Lost in the Shadow of Fame

by William E. Lemanski

  Mearns, a skilled surgeon, also would provide the all-important medical assistance. While TR and Kermit roamed the African bush in pursuit of big game, the trio of scientists, besides providing taxidermy skills, would pursue the trapping of small mammals and birds and make side trips for ornithological and geographic study.

  Route traveled by Kermit and Theodore Roosevelt during their epic, 1909 African Safari.

  Planning for the Roosevelt’s hunting and scientific safari in Africa was akin to organizing the logistics of a major military campaign. Besides TR, Kermit and the three Smithsonian naturalists, the safari entourage included the two African big game hunters and bush experts R.J. Cuninghame and Leslie Tarlton and a support staff consisting of two hundred porters. Additionally, gun-bearers, tent boys, askaris (armed guards) and saises (horse handlers) were enlisted. Supplies included enormous amounts of food and ammunition, four tons of salt for curing animal skins, hundreds of small animal traps and all of the conventional camp gear: tents, lanterns, tables, chairs, etc. TR ensured creature comforts were addressed by packing in each provision box a few cans of Boston baked beans, California peaches and tomatoes. Rounding out the baggage, Roosevelt even packed a private sixty-pound library containing dozens of volumes which he called his ‘pigskin library’ in regard to the special climate-resistant binding of the books. As insurance against the rigors of bush travel, he even included ten pairs of eyeglasses. A portable laboratory was transported to appropriately prepare the animal specimens for packing and shipment. Following the field skinning of TR and Kermit’s bag, the head, horns, hide and skeleton of each animal would be carefully prepped for the museum in camp each evening. A male and female pair of each species shot or trapped was desired including their offspring to complete a family setting when available. According to Roosevelt:

  “…specimens of both sexes of all the species of big game that Kermit and I could shoot, as well as complete series of all the smaller mammals. We believed that our best work of a purely scientific character would be done with the mammals, both large and small.”5

  Roosevelt considered the trip purely as a scientific expedition, not a sporting event. The great majority of the animals they would harvest were intended to be used for science and feeding the large safari staff, he and Kermit would retain only a few specimens as personal trophies.

  The Smithsonian-Roosevelt Expedition arrived in the ancient port city of Mombasa in April, 1909. Following the diplomatic imperatives with the local officials, the party began a trip upcountry on the Uganda Railway, euphemistically known as the ‘lunatic line’ for its excessive cost and the hardship and danger experienced by the bridge builders and track laying gangs during its construction. During the initial rail trip, Roosevelt and his friend, the world renowned big game hunter, F. C. Selous, rode on the locomotive’s cowcatcher on a specially constructed seat where he marveled at the enormous spectacle of wildlife unfolding before them, describing the train experience as a “…railroad in the Pleistocene.”6 As the train chugged along over hill and dale, across this prehistoric landscape rising to an elevation of over 7,000 feet, Roosevelt would spot the occasional rhinoceros or antelope crossing the rail line ahead. A hyena ran across the track nearly falling beneath the wheels. Giraffes were particularly vulnerable to entanglement in the telegraph line strung along the track as large herds of wildebeest and zebra would stumble across the roadbed. Despite being a life-long hunter, familiar with almost all of the North American big game, Roosevelt marveled at Africa’s fauna: “The land teems with beasts of the chase, infinite in number and incredible in variety.”7 While TR sat on the locomotive front, Kermit viewed the unfolding spectacle from the roof of a carriage. Roosevelt’s party proceeded to their first camp on the Kapiti Plains and the formation of his safari. At the camp, TR and Kermit secured two horses each.

  Unlike the hundreds of baggage carrying porters that would trudge-along on foot, both hunters and their white colleagues traveled at the head of the safari caravan on horseback. A newspaper article at the time described the procession:

  “Colonel Roosevelt and Kermit with Major Mearns led the way on their ponies and then the porters followed in one long line headed by a gunbearer carrying the Stars and Stripes. The column extended for a quarter of a mile.”8

  Besides a means of basic transportation, horses were at that time also de rigueur for sport hunting by chasing and running-down game prior to making the shot. Great sport was enjoyed by many and many lives were lost when this dubious technique was applied to the hunting of lions. Kermit became particularly adept at bringing game animals to bay by riding long distances on the chase at a dangerous breakneck speed over broken ground. Roosevelt later recorded an incident when Kermit chased-down a hyena:

  “… and though the brute had a long start he galloped after it and succeeded in running it down. The chase was a long one, for twice the hyena got in such rocky country that he almost distanced his pursuer; but at last, after covering nearly ten miles, Kermit closed with the animal in the open, shooting it from the saddle as it shambled along at a canter growling with rage and terror.”9

  In another incident, Kermit shot a warthog:

  “…from the saddle as he galloped nearly alongside, holding his rifle as the old buffalo-runners used to hold theirs, that is, not bringing it to his shoulder.”10

  However, not all of the hunting was on horseback. TR and Kermit also walked many miles through the African bush in pursuit of game.

  Roosevelt’s warm personal relationship with hunter-naturalist Selous, who would later fall to a German sniper’s bullet in Tanganyika, and the influential Edward North Buxton, both of whom planned the safari details during the last days of TR’s Presidency, enabled the establishment of an itinerary that would combine both wilderness hunting and hunting on various farms (which in the United States would be called ranches). Along with farm hunting, their two thousand mile journey trekked open savanna, woodland and water passages from Mombasa on the Indian Ocean to Khartoum in the north.

  Their first prolonged stop was for a two-week stray at the farm of Sir Alfred Pease in the Kitanga Hills. A New York Times article of April 27, 1909 reported TR and Kermit were “…resting from their fatigue at the ranch” and their trip from the Kapiti Plains. The Kitanga Hills were so named by the natives in honor of an Englishman killed by a lion and buried locally; a very frequent occurrence in the African bush.

  Sir Alfred was a former member of parliament and a big game hunter notable for authoring the Book of the Lion. He and his wife entertained their illustrious guests for two weeks. TR noting “...they took a keen interest, untinged by the slightest nervousness, in every kind of wild creature from lions and leopards down.”11 Describing the farm he said “The game was in sight from the veranda of the house almost every hour of the day.”12 And, neither he nor Kermit missed the opportunity to pursue this ubiquitous game.

  With Mount Kilimanjaro as a backdrop, the Kitanga Hills sentimentally reminded Roosevelt of his own ranching days and peregrinations in the far West. The rolling landscape of withered grass resembled the cattle country of the Great Plains and he compared the courageous efforts of the British settlers to the western migration across America.

  Roosevelt would continually comment on the fecundity of central Africa while characterizing it as “a white man’s country.” Similar to buffalo, wolf and pronghorn on the Great Plains, the open savanna of Pease’s farm provided excellent habitat for the vast herds of Africa’s common plains game: various antelope, zebra and the predatory lion along with a great variety of birds and small mammals. Both TR and Kermit spent days galloping across the land in pursuit of the herds, while occasionally using native beaters to stampede stray animals from the security of a ravine or dry creek-bed.

  However, consistent with his enormous ego and lifelong sense of self-righteousness, Roosevelt passionately required dangerous challenges equal to his aggressive and competitive nature. Kermit, on the other hand, had a natural and careless at
traction to hazardous pursuits often without consideration or concern for the outcome. Whether storming jungle covered hills in Cuba under withering rifle fire or dueling with robber barons in the White House, pursuing a benign, unequal quarry was second rate and beneath TR’s character. But bagging a lion, as king of the jungle and the most feared predator of all Africa’s big game, was closer to Roosevelt’s notion of an equal challenge. In his account African Game Trails he recounts numerous instances where men were mauled and killed by lions and statements by noted big-game hunters classifying the lion as the most dangerous of the African big game. These tales stimulated Roosevelt, and he also adopted this viewpoint of their relative danger. His and Kermit’s first hunting encounter with the king of the beasts was a great disappointment as both blindly fired into bushes and shot two cubs that Roosevelt embarrassingly pronounced were “the size of mastiffs.”14 This failure did not deter them from the goal of shooting one good lion; TR expected to harvest the first between he and Kermit and as luck would have, he did. In fact he shot two large cats on the return to the farm house that day. Within a few days, both were once again on the hunt for lion. The game was so abundant in this region, the hunting resembled the shooting gallery in a penny arcade. Three days following the cub shooting incident, Kermit shot a male cheetah where “…he bowled it over in good style.”15 Immediately following this, Kermit killed a reedbuck and a steinbuck with TR bagging another lion albeit “…not much of a trophy”16 being a half-grown male. Before the day ended, Roosevelt managed to shoot two additional lions. Their total safari bag for the king of beasts was nine for TR and eight for Kermit.

  In one hair-raising incident Kermit almost fell prey to a wounded leopard. Kermit and the wealthy American, William N. McMillan, later Sir William*[4], the owner of Juja Farm on the edge of the Kapiti Plains went hunting together during a week’s visit following Sir Alfred’s farm. As Kermit and McMillan tracked a cat into a large thicket, their native beaters attempted to drive the feline into the open just as the beast unexpectedly came charging straight at Kermit. He charged to within six yards before being turned by Kermit’s first bullet. After being severely wounded from Kermit’s second shot on the run, the leopard returned to the safety of the thicket once again.

  The excited and overzealous natives, impressed with the charge and the manner in which Kermit turned the animal, ventured too close to the cat’s lair and he came charging on once again. The wounded animal chased one of the beaters, seized him and began with the fury of a buzz-saw to maul with teeth and claws. Due to the injured cat’s weakness, the native wrenched free whereupon McMillan successfully hit the cat once more sending it back into the long grass. In a short time the leopard returned and again charged Kermit before finally dropping to another shot from his rifle.

  Upon returning from the safari adventure the following year, his naturalist companion, J. Alden Loring would comment:

  “I do not think that the Colonel gives his readers a fair impression of the very great danger that he and Kermit so often met. After we had said good-bye to four or five settlers with whom we had become acquainted and met them again several weeks later to find one with a badly injured arm chewed by a leopard, a second in the hospital at the point of death from a lion mauling, and a third who exhibited a rent in a shirt made by the tusks of a charging elephant that killed his gun bearer….”

  He continued:

  “… we began to realize that hunting African big game was not altogether a one-sided affair.” 13

  The tenacity and strength displayed by this beast is not unusual for the animals of Africa. Unlike wounded deer or mountain lion of North America, the wildlife of Africa have always been considered to be especially hard to stop when hit. Numerous stories tell of wounded lion or buffalo or even antelope charging and often killing the unwary hunter. Some African hunters theorize that due to the extreme predation and hard existence experienced by these animals over the eons, unlike the wild animals elsewhere, an unnatural toughness and tenacity has evolved which Kermit and TR experienced on numerous occasions.

  v

  The Juja Farm was another one of a number of stopover visits for TR and Kermit with local settlers and missionaries during their circuitous trek across east and central Africa. TR’s established fame as both former president of the new emerging world power and eclectic reputation of being an eccentric cowboy, intellectual, soldier and naturalist enabled him to rely on influential contacts in Europe for trip planning and support. A measure of Roosevelt’s international popularity was expressed in the gift of a unique 500-450 Holland & Holland double rifle that he used as his heavy gun on the safari. The custom-made rifle was dedicated by such 19th century British notables as Sir Reginald Wingate, Lord Curzon and G. O. Trevelyan prior to the African trip.

  Despite long, hot days covering many miles on foot and horseback, with the frequent insect bites and minor bruises, safari life for the Roosevelt party was very pleasant and enjoyable. When on the move, camp was dismantled as early as possible in the morning with tents, bedding and equipment packaged into fifty to sixty pound bundles, the maximum load permitted for carry by each porter. Once under way, the sinuous, single-file line of march created a very picturesque and loud column extending for a considerable distance to the rear. At the head was TR and Kermit riding ponies along with the white safari members followed by the camp staff in order of job importance. Horns, tom-toms and whistles would serenade the column along with occasional native chants. The American flag was carried at or near the head. As the miles passed under foot, they traversed scrub brush, forest and savanna under the burning African sun.

  The marchers were attired in a colorful show of big-game hunter fashion. The white safari members wore the traditional khaki-colored outfit with puttees or leggings and sun helmets with puggarees or slouch hat while the native porters were adorned in a hodgepodge of clothing; a blouse and drawers with blanket and even the occasional umbrella, open or closed, as momentary fashion impulse dictated. Some were bareheaded with others wearing a fez or for the Moslems, a skullcap. TR commented one wore “…the skin of the top of a zebra’s head, with the two ears. Another was made of the skins of squirrels, with the tails both sticking up and hanging down.”17 During the course of the long safari, TR and Kermit became attached to their camp staff, particularly their gun bearers and trackers and were quite saddened upon leaving them when the adventure came to an end. The natives in return also developed a friendly attachment to the hunters and naturalists, giving them Swahili names, indicative of their appearance or mannerisms. Kermit was dubbed “Bwana Maridari,” Mr. Fancy-Pants for his slim, neat appearance. TR was “Bwana Mkubwa,” Great Master, but behind his back he was called, “Bwana Tumbo,” Mr. Big Belly. The naturalist Heller was the “Bwana Who Skinned”; Loring, the collector of small mammals was named “Bwana Pania,” the Mouse Master.

  Following the day’s march, a camp ground would be selected with tents being organized on the order of a military installation with a central “main street.” Each shelter was designated for a specific purpose: cooking, dinning, sleeping, skinning and provision tents, and so forth. Firewood would be gathered for the many camp and cooking fires. Following an evening meal that generally consisted of wild game, the safari would gather around their respective camp fires, the native staff huddled within their separate groups according to job function and rank with the hunters relaxing around a huge, separate blaze. Roosevelt would religiously devote time to writing the day’s account for his serialized magazine articles. Kermit would occasionally strum tunes on his banjo or tend to his photographic equipment. Sometimes he would steal away to engage in his literary interest of reading. The natives would often breakout into a wild chanting African melody while competing with the occasional eerily whoop and wail of hyenas or throaty grunts of lion from beyond the campfire light. Camp guard and order was maintained by armed Askaris, native soldiers who had no other duties besides policing the line of march in the day and securing the camp at
night.

  When camping in fertile hunting grounds for prolonged periods, TR and Kermit, along with their white hunters, would spend long hours of the day roaming the African bush while carrying a light noontime lunch, usually consumed far from camp. Similar to safaris today, a mid-day siesta was taken during the hot hours of high noon by all members except TR, who would read in the shade of a tree or bush from books he carried in his saddlebags.

  If any game was taken, a runner was sent to camp to alert the naturalists who would return and setup station near the kill until the skin, horns and head were removed and carried back for fleshing and salting. For large animals, this became a major operation, sometimes requiring the naturalists to camp overnight in the bush with the carcass to complete the skinning. The heat of the day and roving wild animals, hungry for the opportunity of an easy meal were a continual problem for the preparation of hides. Large animals such as rhino and elephant were a particular problem due to their enormous size and weight. Timing was always urgent and the large quantities of meat were always a welcome sight though burdensome load for the natives. When not on safari, the native diet consisted mainly of a mealy-like porridge made from maize. The opportunity to eat meat compensated for their protein deficiency enabling them while on safari to consume over ten pounds of meat each per day; calorie loss throughout the rigors of safari life was great.