Part 27

Equipped with this new apparatus, I set out on my fourth expedition, betaking myself for two reasons to districts with which I was already familiar. In the first place, success was much more likely in a country the speech of whose inhabitants and all their habits and customs were known to me; but my chief reason was that I wished to achieve a pictorial record of the wild life of the German region of Africa. As a matter of fact, with this kind of object in view, a man might spend a lifetime in any such region, and find that, however narrow its boundaries, it could always offer him fresh subjects for study and observation.

C. G. Schillings, phot.

LIONESS FRIGHTENED AWAY FROM CARCASE BY THE FLASH-LIGHT.]

C. G. Schillings, phot.

AIMING AT A PIGEON AND HITTING A CROW! I FOUND THIS SPOTTED HYENA ON THE PLATE INSTEAD OF THE LION FOR WHICH IT WAS INTENDED.]

C. G. Schillings, phot.

PHOTOGRAPH OF A JACKAL TAKEN WITH MY FIRST, PRIMITIVE NIGHT-APPARATUS, NOT TOO SUCCESSFULLY!]

IN ORDER TO ENSURE SUCCESS WITH MY FLASHLIGHT-PHOTOS, I USED TO MAKE CONTINUAL EXPERIMENTS BEFOREHAND. I USED TO MAKE SOME OF MY MEN ACT AS MOVING MODELS, AND GET THEM TO WAVE CLOTHS IN THEIR HANDS.]

On arrival the photographic outfit proved so cumbersome, both as regards transport and management, that both Prince Löwenstein, who accompanied me, and who was not easily to be daunted by obstacles, and also Orgeich gave expression to pessimistic views as to the possibility of fulfilling my purpose.

No one, indeed, had been able to boast of success until then with this new apparatus! I had yet to satisfy myself that it was really efficacious--that, for instance, it would enable me to photograph a lion falling upon its prey. Many were the fruitless experiments witnessed by the Pangani forest. We experimented night after night, now at one spot, now at another--my men learning to enact the rôle of lions and other animals for the purpose. The Oriental and the negro are alike in their bearing on such occasions, but these flashlight operations did really succeed in arousing the wonder of my followers. The laughter of my chief man still rings in my ears. “But the lions are far away, master!” he would declare, utterly unable to understand my proceedings. It took me long, and I had had a large number of failures, before I succeeded in overcoming his attitude of incredulity.

As I have already intimated, the efficacy of the telephoto lens in the tropics depends to an extraordinary degree on the conditions of the atmosphere. The efficacy of the flashlight apparatus depends upon the precise absolutely simultaneous working of the flashlight and the shutter. It took me weeks and months (and I very nearly gave the thing up as hopeless) before I managed to get good results in the wilderness, though theoretically, and to a certain extent in practice at home, the apparatus had been perfected. The heavy dew of the tropical night, or a sudden shower of rain, may easily “do for” the flashlight unless the apparatus has been thoroughly safeguarded. And there are any number of other mishaps to be provided against. On one occasion hyenas carried off the linen sandbags that form part of the apparatus; mongooses made away with the aluminium lid of the lens-cap and hid it in their stronghold, an ant-hill; ants gnawed the apparatus itself. And when the photograph has at last been taken, a lot of other harmful contingencies have to be kept in mind. The fact that several shillings’ worth of powder is consumed in each explosion of the flashlight is in itself a serious consideration. Of course, there is always the additional danger of the cameras being stolen or destroyed by natives--a misfortune I experienced more than once.

C. G. Schillings, photo.

FLASHLIGHT FAILURES II. BLACK-HOOFED ANTELOPES COMING DOWN TO THE WATER-SIDE TO DRINK. THE BLEMISHES WERE CAUSED BY BITS OF THE MATERIAL WITH WHICH THE FLASHLIGHT POWDER WAS COVERED TO PROTECT IT FROM DAMP BEING BLOWN INTO THE AIR AND BURNING AS THEY FLEW IN FRONT OF THE LENS.]

C. G. Schillings, phot.

HOW MY FLASHLIGHT PICTURES WERE APT TO BE SPOILT. I. THE ZEBRA IS BEHIND THE STICK TO WHICH THE COMMUNICATING STRING IS ATTACHED.]

I would give the intending photographer a special warning against careless handling of the explosive mixture. The various ingredients are separately packed, of course, and are thus quite safe until the time has come to mix them together (I know nothing of the ready-made mixtures which are declared to be portable without danger). This business of mixing them with a mortar is dangerous undoubtedly, for the introduction of a grain of sand is enough to cause an explosion. I myself, as well as others, have had some very narrow escapes whilst thus occupied, and, as every photographer knows, the work has had fatal results in several instances of recent years.

C. G. Schillings, phot.

PHOTOGRAPHIC STUDIES OF ANTELOPES SHOT BY THE AUTHOR AND NOW TO BE SEEN PRESERVED IN GERMAN MUSEUMS. 1, 2. WATERBUCK (COBUS. AFR. ELLIPSIPRYMNUS, Ogilb.), MALE AND FEMALE. 3. ELAND (OREAS LIVINGSTONI, Sclat.), FEMALE. 4. MASAI HARTEBEEST (BUBALIS COKEI, Gthr.), YOUNG BUCK.]

My apparatus revealed several shortcomings even in the improved form. It was not absolutely light-proof, and it had to be set up always, for its automatic operation, in the brief tropical dusk. If no animal presented itself for portraiture the plates exposed were always wasted, unless at dawn they were withdrawn again. (This is not the case with the apparatus as since perfected.)

Many wrong impressions are current in regard to this kind of photography. It can be managed in two ways. Either the photographer himself remains on the spot to attend in person both to the flashlight and the exposure, or else the mechanism is worked by a string against which the animal moves. Before I took my photographs I had been a spectator of all the various incidents represented in them, watching them all from hiding-places in dense thorn-bushes, thus coming, as it were, into personal touch with lions and other animals. Though not so dangerous really as camping out on the velt, where one’s fatigue and the darkness leave one defenceless against the possible attacks of elephants or rhinoceroses, you need good nerves to spend the night in your thorn-thicket hiding-place with a view to flashlight snapshots of lions at close quarters. In that interesting work Zu den Aulihans, by Count Hoyos, and in Count Wickenburg’s Wanderungen in Ostafrika, the reader will find interesting and authentic accounts of night-shoots which correspond with my own experiences. Count Coudenhove in his first book describes very vividly the effect upon the nerves of the apparition of numbers of lions within a few paces of him, when concealed in a thorn-bush at night.

There is a wonderful fascination at all times in lying in wait by night for animals, and watching their goings and comings and all their habits. Even here at home, in our game preserves, the experience of passing hour after hour on the look-out has a charm about it difficult to describe in words. Out in the wilderness it is increased immeasurably. It is an intense pleasure to me to read other people’s impressions of such experiences, when I feel the accounts are trustworthy. They are so different in some respects, so much alike in others. In my first book I cited Count Coudenhove, mentioned above, in this connection, as a man of proved courage, who writes at once sympathetically and convincingly. Here let me give a passage from the book of another sportsman. Count Hans Palffy. In his Wild und Hund he speaks as follows: “I had been waiting for two hours or so in the darkness without being able to descry the carcase of the rhinoceros” [which he himself had shot and which he was using as a bait for the lion], “when suddenly I heard a sound like that of a heavy body falling on the ground, and then almost immediately the lion began growling beside the dead animal. I could hear the King of Beasts quite distinctly, as he began to pull and bite at the flesh.... He would move away from it every ten or twenty minutes, always in the same direction, to give out a series of roars. The effect of this was magnificent beyond description. Beginning always with a soft murmur, he gradually raised his mighty voice into a peal of thunder--I never in my life heard anything so beautiful.”

C. G. Schillings, phot.

JACKALS. ONLY ONE IS VISIBLE, BUT THE GLEAMING EYES OF TWO OTHERS (NOS. 2 AND 3) GIVE A PECULIAR INTEREST TO THIS PHOTOGRAPH.]

C. G. Schillings, phot.

PHOTOGRAPHS OF EAST AFRICAN ANTELOPES SHOT BY THE AUTHOR AND NOW PRESERVED IN VARIOUS MUSEUMS. 1. SMALL KUDU (STREPSICEROS IMBERBIS, Blyth), BUCK. 2. DWARF GAZELLE (GAZELLA THOMSONI, Gthr.), BUCK. 3. WHITE-BEARDED GNU (CONNOCHÆTES ALBOJUBATUS, Thos.), BULL. 4. BUSH-BUCK (TRAGELAPHUS MASAICUS, Neum), BUCK. (THE FEMALE OF THE FIRST-NAMED AND LAST-NAMED SPECIES HAVE NO HORNS.)]

Both on account of the hardships and fatigue involved--which are calculated in the long run to ruin his constitution--and also because he really cannot manipulate his cameras successfully except on starry or moonlight nights, it is most desirable for the photographer to provide himself with an apparatus working automatically. You cannot count upon its working as you would wish. The string which sets it in action may be caught and pulled by a bat or even a cockchafer instead of a lion you want to photograph. The photograph reproduced on p. 697, for instance, was the work of the turtledoves therein visible. The motion of their wings, it may be noted, was too quick for a clearly defined record.

This picture, taken in the early morning, is a good instance of the way in which I have always enforced my rule as to never touching up my photographs. The plate was broken on its way home, but the cracks which resulted were left as they were. I remember one case in which I had put up my apparatus with a view to securing photographs of certain lions, and in which I had to be content with a picture of a spotted hyena splashing its way in full flight through the swamp. The hideous cowering gait of the animal came out very strikingly on the negative.

There is wide scope for a man’s dexterity and resourcefulness in the setting up of a flashlight apparatus. All the qualities that go to the making of a big-game hunter are essential to success in this field also. You have to keep a sharp look-out for the tracks of the different animals and to watch for their appearance, taking up your position in some thorn-bush hiding-place or up a tree if you propose to operate the camera yourself by means of a string. In the case of most animals you have, of course, to pay special attention to the direction of the wind. This is not necessary, however, in the case of lions. Lions take no notice whatever of the man in hiding. Elephants, on the contrary, are very easily excited, and when this is so they are apt to force their way into his thorn retreat and trample on him or to drag him down from his point of vantage.