In Africa Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country   By: John T. (John Tinney) McCutcheon (1870-1949)

Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country

by

JOHN T. McCUTCHEON

Cartoonist of the Chicago Tribune

Illustrated with Photographs and Cartoons by the Author

[Photograph: By courtesy of W.D. Boyce. One Morning's Bag]

Indianapolis The Bobbs Merrill Company Publishers

Copyright 1910 The Tribune Company, Chicago

Copyright 1910 The Bobbs Merrill Company

Press of Braunworth & Co. Bookbinders and Printers Brooklyn, N.Y.

TO THOSE ADVENTUROUS SOULS WHO RESENT THE RESTRAINT OF THE BEATEN PATH THESE OBSERVATIONS OF AN AMATEUR ARE DEDICATED

PREFATORY NOTE

This collection of African stories has no pretentious purpose. It is merely the record of a most delightful hunting trip into those fascinating regions along the Equator, where one may still have "thrilling adventures" and live in a story book atmosphere, where the "roar of the lion" and the "crack of the rifle" are part of the every day life, and where in a few months one may store up enough material to keep the memory pleasantly occupied all the rest of a lifetime. The stories are descriptive of a four and a half months' trip in the big game country and pretend to no more serious purpose than merely to relate the experiences of a self confessed amateur under such conditions.

JOHN T. McCUTCHEON

August, 1910

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE Page The Preparation for Departure. Experiences with Willing Friends and Advisers 1

CHAPTER TWO The First Half of the Voyage. From Naples to the Red Sea, with a Few Side Lights on Indian Ocean Travel 13

CHAPTER THREE The Island of Mombasa, with the Jungles of Equatorial Africa "Only a Few Blocks Away." A Story of the World's Champion Man Eating Lions 28

CHAPTER FOUR On the Edge of the Athi Plains, Face to Face with Herds of Wild Game. Up in a Balloon at Nairobi 43

CHAPTER FIVE Into the Heart of the Big Game Country with a Retinue of More Than One Hundred Natives. A Safari and What It Is 65

CHAPTER SIX A Lion Drive. With a Rhino in Range Some One Shouts "Simba" and I Get My First Glimpse of a Wild Lion. Three Shots and Out 82

CHAPTER SEVEN On the Tana River, the Home of the Rhino. The Timid are Frightened, the Dangerous Killed, and Others Photographed. Moving Pictures of a Rhino Charge 105

CHAPTER EIGHT Meeting Colonel Roosevelt in the Uttermost Outpost of Semi Civilization. He Talks of Many Things, Hears that he has Been Reported Dead, and Promptly Plans an Elephant Hunt 123

CHAPTER NINE The Colonel Reads Macaulay's "Essays," Discourses on Many Subjects with Great Frankness, Declines a Drink of Scotch Whisky, and Kills Three Elephants 141

CHAPTER TEN Elephant Hunting Not an Occasion for Lightsome Merrymaking. Five Hundred Thousand Acres of Forest in Which the Kenia Elephant Lives, Wanders and Brings Up His Children 164

CHAPTER ELEVEN Nine Days Without Seeing an Elephant. The Roosevelt Party Departs and We March for the Mountains on Our Big Elephant Hunt. The Policeman of the Plains 184

CHAPTER TWELVE "Twas the Day Before Christmas." Photographing a Charging Elephant, Cornering a Wounded Elephant in a River Jungle Growth. A Thrilling Charge. Hassan's Courage 201

CHAPTER THIRTEEN In the Swamps of the Guas Ngishu. Beating for Lions We Came Upon a Strange and Fascinating Wild Beast, Which Became Attached to Our Party. The Little Wanderobo Dog 214

CHAPTER FOURTEEN Who's Who in Jungleland. The Hartebeest and the Wildebeest, the Amusing Giraffe and the Ubiquitous Zebra, the Lovely Gazelle and the Gentle Impalla 233

CHAPTER FIFTEEN Some Natural History in Which it is Revealed that a Sing Sing Waterbuck is Not a Singing Topi, and that a Topi is Not a Species of Head dress 251