CHAPTER XLV 



Hunting the Giant Animals of the Dark Continent 



IN menageries of civilized lands we gaze with wonder and at times 

 with dread on the giant animals of Africa's plains, the huge, 

 lumbering elephant, the treacherous, horned rhinoceros, the 

 clumsy, water-haunting hippopotamus, the ferocious buffalo. But it 

 is another thing to face these mighty creatures in their native haunts, 

 free from bonds and bars, reigning in nature's majesty as lords of a 

 broad domain, and resenting with brute fury man's intrusion within 

 their empire. This Theodore Roosevelt, America's daring hunter, 

 was to learn in his first encounter with the lordly elephant, the tusked 

 and trunked monarch of the African plains. 



The story of this encounter is worth telling as one of imminent 

 peril and thrilling incident. Untrained in the work before him, igno- 

 rant of the peril he braved, he rashly invited death, and would have 

 met it but for the warning voice of his comrade, F. C. Selous, one of 

 the ablest and most experienced of African hunters. The incident in 

 question took place on May 14, about three weeks after the party had 

 reached the hunting fields and while they were yet new to the dan- 

 gerous work before them. The party of hunters on this occasion con- 

 sisted of Mr. Roosevelt, his son Kermit, and Mr. Selous, the three 

 having set out on a hunting excursion near Machukos. 



No report had come in of elephants in that vicinity and no 

 thought of meeting a herd of these huge creatures was in their minds 

 as they made their way over the grass-grown and brush-covered 

 plain. Animals, which are rarely out of sight in that part of Africa, 

 were visible in the distance, antelopes and other harmless creatures, 

 but the first to rouse in the minds of the party the hunter's thrill was 

 the sight of a dusky lion, moving half visibly through the tall grass 

 on its way homeward to its lair after its night's scout. A shot 



