Colonel Roosevelt - Edmund Morris [349]
SIXTH SAFARI (5 WEEKS)
Oct. 25: leaves NAIROBI for Londiani; 27: begins March to Mount Elgon highlands; 27: turns 51; 31: arrives UASIN GISHU plateau. Nov. 1: begins 4-week hunt for Victoria Nyanza fauna; giraffe camp; 9: moves to River ‘Nzoi; 9: follows honey-bird; 12: love letter to EKR; 14: meets up with American Museum of Natural History expedition; 15: 3 elephant cows; 18: arrives Lake Sergoi; 20: witnesses Nandi lion hunt; 26: returning to Londiani; 30: arrives Londiani; pays off, dismisses East African safari personnel; to Njoro for 10 days in and around Delamere ranch. Dec. 11: returns NAIROBI to prepare for Uganda safari (1 week).
SEVENTH SAFARI (9 WEEKS)
Dec. 17: farewell dinner; 18: departs NAIROBI by train via Nakuru for Kisumu; 19: arrives Kisumu; overnight steamer voyage across Lake Victoria to Entebbe, Uganda; 20: arrives Entebbe; reception by governor; dedicates mission; 21: in KAMPALA, prepares new safari team for northward trek; 23: begins 13-day march through sleeping sickness country; 28: kills charging elephant.
1910
Jan. 2: crosses Kafu into Unyoro kingdom; 5: arrives Butiaba, on Lake Albert; 7: embarks down White Nile; 8: stops at Wadelai; 9: arrives “Rhino Camp,” Lado Enclave; 10: begins 3-week hunt for white rhino. Feb. 1: hunts hippo; 3: sails on downriver; 4: arrives Nimule; 7: begins 10-day march past White Nile Rapids; 17: arrives GONDOKORO.
EIGHTH SAFARI (8 DAYS)
Feb. 18: upriver to Rajaf; 19: arrives Rajaf; begins to hunt eland, bongo; 23: 5 bull eland; 26: returns Rajaf, on to GONDOKORO. Mar. 1: down the Nile on Dal for next fortnight; 14: arrives KHARTOUM, pays off remaining safari personnel; returns to public life.
36 his own Dutch surname See Biographical Note above, 582.
37 After two years of drought The Leader of British East Africa, 29 May 1909; TR, Works, 5.27, 23.
38 What he really wants TR, Works, 5.28, 45–46; Alexander Nemerov, “Vanishing Americans: Abbott Thayer, Theodore Roosevelt, and the Attractions of Camouflage,” American Art, Summer 1997.
39 Trippa, troppa TR, Works, 5.41 [sic]; Theodore Roosevelt, An Autobiography (New York, 1913; Library of America, 2004), 251–52. TR quoted entirely from phonetic memory, not sure if his Dutch was correct or not (it wasn’t). A printed words-and-music version of this song in TRB begins, Trippel trippel toontjes, / Kippen in de boontjes. (“Wiggle, wiggle, little toes, / Snug inside their booties.”)
40 By “veldt law” Morris, The Rise of TR, 202–12; TR, Works, 5.29. TR’s 1909 diary from this day on is filled with diagrammatic sketches that meticulously show the order and point of entry of all the bullets that brought down his specimens (TRC). See 20.
41 He follows TR, Works, 5.70–71; TR in The Leader of British East Africa, 7 Aug. 1909.
42 Right in front TR, Works, 5.72–73.
43 He tries to notate Another of TR’s phonetic transcriptions on safari was of the following rendition, by African missionary-school students, of the U.S. national anthem: O se ka nyu si bai di mo nseli laiti / Wati so pulauli wi eli adi twayi laiti silasi gilemi. TR, Works, 5.365.
44 They cluster around TR, Works, 5.76–80; Kermit Roosevelt, The Long Trail, 68. For connoisseurs of hunting chants, TR’s was as follows: Whack! fal, lal, fal, lal, tal, ladeddy; / Whack! hurroo! for Lanigan’s ball. He probably learned the song as a child in 1863, when it was popularized by Bryant’s Minstrels in New York.
45 The firelight glows TR, Works, 5.80.
46 Like a python The general procedure of TR’s safari was to travel (camping frequently en route) for a month or more, before looping back to Kapiti or Nairobi to restock, ship specimens, and communicate with the outside world. Each foray focused on a particular group of museum-desired fauna.
47 As leader TR, Works, 5.459–68. After TR’s death, Charles William Beebe wrote that “he was one of the best field naturalists we have ever had in Africa.” TR, Works,