Lost in the Shadow of Fame

by William E. Lemanski

  “It is a sad commentary on conditions that at the same time three high-school boys, ranging from sixteen to nineteen, were shot because they had been making speeches against the fiscal exactions of the local soldiery, levied under the guise of anticipated taxes.”20

  In the 1920s justice was harsh and deadly in the wilderness regions of China.

  As the expedition traveled into Lololand21 (in southwest China), spirits heightened with reports of the panda’s existence nearby. The Lolo’s believed the Giant Panda was a supernatural being and had come into contact with them on a number of occasions. As the panda was perceived to be a spirit, they were reluctant to kill the animal themselves but agreed to accompany the expedition as porters and guides. With ten Lolos and their dogs, Kermit and TR Jr. began the panda pursuit anew. Much to their disappointment, the dogs began to run a sounder of swine. Rather than deflate the enthusiasm of the Lolos, they decided to join the pig hunt. In rain and sleet, over hill and dale they forged on even to clambering down the drop of a forty-foot waterfall while disregarding sprains and bruises and a potential broken neck. All was for naught as the dogs lost the track. Another failed day as they returned to camp.

  The next few days were an unsuccessful slog through desolate jungle covered mountains as rain and snow pelted the expedition. Passing through various villages the hunters changed Lolo guides and doubted the questionable recommendations of village elders in regard to the possibility of encountering the giant panda.

  On the 13th of April, Kermit and TR Jr., along with four Lolo guides encountered tree scrapes and the recent tracks of a large panda in the snow. After dismounting their ponies they began tracking the animal on foot through a bamboo forest:

  “The fallen logs were slippery with snow and ice. The bamboo jungle proved a particularly unpleasant form of obstacle course, where many of the feathery tops were weighted down by snow and frozen fast in the ground.”22

  Tracking the animal for two and a half hours and soaked through to the skin and shivering, the hunters came upon a giant spruce tree with a hollowed bole. Emerging from the hole was the prize the Roosevelt’s had planned and hoped for after spending many hard days, travelling around the world and traversing many miles of uncharted wilderness. For a period of time, they began to question if the large black and white apparition before them actually existed.“And now he appeared much larger than life with his white head with black spectacles, his black collar and white saddle.”23 Both brothers fired simultaneously as the animal, groggy from sleep and unaware of the imminent danger, began to skulk away. Although wounded, the panda bounded away but only covered seventy-five yards before falling to their bullets.

  Celebrations reigned high that night after the arduous task of hauling the heavy bulk of their trophy back to the village. A slaughtered sheep was ordered for everyone and Kermit and Ted mixed a hot toddy from their flask of brandy for a toast as the natives downed prodigious quantities of corn wine. Concern for the spirit gods precluded the shikaries from touching any of the skinned panda carcasses. So great was the religious worry that a priest was summoned to cleanse the house and surrounding area where the panda lay.

  Despite having taken a great and extremely rare trophy, the Roosevelts were up the next morning anxious to continue on the hunt with the takin24 as their quarry. After fruitless days in search of this elusive animal, they reluctantly moved on leaving the remote and hostile Lololand as perhaps the first white men to ever venture into their realm.

  Upon completing their trip at the railhead at Yunnanfu in southern China, Kermit began receiving urgent telegrams to return to the United States immediately. His wife Belle was ill and business issues required his immediate attention. On May 8, he started for Haiphong in French Indochina (Annam). He travelled through Kwang Ngai and Hue before reaching Saigon where he left on May 17th as the remainder of the expedition began to explore what is now called Viet Nam. Prior to Kermit’s unexpected return to the States, the Roosevelts planned to rejoin the Annam portion of the expediton on the Mekong River.

  Herbert Stevens separated from the Roosevelts in Likiang and continued alone collecting through Yunnan and Szechwan. His collection numbered around five-hundred specimens. Harold Coolidge, Russell Hendee, Josselyn Van Tyne and Ralph E. Wheeler continued on a separate expedition in Annam and Laos. On the 14th of May, Hendee started down the Mekong and shortly after developed a serious fever and on June 6 died in a hospital in Vientiane.

  The expeditions of Kermit and TR Jr. into the wild and remote regions of the Himalayas, Burma and central China along with the scientific team in Annam were remarkable for their acquisition of strange and little-known animals which added to the collections of major museums and man’s knowledge of the zoological world. But also for their logistics and traditional method of travel in a manner that in a short period of time would become quaintly obsolete as the 20th century progressed with air travel and advances in radio communications. During their almost five-months of travel on the 1928-29 expedition, the Roosevelts covered two thousand miles of travel by horseback, foot and boat without the aid of detailed maps, wireless radio or satellite navigation. They traversed high mountain ranges and exposed themselves to possible bandit attack on many occasions. Within a short period following their trip, some of these remote sections of Burma, China and Annam would be contested ground between the British and American forces with the Japanese in the Second World War.

  Hunting the tawny feline in mountain snows and jungle heat

  While on one of his business trips to Japan, Kermit decided to spend a three-week sojourn in the mountains of North Korea. At that time, the Korean peninsula was a primitive and isolated region, ruled by the Japanese Empire. In December 1922 he decided to hunt one of the largest, most elusive and rare of the big cat species, the Siberian or Manchurian Tiger.25 The Korean Tiger Kermit pursued is larger than his lowland cousin and wears a heavier coat of fur to enable survival in harsh mountain terrain. At that time, they were in profusion in Korea and greatly feared as having a reputation for frequently devouring the local peasantry. However, as all wild cats are solitary and elusive, the Korean Tiger’s mountain habitat made it especially difficult to locate and hunt. Despite tramping numerous miles on foot and mountain-pony and scaling snow covered peaks ranging up to six-thousand feet, the only game his party secured was wild boar. During the adventure, Kermit and his party suffered from the harsh conditions. On one occasion he commented:

  “We climbed up six thousand feet, part all but perpendicular, over rocks and solid sheets of ice. When we reached the top we were puffing and panting at furnace heat, but two minutes facing the icy wind that whipped over the ridge set us shivering, and we plunged down through the deep snow that on the other side had taken the place of ice.”26

  Although failing in the opportunity to collect a fine specimen, he experienced an age old primitive way of life in a land that would soon become one of the most isolated and troublesome regions in the world. In a few short years following the Korean War, this land would suffer not only the demise of the tiger but would also be sealed to the outside world.

  In 1923 Kermit again decided to try his luck on a tiger hunt and this time with his wife Belle in the Mysore State of India. India at that time was still in colonial thrall to the British Empire and managed under the British Raj in the spirit of Rudyard Kipling. Traditional hunting in the princely states was still legal and in vogue; the age-old exotic pukka lifestyle still evident. Today in India, all animal species are held in high religious reverence and sport hunting is outlawed throughout the country. Game animals abounded then and the Indian Tiger was still fairly common. Kermit and Belle were the guests of a well-heeled American industrialist friend of his and were shown every courtesy by the local officials during their stay. Days would be spent roaming the lush and exotic forests on the Mysore plateau as evenings were spent in congenial banter following a sumptuous Indian dinner.

  The Roosevelts daily technique was to still hunt and stalk
which required a quiet, stealth movement through the jungle in the hope of stumbling upon a cat or they would alternately conduct a drive by the local peasants as the hunters remained stationary. To mount a drive, the plan was to enlist a numerous contingent of natives formed into a line and move forward while shouting, banging drums, pans and any loud utensil as the hunters were strategically placed in trees or machans on elevated platforms ahead of the line of march. The shikarries (experienced Indian hunting guides) were placed on the flanks of the line preventing the tiger from breaking out and scrambling beyond the line of natives. This method would drive all game toward the posted shooters including any tiger wandering about in the neighborhood. The stalking method, conducted on the ground was perhaps the most difficult and dangerous for the hunters although the elevated position of the machan provided greater visibility and a greater degree of safety for the shooter. Concern for the exposure of the native beaters on the ground naturally was of scant consideration.

  Although Kermit believed that cats never looked up, on one occasion a tiger stood under Belle’s tree and looked straight up at her at an angle that precluded her taking an effective shot. While perched in their elevated stands, Kermit and Belle marveled at the diversity and antics of the wildlife. Hawks, and owls and jungle fowl and peacocks preceded the beaters: “These last were a most beautiful sight as they flew past, their tails spread, their gorgeous plumage blazing in the sun.”27

  After many fruitless drives, Kermit finally wounded a large tigress that required him to track a mile and a half before the natives came upon her body. As is typical when hunting with indigenous people everywhere, the tiger kill caused a commotion among the natives. “Our village friends were wildly excited. They lashed the tigress to a pole and formed a triumphal procession shouting and singing and beating their drums.”28 Care was taken to ensure the locals would not steal the whiskers and claws for use in native medicines. Besides tiger, the hunters successfully pursued guar, black buck and sambur. During their hunt, Belle was able to bag a leopard. She even shot a fifteen-foot long python that when skinned; they discovered the snake had engorged a spotted deer doe.

  In November 1925 upon returning from the previously described high mountains for ovis poli and securing a wildlife collection for the Field Museum, Kermit and Tr. Jr. accompanied by their wives decided to hunt in Nepal. During their years of marriage to the two Roosevelts, both women had become avid adventurers and fairly skilled shooters who also shared a love for wild places. After many shooting and sightseeing trips throughout India, at the invitation of the Maharaja, Belle and Eleanor met the brothers in Kashmir and travelled to one of the Terai valleys of Nepal for a tiger hunt. Living accommodations were similar to that of an African safari: sleeping and dining tents clustered around a large log fire for mitigation of the evening chill. Although encircled by huge snow covered mountain ranges, the valleys were enshrouded in high, dense jungle that precluded any chance of hunting on foot.

  Unlike the Indian method of hunting tiger from elevated stands as long lines of beaters would drive game to the stationary shooters, in Nepal Elephant transport was the only possibility for forging through the near impenetrable tangle of growth. Live bait would be staked at numerous locations throughout the surrounding jungle at night and checked in the early morning for a recent kill. Much of the excitement of hunting from the back of an elephant was simply the ride itself:

  “The long line of elephants in solemn procession were a source of never-failing joy. There was always their preposterous conformation to ponder over; the enormous flapping ears and the ridiculous minute inquiring eyes; the strange toothless leer of the tuskless ones; the great loose knees which turned outward with a baggy shuffle and the delightful incredible toe-nails. The whole massive an otherwise dignified creature.”29

  When a recent kill was located, the hunters would change their mounts from being perched on a pachyderm seated on a pad for travel to another equipped with a howdah, a wicker basket for hunting which provided a higher measure of safety for the hunter should a tiger attempt to charge and jump the back of the beast. The transfer to the howdah was an adventure in itself. According to Belle,

  “Once arrived at the kill we descended from the pads and mounted our howdahs, even with our elephant kneeling. The best method of egress was a flying leap through the air from pad to howdah elephant.”

  Although even-tempered and used to the hunting routine, an elephant would occasionally spook and charge off with mahout (the native elephant driver) and hunter hanging on as the beast rampaged through the undergrowth. On one occasion Eleanor’s elephant was charged on all sides by an angered tigress with four cubs. Her mount dashed off into the jungle with the startled riders clutching desperately on their precarious perch; four elephants hastily pursued and secured the frightened beast.

  During their week-long tiger hunt in Nepal, the Roosevelts bag was eleven tigers with Belle also taking a rhinoceros. Although the existence of both of these animals are now very endangered and even then were known to be diminishing, the Roosevelts believed, as TR did two decades before, that as they were collecting for a museum, the killing was for the advancement of science. The morality of their belief based upon today’s ethics must be decided by the reader.

  During Christmas week Kermit and Ted decided on collecting fauna in what Kermit termed as “Mowgli Land.” They were joined by a Goanese collector for the Bombay Natural History Society. The experienced Baptista had collected mammals and birds through much of India, Assam and Nepal. On this trip, Kermit shot another tiger measuring nine-feet, eight inches. During their short stay, Kermit managed to collect both a black buck and two chinkara for the museum. Chinkara is a small and graceful Indian gazelle.

  One of the most exciting segments of their Asian journey was when Kermit and Ted decided to try their hand and horsemanship with the traditional British-India sport of pig sticking. Both experienced horseman, Kermit and Ted well realized the great danger to both rider and horse in attempting to skewer a large wild boar with a seven-foot long spear while riding hell for leather on a fleet horse. Over hill and dale, through brush and jungle the brothers rode with their British Army companions. On one headlong chase “Ted’s horse came down twice; once it threw him into the middle of a thorn-bush, and he came up looking like a prize-fighter at the end of a stiff battle.30 Whilst on the chase, one of the event’s organizers, a Captain Head, released his spear into a boar on the run. As the beast tore loose from the weapon, it glanced up pinning Head’s leg to the horse and toppling both resulting in serious injury to rider and death to his mount. Although neither Kermit or Ted succeeded in skewering a pig, both “… had some grand gallops and enjoyed our time to the full.”31

  As the son of an ex-president, embarking on numerous and varied expeditions and hunting trips, Kermit along with his various companions were treated as VIP’s in every foreign land he visited. Even when traveling to remote and uncharted regions the local officials, whether Indian Maharajas, British Army Officers, diplomats on station or local tribal chiefs; all would provide the best in credentials, advice and accommodations. His main problems were always those which any who decides to engage in rough, dangerous travel confront: inconvenience, probable hardship, hostile locals, harsh environment and aggressive animals. However, his prime years when in the bush inured him to what most travelers would consider unacceptable misadventure. As Kermit related in the opening of his fine little book “The Long Trail”:

  “…it is when men are off in the wilds that they show themselves as they really are. As in the case with the majority of proverbs there is much truth in it, for without the minor comforts of life to smooth things down, and with even the elemental necessities more or less problematical, the inner man has an unusual opportunity of showing himself – and he is not always attractive.”

  Unfortunately, the weight of this axiom, which Kermit so well understood defined his “inner man” later in life, and when not “off in the wilds” he became the ve
ry characterization of the man he defined as “not always attractive.”

  Notes:

  1. East of the Sun and West of the Moon, 1926, pg. 1; Theodore Roosevelt and Kermit Roosevelt

  2. Kermit became good friends with both Andrews and his wife Yvette and in 1924 became godfather to her son, Kevin Maxwell Andrews. Belle and Kermit Roosevelt Papers, Library of Congress

  3. “There are great numbers of all kinds of wild beasts; among others, wild sheep of great size, whose horns are good six palms in length. From these horns the shepherds make great bowls to eat from, and they use the horns also to enclose folds for their cattle at night.” The Travels of Marco Polo

  4. East of the Sun and West of the Moon, 1926, pg. 3; Theodore Roosevelt and Kermit Roosevelt

  5. In the 1930s, C. Sydam Cutting was the second westerner to reach the Forbidden City of Lhasa in Tibet, which was long off-limits to outsiders. While in Tibet he developed a friendship with the 13th Dalai Lama and acquired a pair of Lhasa Apso dogs. He is credited with introducing the Lhasa Apso, a Tibetan breed of dog to the United States. In later years he built the Hamilton Kennels in New Jersey and propagated those which he acquired in Tibet. The American Kennel Club recorded its first Lhasa Apso, “Empress of Kokonor” in 1935

  6. Ibid. pg. 28; Cherry already began his collecting responsibilities for the Field Museum during their sea passage through the Red Sea where he shot four different species of hawk from the decks of their ship

  7. East of the Sun and West of the Moon, 1926, pg. 8; Theodore Roosevelt and Kermit Roosevelt

  8. Ibid. pg. 56

  9. The Hindu or Muslim system of sexual segregation by using a screen or curtain to keep women in seclusion