Part 13

But what a difference in drawing and technique has come about in less than a hundred years! One need only compare the pictures of those times with the works of our own days, to be convinced that, besides artistic execution, there is now an increasingly exacting demand for the precise truth. Indeed, one of the first points to be insisted on is that photographic pictures shall not be altered, worked up--in word, in any way “retouched.” Only on this condition can they really claim to be--that which in a special sense they ought to be--true to nature, absolutely trustworthy “nature-documents.” This distinguishes the photograph from works of art executed by the hand of man, which must conform to each individual conception of the artist.

It is a hard saying that the modern cultured man is becoming, continually more and more estranged from nature. But in this matter let us take the standpoint of the optimist, who says to himself that there must be a reaction--a conscious, deliberate return, which indeed will represent the result of the highest stage of culture. There is an increasing perception of the existence in our home landscape of an ideal worth, that we have not yet been able sufficiently to estimate. To-day already there is a movement on all sides, and the demand is heard, ever stronger and clearer, for the protection of the beauties of nature. We must protect Nature in the widest sense of the word. And even if, in the stern progress of evolving civilisation, much that remains in the treasury of primitive nature must be destroyed, we shall be able long to preserve and rejoice in much else.

And here come into play the healthy desire of man in his primitive state, the cry for light and air, and all the beauty of nature. It is hardly a hundred years since we in Europe learned to value the landscape beauties of unspoilt nature. English writers of travels a century ago still spoke of Switzerland with aversion; it was for them a horrible, dismal mountain country. And it is easy to understand how man in his hard struggle for the necessaries of life regarded, and was forced to regard, nature around him as on the whole unfriendly and menacing. But since those times there has been a change for the better, even though it cannot be denied that many men require very specially adjusted spectacles to enable them to enjoy this or that beauty of the nature around them! Thus the landowner feels a pleasing satisfaction at the sight of his cornfields. And yet these cornfields are hardly anything else but an artificially formed bit of bare velt, on which at certain times a short-lived vegetation grows up, whilst at other times the naked soil presents itself to the eye--uninviting, stripped of all adornment, arid and empty. Thus, too, the man who loves wine feels that well-cultivated vineyards are a beautiful sight; but it may be doubted whether he would do so if, say, only cotton-pods grew on the vines! In ancient times, as Humboldt shows, with the Greeks and Romans, as a rule, only country that was “comfortable to live in” was called beautiful, not what was wild and romantic. Yet Propertius and many others praise the beauty of nature left to itself, in contrast with that which is embellished by art. Then we have a long way to travel through the Middle Ages, when the Alps are described to us as “dismal” and “horrible,” till we come to the nature-studies of Rousseau, Kant, and Goethe. At first there were very few to sympathise with them. Their view gradually prevailed, in spite of many backward eddies. Thus Hegel had only one impression of the Swiss Alps, that of a performance tiresome on account of its length--a judgment not far removed from that of the Savoyard peasant who declared that people who took any interest in snow-covered mountains must be insane.

On the other hand, we find in Eastern Asia, and especially among the Japanese, from the earliest times, the most ardent love for nature, and there even the poorest knows how to adorn his home with flowers, and to turn the beauty of the landscape to similar account.

A great part of the interest felt in natural beauty is perhaps to be traced to extraneous considerations. On the other hand, here in Germany we see most of our people full of feeling for our glorious forests and for our German scenery in general. We have to face the prospect, however, of a silenced countryside--a countryside without song or music. That is a matter for anxiety. Insects, birds, quadrupeds, life and movement should be a part of the landscape. This idea should continue to attract more and more adherents. German thought and feeling are altogether in unison on this subject, and it is to be hoped that the cry for the protection of the beauties of nature, for the preservation of the plant and animal worlds, and all that is picturesque in our native landscape, may continue to find expression. The League for the Preservation of the Homeland in Germany gains daily new supporters.

C. G. Schillings, phot.

BEARERS ON THE MARCH.]

Men like Professor Conwentz and many others have been working for years in this direction, and carrying on a most successful propaganda. This action for the preservation of the Homeland, taken in the highest and broadest sense of the word, must tend to evoke and foster the love of nature and its beauties in ever wider circles.

In other countries, too, steady progress is being made towards the same goal, and the importance of these considerations has long been recognised. In England and in America a way has recently been found to give practical effect to the idea of the protection of the beauties of nature by measures well calculated for this end. In this connection, too, a refined æsthetic culture is gaining ground. I do not at all close my eyes to the difficulty of regulating the conditions bearing on this matter. But in this connection we must not shrink from decisive measures. Those who come after us will be the first to prize and esteem these measures at their full value.

What I have here described as something to be desired and worth striving for at home must also hold good for the whole world--the preservation of all that is characteristic, all that belongs to primitive nature, wherever it is to be found.

The beauties of nature are most abundant, and in our time they are all--all--threatened with destruction and in need of protection. Where we can save and preserve any of them, our hands should not remain idle.

But where this is not possible, let us secure “nature-documents,” paintings, representations of all kinds as true to life as may be.

In this way we shall, at least, save for future ages memorials of enduring worth, for which our children’s children will give us thanks.

A RHINOCEROS MOVING SLOWLY THROUGH THE GRASS OF THE VELT--TAKEN WITH THE TELEPHOTO-LENS AT A DISTANCE OF 120 METRES, AND WHERE THERE WAS NO COVER. THE ANIMAL LOOKED REMARKABLY LIKE AN ANT-HILL. ON ITS BACK ONE SEES A BIRD--(BUPHAGUS ERYTHRORHYNCUS, Stanl.)--HUNTING FOR TICKS.]]

III

New Light on the Tragedy of Civilisation

Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States of America, says in his lately published work, Out-door Pastimes of an American Hunter: “The most striking and melancholy feature in connection with American big game is the rapidity with which it has vanished.”

He makes a critical investigation of this disturbing fact, and he most strongly advocates restrictive laws and the establishment of reservations for wild animals. He puts himself at the head of every effort directed towards the protection, as far as may be, of the animal world and of wild nature, and shows by word and deed how even in a brief period remarkable results can be obtained in this direction. At the same time, on every page of his striking work, the President shows that he is in favour of the practice of the chase within proper limits, and thus he by no means takes the side of extreme partisans in this matter. His efforts are of the greatest service to the cause, and will no doubt have extremely valuable results in the United States, where, owing to its peculiar circumstances, the natural treasures of the country were, till very lately, recklessly wasted.

The establishment of the Yellowstone National Park was largely the President’s work. In this vast territory no shot may be fired. It forms an inviolable national sanctuary, within whose boundaries life of all kinds is safe. Several similar reservations are already established, or their establishment is projected. Strict protective laws have been some of them brought into operation throughout the States, and some of them gradually extended to various districts according to their circumstances. Whole tracts (as, for instance, Alaska) have been closed for years by law against the hunter. In short, a period of thoughtless ravage has been followed by an era of self-control with a swiftness that no one would ever have expected under the conditions prevailing in America.

The facts I have noted give one something to think about. When in such vast regions of the world measures of this kind are found to be necessary, there must have been strong grounds for them. And, in fact, primitive nature and all its glories were in as serious peril in the United States as in many other parts of the world. The cutting down of enormous stretches of forest, and the destruction of the stately representatives of the animal world, went on at giant speed in the United States. The almost complete extinction of the splendid American bison, that once roamed in millions over the prairies of the United States, is one of the most startling facts illustrating the destruction of wild animals through the introduction of civilisation. This fact had no slight influence in procuring the enactment of severe measures.

In a land like the United States such measures are possible, advantageous, and practicable. In other countries, too, which are in a settled condition, similar regulations have everywhere come into force of late years. Thus, for instance, the remnants of the fauna of Australia are now protected by stringent laws. But quite different, and much more difficult, are the conditions of the problem with regard to Africa. There, more than anywhere else, the time has come for protective regulations. But how can these measures be enforced, however well they may be thought out? We must keep before our eyes the terrible example of the disappearance of the animal world of South Africa, as the result of the extremely rapid spread of civilised life. We can now, with the help of statements made by trustworthy writers, survey the various phases of this utter destruction of animal life during the last century, and so form an idea of what awaits other parts of the Dark Continent.

Powerful voices have been raised of late in favour of the preservation of African wild life, and this especially in England. In this respect, Mr. Edward North Buxton is most prominent in pressing for thorough measures of protection for the African fauna, throughout the wide possessions or spheres of interest of the British Empire. In England, too, many strong pleas have been made in support of the view that even relatively speaking noxious animals should not be deprived by man of the right to a certain amount of protection. Thus Sir H. H. Johnston, the former Governor of the Uganda Province in Central Africa, says in his preface to the English edition of my book With Flashlight and Rifle, that in his opinion the weasel, the owl, and the primitive British badger of the existing fauna ought not to be entirely sacrificed to the pheasant--a beautiful enough bird, but, after all, one that must always remain an “interloper”; that the egret, the bird of paradise, the chinchilla, the sea-otter, and such-like creatures are “æsthetically as important,” and have the same right to existence, as a woman beautifully dressed in the spoils of these animals. Good pioneer work in this direction must result from the noble-hearted resolve of the Queen of England to put herself at the head of the “Anti-Osprey Movement,” organised to save the royal heron from threatened extinction.

There can be no doubt that the complete extermination of any species of animal must excite in the mind of a reflecting man a sense of injustice and wrong; and that this complete destruction of certain species can only be to the interest of all men in general when such animals, of whatever kind they may be, are entirely noxious and quite useless. No epoch in the world’s history can be set in comparison with ours in so far as it has been the witness, in the course of a few decades, of almost daily progress and improvement in connection with industry, culture, and the whole field of human knowledge. And, moreover, no epoch has been so penetrated with the great thoughts of progressive humanity. The continual employment--in ways that are ever more adroit, ever more complex--of all the resources offered by nature to man, seems at the same time to blind him to certain grave misdeeds that he is actually perpetrating every day. These great crimes against the harmony and order with which nature surrounds us--crimes that it is not easy to make any amends for--are the disfigurement and poisoning of watercourses, the pollution of the air, the laying waste of a portion of the plant world (namely, the forests), and the extinction of some of the animals that live with us.

We do not shrink from the most reckless exploitation of those forests that have come down to us from the primeval past--the vast stores of coal buried deep in the bosom of the earth. The expert can now calculate with certainty that in a few hundred, at the very farthest in a thousand, years these stores will be exhausted. When it comes to this, the triumphant progress of industrial science will no doubt give us some substitute, perhaps even something better; but no technical knowledge, no science, can ever give us back anew those highly developed organisms of the plant and animal world which man to-day is recklessly sweeping out of the list of living things. They cannot restore to us the green woods and their animal life. We preserve with punctilious precision every vestige of the art of the past. The older the documents of earlier historic times are, the more eagerly they are coveted, the more highly they are valued. Our collectors gladly pay the largest sums for an old papyrus, an old picture, an object of decorative art, or a marble statue. And, as has been rightly remarked, what warrant have we that some new Phidias, some new Michael Angelo, some new Praxiteles will not arise, and give us something of as high value as these, or even much more perfect? Unreservedly to deny this would be the same thing as to give the lie to the progress of the human race.

But the same man who, in this respect, acts so reverently, so conservatively, looks on with folded arms while treasures are destroyed that ought to be guarded with special affection and care, in these times when the great value of all natural science is so fully recognised.

We organise, at an extremely high cost, expeditions to survey and explore far-off regions. We sink into the greatest depths of the sea our cunningly devised trawl-nets, and study with ceaseless diligence the smallest organisms that they bring up into the light of day. We consider the course of the stars, and calculate with precision their remote orbits. We daily discover new secrets, and have almost ceased to feel surprised at each day bringing us something new, something yet unheard of. Much that is thus done to secure the treasures of the past might equally well be done in coming years. But much that we neglect to do can never be made good, for we are permitting the slaughter, up to the point of extinction, of the most remarkable, the most interesting, and the least known forms among the most highly organised of the creatures that dwell with us on our earth!

An example that appeals to us with terrible force is that of South Africa (taking the country in its widest limits), a region now so largely peopled by Europeans. There has been an almost complete disappearance of the larger animals that once lived in their millions on its wide plains. If one studies the trustworthy narratives of the earlier explorers, one reads that, hardly a century ago, it was not a rare sight to see in one day a hundred, or even a hundred and fifty rhinoceroses, hundreds of elephants that showed little fear of man, and countless antelopes; and one asks oneself, How can it be possible that all this abundance of life has vanished in so short a time? A specimen of the “white” rhinoceros, which in those times was still living in large numbers, is in our day worth a small fortune; it is to be found in no museum in Germany, and is simply almost impossible to obtain. This former abundance is now known only to few, and these only specialists engaged in studies of this kind. But to them it is also plain and terribly certain that, where the like conditions come into being, the same process that was at work in South Africa will produce the same results.

There can be no doubt about it. In a hundred years from now wide regions of what once was Darkest Africa will have been more or less civilised, and all that delightful animal world, which to-day still lives its life there, will have succumbed to the might of civilised man. That will be the time when the fortunate possessors of horns and hides of extinct African antelopes, and the owners of elephant tusks, skulls, and specimens of all kinds will be selling all this for its weight in gold. And no one will be able to understand how it was that in our day so little thought was given to preserving as far as possible all this valuable material in abundant quantities at least for the sake of science, instead of sacrificing it wholesale to the interests of trade, and to the recklessness of the new settlers in those lands. For these men, who have to struggle hard with the new conditions of life and its necessities, can scarcely act otherwise than heedlessly and short-sightedly. They will always take possession of a district before settled conditions are introduced, and before the Government is in a position to enforce the observance of its regulations, however well-intentioned these may be. So it will come to pass that it will suddenly be found no longer possible to provide European collections with even a pair of specimens of the mighty elephant, or to procure other large animals for exhibition in these establishments. And this will be the case not only with regard to the larger species, but the same thing will happen to all others.