THe AMERICAN Museum JourRNAL 
VOLUME XV 
NOVEMBER, 1915 
NUMBER 7 
ELEPHANT HUNTING ON MOUNT KENYA 
A WOMAN WINS THE RECORD PAIR OF ELEPHANT TUSKS FOR A 
SPORTSMAN’S LICENSE IN BRITISH EAST AFRICA 
By Carl E. Akeley 
Illustrations from photographs by the Author 
N the past months we had hunted 
with but poor success in the dismal 
bamboo forests below the summit 
of Abadare. We had plodded up and 
down slippery leaf-strewn trails worn in 
places by the passing of generations of 
elephants into giant stairways, the steps 
of which could be easily managed by 
elephants, by even a toddling youngster 
of only half a ton weight, but which 
to puny man were exceedingly difficult 
of negotiation, even with the helping 
hand of a companion or the aid of a 
projecting root or convenient bamboo. 
We had been enticed back and forth 
through the icy waters of mountain 
streams, Bibi! carried on the shoulders 
of stalwart natives. We had bivouacked 
many a dark night on the trail around a 
At alittle 
distance on one. side always blazed 
blazing fire of dead bamboo. 
another fire where the Masai trackers 
and Kikuyu guide, stripped to the waist, 
prepared their food. On the other side 
still a third fire crackled in the mudgt of 
a busy group of gun-bearers and portiss, 
Swahili, Myamwezi, Kamba and Baz 
ganda. Under such conditions Bit: 
snugly rolled in her blankets fell_asleepe = 
1 Bibi, pronounced as though spelled “‘ Beebe,’” ~. 
is Swahili for ““woman’’ and the name by which 
Mrs. Akeley was known among the native mem- 
bers of the expedition. 
323 
scart 
. My a 
