ROOSEVELT IN WILDS OF BRITISH EAST AFRICA 
403 
On this ranch J. H. Judd, a professional hunter, took part in the 
Roosevelt raids, and helped him in a successful hunt, in which he 
added to his record specimens of the stately waterbuck and the beau¬ 
tiful impalla, one of the most graceful of antelopes. On this same 
day's hunt game of a different character fell to Roosevelt's lot, for he 
had the good fortune to kill a python, the great serpent of the African 
forests. Some of these monsters of the snake, family grow to the 
length of twenty feet, with a girth in proportion. The one killed on 
this occasion was twelve feet long and weighed about forty pounds. 
As seems to have been somewhat usual, Kermit had his adventure 
on this occasion. He had put up a leopard, an animal which, despite 
the fact that it is much smaller than the lion, surpassed it in courage 
and ferocity, as the youthful hunter was to learn. The leopard had 
taken to the bush and as Kermit approached it made a fierce charge 
upon him, being less than twenty feet distant when he pulled trigger 
and stopped its charge with a bullet. 
Taking to the bush again, the beast crouched growling and as a 
beater came incautiously near made a sudden spring from its lair. 
McMullen, who was close by, gave it a second wound, but the badly 
hurt animal seized the beater and but for its weakened state and the 
strength of the powerful black would have torn him badly with its 
teeth and claws. 
Thrown off by the negro and hit again by McMullen, it took 
refuge in the long grass. But the fight was not yet taken out of the 
furious beast, and as Kermit drew near it charged him again. This 
time his bullet went true and the ferocious creature fell dead. - 
During his hunting on this ranch Roosevelt added to his record 
some of the great beasts of the African wilds. On one of his outings 
he went out with the purpose of seeking crocodiles and hippopotami in 
the Athi River. He found traces of them, but was disturbed in his 
hunt in an unexpected way. His first glimpse of a crocodile consisted 
in the show of a snout, only the eyes and nostrils appearing above 
the water. A hippopotamus next came into view, but while endeavor¬ 
ing to get within rifle range of it there came a wild thrashing of the 
nearby bushes and the huge hulk of a rhinoceros suddenly broke into 
the open. 
