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Out of Africa Out of Africa Whenever I listen to John Barry’s majestic hunter Denys Finch Hatton. Out of Africa is credited theme music for the movie Out of Africa, I visualize as having helped greatly to popularize the continent’s standing on top of the escarpment overlooking the spectacular scenery and amazing animal kingdoms, Mara Triangle in Kenya, dotted with the familiar encouraging thousands to go on safari. umbrella-like acacia trees —and elephants grazing. “We often talked of the safaris that we had been on,” Released in the early nineties, this block-buster Karen Blixen wrote. “Camping places fix themselves movie featured Meryl Streep and Robert Redford in your mind as if you had spent long periods of your as Danish author Karen Blixen and her lover, British life in them. You will remember a curve of your wagon track in the grass of the plain, like the features of a friend.” Karin Blixen and Finch Hatton Meryl Streep and Robert Redford Elephants on the Mara Plains © Les de Villiers Writing under the pen name Isak Dinesen, this ing form of insanity.” In his case the killing of anything lady from Denmark, who settled on a coffee farm from eland to buffalo was purely a matter of supple- near Nairobi, was, of course, only one of numerous menting food along his long and arduous journeys into prominent personalities who brought Africa and its the interior of Africa. He deplored even the slaughter joys to the attention of the outside world. of crocodiles and quite accurately predicted the near- extinction of the white rhino. Even though the big rush of hunters to Africa was he safari saga started in South Africa in the T largely, albeit unintentionally, sparked by Livingstone’s eighteenth century with the likes of pioneer Boer writings, he is not the only one to blame. There were trekkers, explorer Livingstone and dedicated hunters several notable hunters who visited Africa long before like Cornwallis Harris before it spread to East Africa Livingstone and through their writings also inspired where, among others, Teddy Roosevelt, British royalty others to follow suit. and Hemingway featured. During his travels in Southern Africa in 1845, Dr. David Livingstone was asked by Tswana tribesmen to dispose of a lion that was running havoc among their highly valued cattle. All in a day’s job of trying to win souls, the missionary obliged. The lion charged straight at Livingstone who fired but failed to stop it. During the mauling that followed the lion was killed by a white hunter in the party. Livingstone sustained serious injuries. In his own detailed account of the attack inTravels and Researches in South Africa, published in London and New York, Livingstone recalled being shaken by the lion until he lost his senses, as a cat does with a mouse—sparing him pain as he went into shock. Cornwallis’ drawing of himself chasing giraffe on horseback Cornwallis Harris lays claim to be the first bona fide foreign hunter in Africa. In 1836, suffering from a bad bout of fever while serving in the British army in India, Harris was sent to South Africa to recuperate. He turned his convalescence into a two-year hunting safari. While Harris never pretended to shoot for anything but sport, his elaborate drawings and diaries—published in The Wild Sports of Southern Africa and Portraits of the Game and Wild Animals of Southern Africa—revealed someone with a strong conservationist streak. Harris compared a safari to a ship going to sea, self- To Livingstone’s dismay his account and the accom- contained and surrounded by an ocean of nature. He panying drawing of him lying helplessly under the lion, was every bit as concerned about preserving the ocean caught the eye of many a hunter in England in search as he was about keeping the ship intact. He also knew of excitement beyond mundane bird and deer shoot- that without nature as the ocean there would be no ing at home. The rush started. sailing safaris. On his return to India in December 1837 Livingstone drew a clear distinction between hunt- he found a keen audience among his comrades for his ing to eat and indiscriminate shooting for the sheer fascinating stories and a ready readership among the pleasure of killing—to which he referred as “the hunt- world’s hunting fraternity for his writings. ers—armed with elementary muzzle loaders courtesy Roualeyn George Gordon-Cumming read Harris’ book of Arab traders in need of ivory to feed the growing in the officer’s mess in India, resigned his commission demand at the London auction houses. and set off to South Africa. He spent five years on hunting safaris. Soon his book, The Lion Hunter of Rotting elephant carcasses became a common sight South Africa, published in 1850, further inspired others on the African countryside as the hackers joined the to follow the trail. hunters in this mass slaughter for profit. In 1875 breech-loading rifles started replacing old-fashioned muzzle loaders, enabling even the most mediocre and incompetent among marksman to bag the big ones. The scales had tipped towards the hunter. English-born Florence Baker was not the first woman to accompany her hunter husband Samuel Baker when she joined him on safari in the 1860s. Boer wives were often present at the shoot and Livingstone’s wife Mary at times went along with her husband on hunting trips. Florence was, however, the first to actively participate and even to lead some of Gordon-Cumming hunting rhino her husband’s safaris. She is also credited for having Among them was the restless William Charles designed the first khaki safari garb. After her came Baldwin who, on learning that a local Boer hunter, the likes of Mary Kingsley, Agnes Herbert, and in the Petrus Jacobs, had single-handedly killed more than early 1900s Beryl Markham and Karen Blixen. five hundred bulls, lamented that the days of elephant While Blixen’s writings under the pseudonym Isak hunting might soon be numbered. Jacobs was, of Dinesen have long been on the reading list of every- course, a sad aberration among the Boers who had little one interested in the romantic past in safari country, taste or time for hunting as a sport and simply shot for Beryl Markham’s book, West with the Night, has re- the pot. Dried venison cently regained promi- or biltong (similar to nence. Born in Britain as jerky) served them well Beryl Clutterbuck, she on their ox wagon trek became known in Kenya into the interior. as Markham by stick- Most of Africa’s early ing with the last name white trophy hunters of her second husband. and adventurers were As the first woman to British—later to be fly nonstop across the followed by Germans Atlantic from east to and Americans. Soon west Markham was elephants were no also a “marksman” and longer shot for the horse trainer as well as mere thrill of the kill or a prominent member of for their plentiful meat, colorful Nairobi expatri- but for greed. ate society. Among her In East Africa by the conquests was Finch mid-19th century, ac- Hatton after he broke up In the 19th Century Samuel Baker’s wife cording to old trading with Karen Blixen. Beryl Markham Florence stitched together a loose-fitting earth-colored garment of his own design. and auction records, In 1928 the Prince of The material was white cotton dyed with 30,000 elephants were Wales arrived in Nairobi to enjoy its nightlife before juice extracted from wild fruits. This was killed each year, mostly proceeding into the bush for a hunt with Denys Finch the forerunner of today’s popular khaki- colored safari garb. by gangs of tribal hunt- Hatton and Brör Blixen, Karen’s ex-husband. The Prince left his younger brother Henry (later known as the In February 1952, the 25-year old Princess Elizabeth Duke of Gloucester) in town where he had a fling with and her husband Prince Philip visited Kenya on their a local married celebrity and Beryl Markham. It was way to Australasia. When she emerged from their suite rumored that he sired a boy with Markham and pay- at the Treetops Hotel on the morning of 6 February ing her a modest pension for this careless oversight —a 1952, she was informed that she was the new sovereign story denied by Buckingham Palace. as her father passed away during the night. The hotel where a princess became a queen overnight has been rebuilt since it was burned down in the late fifties. It is still a favorite stopover for safarigoers. The British hunter Jim Corbett, who was also staying at Treetops at the time, later wrote the now famous lines in the visitors’ log book: “For the first time in the history of the world, a young girl climbed into a tree one day a Princess and after having what she described as her most thrilling experience she climbed down from the tree next day a Queen.” Queen Elizabeth II continued the safari habit but refrained from shooting. Her husband, Prince Philip, at one time an avid hunter himself, became a prominent The Prince of Wales (right) on the hunt with Brör spokesman for conservation as President of the World Blixen (left) and Finch Hatton (middle) Wildlife Fund. Hunting is called a royal sport for a good rea- son. For as long as Europe had kings and queens, Foremost among those who brought Africa and there were fox hunts and bird shoots—and before its fascinating fauna to the attention of the outside they became extinct, boar hunts.
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