Scribner’s Magazine 
VOL. XLVIII SEPTEMBER, 1910 NO. 3 
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 
XII.—THE GREAT RHINOCEROS OF THE LADO 
HE region of which I speak northward, its waters stretched behind us 
is a dreary region in Lib- beyond the ken of vision, to where they 
ya, by the borders of the were fed by streams from the Mountains of 
river Zaire. And there is the Moon. On our left hand rose the 
no quiet there nor silence, frowning ranges on the other side of 
The waters of the river which the Congo forest lies like a shroud 
have a saffron hue, and for many miles on over the land. On our right we passed 
either side of the river’s oozy ’bed is a pale the mouth of the Victorian Nile, alive 
desert of gigantic water-lilies . . . and I with monstrous crocodiles, and its banks 
stood in the morass among the tall lilies barren of human life because of the swarms 
and the lilies sighed one unto the other in of the fly whose bite brings the torment 
the solemnity of their desolation. And all which ends in death. As night fell we 
at once the moon arose through the thin entered the White Nile, and steamed and 
ghastly mist, and was crimson in color, drifted down the mighty stream. Its cur- 
. . . And the man looked out upon the rent swirled in long curves between end- 
dreary river Zaire, and upon the yellow less ranks of plumed papyrus. White, and 
ghastly waters, and upon the pale legions blue, and red the floating water-lilies cov- 
of the water-lilies. . . . Then I went down ered the lagoons and the still inlets among 
into the recess of the morass, and waded the reeds; and here and there the lotus 
afar in among the wilderness of the lilies, lifted its leaves and flowers stiffly above the 
and called unto the hippopotami which surface. The brilliant tropic stars made 
dwelt among the fens in the recesses of lanes of light on the lapping water as we 
the morass.” I was reading Poe, on the ran on through the night. The river 
banks of the Upper Nile; and surely his horses roared from the reed beds, and 
“fable” does deserve to rank with the snorted and plunged beside the boat, and 
“tales in the volumes of the Magi—in crocodiles slipped'sullenly into the river 
the ironbound, melancholy volumes of the as we glided by. Toward morning a mist 
Magi.” arose and through it the crescent of the 
We had come down through the second dying moon shone red and lurid. Then 
of the great Nyanza lakes. As we sailed the sun flamed aloft and soon the Afri- 
*c°p yri ght 191°, t> y char i es Scribner’s s° ns , Ne w Yor k, can landscape, vast, lonely, mysterious, 
into foreign languages, including the Scandinavian. stretched on every side in a shimmering 
Special Notice. —These articles are fully protected under the new copyright law in effect July ist, 1909, which imposes 
a severe penalty for infringement. 
Copyright, 1910, by Charles .Scribner’s Sons. All rights reserved. 
Vol. XLVIII.—25 
