Part 20

But the wish to secure the photographs triumphed. No museum in the world had ever had such a picture. That thought was conclusive.

The accompanying illustrations give both the colossal beasts in different attitudes. The giraffe stands quite quiet, intent on its own safety, or gazes curiously at its companions. What a contrast there is between the massive elephants and the slender, towering creature whose colouring harmonises so entirely with its surroundings! Wherever you see giraffes they always blend with their background. They obey the same laws as leopards in this respect, and leopards are the best samples of the “mimicry” of protective colouring.

What long periods of hunger must have gone to the formation of the giraffe’s neck!

It would seem as though these survivors of two prehistoric species had come together thus, at a turning-point in the history of their kind, for the special purpose of introducing themselves by means of their photographs to millions of people. I owe it to an extraordinary piece of good fortune that I was able to take another picture of them during a second burst of sunshine which lit up the forest.

It is the event of a lifetime to have been the witness of so strange and unsuspected a condition of things as this friendship between two such dissimilar animals. The extent of my good luck may be estimated from the fact that the famous traveller Le Vaillant, more than seventy years ago, wished so ardently to see a giraffe in its natural surroundings, if only once, that he went to South Africa for that purpose, and that, having achieved it on a single occasion, as he relates in his work, he was quite overjoyed. Although I was aware that herds of giraffes frequented this region without fear of the elephants, it was a complete revelation to me to find an old bull-giraffe living in perfect harmony for days together with two elephants for the sake of mutual protection. I can only account for this strange alliance by the need for such mutual protection. The giraffe is accustomed to use its eyes to assure itself of its safety, whilst elephants scent the breeze with their trunks, raised like the letter S for the purpose. In these valleys the direction of the wind varies very often. The struggle for existence is here very vividly brought before us. How often in the course of centuries must similar meetings have occurred in Africa and in other parts of the world, before I was able to record this observation for the first time? These pictures are a good instance of the value of photography as a means of getting and giving information in regard to wild life.

Kilepo Hill will always stand out vividly in my memory. Elephants may still climb up to the small still lake shut in by the wall-like hillsides, as they have done for ages, to quench their thirst at its refreshing waters. For hundreds of years the Masai, for the sake of their cattle herds, contested with them the rights of this drinking-place. Then the white man came and the Masai vanished, and again the elephants found their way to the Kilepo valley. Later, white settlers came--Boers, ruthless in their attitude towards wild life--and took up their abode in the Kilimanjaro region. The day cannot now be far distant when the last of the elephants will have gone from the heart of Kilepo Hill. But these two, long since killed, no doubt, will continue to live on in my pictures for many a year to come.

XIII

A Vanishing Feature of the Velt

“When men and beasts first emerged from the tree called ‘Omumborombongo,’ all was dark. Then a Damara lit a fire, and zebras, gnus, and giraffes sprang frightened away, whilst oxen, sheep, and dogs clustered fearlessly together.” So Fritsch told us forty years ago, from the ancient folk-lore of the Ova-Herero, one of the most interesting tribes of South-West Africa.

If the photographing of wild life is only to be achieved when conditions are favourable, and is beset with peculiar difficulties in the wilderness of Equatorial Africa, one might at least suppose that such huge creatures as elephants, rhinoceroses, and giraffes could be got successfully upon the “plate.” But they “spring frightened away”! The cunning, the caution, and the shyness of these animals make all attempts at photographing them very troublesome indeed; for to secure a good result you need plenty of sunlight, besides the absence of trees between you and the desired object. And when everything seems to favour you, there is sure to be something wanting--very probably the camera itself. Fortune favours the photographer at sudden and unexpected moments, and then only for a very short while. One instant too late, and you may have to wait weeks, months, even years for your next opportunity. I would give nine-tenths of the photos I have taken of animal life for some half-dozen others which I was unable to take because I did not have my camera to hand just at the right moment. Thus it was with the photographing of the three lions I killed on January 25, 1897, and of the four others I saw on the same day, on the then almost unknown Athi plains in the Wakikuju country. Also with that great herd of elephants which so nearly did for me, and which I should have dearly liked to photograph just as they began their onrush. (I have told the story in With Flashlight and Rifle.) I remember, too, the sight of a giraffe herd of forty-five head which I came across on November 4, 1897, about two days’ journey north-west of the Kilimanjaro. The hunter of to-day would travel over the velt for a very long while before meeting with anything similar. In earlier days immense numbers of long-necked giraffe-like creatures, now extinct, lived on the velt; the rare Okapi, that was discovered in the Central African forests a short time ago, has aroused the interest of zoologists as being a relative of that extinct species.

C. G. Schillings, phot.

A GIRAFFE IN FULL FLIGHT.]

C. G. Schillings, phot.

A GIRAFFE BULL IN AN ACACIA GROVE.]

Within the last hundred or even fifty years, the giraffe itself was to be found in large herds in many parts of Africa. The first giraffe of which we know appeared in the Roman arena. About two hundred years ago we are told some specimens were brought over to Europe, and caused much astonishment. The Nubian menageries some years ago brought a goodly number of the strange beasts to our zoological gardens. But how many people have seen giraffes in their native haunts? When, in 1896, I saw them thus for the first time, I realised how thin and wretched our captive specimens are by the side of the splendid creatures of the velt. Le Vaillant, in his accounts of his travels in Cape Colony and the country known to-day as German South-West Africa, gives a spirited description of these animals, and tells how after much labour and trouble he managed to take a carefully dried skin to the coast and to send it to Germany. That was seventy years ago. Since then many Europeans have seen giraffes, but they have told us very little about them. The German explorer Dr. Richard Böhm has given us wonderfully accurate information about them and their ways. But the beautiful water-colours so excellently drawn by a hand so soon to be disabled in Africa, were lost in that dreadful conflagration in which his hunting-box on the peaceful Wala River and most of his diaries were destroyed. Dr. Richard Kandt, whilst on his expeditions in search of the sources of the Nile, found the charred remains of the hut. “Ubi sunt, qui ante nos in mundo fuere?”

C. G. Schillings, phot.

A SUCCESSFUL PHOTOGRAPH, TAKEN AFTER A LONG PURSUIT AND MANY FAILURES.]

C. G. Schillings, phot.

TELEPHOTO STUDIES OF GIRAFFES (GIRAFFA SCHILLINGSI, Mtsch.).]

Zoological experts tell us that there are several species of giraffe inhabiting separate zoological regions. In the districts I traversed, I came across an entirely new species.... Their life and habits interested me beyond measure. I often think of them still--moving about like phantoms among the thorny bushes, and in and out the sunlit woods, or standing out silhouetted against the horizon.

Though by nature peaceful, the giraffe is not defenceless--a kick from one of its immense legs, or a blow sideways with the great thick-necked head of a bull, would be quite enough to kill a mere man. But this gigantic beast, whose coat so much resembles that of the blood-thirsty tiger, leopard, and jaguar, never attacks, and only brings its forces into play for purposes of defence. It harms no man, and it has lived on the velt since time immemorial. It is the more to be deplored, therefore, that it should disappear now so quickly and so suddenly.

I have already remarked several times on the way giraffes and other African mammals harmonise in their colouring with their environment. Professor V. Schmeil has pointed out how my opinion in this respect accords with that of earlier observers. The way in which giraffes mingle with their surroundings as regards not only their colour but also their form, is especially astonishing. The illustration on page 550 proves this in a striking manner, for it shows how the outlines of the giraffe correspond exactly with those of the tree close to it.

One may spend days and weeks on the velt trying to get near giraffes without result. Far away on the horizon you descry the gigantic “Twigga”--as the Waswahili call it--but every attempt to approach is in vain. Then, all of a sudden it may happen--as it did once to me near the Western Njiri marshes, Nov. 29, 1898--that a herd of giraffes passes quite near you without fear. On the occasion in question, as is so often the case, I had not my photographic apparatus at hand. I could have got some excellent pictures with quite an ordinary camera. The giraffes came towards me until within sixty paces. They then suddenly took wildly to flight. The little herd consisted of nine head: an old very dark-spotted bull, a light-spotted cow, three younger cows with a calf each, and finally a young dark-spotted bull. Orgeich and I had been able to observe the animals quietly as they stood, as if rooted to the spot, with their long necks craned forward, their eyes fixed upon us. I cannot explain why the animals were so fearless on that occasion. It was a most unusual occurrence, for ordinarily giraffes manage to give the sportsman a wide berth.

Again, it may happen, especially about midday, that the hunter will sight a single giraffe or a whole herd at no very great distance. At these times, if one is endowed with good lungs and is in training, one may get close enough to the creatures before they take to flight.

Hauptmann Merker, phot.

GIRAFFE STUDIES.]

C. G. Schillings, phot.

GIRAFFE STUDIES.]