I Married Adventure

by Osa Johnson

A curious phenomenon early one morning on the Upper Nile was the sight of thousands of huge Nile perch—some upwards of three hundred pounds—floating on the surface, most of them with their silver-white bellies glistening in the sun. The engineer of our boat gave it as his opinion that an underwater earthquake was responsible. At any rate, the native crew had a fine time gaffing those that were still alive and preparing for a fish feast, always a treat to them.

  According to arrangement, Phil Percival met us at Rejaf with a small fleet of motor cars, and we proceeded southwest into the Belgian Congo, then east into Uganda to Rhino Camp, on the Albert Nile. Leaving the cars and taking on fifty porters and two skinners, we began a foot safari. Dr. Stewart saw to it that a sedan chair was contrived for Mr. Eastman, whose advanced age—he was nearing seventy-five at this time—made necessary some precautions to conserve his energies.

  Mr. Eastman succeeded on one occasion in securing a fine elephant specimen, and on another a white rhino. Two examples were still needed to complete these groups at the Museum of Natural History.

  Several weeks later, we returned with Mr. Eastman to Rejaf, in the Sudan. There he boarded the Dal, saying good-bye. Somehow I felt that we would never see him again, and I think he felt something of the same thing. “I think,” he said in earnest, almost solemn reflection, “that this has been the happiest period of my entire life.” Then, as we shook hands in a last farewell, he said, “I know you will take good care of each other. That, at least, I can always know.”

  Tears filled his kindly eyes. “I’m going to ship you back my electric refrigerator, Osa,” he said, and disappeared into his cabin.

  * * *

  —

  After leaving Rejaf, Martin and I returned to northwestern Uganda, where Martin was able to make fine pictures of the rare white rhinoceros. But what especially delighted both of us were the pictures he made of the Wambutti pygmies in the Congo, particularly those of the chief eating. We had cooked rice, of course, for our guests. The chief tipped a cup each of salt and sugar into the pot, then sat down and waited. Quickly a number of women moved into the scene, rolled the hot rice quickly into pellets which they placed on flat leaves, then took their places at either side of the chief’s chair. There was a ceremonial pause in which each woman seemed to count up to ten, and in which the chief slowly opened his mouth. Then began a most exacting job. The little balls of rice were stuffed rapidly into the chiefs mouth, the women working from both sides. Still other women, who probably considered themselves less privileged, stood ready to wipe away the surplus food when it stuck to their potentate’s chin.

  Although the grizzled gentleman swallowed as speedily as possible, his gullet became clogged every now and then, and it seemed certain to us, as we saw his eyes bulge, that he must choke to death. He merely motioned for a gourd of water, however, which still another woman had ready, washed his throat clear, and blandly opened his mouth for more pellets. This went on and on. This was a custom, we were told, that made the position of “chief” highly desirable.

  While packing his cameras, Martin said, “We’re coming back here sometime and make a complete record of these little people.”

  We then returned to western Uganda, crossed Lake Albert, and, hiring a small boat, sailed up the Victoria Nile to photograph hippos, crocodiles, and elephants. And for the first time we saw the magnificent Murchison Falls.

  Working our way slowly east, we crossed Uganda and eventually reached Nairobi and our home in Muthaiga.

  * * *

  —

  Lions! For a year we lived with them in what Carl Akeley had called the “lions’ den,” that area some five hundred miles square in Tanganyika Territory to which Carl had taken us shortly before the illness which was to end his life. We worked with lions; we ate and slept with their roars all around us. At times, and with good reason, we feared the great tawny cats, but in the end we grew, as Carl said we would, to respect and love them.

  Our equipment consisted roughly of five tents, two water stills, ten motion-picture cameras, eleven still cameras, one hundred thousand feet of film, medical stores, foodstuffs, a typewriter, and even a phonograph—and guns, of course. In all, there was something like four tons of stuff, and our big touring car, together with four trucks, carried the lot.

  I drove the touring car with four porters hanging on wherever they could. Martin took the wheel of one of the trucks, which carried two tons of supplies and six porters, while the next truck, equally overloaded, was driven by Urg, our newly acquired Swahili mechanic.

  As we rolled into this vast and almost immeasurable domain that is the lion’s “happy hunting ground,” I thought of Carl Akeley’s resentment against the caging of these beautiful beasts. Here, the lion has an abundance for every need, from food and air to freedom, and restraint is probably the one thing he cannot comprehend. Yet for thousands of years he has been hunted and captured and caged to satisfy the vanity of man. I am deeply in sympathy with those enlightened zoos, such as that at San Diego, dedicated to education rather than to entertainment, which are willing to appropriate sufficient ground to give their lion prizes some of the liberty and color of their native home.

  Although the lion has counted more than any other factor in man’s dread of Africa, man, curiously enough, is the only enemy the lion really fears. Hunters from the days of the ancient Ptolemies and earlier have ranged the plains of Africa with all manner of weapons which were too much even for the lion’s magnificent strength, speed, and cunning. It has always surprised me that lions did not somehow remember, and that they would trust us at all.

  Government has now reduced the menace of the hunter as much as possible by high license fees and other protections, but there is still considerable wanton killing. Martin and I have always done all we could to encourage the setting aside of game preserves, and it was one of his special hopes to see the Serengeti Plain made into a protected area where lions could be hunted only with the camera. This has now finally become a fact under the direction of game warden Monty Moore and his splendid and heroic wife.

  For the most part, the lion is a thoroughly agreeable personage. He lives a most leisurely existence, loafs and sleeps a great deal, has just as playful moods as a house cat, and is just as decided a personality. He minds his own business, is very fond of his family, and takes his duties as a family protector very seriously. As a youngster, he usually attaches himself to a pride, or “gang,” of young males and they roam about together, sometimes for years, having a hilarious time, sharing their food and their fun, until he finally settles down to domestic bliss and the raising of a family. When he becomes a grandfather and too old to keep up with his family and friends, he is ejected from the pride and left to roam about alone, and it is then that he often becomes a “rogue,” probably a neurasthenic condition not unfamiliar to humans.

  Naturally, being of the cat family, the lion is carnivorous. He kills to eat. Except in self-defense, he seldom disturbs a living thing, although I have known him to attack without provocation and have always been careful not to startle or annoy him. When attacked or wounded, the lion never retreats but fights as long as there is a spark of life in his magnificent body.

  Weighing anywhere between two hundred and five hundred pounds, this massive cat has great strength combined with feline suppleness. On short spurts he can overtake almost any other animal on the plains, and a single blow of his huge clawed foot, or crunch of his jaw, is almost certain death. Many of my friends, expert shots and fine sportsmen and fully aware of the ways of the lion, have been killed or disabled or severely mauled in a moment of recklessness.

  Sir Alfred Pease, the well-known game hunter, made it a rule when hunting lions to keep at least two hundred yards between himself and the beast. His friend George Grey, brother of Sir Edward Grey, hunting with him one day, failed to observe this rule and galloped to within ninety yards of a lion that had been slightly wounded. The animal charged
. Sir Alfred tried heading it off and pumped several shots into it at close range, but the maddened creature, though terribly wounded, leaped upon Mr. Grey, lacerating him so cruely that he died shortly afterwards.

  Theodore Roosevelt wrote: “The hunter should never go near a lion until it is dead; and even when it is on the point of death he should not stand near nor approach his head from the front.”

  Martin had the complacent look of a man who has just finished a large and thoroughly satisfactory meal. What he had just finished, however, was not a meal but an afternoon’s photography in the midst of fourteen lions. The big beasts had been as indifferent to us as we, in turn, might have been to a couple of field mice, and while this attitude on their part gave us a comfortable enough feeling, I can’t say it was exactly flattering.

  My husband had exposed several magazines of film and was about to put still another into the camera.

  “Well, my gracious,” I said, “haven’t you got about enough?”

  Martin grinned at me a little sheepishly. “Oh, I guess so,” he said, “but, golly, aren’t they wonderful?”

  He looked fondly off at the sleek, lovely animals. For hours they had boxed and mauled one another. When tired, they had slept, usually on their backs with their feet in the air and snoring mightily. They had been through this routine several times. There were perhaps eight or nine lionesses among them, but very little ill temper or jealously was displayed. In fact, a better-mannered or more amiable group—man or beast—could not be imagined.

  “Of course they’re wonderful,” I replied, “but they’ve eaten nothing in hours. Suppose they suddenly decide they’re hungry?”

  I stepped on the starter and began backing away, whereupon one of the husky young males decided to challenge our departure. He bristled, his eyes sharpened with excitement, and he started to follow us, measuring his sinewy, menacing stride exactly to the roll of our car. There was only one safe thing to do, and that was to stop, for a lion, like any other member of the cat family, finds a retreating object almost irresistable. Martin trained his gun on the animal’s great head.

  Looking up at us in mild surprise that we should have stopped, and a little disappointed, I think, at our taking the fun out of his little game of pursuit, the lion sniffed at our left front tire, then bit it gently. The taste of rubber was new to him, apparently, and he wrinkled his nose, not quite sure that he liked it. Then he tried again. Persuaded this time that it was nothing he cared particularly to eat but that it might be worth playing with, he began mouthing and growling over it in the manner of a puppy with a rubber ball. The other lions moved up as if on cue and stood lazily watching this performance.

  My husband looked a little anxious. “A puncture wouldn’t be a very healthy thing right now,” he said, his voice lowered to a cautious key. The more he thought about this, the less he liked it. “The explosion right in his teeth might make him mad, too,” he added.

  “How about racing the motor?” I offered.

  Martin nodded. “Yes. Try it. It might distract him.”

  I did so. The lion forgot the tire, as we hoped he would, and, cocking his head, listened attentively. So far, so good, I thought, and pushed a little harder on the accelerator. The racing engine now gave a cloud of noxious fumes, and taking advantage of the astonished sniffs and distaste which all the lions suddenly exhibited, I backed away, jockeyed out of sight around a huge rock, and streaked off across the plain.

  * * *

  —

  In order to obtain a really complete pictorial history of the lion, it became apparent that we must photograph his nocturnal as well as his daylight habits.

  Fortunately, Martin had experimented at length and successfully with night camera work and knew all the mechanical requirements. Contrary to his usual procedure, however, of rigging up the flashlights and cameras and letting the mechanical devices do the work, he decided that he would probably have better results with the lion if we stationed ourselves in our car and he operated the camera himself.

  The method followed was to set four flash lamps on firmly planted poles about six feet above the ground, then to fasten the cameras securely to solid platforms three feet in front of and below each lamp. These were connected with dry batteries and controlled by a long “firing” wire. The cameras, especially made for this purpose, took pictures automatically at a speed of one three-hundredths of a second when the light from the flash was at its maximum.

  After setting up this apparatus, a much less pleasant task confronted us: the shooting of a zebra for bait. The guilty feeling we always had about this would have seemed ridiculous to anyone less concerned than ourselves, but the sight of the happy, rowdy little fellows always reminded Martin of his pony, Socks, and put me in a mood where I wanted to pet and certainly not to shoot them.

  First, in this connection, of course, there was the ignominious business of sneaking away from camp. Assuredly, since we wouldn’t admit to each other that we were sentimental about zebra, we weren’t going to attempt to explain our actions to our porters.

  Our routine usually followed the same pattern. Having located a herd and moved within shooting distance of it, we would glance furtively at each other, and then either Martin or I would yawn. I usually managed to get in ahead of my husband on this.

  “Ho, hum,” I would say. “You haven’t done much shooting lately. It’s about time you practiced up.”

  “Oh, as to that,” he would reply carelessly, “as long as I’m only the cameraman around here and you’re the one holds the gun, I think you should keep in practice.”

  “Well,” I would then say, “I don’t feel like shooting today. I think my head aches.”

  “Oh, all right,” my husband would growl, “but if I just wound one of the poor fellows don’t blame me.”

  With this he’d jerk his gun to his shoulder and pretend to take aim.

  This was my cue to sigh. “Never mind,” I’d say. “Let’s pick out an old one or a lame one and get it over with.”

  Martin’s look of relief at this always endeared him to me. Then we would stand for quite a long time, weighing the relative age or lameness of this zebra or that zebra. Finally one would be selected, I would shoot him, and in silence we would go back to camp. Our porters were then sent, of course, to fetch the victim of my gun and place him at a spot exactly fifteen feet from the cameras. Ouranga always directed this part of the flashlight operation and it was he, too, who, waiting until it was quite dark, cut the entrails from the carcass and dragged them about the site. He always added a mumbled incantation to this disagreeable business and took credit for the results—if good. Seated in our car at a discreet distance by this time, with gun and “firing” wire ready, we sent all the porters, including the theatrical Ouranga, back to camp.

  The wretched hyenas were invariably the first to find our zebra. Sometimes a well-aimed rock would disperse them, but when they came in packs and seemed on the point of eating all the bait, we were usually forced to shoot one or two to show them we were in earnest.

  “If only the lions would eat the darned old hyenas.” Martin grumbled, “everything would be fine.”

  “Shhh,” I whispered. “I think I hear something.”

  “Oh, there won’t be anything doing tonight,” my husband said drowsily. “I wish I were in bed.” This said, he promptly went to sleep.

  The sky was overcast. There was no moon, and the darkness was black and thick and cold. I remembered how quietly lions moved on their padded paws. I also derived what comfort I could from the fact that we had sat in open cars many times before, with lions all around us, and that so far we had not been eaten.

  Then I heard a tearing sound, and a chewing and gulping and crunching and, along with this, a sort of purring growl.

  I nudged Martin, but he was too fast asleep for gentle methods to have effect. I pinched him. He said “ouch”; the crunching, ac
companied only by a deep growl, went steadily on.

  “Golly!” my husband said. He turned on his electric torch and there, sitting right in front of us and wearing one of the finest manes I have ever seen, was surely the king himself: the king of all the Tanganyika lions. Lifting his great head slowly, the big animal looked disdainfully straight into our light. A piece of zebra flesh, torn and dripping, dangled from his mouth, but not even this could detract from his majesty.

  My husband now put our flashlights and cameras into operation. The lion dropped his piece of meat, bared his teeth and roared, and then, with an abruptness that left me trembling and my gun still pointed at his head, went back to his feast.

  Others of his family joined him. Several of them were his wives, apparently, and the smaller ones might have been his half-grown sons. They were a fine-looking lot and formed a perfect picture.

  “Oh, that’s great! that’s great!” I heard Martin whispering to himself. He pressed the button. Nothing happened. Again he pressed it with all his might, and there was no sign of a flash. Frantically he pulled the wires from the button and touched them together, but still without result.

  “Well,” he said, “I guess there’s nothing else to do.”

  He was looking straight out to where the lions were feeding.

  I knew what he meant, but I couldn’t believe him. “What do you mean?” I demanded.

  “I’ve got to get out there and fix it, that’s all.”

  He was out of the car before I could stop him. I caught him by the collar.

  “You’re crazy,” I said, half crying.

  “Give me the sawed-off gun,” was all he said.

  So I drove the lions off the kill by throwing the powerful searchlight of our car in their faces, tooting the auto horn, and yelling, covering Martin, the while, with my gun. The lions retreated about twenty yards, and in a few brief minutes, which seemed like an eternity, my husband found the loose connection and returned to the car.