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In April 1909, T.R. and his son Kermit arrived in Mombasa. With an entourage of 250 porters and guides, the Roosevelts spent a year snaking across British East Africa, into the Belgian Congo and back to the Nile, ending in Khartoum. This narrative is a straightforward chronicle of the trip, laced with tips on tracking and hunting African big game, and observations and opinions about Africa and its peoples, many of which are politically incorrect by today's standards. T.R. believed in the inferiority of most African peoples and recommended they be civilized by European rule.
For the most part, however, African Game Trails is a book about big game hunting. Over the course of the year, the Roosevelts collected (i.e. shot) 1,100 specimens, including eleven elephants, twenty rhinoceroses, seventeen lions, twenty zebra, seven hippopotamuses, seven giraffes, and six buffalo. This was a different era, to be sure. In a way that makes the account all the more valuable:
"Slatter and I immediately rode in the direction given, following our wild-looking guide; the other gun-bearer trotting after us. In five minutes we had reached the opposite hillcrest, where the watcher stood, and he at once pointed out the rhino. The huge beast was standing in entirely open country, although there were a few scattered trees of no great size at some little distance from him. We left our horses in a dip of the ground and began the approach; I cannot say that we stalked him, for the approach was too easy. The wind blew from him to us, and a rhino's eyesight is dull.
"Thirty yards from where he stood was a bush four or five feet high, and through the leaves, it shielded us from the vision of his small, piglike eyes as we advanced toward it, stooping and in single file, I leading. The big beast stood like an uncouth statue, his hide black in the sunlight; he seemed what he was, a monster surviving over from the world's past, from the days when the beasts of the prime ran riot in their strength, before man grew so cunning of brain and hand as to master them. So little did he dream of our presence that when we were a hundred yards off he actually lay down.
"Walking lightly, and with every sense keyed up, we at last reached the bush, and I pushed forward the safety of the double-barreled Holland rifle which I was now to use for the first time on big game. As I stepped to one side of the bush so as to get a clear aim, with Slatter following, the rhino saw me and jumped to his feet with the agility of a polo pony. As he rose I put in the right barrel, the bullet going through both lungs. At the same moment he wheeled, the blood spouting from his nostrils, and galloped full on..."
African Games Trails is well-written and rolls along easily, like a good, long, after-dinner story. It is also a striking record of early 20th-century African culture and natural history. It is great fun and highly recommended for the non-squeamish.
ThunderGod
Posted December 27, 2010
I thought the latest reproduction would be the greatest! How wrong was I. The 1 star rating does not reflect on Theodore Roosevelt, but on the way General Books reproduces the book.
1. there are no pictures: each missing picture we lose at least thousand words.
2. there are garbled text at various places.
3. no table of content nor index.
In the beginning, General Books stated that all these are results from their Optical Characters Recognition software. The OCR is used with a robot to turn the pages of old books to scan in the text only.
Therefore this book is simply like a poorly edited text portion only of an original of well prepared word manuscript with beautiful pictures.
As a true book lover I won't buy any book from General Books and recommend you avoiding its production as well.
2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
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Posted November 14, 2011
?......
1 out of 4 people found this review helpful.
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Posted April 10, 2007
Roosevelt writes in detail about his year long safari in Africa. His obsevations as a sportsman, scholar, lawmaker and gentleman are as valid now as a century ago. One of the most entertaining books about hunting. A must in an outdoorsman library.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted October 24, 2003
This is a great adventure book and a refreshing break from the oppressive regime of the political correct thought police. Hopefully we won't see the day went books like this a banned.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted January 18, 2013
I havent read it but it certianly looks like a good book to me
0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted November 23, 2012
Good look at African hunting 100 years ago from our 26 th President.
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Posted November 1, 2012
A little heavy on history is what ill think ill read it
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Posted May 13, 2012
TR was a good president know lots
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Posted September 29, 2010
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Posted December 17, 2008
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Posted December 1, 2011
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Posted April 8, 2013
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Posted June 30, 2010
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Posted December 14, 2009
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