THe American Museum Journal 
VoLUME XV 
APRIL, 1915 
NUMBER 4 
HUNTING THE AFRICAN BUFFALO’ 
ONE OF THE MOST DANGEROUS OF BIG-GAME ANIMALS IN BRITISH 
EAST AFRICA 
By Carl E. Akeley 
Illustrations from photographs by the Author 
HEN we first went to British 
East Africa in 1905, on inter- 
viewing the government offi- 
clals at Mombasa, we learned that our 
game license would not include buffalo. 
Buffalo were thought to be nearly ex- 
terminated as a result of the rinderpest 
of the early nineties. There were known 
to be a few herds however, and finally 
in view of the fact that the buffalo 
killed were to be used for scientific pur- 
poses, the officials consented to let us 
have five on payment of a license fee of 
five pounds each. The 
allowed us to hunt at the edge of the 
reserve at Kijabi where a small herd 
lived in the bush and forest of the Rift 
We were 
arrangement 
Valley and the escarpment. 
warned that it was very dangerous 
hunting them there because of the rather 
dense cover; that they were pugnacious 
and generally disagreeable creatures to 
hunt under such conditions. 
We arrived at Kijabi and the first 
afternoon out one of our party came up 
with a herd and killed a cow — the cow 
of the buffalo group of Chicago. This 
was a good beginning and we fully 
1 This story gives some idea of the danger and 
the hard work connected with shooting six African 
buffalo for the Field Museum, Chicago, in 1905. 
These specimens now form a group, recently 
mounted by Mr. Akeley in the elephant studio 
at the American Museum and shipped to Chicago 
for permanent installation there— THe Eprror. 
expected to have little difficulty in 
getting the complete series. Neverthe- 
less at the end of four weeks, having been 
on their trails nearly every day without 
securing another specimen, we gave up 
in despair. 
These particular buffalo had been 
much hunted and had become wary. 
More than once while carefully tracking 
a single animal through the bush, we 
were startled by the sudden stampede 
of our quarry. The animal having de- 
cided to rest perhaps, had turned back 
to one side of the trail where he had 
heard us or got our wind. More fre- 
quently no doubt, the explanation lay in 
the eddying currents of air caused by the 
high and forested escarpment overhang- 
ing the low hot valley. 
Later on during a month of collecting 
on the Mau Plateau at an altitude of 
from 7000 to 8000 feet, we spent some 
time hunting buffalo in the forests of 
that region but with no better success. 
We found only a couple of small herds 
and single animals, always in dense bush 
or forest. 
Some six months later, when we had 
met with no further success on the 
plateau, we gained permission from the 
government to go across the Tana River 
into Mount Kenya Province, which up 
to that time had been a closed district. 
We were in camp at Nairobi preparing 
151 
