The Eastern Congo 



or the Kwengo River, an affluent of the Kasai, which is easy 

 of approach in these days, up the mouth of the Congo River 

 to Kinshasa. Anyone who visits either of the places named 

 will not be disappointed in regard to the trophies they obtain, 

 July being the best month to select for the trip. 



Most people who have visited the South Kensington 

 Museum of Natural History are acquainted with, and have 

 stood and admired as I have done, the fine stuffed specimen 

 of the African elephant standing in the central hall of the 

 building. As this is one of my earliest endeavours in field- 

 naturalist's work, and moreover has a certain national im- 

 portance as being the largest stuffed mammal in the English 

 museums, I will begin my elephant hunting adventures with 

 the first published account of how I obtained it, and the diffi- 

 culties I had in getting the skin to England in one piece. 



Early in the year 1905, through the auspices of Sir E. Ray 

 Lankester, at that time director of the Natural History 

 Museum, it was decided to add to the mammalian collection 

 there an entire specimen of a male African elephant. Messrs. 

 Rowland Ward and Co., of Piccadilly, the well-known taxi- 

 dermists, were approached on the subject, and undertook 

 to obtain one up to the required height of eleven feet. As 

 the skin, fit to stuff, was required to be delivered in London 

 in one piece, more than one African hunter refused such an 

 arduous undertaking. Eventually, however, I, with many 

 misgivings, accepted the contract and set about the pre- 

 parations necessary for a prolonged expedition in search 

 of the father-of-all-the-elephants. 



Before I set out, I was well aware that the task of finding 

 an elephant reaching to eleven feet at the shoulder was no 

 easy one. For, in spite of the fact that on the border between 



228 



