Union County courier. [volume] (Elk Point, Union County, D.T. [S.D.]) 187?-1913, 1878-09-04
THE H1PPoPoTAMUs.
How the BIG Game 10 Pursued BY l1a.
tive African Sportomou.

How the Dig Game 10 Pursued By Ns
| tive African sportsmsn.
Most newspaper readers have . nc
tion that few white men besides Stanle
and Livingstone have penetrated int
the wilds Of Africa. They have, Del
haps, some dim recollections of th
names of Mungo Park, Du Chaillu, an,
Capt. Baker, but the man who went int
Africa for the New York Herald, Stan
ley, is the champion African explorer o.
their imaginations. They will be sur
prised, perhaps, to know that Reiche'
men, mostly Germans, explore thu
country drained by the upper Nile near
" every year, sometimes varying thai
exploration by journeys into South and
Central. Africa. The object of thest
journeys into Afsicx h to get Wild ami
mails and birds for the various collec
tions of such creatures in Europe, Great
Britain and America. In pursuit of this
object they penetrate far into the track.
less wilds, and if accompanied by jour.
nalist of pluck and metal would doubt
less furnish him with any amount OF
material for narrative in the way of
fish and snake stories and hairbreadth
escapes in hunting lions, leopards, ele-
plants, girafes, rhinoceroses and hippo
tami.
One of these African hunters of
Reiche's came over with the young hip.
pos now in the aquarium. His name ia
Schaumann. He is native of Amster.
dam, and he has visited Africa ten
times in as many different years for the
Reiches. He does not speak q word of
English, is q tawny-haired blonde, with
tawny beard and skin almost Is tawny-
tanned and parched in the deserts under
tropical suns. He vas with the expedi-
ton which brought the two young hip
pos back from Africa, along with seven
elephants, fifteen girafIes, twelve lions,
six ostrichee, twenty antelopes (among
which were fifteen Cood0o antelopes, one
horse and two COW antelopes), two leop-
ards, four wart hogs eighteen large
monkeys, one ant bear, two porcupines,
ten Egyptian geese, five secretary birds,
and two saddle-billed storkA
Schaumann's account of the manner
of capturing hippos and elephants is high
ly dramatic. The party with which he
went to Africa left Europe the frs: of
last September; and has Just returned
after an absence of nearly ten months.
They went last year, as they do every
year, by the way of the Suez canal, and
on steamer down the Red sea to Sun
kim, an Abyssinian port about half way
between the Suez canal and the straits
of Babelmandeb. At Sunkim they take
provisions, Arabs, and camels, and 70 by
land to Kassala in the heart of Nubia.
Here they change or rest their guards
and camels, and then they proceed from
fifteen to twenty days journey further
south, using camels along for the jour
ney, for it is through q desert land,
though not the Great Sahara. The route
is through a country diversified with
showers Of sand, savannas or prairie of
high grass, with stems a big Is mai,'s
finger, and along the shores or in the
beds Of rivers, lined all along with tall
baobab trees, (Adansonias of naturalists
and bumb trees of the Arabs, more ia
miliar to ordinary readers, ~ the bread
fruit tree of the tropics. The difficult
ties of the journey may be imagined,
when we are told that these rivers are
dry for nine or ten months of the year,
that the grass is so large and strong it is
difficult for a man or q camel to cut
through it, that all the water, and most
of the provisions must be carried on the
backs of the camels; that uninhabited
regions must be reached, because the
neighborhood of men would drive the
wild animals away, and that the fruit
of the baobab tree cannot be eaten by
Europeans without beating it against
stones to make it soft enough to bite.
The telegraph wires reach as far as Kas-
sala, but 30 treacherous are the natives,
it is necessary to have companies Of
Egyptian soldiers all along the route to
protect them. The operators are, many
Of them, Arabs; the most, however, are
Englishmen.
About ten or fifteen days journey
south of Kassala live the Homrans, .
famous tribe of African hunters. They
are sword hunters and elephant Killer,
but are experts at all kinds of hunting,
taking the young Of antelopes, elephants,
ostriches, hippos, rhinoceroses, lions, and
leapards with equal dexterity and skill.
When they hunt elephants they ride on
horseback. Two Homrans manage to
separate one elephant from the herd.
If it is q female with q young one, 70
much the better. One of tho Homrans
ON horseback attracts the attention Of
the elephant, and, while it pursues him,
the second Homran rushes up, Jumps
from his horse, and cuts the foot tendon
of the great creature from the back with
his sharp and heavy sword. By the
time the disabled elephant turns to pur-
sue him, he has reached his horse and Il
gallopiug of, and, - the beast pursuea
him, the first H0mran rushes up and
cuts the tendon of the other foot. After
the elephant is thus disabled, the rest Of
the party come up end finish it with big
elephant gums and balls which weigh
half i pound; or. If there sre no Euro.
peans with guns, the creature il left to
bleed to death, or Is dispatched with
Lunas.
The Schaumann-Reiche party tool
twenty Homrans with them last Septem.
Der, and pushed on to the region Of The
Atbara the Setith, and the Salem rivers
tributaries ofthe Nile. Whenever they
met native they inqni1sd about the
AssintA the native names Tor the hippo
potamus- Whenever they were told
that males and solitary females were in
the pools near BY the party rushed on
They were of no use TO the hunters ex
cept for fresh meat for the natives Tho