another visit to the lion valley early the next day, but when we called for Carl we found him desperately ill.

  He was smiling when we went into his tent, but his face looked very flushed against the white pillow, and Mr. Eastman’s physician took charge immediately.

  “Go ahead, Martin,” Carl said to my husband. “Go ahead with your work. Get all the data and the pictures you can—through them, better than any other way, the world will come to know about animals—about lions. Sportsmen—so-called—too: I want them to know how unsportsmanlike it is to slaughter animals simply for the sake of slaughter.”

  He was quiet for a minute then smiled again. “An even dozen, like so many tabby cats, fast asleep on their backs, and we only ten yards away.”

  * * *

  —

  There was a sort of shadow over all of us after that. We didn’t know how desperately ill Carl Akeley was, but somehow we were afraid. Shortly afterward, Mr. Eastman and Mr. Pomeroy left for home. I remember Mr. Eastman saying, as he was stepping on the train, “Back to the world of fraud and front.” He sighed a little. “At any rate,” he said, “wherever I happen to be, it’s going to be nice to think of you two—your fine work together—your fine lives together. Good-bye.”

  Chapter 25

  Carl Akeley was dead.

  We had closed our Lake Paradise home and were on our way to Nairobi when the sad news reached us. Apparently recovered from the illness which had struck him down when we were together in Tanganyika, he had gone up to Mount Mikeno, in the Belgian Congo, and there, weakened as he was, had contracted pneumonia, which had ended his fine and useful life.

  Martin’s plan now was to make the lion his major study, and to this end he decided that Nairobi, which was a comparatively short distance from lion country, should be our headquarters. We found a lovely place just four miles out of the city, which gave us a view of snow-covered Kilimanjaro to the south and the familiar Mount Kenya to the north. The house, built of gray stone, stood well back in its several-acre plot, and the grounds, beautifully landscaped, were delightful.

  The main house had eight rooms and was equipped with every modern convenience, including tiled baths, central heating, and electric refrigeration. A fine big kitchen with plenty of cupboard and drawer space assured a smooth-running, efficient household. Martin added a laboratory, of course, building it of gray stone to match the house.

  We remained in Nairobi only long enough to put things in order and then left for the Chogoria Scottish Mission near Meru. For several years, Martin and I had promised ourselves that one day we should climb to the top of Mount Kenya and photograph the snow and ice as a rich and interesting contrast to the tropical life below. We took thirty porters with us, together with our headmen and gun-bearers, while our faithful Willys-Knight trucks and a new “Six” carried our supplies. John Wilshusen, of whom I shall tell later, was in charge of the cars.

  January 16 saw us at the Chogoria Mission on the slopes of the mountain, and there, with the help of Dr. Irwine and his wife, we signed on fifty extra Meru porters. On the advice of these two fine people we sent John to Meru for blankets—nearly two hundred, I think—and I’ve an idea that up to the time this tactful suggestion was made to us, we had forgotten just how cold ice and snow and high altitude could be.

  The early part of our climb took us through forests of fairylike beauty, but up grades so steep that the porters were obliged to rest on an average of every thirty minutes. These forests were left behind us the next day, and we came to a belt of bamboo where nothing else whatever grew—only bamboo, fifty feet tall and so thick that almost no daylight could penetrate. One of the many curious things about this bamboo forest was the fact that it began suddenly and ended just as suddenly, with perfectly clean-cut edges.

  Emerging from the bamboo, we found ourselves in some of the most beautiful country I have ever seen—great rolling mountain plains with groves of scrub trees, all fantastically hung with Spanish moss and with Mount Kenya towering above it in all its rugged and almost forbidding beauty. Late in the afternoon of the third day of our climb, we crossed the timberline and began to know what cold really was. Even inside our tents and with blankets piled on us five and six deep, we were cold. Sleep was impossible, and all night long we heard the men coughing and stirring about. In the morning I saw that Martin’s face was flushed and found he had a temperature of a hundred and two, while five of the porters, it later developed, had temperatures of a hundred and three. Martin was really miserable; his legs and back ached, and I tried to persuade him to abandon the plan of going on. I have an idea, although he didn’t say so, that the young duke’s suggestion that we try to capture some of the harsher but grander beauty of Kenya in our camera was what really kept him to his stubborn purpose. He, as well as the porters, seemed better the following day, so once more we proceeded to climb.

  From this point on, the grade was so steep that we were obliged to lighten the men’s loads, and the altitude was such that we found ourselves short of breath. Martin grew steadily better, however, and decided to investigate a nearby ridge for photographic possibilities. This took us on an exhausting climb of some two thousand feet—a distance not at all apparent when we started out—and by the time we returned to camp it was dark, and we were so chilled we went to bed without dinner.

  When we awakened, two very sick people, in the middle of the night, I acknowledged drearily to myself that we had no one in the world but ourselves to blame. Martin now had a fever of a hundred and four, and mine was a hundred and two. I had the men bring hot whiskey and hot-water bottles, but with little effect, apparently, for by morning we were both much worse. My temperature continued to rise, I could scarcely breathe, and my husband, thoroughly frightened, sent two porters down the mountain for kerosene to stock our stoves—he was determined not to give up. John Wilshusen began now to take things in hand. He
gathered together every porter he could find and, arming them with pangas, started back up the mountain in the big Willys-Knight.

  That John was built of the stuff of which heroes are made was proved conclusively in the next few days. Under his direction the men chopped through dense growth, dug into the mountain, and at times almost carried the car up steep grades, and on the second day after leaving Chogoria Mission he pulled into camp, only heaven knows how, with the car. Covered with cuts and scratches, grease and oil, the porters were completely exhausted. The top of the car was nearly gone, the side-boxes had been ripped off, there was almost nothing left of the fenders, but the engine was in perfect condition.

  All of this was told to me later by Martin, for by now I knew of nothing that was going on; my breathing was labored, and my husband said it was perfectly obvious that I had pneumonia.

  John worked on the car all that night, and also on stretchers which he rigged up for Martin and me, and bundling us in blankets early the next morning, he had us carried out to the car. Then we started our wild ride down the mountain. A number of men had been sent on ahead to the very bad places so as to be fresh and steady for the risky job of lowering the car down precipitous drops. Ten men clung to the side as we rode, in readiness to jump off and hold the car by sheer weight of numbers if it seemed in danger of getting out of control or tipping over. Eight times during the trip it was necessary to lift us out of the car and carry us past those places where it seemed impossible that the machine could remain upright.

  When we arrived at the mission, it was dusk. Dr. Irwine said that Martin had influenza and bronchitis, with a temperature of a hundred and four, while I had double pneumonia.

  A little after midnight, although he had only an hour of rest, John went to Meru, where he sent a telegram to Nairobi asking for another doctor. He waited until a reply told him that a Dr. Anderson was coming then dashed back up the mountain to the mission. Dr. Irwine decided that a nurse was necessary at once, and without a moment’s hesitation John started on the 165-mile trip to Nairobi. He made it in five hours and twenty minutes, found a nurse, and was back with her in five hours. When told by Dr. Anderson that certain medicines and another nurse were required, he started on the second trip to Nairobi within a half hour after completing his first. At Nairobi, there was no nurse available, and he was forced to drive sixty miles into the country to get one.

  On John’s arrival this time, Dr. Anderson said that ice might help to save my life, so loyal John made still another trip to Nairobi for an ice machine. It was a hand-operated affair and John himself ran it, days on end, at full capacity, turning out ice every three minutes. Martin told me later that John had scarcely slept in eight days. There isn’t a doubt in the world that we owed our lives at that time to tireless, courageous John Wilshusen.

  * * *

  —

  We remained six weeks at the Chogoria Mission, convalescing, and it seems that all I remember of that fantastic experience, when my fever was high and my life in the balance, was the strange beauty of a seemingly far-off bell and the soft chant of missionaries and natives.

  * * *

  —

  “Safari fever.” I heard Martin chatting in low tones with Dr. Irwine outside my doorway. “I think safari fever is the thing that ails her now, and if you could give me a good nurse and would let me take her out on the plains where she could see and hear the animals and get the sun and feel some activity, I just know she would soon be all right.”

  In a matter of days we were installed at Embayo, an old familiar haunt of ours not far from Meru, where great herds of buffalo and elephant, and rhino in numbers were then to be found, Martin was happily busy at his cameras, and Sister Withall, my new boss, was literally teaching me to walk again.

  The treatment worked perfectly, especially the sun and the activity, and in a few weeks I was able to walk and hold a gun. On the day I took up my old position beside Martin at the camera, Sister Withall sat behind us on the hood of a motorcar. A rhino spied us and began sneaking up to us. I covered him, and when he charged I had to drop him. At this, I heard a piercing scream and turned to find that Sister Withall had fallen off the truck and was completely unnerved.

  “I can’t believe you’re here,” she said in a frightened peep. “I was sure you were both of you finished.”

  * * *

  —

  We had to leave for the States to supervise the editing of the pictures we had taken in and around Lake Paradise. This was a two-fold task, inasmuch as the camera studies which Martin had taken to meet the scientific needs of the Museum of Natural History required one type of assembling, while those to be released through the regular motion-picture channels to defray the expenses of the safari and return money to the investors were of another type.

  We arrived in New York on May 16, 1927. There was a glorious reunion with all our dear ones from Kansas, and other reunions with our friends. There was also steady, grinding work. Somewhat to our astonishment, I think, our Lake Paradise pictures gave promise of being a tremendous success, and offers for personal-appearance contracts of upwards of a hundred thousand dollars poured in. Naturally, we considered these. The sort of work we had chosen to do literally gobbled money, but just at this time—some nine months after our arrival—Mr. Eastman came down to New York from Rochester and urged us to go with him, at once, back to Africa. The decision was not difficult to make. We said promptly that of course we would go.

  Our business associates thought we were crazy to turn down such wonderful opportunities to fatten our bank account, and said so without mincing words. I shall never forget Martin’s reply.

  “At best,” he said, “life is much too short for all the work we’ve set out to do.” I remember him smiling then. “And anyhow,” he added, “I guess money isn’t very important to Osa and me.”

  This resulted in a chorus of protests: Money was important to everybody. What could we hope to accomplish without money?

  Martin grew very thoughtful. “The point is,” he said, “that when you live in Africa, down close to the earth and the animals, you acquire a different set of values from when you live in the city. Living anywhere away from the city would do the same thing, of course. And what makes it great,” he smiled, “is that Osa feels exactly the same as I do about it.”

  Building Martin’s laboratory, one of the many buildings at Lake Paradise.

  Martin and Osa, with camera equipment and Meru porters.

  The Johnsons relax after a tense moment, a buffalo charge that was definitely not a bluff.

  A village deep in the mists and towering trees of the Ituri Forest.

  Checking her gun was an essential daily chore.

  The Duke and Duchess of York, Osa, and members of the safari at lunch on the Northern Frontier.

  The present Queen Mother of England and Osa photographed on safari at the Eauso Nyiro River.

  The rarely photographed aardvark, a strange survival from prehistoric times. Its prehensile lip aids in securing ants for food.

  Four cheetah cubs make a lapful.

  Solid comfort after a hard day’s work at the office or in a breathless simmering blind.

  Osa works at typing despite companionship of primate friends.

  Bringing in guinea fowl and partridge for Christmas dinner at Lake Paradise.

  Chapter 26

  We spent several delightful holiday weeks with Mr. Eastman and his physician, Dr. Stewart, in London, Paris, and southern France; Christmas Day was spent on the Riviera. During these leisurely weeks we grew to know Mr. Eastman as we had never known him before. Among his many constructive charities was one that included setting up dental clinics in different parts of the world. It was on this trip that he and Lord Riddell—at a cost of many millions—established the London Clinic, and on which, also, his gift of a c
linic to the Italian government was made. His dream was that one day every child, no matter how underprivileged, should be provided with dental care.

  Arrived at Cairo, via Port Said, Mr. Eastman chartered the luxurious Nile steamer Dal, which, with its twenty-seven staterooms, was commodious indeed for our small party of four. Our host made certain that the chef, stewards, room-boys, and crew measured up to his exacting standards. He also installed an electric refrigerator, many cases of his favorite mineral water, and a variety of good foods, including a large supply of live chickens, goats, and sheep.

  Up past Luxor and the Valley of the Kings, through the historic land of the Ptolemies and pharaohs we sailed, passing Aswan and the second cataract. On up the White Nile, we stopped at Khartoum, and there found Merian Cooper and his Hollywood crew taking scenes for the picture entitled The Four Feathers. We lingered for a few days in a sort of celebration at meeting in this out-of-the-way part of the world. Merian, of whom Martin and I were very fond, made a farewell reel of us, and then we pushed off into the Upper Nile. Here we passed through the land of the wild Berbers and the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan.

  Breaking our leisurely trip frequently, we went on shore trips and secured some extremely interesting pictures of gazelle, elephant, and water life—crocodiles and hippopotami.