In Wildest Africa -^ 



in various stages of development and age are much 

 needed, or to protect the natives who were menaced 

 by lions, or whose relatives had perhaps been seized 

 by them. 



It is the more necessary to have recourse to traps in 

 that one may spend years hunting in Equatorial East Africa 

 without getting a single chance of firing a shot at a Hon. 

 The hunt has to take place at night, for the lion leads 

 a nocturnal life, and makes off into inaccessible thickets 

 by day. 



But what I was most anxious to do was to secure a 

 specimen or two that I could bring alive to Europe. To 

 do this, I required the lightest possible and most portable 

 iron cages, which should yet be strong enough to resist 

 every effort of the imprisoned animals to get free. This 

 problem was solved for me as well as it could be by 

 Professor Heck, the Director of the Berlin Zoological 

 Gardens. Yet even he declared it to be impossible to 

 make such cages under 330 lbs. in weight. For the 

 transport of one such cage the services of six bearers would 

 be necessary. I arranged for several such cages to be sent 

 oversea to Tanga, and took them thence into the interior. 

 Thus I had the assurance of keeping my captives in security, 

 but first I had to get hold of them without hurting them. 

 By means of a modified form of iron traps I was able to 

 manage this eventually. Those who are not acquainted 

 with the difficulties of transport in countries where every- 

 thing has to be borne on men's shoulders will hardly 

 be able to realise the straits to which one may be put. 

 Thus I was much hampered, when carrying back my 



484 



