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Show I Hunting jjgpjyhitc Rhino aod the Hippopotamus Along the White Nile 1 I II I THE WONDERFUL BIG GAME FIELD IN WHICH COLONEL ROOSEVELT WILL DOUBTLESS HAVE AS EXCITING ADVENTURES AS THESE DESCRIBED BY MR.CHURCHILL I I I ? (In this article Mr. Churchill toll of f the wonderful big- Ktinio huntinjr that falls i to the traveler In tho uncivilized Xile ; country between the Mur'clilson falls ami ? 2'fnr'o, 170 miles away provided, of I I rour.se, he In fortunate enourch to gain the t ffood graces of those who Know the fa- J(. vored haunts of tho elephant, tins hippo- potamU3, the white rhino and other larsc mammals. Mr. Roosevelt will unqucs- H tlonably train these good graces, and per- ' Imps experience hunting- adventures every i bit as exeltM'.g as those which fell to the I lot of Mr. Churchill and his companions.) I BY TH3 ET. KON. WINSTON f. OHUBOHIIiL Under Secretary of State? for tho Col- ; ocics of Great Britain, j When it enmc limp for us to leave f Fnjao'and the Murchison Falls behind it tooli no little time to stow nil our ! baggage, food and tents upon the steel ami launch and its three steel sailing boats flw f different sizes which were to carry IK us down the Victoria Nile into the H Albert Nyanza, across the lop of this mmt a!i0, and Icn oxrn the 170 miles' Ik reach of the White Nile till navigation I is barred at Nimule by. more cataracts, IK Though our camp was astir at 3:30, IB, the dawn was just breaking when we IB were able to embark. As we drifted out Be into midstream the most beautiful view k f a"s l5roI:c upon us, It was nl- M ready almost daylight, but the sun had Wt not yet actually topped the groat es- Kff rnrpment over which the Nile descends. Kg The banks on both sides of the river, II clad with dense and lofty forests and mt rising from the water's edge, were dark If in shadow. The river was a broad sheet ft pf r?ccl "rnv veined with paler streaks fg of loam. The rock portals of the falls II were jo'tv black, and between them, il- t liimmrd by a single shaft of sunlight, - gleamed the tremendous cataract a thing of wonder aud glory, well worth V traveling all the way to sec. & We were scon among tho hippo- m potami. Evorv 200 or 300 yards, and at I overv bend of the river, we came upon 1 a herd of from 5 to 20. To us in a ' steam launch they threatened no ro- sistuncc or danger. But their inveterate Vt hostility to canoes leads to repeated loss : m of life among the native fishermeu, m whose frail craft are crumpled like m cggsnel.ls in the Gnap of enormous jaws. M Indeed all the way from here to Nimule they are declared to be the scouragc M. and 1 error of the Nile. Fancy mistaking a hippopotamus E almost the largos' itirviving mammal in I I the world for a water lilv. Yet nothing ) t 19.more easy. The whole river is dotted i! r with floating lilies, detached from any 1 , :i root and drifting along contentedly with . .. the current. It is the habit of the hippo 2 : to loll j n the waier, .showing only his Bj i ; . eves and the tips of his ears, and per-g per-g $ ; haps now and then a glimpse of his 5 : nose, aud thus concealed, his silhouette if. 5 JS, at 300 yards, almost indistinguish-J indistinguish-J ji able from floating vegetation. I , Tho Peeping To:ns of the Nile. I ; v 1 thought they also looked like giant f cats peeping. So soon, however, as thcy s : s saw us coming round a corner and i heard the throbbing of the propeller, If : tHe-v wold raise their whole heads out . of the water to have a look, and then it : immediately dive to the bottom in dis- II i st. Our practice was then to shut off In I steam nnd drift silently down upon J them. In this way one arrives in the i m middle of the' herd, and when curiosity i & or want of air compels' them to come I ft yP again there is a chance for a shot. A $ great fellow came up to breathe !' Tvithin five i'ards of the boat, and the look of astonishment, of alarm, of indignation in-dignation in his large expressive eves, as with one vast snort he plunged "below, "be-low, was comical to see. These creatures are not. casv to kill. T hey bob up in the most unexpected quarters, and are down again in a second. sec-ond. One docs not like to run the risk of merely wounding taem and the target tar-get presented is small and vanishing. T f.hot one who sunk with a harsh sort of scream and thud of striking bullet. "We waited about a long time for him i to float up to tho surface, but in vain, f 3 for he must have been carried into or 1 g under a bed of reeds aud could not bo 2 ? retrieved. 1, The Murchison Falls arc about 30 t miles distant from the Albert lake, and us with the current 1 we made six or 1 i seven v.iles an hour, this part of our I journey was short.' Here the Nile offers j I -i splendid waterway. The main chan- I I nel is at least ten feet deep and uavi- I f gation. in spite of shifting sand banks, I islands and entanglements of reeds and I other vegetation, is not difficult. 5 . Tlu river itself is of delicious, sweet I water, and flows along in many places I half a mile broad. Its banks' for the It first 20 miles were shaded by beautiful P trees, and here and there contained by r j bold headlands, dceplv scarped bv the K ! current. The serrated outline oV the I high mountains on the far side of the E i Albert Nyanza could soon be seen f painted in shadow on the western sky. As the lake is approached the riparian 9 seenery degenerates, the sand banks bo- m como more intricate, the banks are low m and flat and huge marshes encroach up- JJ on the river on either hand. Yet even SI here the traveler moves through an im- W posing world. At length, after five or six hours' l steaming, wo cleared tho mouth of the m Victoria Nile and swam out on to the bj broad, expanses of tho lake. Happily K on this occasion it was quite calm. How tt I wished then that I had not allowed Ej myself to be deterred by timo and Inu croakers from a longer voj'agc, and Ilia that wo could have turned to tlio south WK and, circumnavigating the Albert, as- tfM ceuded the Semliki river with all its IH ni3-sterious attractions, have visited the wlf forests on tho southwestern shores, and 5l caught, perhaps, a gleam of the snows -jlf of Buwonzori! A Secret Boosevelt Will Doubtless I Leant, wWt Some of my party had won the con- R fidence of the engineer of the launch, 1 who had revealed to them a valuable Ef secret. It apponred that "somewhere m between Lake Albert and Nimule" not $ to be too precise there was a place known only to tho elect, and not to more than one or two of them, where elephants abounded and rhinoceros swarmed. And these rhinoceros, be it i observed, were none of your common b ack variety, wilh two stumpy horns almost equal in size, and a prehensile tip to .their noses. Not at all; they were what arc called "whito" rhino Jiurchcll's whito rhinoceros; that is their full style with one long thin enormous horn, perhaps a yard' long, on their noses, and with broad, square upper hps. Naturally we were all very much excited, and in order to gain a day on our itinerary to studv these very rare and remarkable, animals moro closely wo decided not to land and pilch a camp, but to steam on all through the night. Meanwhile, bur friend tho engineer -undertook to accomplish ac-complish the difficult feat of finding the j channel, with all its windiugs, in the j dark. The scene as we left the Albert lake and entered the White Nile was of sur-possing sur-possing beauty. The sun was just setting set-ting behind the high, jagged peaks of tho Congo mountains to the westward. One after another, and range behind range, these magnificent heights rising ris-ing perhaps to S00Q or 9000 feet unfolded un-folded themselves in waves of dark plum-colored rock, crested with golden fire. The lake stretched away apparently appar-ently without limit like the sea, towards to-wards the southward in an ever-broadening ever-broadening swell of waters flushed outside the shadow of the mountains into a delicious pink. Across its surface sur-face our liny flotilla four on a string paddled its way toward the narrowing northern shores and the channel of the Nile. The White Nile loaves tho Albert lake in majesty. All the way to Nimule Ni-mule it is often moro like a lake I ban a river. For the first twentv miles of its courso it seemed to me to lie at least two miles across. Tho current is gentle, gen-tle, and sometimes in tho broad lagoons la-goons and bays into which the placid waters spread themselves it is scarce!' perceptible. T slept under an awning in the last and smallest boat of the Btring, and, except for the native steersman and piles of baggage, had it all to mvscll. Tr was, indeed, delightful, de-lightful, to lio fanned by cool breezes and lulled y tho soothing lappings of ihe ripples, "and lo watch, as it were from dreamland, tho dark outlines of the banks gliding .swiftly past and tho long moonlit levels of 'the water. At daybreak wo were at Wadelai. In twenty-four hours from leaving Fajno wo had made nearly a hundred miles of our voyage. Without the sigh of a singlo porter these Pinall boats and launch had transported the whole of our "safari" over a distance which would on land have required the labors and sufferings of 300 men during at least a week of unbroken effort. Wadelai was deserted. Upon a high bank of the river stood a long row' of tall, peaked, -thatched houses, tho walls of a fort and buildings of European Euro-pean construction. All was newly abandoned to ruin. Tho Belgians are evacuating all their posts in tho Lado Enclave except Lado itself, and these stations, so laboriously constructed, so long maintained, will soon be swallowed swal-lowed by the jungle. We disembarked and climbed tho slopes through high, rank grass nnd scattered boulders till wo stood amid tho rotting buugalows and shanties of what had been a bold bid for the existence ex-istence of a town. Wadelai had been occupied by white men perhaps for fiflv years. Por half a c-ntury that feeble rushlight of rnodernitv. of cigarettes, of newspapers, of wlnslcj and pickles, had burned on the lonely banks of tho White Nile to encourage and beckon the pioneer and settler. None had fol lowed. Now it was extinguished; nnd yet when I surve3'od tho spacious landscape, land-scape, with its green expanses, its lofty peaks, its trees, its verdure rising ris-ing from tho brink of the mighty aijd majestic river, I could not bring myself for a moment to believe that civilization civiliza-tion has done with tho Lado Enclave, or that there is no future for regions which promise so much. All through tho Any we paddled prosperously with the stream. At times the Nile lost itself in labyrinths of papyrus, through which wo threaded a tortuous course, with many bumps and brii6hingH at tho bends. Rut more often the banks wore good, firm earth, with here and there beautiful cliffs of red sandstone, hollowed by tho water, and rising abruptly from its brim, crowned with luxuriant foliage. Tn places these cliffs were pierced by narrow nar-row roadways, almost tunnels, winding up to tho high ground, nnd perfectly smooth and regular in their construction. construc-tion. They looked as if thev worn made on purpose to give access to and from tho river, nnd, no they had been by the elephant s. Legions of waterfowl inhabited tho reeds, and troops of cranes rose at tin; approach of tho flotilla. Sometimes we saw great, big pelican kind of birds, almoHt as big as a man, standing contemplative con-templative on a Kingle leg. and- often on the trcetops a lish eigle, glononn in bronze and cream, sal sunuing him self nnd watching for a prey. It waa nearly l in the" afternoon when tho launch suddenly jinked to the left out of the main 'stream into a small, semi-circular bay, 500 yards across, and we came to land at '"Hip-po '"Hip-po Camp." Charged by a Bull Elephant. Wo thought it was much too lato to attempt any serious shooting that day. Thero were scarcely three and a half hours of dnylight. But after thirty-six thirty-six hours cramped on these little boats a walk through the jungle was very attractive, at-tractive, and, accordingly, dividing ourselves our-selves into threo parties, we started in three different directions like the spokes of a wheel. Captain Dickinson, who commanded the escorl. went to (he right with tho doctor; Colonel Wilson and another officer set out at right, angles to the river bank; and I went to tho loft, under the guidance of our friend, the engineer. T shall relate very briefly what happened to each of us. Tho right-hand, party got, after an hour's walking, into n great herd of elcphauts, which they numbered at sixty, They saw no very Hue bulls; they found themselves surrounded on every side by theso formidable animals'; ani-mals'; and, (ho wind being shift, the hour late, and tho morrow free, they judged it wise to return lo camp without with-out shooting. The center party, consisting of Colonel Col-onel Wilson nnd his companion, came suddenly, after about a mile and a half's walk, upon a fine solitary bull elephant. They stalked him for some time, but he moved off. aud. on perceiving per-ceiving himself followed, suddenly, without tho slightest warning on h'is part, aud no groat provocation on theirs, he threw up his trunk, trumpeted, trumpet-ed, and charged furiously down upon them; whereupon r.hcy .pist had ume to tiro their refles hi his face aud spring out of his path. This elephant waa followed for some miles, but it was not for three months afterward that we learned that ho had died of his wounds, and that the natives had recovered his tuaks. So much for my friends. Our third left party prowled off, slanting gradually grad-ually away inland from the river's bank. Tt" was a regular wild scrub con u try, with high grass nnd boulders and niauy moderato-sized trees aud bushes, interspersed evory hundred yards or so by much bigger oues. Near the ??ile exteusive swamps, with reeds fifteen feet high, ran inland in long boyi and fingers, and those, we were told, were the haunts of ' tho white rhino. Wo must havo walked along wearily and laboriously for nearly three-quarters of an hour, when I saw through a glade at about two hundred yards' distance a great dark nnimal, 'Judging 'Judg-ing from what T had scon in East Africa, Af-rica, f was quite suro it was a rhinoceros. rhinocer-os. We paused, and woro examining it carefully with our glasses, when all of a sudden it .seemed to treble in size, and the spreading of two gigantic cars as big, they seemed, as the fiapa of French windows proclaimed the presence pres-ence of the African elephant. The next moment nnothor and another and another came into view, srnnging leisurely leis-urely along straight toward us and the "wind was almost dead wrojig. We changed our position by a flank inarch of admirable celerity, and from the top of a neighboring ant hill watched, watch-ed, at the distance of about 1")0 yards, tho statelv and awe-inspiring procession proces-sion of eleveu elephants. On they came, loafiug along from font to foot two or three tuskers of no great merit, several sev-eral large tuskless females, aud two or three calves. On the back of every elephant sat at least one beautiful white egret, and sometimes threo or four, about four feet high, who pecked at the tough hide T presumo for crv small game or surveyed the scene with the consciousness of pomp. These sights are not unusual to tho African hunter. Those who dwell in the wilderness nrc the heirs of its wonders. won-ders. But to me 1 confess it seemed a truly marvelous and thrilling experience experi-ence to wander through a forest peopled peo-pled by these noble Titans, to watch their mysterious, almost ghostly, march, to 'sec around on every side, in large trees snapped off a few feet from tho ground, in enormous branches torn down for sport, the evidences of their giant strength. And then, while we watched them roam down toward tho wator, T heard a soft, swishing sound immediately behind us, and turning, saw not fort yards away a splendid full-grown rhinoceros, wilh the long, thin horn of his raro tribe upon him the famous white rhinoceros Bun-hell himself strolling placidly home after his evening drink and utterly unconscious uncon-scious of tho presence of stranger or foe. We had very carefully judged our wind in relation to the elephants. Tt was, in consequence, absolutely wrong in relation to the rhinoceros." T saw that in another fifty yards ho would walk" right across it. For my own pari, perched upon the apex of a ton-foot ant-bear couo, T need have no misgivings. misgiv-ings. T was perfectly safe. But my companions and the ' nativo orderlies and j-nilors who woro with us enjoyed no such security. The eonscquoncos' of not; killing the brute at that range and with that wind would have been a mad ohargo directly through our party. A sense of responsibility, no doubt, restrained re-strained me; but I must also confess to tho most complete astonishment at tho unexpected apparition. While I was trying to hustle Ihe others by signals and whispers into ; safer places, the rhino moved steadily, , crossed the lino of wind, stopped behind be-hind a httlo bush for a moment, and then, warned of his danger, rushed off into tho deepest recesses of tho jungle. lI had Uirou-u away the easiest 'shot I evor had in Africa. Meanwhile, the olephants had disappeared. Wo returned with einptj hands and beating hearts to camp, not without chagrin at the opportunity which had vanished, but with tho keenest appetites appe-tites and thc highest hopes for the mor row. Thus, in three hours and within four miles of our landing place, our three separate parties had seen as many of tho greatest wild animals as would reward the wholo exertion of an ordinary ordi-nary big game hunt As I dropped off to sleep that night in the little sailing-boat sailing-boat moored in the bay, and heard the grunting barks of the hippo floating nnd playing all around, mingling with the cries of the birds and the soft sounds of wind and water, tho African forest for tho fivl time made an appeal to my heart, enthralling, irresistible, never to be forgotten. At the earliest break of day we all started in tho same order and with the sternest resolves. During the night the sailors had constructed out. of long bamboo poles a sort ofIight tripod. which, serving as a tower of observation, observa-tion, enabled is to sec over the ton of the high grass and reeds, and i his proved of the greatest convenience aud advantage, troublesome though it was to drag along. We spent the whole morning prowling prowl-ing about, but the jungle, which twelve house before had seemed so crowded with game of all kinds, seemed no utterly denuded. At last, through a telescope, from a treotop. we saw, or I thought we saw, four or five elephants H or big animals of some kind, grazing about two miles away. They vero the other side ot an enormous swamp, nnd to approach them required not only traversing this, but circling through it H for tho sake o.C the- wind. Wo plnuged, accordingly, into this H vast maze of reeds, following the twist- H ing paths made through them bv tho WM game, and not knowing what we 'might H I come upon at every step. The ground under fool was quite firm between the channels nnd pools of mud and water, The air was stifling. The tall reeds H and grasses seemed to smother one, aud above, through their inlerlaoeiiiPiit shone the full blaze of the noonday H sun. To wade and waddle through y.ueh country carrying a double-barreled JHt) rifle, not on your ahoulder, but in you- WM hands for instant service, peering round ! every corner, suspecting overv thorn- - ! bush, for at least, two hours, is not so . I pleasant as it sounds. Wo emerged at fl last on the farthest aide, under a gin- H ions tree, whos-c height had made it our I beacon in the depth:, of the swamp, ncd whose far-spreading branches offered a I delicious shade. It was H o'clock. Wc had been oil- I ing for nine hours and had seen noth- 1 1 ing literally nothfag. But from this 'I moment our lack was brilliant. jfl First, we watched two wild boars playing at fighting, in a little glade H a most delightful spectacle, which I cn- ! joyed for two or three minutes before II they discovered us aud fled. Next, a dozen splendid water-buck were Fren H browsing on the crest of a little ridg- I within easy shot and would have forme .1 the quarry of any day but this; but I our ambition soared above them and I wo would not risk disturbing t he jun- gle for all their beautiful horns. Then. thirdly, wc came slap up against the -I rhinoceros. How manv I am not ccv- I tain four, at least. Wo had actually -H walked past them as they stood shel- km tering under the trees. Now, here they were, fiO yards away to the left rear H dark, dim, sinister bodies, just isibIo I through ihe waving eras?.' M A Battle "Willi a Hliiaoceroa Herd. When you fire a heavy rifle in cold ffl blood it makes your teeth chatter and your .icad ache. At such a moment as- fl this, one is almost unconscious alike of ) report and recoil. It might be a shot- (I gun. Tho nearest rhino was broadside H on. I hit him hard with both barrels H and down he went, to rise again in n hideous struggles head, ears, horn H flourished agonizingly above the grF, as if he strove to "advance, while H loaded and fired twice more. That was' l all I saw myself. Two other rhinos H escapod over the hill and a fourth, run- fl ning the other way, charged the native fl sailors carrying our observation tower. jl who were very glad to drop it and scat- II ter in all directions. jl To shoot a good specimen of the II white rhinoceros is an event sufficiently II important in the life of a sportsman jl to make the day on which it happens i jl bright and memorable in his calendar. jl But more excitement was in store for II us before the night. (I About a mile from the spot where jl our victim lay wc s' .;;:od to Test and jl rejoice, nud. nor least, refresh. The Jl towor of observation which had been jl dragged so painfully along all day II was set up. and. climbing it, J saw at i !l once on the edge of the swamp no jl fewer than four more .full-grov.Mi rhi- H noceros. scarcely 400' yards away. A H tall ant-hill, within easy range." gave )H us cover to stalk them, and the wind ! was exactly riglil. !fl But the reader has dallied long H enough in this hunter's paradise. It H is enough to say that we killed two JH more of tho?e monsters, while one es- IH caped into the swamp, and the fourth H "harged wildly down upon us and gal- JH loped through our narty without ;ip- : parent ly being touched himself or in- H juring "any one. Then, marking the H places where the carcasses lay, we re-- H turned homeward through tho swamp, H too triumphant and loo tired to worry about tho enraged fugitives who lurked rH in its recesses. JH Tt was very late when we reached H home, and our' friends had already hewn 1H the lusks out of a good elephant which Colonel Wilson had shot, and were H roasting a buck which had conveniently replenished our larder. (H Such was our day at Hippo Camp, io which the ardent sportsman is recont- ?H mended to repair, when he can get somo one to show him the wav. (Copyright, 1009, by Winston Churchill.) ! (Next week Mr. Churchill will bring his series of African articles to a close by describing his journey down the White Nile to civilization again. Be- fH sides being an account of river travel tMm in Africa's heart, the article, brings mm out vividly the bier game hunting and the perils" that will be Colonel Rooso- Mm volt's to tho very last day of his year mm in the African interior.) |