Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-05-25
BY MARY L.. JOBE AKELEY.


r. UR African expedition was at last a
dream come true. 1t was Carl Axe
Iey's fifth journey and my own first
III in Brightest Africa" It marked
the realization of our dearest hope.
I We had two purposes, both of them close to
our hearts At last We were to begin here on
the Equator-in Kenya Colony and in Tan
Aanyika Territory "a collection for my nus
bands masterpiece of museum exhibition the
AFRICAN Hall of the American Museum OF
Natural History in New York. In addition we
were to visit the Kivu volcanoes in the Belgian
kongo-the most beautiful and primitive region
n, all Africa-and there in fulfillment OF the
mission intr,,sted to us by the Belgian govern
nnent to continue in the Pare National Albert
Ahe study of the mountain gorilla and his en-
Nironmert, a study which Carl had begun IN
3921.
caught my first glimpse of the game when
my husband and passed through the kenya
1545he Reserve en- route from MombaSa to
Nairobi While reveled in the sight OF these
ttrange denizens of the wilderness. my husband,
entering Africa for the fifth time to study and
collect, was saddened by the spectacle before
him. As he contrasted the Kenya Game Re-
SERVE on that morning in February 1926, with
the game fields he had known in 1895 and 1905
l-even in 1910-the few animals that we saw
there seemed to him the last pitiful survivors
of the primitive herds And this was in pro-
&ected territory!
nN our way to the northern frontier of
~ Kenya, a three and half day motor journey
over the foothills of Mount Kenya to Meru
and thence to the Northern Eusso Nyiro, saw
lAll told only five or six antelope. In this same
sterritory 20 years ago Col. Roosevelt and his
son Kermit had hunted successfully for Gland,
Hon, cheetah, gerenuk, buffalo, and at Meru
bona had obtained elephant and rhino.
Taking only six porters and our tent boys.
Carl and I, with r. c. Raddatz of the American
Museum staff, left the moSquito-infested swamp
ION the Theba on July 81.
We journeyed into Tanganyika for the ex-
,press purpose of playing" with lions and Of
sseeing and photographing of the last REM
snants of the great game herds that still survive
i'm fair but diminishing numbers in a few
lpockets In the hills and in unmolested stretches
.of the open plains. That We should ever see
seven . bit Of the old Africa as Carl had found
tH 30 years ago had grown to seem well nigh
impossible IS our months Of diffcult hunting
!for suitable specimens wore on. Here in Tan
t6anyika, because of heat, water scarcity and q
ifertain inaccessibility, the decimating gun Of
tthe sportsman has been less active than in
almost all areas of Kenya and Uganda. Here,
in anywhere, we might hope to find the UNI
tepoiled Africa we sought
To our profound disappointment we saw in
% vast area only one small herd, though every
iNhere was abundant grass. Previously we had
feeen but two or three struggling animals
Five months in Africa had passed and we
thad not seen a lion. On the Athi Plains we
had one day walked along donga where
1.-Two had been killed the evening before, and
ON the northern frontier we had occasionally
seen the impression of an enormous pad in
the sandy track of the open veldt. Lions in
:Kenya are view and far between, and even on
the Mau and the Uasin Gishu Plateau, where
I'm 1906 Carl had killed his far-famed mag
nificent black named lion of Molo-the first
tblack-maned lion killed in British East Africa
they are scarcely more than a memory.
We went on to the camp of George Eastman
.ef Rochester, who had Martin johnson in his
party. We were told that 40 Lumbwa spearmen
were expected to come in for q lion hunt and
that motion pictures were to be made of this
time-honored native ceremonial.
It is not a difficult matter to persuade band
of African natives to stage lion hunt for the
white man. Such drama was arranged for
Theodore Roosevelt when he arrived at Sergoi
Lake in 1910 and he gives thrilling account
of It In the pages of African Game Trails"
Eight hundred Nandi warriors accepted the
invitation to participate in this lion hunt and
great was the disappointment Of the blacks
when only so or 20 of their number were
chosen. Roosevelt attributed their eagerness to
the fact that the peace imposed upon the
African tribes by British rule left lion spearing
one of the few pursuits in which a young war
rior could win renown.
ONCE in 1910. in the midst of his exhausting
hunt for elephant for the American Mu-
0euR Of Natural History. my husband seeking