Seeking African Gold and Game 
Following a Gold Rumor to Lake Rudolph—Troublesome 
Rhinos amd Why they are so—A Good Bull 
Elephant—Fever—Colors of Gold 
By JOHN A. M. LETHBRIDGE 
I HAD long wished to make a journey to Lake 
Rudolph, in part for the sport, but chiefly to 
search for gold'—that elusive thing that we 
are all looking for and generally in vain. Re¬ 
ports had reached me of the marvelous alluvial 
fields there and how the natives carried about 
gold dust in quills. A few Arab traders had 
been there and with one of them, a certain Ali, 
my partner and I had talked, but in spite of 
bribery and every device we could use he proved 
obdurate and would not talk freely. At length 
my partner was ca.led to England. From time 
to time Ali would come to my hut and talk to 
me and the hints he gave made the desire to get 
there more fierce. At length, in spite of the hard¬ 
ships of the trip, one of the chief of which was 
lack of water, I made up my mind to try it, even 
if I went alone. 
Somewhere in that neighborhood there is any 
amount of gold I have no doubt, but whether it 
is brought from Abyssinia or where it comes 
from is still a matter of conjecture. I found 
gold, but in very small quantities, and the lack 
of water made prospecting hopeless for me, 
though I still believe that an expedition prop¬ 
erly equipped and able to take its time to pros¬ 
pect that country thoroughly would meet with 
success. Such an undertaking would require en¬ 
gineering and arranging and would have to be 
carried out on a large scale and would re¬ 
quire provisions sufficient to last a year if neces¬ 
sary. 
As far as I could make out the journey would 
occupy at least eight months if I took things 
fairly easy, but as I was a free lance, it made 
little difference whether I took more or less. A 
few weeks were devoted to my outfit, which l 
made as light as possible. As medicines I took 
plenty of quinine, permanganate of potash, car¬ 
bolic acid, some aperient medicines and a few 
bandages. When you have these you have prac¬ 
tically all you can carry and all that are needed 
in most cases. I took also a few trade goods 
such as calico, wire and beads, but more for the 
purpose of making presents than for trading. 
My battery consisted of a double .303 and a 
double .450-400 rifle, shooting sixty grains of 
cordite. This rifle is perfect for dangerous game, 
hut in spite of a pneumatic pad, the recoil is very 
great. A heavy rifle is a necessity in some cases, 
but for all ordinary shooting I used my .303, and 
a beautiful weapon it was, coming up just like 
a shotgun. It never got out of order, and in 
spite of several years’ rough usage is still in 
first rate condition. The ammunition question 
was next to be solved and this was a rather hard 
proposition. The Government does not care to 
have any one individual carry too much of this. 
I got over the difficulty by buying from another 
sportsman his whole stock of .303, which was 
all properly packed in airtight boxes. This was 
a great piece of luck, and as he was returning 
to England, it was entirely useless to him, and 
he was only too glad to be able to get rid of it. 
I also took a twelve-bore shotgun, which is a 
very useful thing both for the pot and for col¬ 
lecting specimens. I had also a magazine pistol, 
a tried friend, which 1 had carried during and 
since the South African war. People say that the 
magazine pistol is not dangerous. I think in the 
hands of a person who does not exactly know 
its mechanism, it is. I remember a friend of 
mine presented me with this one. While in my 
rooms in London, showing me how it worked, 
he pointed the barrel straight at my stomach. I 
was dressing for dinner at the time and ventured 
to say, “Please point the barrel away from me.” 
A moment afterward, bang it went, through the 
floor and the next man’s ceiling and into his 
floor. Luckily he was not in at the time, but I 
received summary notice to quit and had to pay 
£2 for damage to the floors and ceilings. With 
this weapon I could do good execution on ordi¬ 
nary buck up to 200 yards, although I think you 
wound more than you kill. 
My tent was an ordinary canvas one with fly 
and ground sheet. This is an absolute necessity 
in these climates and op a long trip makes all 
the difference between comfort and discomfort. 
After all it is best to be as comfortable as pos¬ 
sible. 
I left the Uganda railway at Naivasha. I give 
one word of advice to anyone wishing to go into 
this country; when taking a trip of this kind it 
is best to keep your purpose to yourself. The 
paternal government is very curious and has a 
knack of trying to stop people; why 1 do not 
know. The officials seem to think that one is 
not capable of taking care of himself and they 
must have the onus of so doing. This is very 
kind, but at times is apt to be rather trouble¬ 
some. 
My head boy was a Somali and a first-rate 
fellow he was in all respects, except that he was 
rather too fond of having his own way, but that 
is a very common thing with a Somali, and the 
more they have to do with white men, the more 
conceited they become, and with this class there 
is only one thing to do—kick them out. You 
cannot give them a beating as one'can an ordi¬ 
nary negro. I relied upon a Swahili boy to show 
me the road, and all through the trip he proved 
himself the best of the whole crowd. Eli was 
his name and he was like Eli in many respects. 
The rest of the porters were a heterogeneous 
crowd, but they soon got into good working 
'order, though at first we took very easy marches 
to get them accustomed to their work. At the 
same time their loads were very light. I had a 
camera with me and took many very fine pic¬ 
tures, but I lost the whole lot with a very few 
exceptions on my way home after having car¬ 
ried them hundreds -of miles. 
The first part of our journey was easy travel¬ 
ing over rolling hills fed over by great numbers 
of antelope. We came across several rhinoceros, 
two of which charged through the safari, but 
without doing any damage. The annoying part 
was getting the-boys together again, for on the 
advent of the rhino, down went the loads in 
every direction and away went the boys. Rhinos 
are a great nuisance. They are so pugnacious 
that even if left quite alone they will not let 
you pass by in peace, but must start hostilities. 
Meat was easily obtained and there was plenty 
of water. A few days later the character of the 
country changed and we came to any amount of 
elephant sign. We passed through dense areas 
of timber and then came out into large grassy 
parks. In one of these I saw two cow elephants, 
and after a rather difficult stalk got a most per¬ 
fect photograph. The grass was long and every¬ 
thing was favorable and I got up to within 
twenty-five feet of them and snapped them and 
was a good one hundred yards on my return 
journey, when in some way they scented danger 
and dashed away. Up went their trunks, trying 
to locate my whereabouts, and they were off. I 
had Hassan the Somali with me carrying my 
heavy rifle, so that had they charged I could 
probably have turned them. 
After making camp the next day the boys 
called me out and said there was a large herd 
of e’ephants close by, but whether there were 
any good bulls among them they could not tell. 
I determined, instead of marching the next day, 
to stay where I was, and should there be a good 
bull among them, to try to bag him. The fol¬ 
lowing day we found a good many cows and 
young bulls, but nothing big, but from the sign 
could see there were two large bulls somewhere.. 
I devoted three more days to looking for them,. 
