Scribner’s Magazine 
VOL. XLVII FEBRUARY, 1910 NO. 2 
AFRICAN GAME TRAILS* 
AN ACCOUNT OF THE AFRICAN WANDERINGS OF AN AMERICAN 
HUNTER-NATURALIST 
BY THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
Illustrations from photographs by Kermit Roosevelt and other members 
OF THE EXPEDITION 
V.—A BUFFALO-HUNT BY THE KAMITI. 
EATLEY’S RANCH com¬ 
prises twenty thousand acres 
lying between the Rewero 
and Kamiti Rivers. It is 
seventeen miles long, and 
four across at the widest 
place. It includes some as beautiful bits of 
natural scenery as can well be imagined, and 
though Heatley—a thorough farmer, and the 
son and grandson of farmers—was making 
it a successful farm, with large herds of cat¬ 
tle, much improved stock, hundreds of acres 
under cultivation, a fine dairy, and the like, 
yet it was also a game reserve such as could 
not be matched either in Europe or America. 
From Juja Farm we marched a dozen miles 
and pitched ourtentclose beside the Kamiti. 
The Karmti is a queer little stream, run¬ 
ning for most of its course through a broad 
swamp of tall papyrus. Such a swamp is 
•almost impenetrable. The papyrus grows 
to a height of over twenty feet, and the stems 
are so close together that in most places it is 
impossible to see anything at a distance of 
six feet. Ten yards from the edge, when with¬ 
in the swamp, I was wholly unable to tell in 
which direction the open ground lay, and 
■could get out only by either following my 
back track or listening for voices. Under- 
* Copyright, 1910, by Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 
U. S. A. i! rights reserved, including that of translation 
into foreign languages, including the Scandinavian. 
foot, the mud and water are hip-deep. This 
swamp was the home of a herd of buffalo 
numbering perhaps a hundred individuals. 
They are semi-aquatic beasts, and their 
enormous strength enables them to plough 
through the mud and water and burst their 
way among the papyrus-stems without the 
slightest difficulty, whereas a man is nearly 
helpless when once he has entered the reed- 
beds. They had made paths hither and 
thither across the swamp, these paths being 
three feet deep in ooze and black water. 
There were little islands in the swamp on 
which they could rest. Toward its lower 
end, w’here it ran into the Nairobi, the 
Kamiti emerged from the papyrus swamp 
and became a rapid brown stream of water 
with only here and there a papyrus cluster 
along its banks. 
The Nairobi, which cut across the lower 
end of the farm, and the Rewero, which 
bounded it on the other side from the Ka¬ 
miti, were as different as possible from the 
latter. Both were rapid streams broken 
by riffle and waterfall, and running at the 
bottom of tree-clad valleys. The Nairobi 
Falls, which were on Heatley’s Ranch, were 
singularly beautiful. Heatley and I visited 
them one evening after sunset, coming home 
from a day’s hunt. It was a ride I shall 
long remember. We left our men, and let 
Special Notice.—T hes 
in effect July 1st, 1909, which imposes 
Copyright, 1910, by Charles Scribner’s Sons. All rights reserved. 
VOL. XLVII.—16 
