Part 23

C. G. Schillings, phot.

A RATHER MIXED-UP PHOTOGRAPH! MY YOUNG RHINOCEROS, WITH HER TWO COMPANIONS THE GOAT AND THE KID.]

I was often able to contemplate idyllic scenes among my quaint collection of animals. The behaviour of my baby rhinoceros interested me greatly. It was the pet of my caravan, and I was very proud of having reared it, for I had longed for two years for such a little creature, and had made many vain attempts to obtain one. Its friendship with two goats I have already mentioned in my previous book. They formed a strange trio. Very often the kid used the rhinoceros as a cushion, and all three were inseparable. The beast and the two goats often made little excursions out into the immediate neighbourhood of my camp. At these times they were carefully guarded by two of my most trustworthy people. The “rhino” was provided with its accustomed vegetable foods. When the little beast was in a good humour it would play with me like a dog, and would scamper about in the camp snorting in its own peculiar way. Such merry games alternated with hours of anxiety, during which I was obliged to give my foster-child food and medicine with my own hands, and to fight the chigoes (Sarcopsylla penetrans, L.), commonly called “jiggers,” those horrible tormentors which Africa has received from America.

In the evening my flocks and herds of sheep, goats and cattle came home, and among them some gnus which I had been able to obtain from an Arab through the friendly help of Captain Merker. It reminded one of pictures of old patriarchal days to see the animals greet their expectant calves and kids. It was always interesting, too, to watch the skilful handling of the cattle by the Masai herdsmen. The cows in Africa all come from Asia, and belong to the zebu family. They will only give milk when their calves have first been allowed to suck. Only then can the cow be milked, and that with difficulty, whilst a second herdsman holds the calf for a while a little distance off. Thus it was I obtained, very sparingly at first, the necessary milk for my young rhinoceros. Some days there was a grand show of varied animal life. Cows, bullocks, sheep, goats, my rhinoceros, young lion-cubs, hyenas, jackals, servals and monkeys, hens, francolins and marabou, geese, and other frequenters of the velt were in the camp, some at liberty and some chained, which caused many little jealousies and much that was interesting to notice.

My kitchen garden was invaded by tame geese and storks, which lived on the best of terms with the cook. It was irresistibly funny to see the sage old marabou acting as cook’s assistant, gravely crouching near him and watching all his movements. Very often the tame animals in my camp had visitors in the shape of wild storks and geese, which came and mixed among the others, so that often one could not distinguish which were wild and which tame. We could see all kinds of animals coming close to the camp. I have even followed the movements of rhinoceroses with my field-glasses for some time.

C. G. Schillings, phot.

MY RHINOCEROS AS SHE IS TO-DAY IN THE BERLIN “ZOO,” AND--]

C. G. Schillings, phot.

--AS SHE WAS IN MY VELT CAMP.]

Some of my captives were not to be tamed at any price. We had a young hyena, for instance, which struggled obstinately with its chain. On the other hand, some hyenas, especially spotted ones, became so domesticated that they followed me about like dogs.

A young lion which I had had in my camp for some time, and which had grown into quite a fine specimen, often made itself so noticeable at night that, as my watchman told me, it was answered by other lions from outside. This made it necessary to take active precautions for the night, and my menagerie was brought into the centre of my camp for greater safety.

Many of the friendships which I formed with my protégés have been kept up. My marabou still remembers me, and greets me with great joy in his cage in the Berlin Zoological Garden, much to the irritation of his neighbour in the cage next door. I have no need to avoid the grip of his powerful beak, which the keeper has learnt to fear. He has never used this weapon against me. In whatever dress I may approach him he always recognises me, and greets me with lively demonstrations of pleasure. Even the rhinoceros seems to recognise his one-time master, although one cannot be quite sure of this in so uncouth a creature.

It is very difficult to know how to manage a rhinoceros. It was quite a long time before I succeeded in discovering its best diet. Young rhinoceroses almost always succumb in captivity, though seemingly so robust. We have not yet succeeded in bringing an elephant from German or British East Africa to Europe, or indeed any of the other animals, such as giraffes and buffaloes and antelopes, which live in the same districts. It appears that it is just these interesting wild animals which are the most difficult to accustom to captivity and to keep alive. The attempt to bring home alive a couple of the wonderful Kilimanjaro Colobus apes (Colobus caudatus, Thos.) resulted in one of the monkeys dying a few days after my arrival; the other lived for two years only, and was the sole specimen of its kind ever seen in Europe. Every zoologist and lover of animals who goes into the colonies has a wide field of activity open before him in this respect. If only more people could be made to take an interest in these things we might buoy ourselves up with the hope of obtaining and keeping some of the best and rarest specimens of African animal life, perhaps even a full-grown gorilla from the West Coast--perhaps even an Okapi!

I was only able to keep my little menagerie together for a few weeks at a time, as I had to be constantly setting out on fresh expeditions. On these occasions I was accustomed to leave the animals in some village under the care of trustworthy blacks, so that I could take them again on my return journey to the coast. The weeks and months I spent in camp with my animals were a great source of pleasure to me. At night-time there were occasions when “rhinos” and “hippos” paid us visits, as could be plainly seen by the tracks found the next morning. Hyenas and jackals came very often, and even lions sometimes came to within a short distance of the camp. Thus my zoological garden, in spite of its size, could well boast of being, so to speak, the most primitive in the world.

But we had our anxious moments. Death levied its toll among my people, and the continual rumours of uprisings and attacks from outside gave plenty to talk about during the whole day, and often far on into the night over the camp-fire. When one of these charming African moonlit nights had set in over my homestead, when the noise of the bearers with their chatter and clatter had ceased, and my work, too, was done, then I used to sit awhile in front of the flickering flames and think. Or I would wander from fire to fire to exchange a few words with my watchmen, to learn their news and their wishes and to ask much that I wanted to know. This is the hour when men are most communicative, and unless there be urgent need of sleep the conversation may continue far into the night.

There is something strangely beautiful about those nights in the wilderness. My thoughts go back to an encampment I once made at the foot of the volcanic mountain of Gelei, close to a picturesque rocky gorge, in the depths of which was a small stream--a mere trickle during the hot weather. Its source lay in the midst of an extensive acacia wood, which tailed off on one side into the bare, open “boga,” while on the other it became merged in a dense thicket of euphorbia trees, creepers, and elelescho bushes, impenetrable to men but affording a refuge to animals, even to elephants. On the day before I had noted the fact that Masai warriors had recently encamped in the neighbourhood, with cattle which they had got hold of on a marauding expedition (and some of which they had here slaughtered), and that with their booty they had betaken themselves over the English frontier. It was quite on the cards that roaming young Masai warriors would suddenly turn up while I was there. It was several days’ journey to the nearest inhabited region. For weeks together one would see no human soul save for a nomadic hunter every now and again.

The great barren wilderness, which then in the dry season could boast of no verdure save the evergreen Hunger-plant, so well suited to the arid velt; the romantic site of my camp; the beautiful moonlight night, darkened over from time to time by great masses of clouds, heralding the approach of rain; the dangers lurking all around: everything conspired to produce a wonderful effect upon the mind. The night had come upon us silently, mysteriously, jet-black. Before the moon rose, one’s fancy foreshadowed some sudden incursion into the death-like darkness, the bodeful silence. There was something weird and unnatural about the stillness--it suggested the calm before the storm. Faint rustlings and cracklings and voices inaudible by day now made themselves heard. The world of the little living things came by its own, and crackled and rustled among plants and branches and reeds and grass. Hark! Is that the sound of a cockchafer or a mouse, or is it the footstep of a foe?... Even within my tent there are evidences of life. Rats bestir themselves upon their daring enterprises, to meet their end, here and there, in my traps. Emin Pasha has told us how he experienced the same kind of thing. How dormice and beautiful Sterkulien made their home in his camp, gleefully climbing up and down the canvas of his tent during the night--doubtless gazing at the strange white man with their great, dark, wide-open eyes, as they did at me.... Save for these sounds there is complete stillness, broken only by the voice of the night-jar, mournful and monotonous, as it wings its eerie, noiseless flight in and out of the firelight and round and round the camp.

C. G. Schillings, phot.

VULTURES ON THE WING.]

C. G. Schillings, phot.

VULTURES HOVERING OVER THE CARCASE OF A GNU WHICH HAD BEEN KILLED BY A LION.]

C. G. Schillings, phot.

VULTURES MOVING AWAY FROM A CARCASE, STARTLED AT MY APPROACH. (WHEN FIGHTING OVER A CARCASE, THEY GIVE OUT A HISSING KIND Of SOUND.)]

C. G. Schillings, phot.

MY PELICANS (TANTALUS IBIS, L.), WHICH AFTERWARDS TOOK UP THEIR ABODE IN THE BERLIN ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS.]

Beyond the glow of the camp-fire our eyes cannot travel--we cannot see what is happening outside the camp, even quite close at hand. This intensifies one’s feeling of insecurity, for I know well how suddenly and with what lightning speed the great felines manage their attacks. It is in just such circumstances that so many men fall victims to lion and leopard. One evening a leopard will snatch a small dog from your feet, the next it will carry off one of the native women before the eyes of the whole population of your camp. You must have had such things happen to you, or hear of them from eye-witnesses, to realise the danger.

Near my tent stand two hoary old trees all hung with creepers. In the uncertain firelight they seem to be a-quiver with life, and they throw phantom-like shadows. I hear the soft footsteps of the watch--they recall me to actualities. Now the moon emerges, and suddenly sheds its brilliant radiance over the entire velt. It is like the withdrawing of a pall. My thoughts wander away upon the moonbeams, and travel on and on, over land and sea, like homing birds.... The reader who would steep himself in the beauty and strangeness of this African camp-life should turn to the pages of that splendid work Caput Nili, by my friend Richard Kandt. There he will find it all described by a master-hand in a series of exquisite nature-pictures. In language full of poetic beauty he gives us the very soul of the wilderness. These studies and sketches, from the pen of the man who discovered the sources of the Nile, are a veritable work of art. It is easier for the nature-lover to give himself up to the charms of this African solitude than to set them forth adequately in words.

C. G. Schillings, phot.