Daily Arizona silver belt., 1909-02-25
'ROOSEVELT'S FAMOUS HUNTING
 TRIP TO SOUTH AFRICA


Theodore Roosevelt, fifty years or age, having on March 4, with his retire ment as twenty-sixth president of the United States, completed over twenty five years of public service, has decided to take rest and recreation in two years trip abroad, half of which will be spent in Africa under the British flag as faunal naturalist and the other half in Europe visiting at least three of the big capitals At the head of sci entifc expedition omitted by the Smithsonian Institution of Washington, be will, with his son Kermit, and three American naturalists of note-Major Edgar A. Mearns, J. Loring Alden and Edmund Heller--make collection of mammals, birds, reptiles, insects and botanical specimens of Central Africa, which will be deposited in the United States National Museum at Washing ton.
 The party leave New York about the middle of March, going by the Medi- terranean route to Gibraltar and Naples. At Naples the members of the expedi- ton will board & steamer of the Ger. man East African line for Kilindini harbor, Mombasa Island. They win ar rive at the East African port toward the end of April, proceed by the Ugan- da Railway to Nairobi, spend six months there, then continue by rail to Port Florence. Lake Victoria Nyanza, making total distance of 584 mics by rail. The expedition will cross Uganda by caravan, and, finally pass down the whole length of the Nile, reaching Khartoum about April, 1910. Much of the hunting and specimen col lecting will be donc fn British East Africa, where the Uganda railway will be used as 6 means of ready transpor. tation from Nairobi, which will be the base of supplies.
 At Khartoum, it is expected the pres ident and his son will be joined by Mrs. Roosevelt, who will accompany them on their trip to Europe. The nat uralists of the party will proceed di- rect to the United States from Egypt. NIT. Roosevelt probably will remain in Continental Europe and Great Britain about one year, having accepted invi. tations to deliver the Romanes Lecture at Oxford Universitiy, an Address at the Sorbonne. in Paris and lecture before the students of the University of Berlin.
 Long has it been the desire of Mr. Roosevelt to make hunting tour into the heart of Africa. He has made nun. erous trips in search of big game in every part of the United States where such animals make their abode. For years he has been an ardent hunter and a writer of hunting stories. Some ,of his books on the subject are 'sHunting Trips of a Ranehman." written from his experiences while on n North Dako- ta ranch, when he spent two years rais- ing cattle; "Ranch Life and Hunting Trail, "The Wilderness Hunter, u "The Deer Family" "outdoor Pas. times of an American Hunter. In the latter volume he refers to the sport in these words:
 From the days of Nimrod to our own there have been mighty hunters before the Lord, and most warlike and masterful races have taken kindly to the chase, as chief among those rough pastimes which appeal naturally to men with plenty of red blood in their veins.p
 One might think Mir. Roosevelt de. sires to emulate the earlier among the great conquering kings of Egypt and Assyria whom, he says, hunted the ele- phant and the wild bull, as well as the lions with which the country swarmed; and Tiglath-Pileser the First, who as over-lord of Phoenicia embarked on the Mediterranean and there killed "sea monster, presumably a whale-a feat which, Mir. Roosevelt declares "has been paralleled by no sport-loving soy. ereign of modern times, save by that stout hunter, the German kaiser; al though, l believe, the present English king, like several members of his fam. fly, has slain both elephants and tigers before he came to the throne.''
 Speaking of the great hunting grounds of the world, MT. Roosevelt says that there remain only three in the present century. South Africa is the true hunters paradise, in his opinion. If the happy hunting grounds are to be found anywhere in this world, he says, they lay between the Orange and the Zambesi, and extend northward here and there in the Nile countries and Somaliland. . Nowehere else are there such multitrdes of game, representing so many and such widely different kinds of animals of such size, such beauty. such infinite variety. "we should have to go back to the fauna of Pleistocene to go its equal" It is to this section of the world that he is now bound.
 Having been in public life almost con tinually since he was graduated from Harvard University in 1s8O-serving the people in the capacity of assembly man in New York state, civil service commissioner of the United States, xA