8 
THE ROOSEVELT HUNT . 
fully earned by the Somalis. Besides such invaluable native hunters, a safari 
must have a number of Somali ponies and Abyssinian mules. 
An outfit for one man will usually consist of a white safari (or party) 
leader, a headman, gun-bearer, cook, mess-boy and tent-boy (all Somalis); 
from twenty to twenty-five native porters; tents, beds and provisions—all 
furnished at from $3.50 to $5.00 per month. 
As on all subjects under the sun, experts disagree as to the most effective 
weapons and balls to be used on big game. Heavy-bore rifles have, as a rule, 
been discarded, and perhaps the favorites of the present day are English 
double-barreled .450 cordite for big game, and a magazine rifle of .256 to .350 
for deer and smaller quadrupeds. Upon one point the hunters of big African 
game now generally agree, that is, “Avoid throwing your lead into the ani¬ 
mals, unless you have a fair chance of reaching brain, heart or spine”; for 
such is their extraordinary vitality that, irrespective of hits, they run the 
faster if the bullet does not strike a vital organ. When a hartbeest bull will 
carry nine big Mauser bullets in his carcass for two miles before slowing up, 
and a “hippo” twenty-two 303^ before admitting himself beaten, it is the wise 
part of the hunter to wait for his opportunity to get a fairly fatal shot. 
THE TRUE AFRICAN SPORTSMAN. 
Theodore Roosevelt is built on the lines of the true African sportsman, 
who glories in the fact that there is no land in the world which offers such 
hazard of limb and life, in the pursuit of game, as his own. Not one of his 
big game but will easily carry as much imbedded lead as the grizzly bear; and 
bruin cannot compare with the lion, buffalo, elephant or rhinoceros in the im¬ 
petuosity of his charge. The old and true African hunter has nothing but the 
most intense scorn for the white who would poison a lion or a leopard, and has 
even little patience with him who lays set guns or traps. In the interests of 
science, the capture of smaller animals may be thus made, but it is to the 
typical African hunter an exhibition of inexcusable cowardice for a man to 
thus destroy big game. When there is more than one white hunter in the 
party, it is customary for true sportsmen to agree before setting out upon the 
division of the killings and the order of first shots, some even preferring to 
pitch their camps at least twenty miles apart in order to avoid any crossing of 
lines or conflicting claims. 
The idea is rather exploded that, in order to get the most out of a big- 
game hunt, one must go into it without taking comfortable tents, an abun- 
