166 IN BRIGHTEST AFRICA 
baffle walls, makes economical floor and roof slabs, 
and is being used extensively in putting up walls of 
buildings that are permanent and fireproof. 
My next trip to Africa in 1909 also served to de- 
velop another activity besides taxidermy. One of 
the principal objects of this trip was to get moving 
pictures of the Nandi spearing lions. However, I 
found that you can’t stage a native lion hunt with 
any certainty, for neither the lion nor the native, 
once the action begins, pays any attention to the 
movie director. In order to have even a fair chance 
of following the action with a camera you need one 
that you can aim up, down, or in any direction with 
about the same ease that you can point a pistol. 
There were no movie cameras like this, and after fail- 
ing to get pictures of several lions I determined not 
to go to Africa again until I had one. 
When I got home I set to work on the problem and 
after much experimentation completed a working 
model that bore no likeness to the conventional mo- 
tion-picture apparatus. To one familiar with the old 
types of camera the Akeley resembled a machine 
gun quite as much as it resembled acamera. During 
the war I used to say that the boys who operated it 
would be well protected and Photop/ay in January, 
1919, related a story of the American advance in 
France which bore out my opinion. While setting 
up the machine to make some shots in a still-burning 
and newly occupied village, a young lieutenant was 
confronted suddenly by seven Germans. Mistaking 
his formidable film apparatus for a new type cf Yan- 
